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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 DTK. 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 Zupanski.
Good Evening. Daddy's Little Secret, A Daughter's quest to solve her father's brutal murder is the poignant true crime story about a daughter who, upon her father's murder, learns of his secret double life. She had looked the other way about other hidden facets of his life, deadly secrets that could help his killer escape the death penalty should she come forward. An inside look at the complex and fascinating psyche of a father who shared and an uncommon bond
with his daughter. Denise had spent years hiding deadly secrets about her enigmatic father. Wesley Wallace West was a trusted security guard of the Ritz Carlton Palm Beach. He was supposed to protect those who found themselves in his care. But a closer look into his brutal murder revealed the split personality, one that his daughter may have seen but tried to ignore. However, detectives assigned to the case persuaded her to sist them in the capture of her father's killer.
The trail would lead from the glitz of Palm Beach to the murky streets of Dixie Highway and end in the court room, where her father's secret life and his dangerous mension for sex slaves would be revealed. The book that were featuring this evening is Daddy's lif Little Secret, A Daughter's Quest to solve a father's brutal murder, with my special guest author Denise Wallace. Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for agreeing to this interview.
Denise Wallace, Thank you for having me on. Dan thank you very much. Very incredible book, and let's get right to this incredible story because we have a lot to cover. You open this book with the crime itself and you talk about Lake Worth where this occurred. Close to famous Palm Beach, you say, but not nearly as pricey and the Lake Osborne apartments, so let's talk about this little
neighborhood lake Worth. Maybe could describe it before we talk about what mister and missus Mancini notice their next door neighbors in apartment near two or nine your father's apartment. Before that, tell us a little bit about Lake Worth and Palm Beach before we talk about what the Mancini's discovered that one day.
Okay, lake Worth is a mixed blue collar and white collar town. It's known for al art galleries and antique shops and theaters. Gets close enough to Palm Beach where you can go and tour it, but it's not on the water. And there was a famous murderer that was born there, the Texas Tower Sniper who I mentioned in the book as well towards the beginning, who killed seventeen people, I believe, including his wife and mother and several students at the university.
So you talk about the the neighbors, the mister and missus Mancini, and you talk about what they found and their relationship, how long they had been in the building, and how long you're fall there had been at the Lake Osborne apartment. So tell us about a little bit about the relationship and these neighbors and what they find that day.
Okay, the Mansinis were an elderly couple. My father lived. He had just only moved there a month before. But they were living in a senior community in Lake Worth, and the Mancinies had been there, I believe nine years, and my father had just moved in and they'd gotten to know him, you know a little bit, his acquaintances. They'd see him on the path on the stairs, and
my father was very, very talkative, very wastress. And they knew that he had a grandchild and a daughter out in California, and you know that he worked at Riz Carlton Pond Beach that they didn't They didn't really know much more about him.
Now you talk about how they saw that his notice that his door was open one day and so they just went in to check on him. What did they find and what was their reaction? What did they find that day and what did they do?
Well, Rosemanssini, the woman had actually overheard the night before some banging and she'd also heard my father yell at someone to get out of the apartment, and she had broken up her husband Frank and said should we call the police? And he said no, you know, it's none
of our business. And so the following morning, when Frank finally left the apartment, that afternoon, he walked by my dad's apartment and the door was cracked open, and he recalled, you know, the disturbance from the night before, and so he pushed open the door to check on him, and he saw my father lying on his back with blood all around his head in the dining room, and he went back to his apartment, called nine one one.
About the officers Reynolds and Walsh. They show up. They have this report from these neighbors, so they're not sure if the perpetrator is still there, so they do the cautionary method of going through and checking if anyone's still there. What do they find initially? You talk about all the things that they do see initially. What do they see as they come into this as it were a crime scene, Well.
The crime scene was pretty scattered throughout the apartment. It was a small apartment. I had actually never seen it because I was living in California and my dad had only been there a month. It was just a one bedroom apartment. But when they came in, you could they could see my father's body on the floor of the dining room, the carpet was wet. The faucet was still running in the bathtub from the bathroom, so that the water the bathtub had overflowed down the hall and into
the dining room. Upon further inspection, they found blood in the kitchen counter. The cabinets in the kitchen were opened, the bleach was out, the clorox bottle was actually floating in the tub, along with a gold lamp base, and the top sheet of the bed and the pellowcases and the pillows, and then when they went into the bedroom that was an absolute mess. There was obviously a violent scruggle struggle there had occurred because the door jam was
broken and the closet door was pushed in. There was blood on a shirt hanging in the closet.
There was.
Quite a bit of blood on the bed. The fitted sheet was still on the bed, and the lamp base had been you know, pulled out of the wall, and the court had been cut in half. So what the detectives assumed later was that the light had gone off in the room and so that the killer didn't realize fitted sheet was still on the bed, it was bloody, and so he just stripped the top sheet off and put it in the in the water in the bathtub
and put bleach in there. But it didn't really do a lot of good because the top sheet or the fish sheet was still on the bed. And there are coins all over the room. You know, things have been knocked over, VCR and two VCRs in a stereo were missing, that the speakers had been left behind from the stereo.
You also talk about something even more valuable stolen that they notice, maybe not initially, but they noticed missing.
Well, his watch was gone, they noticed later, said the tan line. Know he's living in Florida where it's quite hot and sunny, so quite a tan line where the watch used to be. My dad always wore that gold watch. He'd had it, you know since as long as I can remember.
And it was gone, was gone, yes, And Akira ninety Kira right. You talk about the homicide detectives that are crucial to this story too, coming on the scene here and being involved initially, Steve Venetucci and Daniel Boland, and you talk about them taking over this case here initially. You talk about Venetucci at the crime scene picking up a photo album. Tell us a little bit about this photo album and what he finds and again what does this lead to?
Well, my dad had always been a big picture taker. He had taken me to Disneyland and my daughter. I have an older daughter. He take it, you know, many times to Disneyland and took him, you know, dozens of photos. So he had to get photo albums with hundreds of photos in there of us and a birthday card that I had sent him, at least one was in the back of the photo album and they can see that,
you know, I'd written happy for they. Dad loved any so they knew that I was around, that he had a daughter, and that they were going to have to notify me of this murder. But they when they found out I was in California, they didn't want to do it over the phone. They really wanted it to be done in person because they figure the whole story would be quite traumatic for me.
And it was you talk about too initially the stabbing inside this senior complex. You talk about a paper called The Coastal Observer. What was the reaction. How frightened were the neighbors about this? How big a deal was this?
Well, very because if you can imagine, they were all elderly neighbors, and they were used to the ambulance showing up probably weekly in the complex, you know, for respiratory failure or heart attacks, but not murder. And it was normally a quiet town and a quiet community, and so they were, you know, quite scared heard and they had you know, neighborhood watch meetings after that, and you know, would keep their blind shut and call the police to
make rounds more often. So it shook up the community quite a bit.
You talk about your father, Wes Wallace at that time, he's six foot, two hundred and fifty pounds and he loved to eat. And there was some investigation right away that there was some talk of that he had went to a church to ask a twenty two year old male who had been sleeping in the church if he wanted to a place to stay. Tell us a little bit about what police find initially before they contact you
and give you the horrible news. How do they proceed with the investigation to find out who may have done this? How do they do that?
Well, they figured that it was probably a man because there was a struggle on the bed, there was blood on the bed. My father had quite a large collection of homosexual pornography in the closet, which I had never seen. I wasn't aware of it, and they figured it was it was probably a stranger or a lover, but it was probably a man they were looking for. And when they were when they started questioning witnesses, you know, his co workers and people that knew him, started to come
out a little bit about his lifestyle. Most most people on the surface didn't know about a sexuality, but some did, and so that didn't eventually come out.
You talk about later about the content of that pornography. What did the police find out in terms of any clues in terms of the content of the pornography was the nature of the pornography itself.
The ones in the closet, there are about one hundred videos, and quite a few of them had a master slave theme. And when they went to the Triple X video store where he had bought the videos, the man behind the counter preferred that, yes, he liked the slave and the master themes. Where there was you know, a man tied up so forth. So, and they also found some s and m gear I believe in his apartment.
Right now. They also questioned everybody as they as they did their due diligence. They contacted a friend that goes through this entire story is his friend named Bill. And again you say that they deduced pretty early on based on the pornography and talking to some people. But they do question people about whether there's he's was violence. They
pursue all kinds of possibilities, don't they. So tell us a little bit about some of the interviews they have and what somebody like Bill had to say about your father.
Bill is someone that I had grown up knowing as a child. He had quite a nice house back in Greensboro, North Carolina, where my dad was from and where I was born. He was a clothing designer and he actually had mannequins with his in the curved playglass windows of his home. He was quite eccentric. The place is very ornately decorated with brass and gothic themes. Bill had told him that he'd probably known him twenty years and that he'd met him at a gay bar, and they used
to host dinner for each other quite a bit. They were close friends, but he'd never known of him to be violent. He was quite shocked by his murder.
They go on to interview every employee at the Rich Carlton. They have end up going and interviewing people in Greensboro, where he lived previous to the Osborne apartments. Tell us what they find out overall from talking to employees, What is the picture that they have in their mind before they even speak to you of who your father is and what may have led at least a factor in his death.
Well, they first began speaking to the employees he worked with at the Risk Carlton, and they don't know a whole lot about my dad, just more about his personality from working with him. But when they go to North Carolina, which they went there because they had a clue of the drug dealer that had sold drugs to the killer
actually moved back there to Virginia. So they actually flew to Virginia to get my father's duffel bag with his name tag on it that the drug dealer had, And while they were there, they visited his friends in Greensburg. So it's only about three hours away. And these were friends that my dad had known for twenty or twenty
five years, and I knew them all as well. One of them that he'd known the longest, his best friend, confessed to the police that he knew that my father would pick up young men and that he would scold him about it, that it was dangerous. This was a highly educated man. I was a theater director at a large university in North Carolina, and he would tell my dad, you know, it's very dangerous to have these young men, you know, get in your car with you or take
them back to your apartment. They can steal things, they can try and hurt you. And he said that my dad had admitted to him that he would keep two wallets, one with very little money in it and the other with his money and credit cards and driver's license. He would hide, and so when it came time to pay the young man, he would just have that wallet with very little or no money on it, so that they
couldn't get any money. So the vectors kind of were forming a picture that my father was hustling the hustlers.
You also talk about alcohol being a big issue in this, in your father's life and obviously in your life as well. In terms of that effect, Let's talk now about your life with your father, who your father was to you despite again as we alluded to, and here the secrets that you find out the double life that your father leads. Who was your father to you as a young girl and only child.
My dad was someone who loved me more than anything.
You know.
To me, he was a great dad. I mean, he had quite a few flaws, but I always knew I was very, very loved. He did all kinds of things with me, took me, you know, emerald mining and panning for gold and camping in the mountains, and but through a lot of those years he was a chronic alcoholic. But he would still wake up in the morning with a hangover and take me for tennis lessons or take me to movies, and so he was kind of my hero.
But he could also be very dangerous. Getting in the car with him at night was very dangerous, very scary. He also had me drive at twelve one time when he was too drunk to drive, and we were in the mountains, and it was I was terrified because I didn't had to drive, and he had me sitting on pillows and I almost went off the edge of the mountain and he slammed on the on the break with his foot.
So it was.
It was kind of a mixed feeling that I had with him. I was quite scared to be alone with them. A lot of times, you know, they go camping alone with him without a friend because of you know how drunk he would get. But then you know, there was a great love that he had for me, and.
At the time there was nothing irresponsible. Well, I mean I shouldn't say that that the drinkings irresponsible, but in terms of you didn't see any neglect and you didn't see again this pensiont for the young boys. In retrospect later, after you've given details, then you can in retrospect say, well that makes sense now. But at the time there was a dedication to you as a father, and this secret life remain secret, and you had no real idea.
Now I didn't, but there were quite a few young men in his life, But to me, it was always in the context of him sponsoring these young men in AA and that's what he would tell me, and I believed it.
Certainly. When there's the autopsy on your father, they find scratches on his face made with an edge of a tool and they don't know what that tool is, and also bite wounds. So tell us a little bit about what they think is going on there, or just tell us a little bit more about this autopsy and what it reveals to the police and what did he do as a response.
Well, from the autopsy, they could tell exactly how he died because there was quite a bit of blood on his so they couldn't really see until he was cleaned up of the autopsy that his jugular vein was nicked with a dull steak knife. It came out later, but he wasn't his throat wasn't slit. It was just nicked, and it actually nicked and he bled out. And it
was also bite marks on his wrist. And what they determined from the bite marks was that the mandibular marks I believe was the top of the teeth had bitten down harder than the bottom. And the reason for that, the medical examiner said, was that something or someone would have had to be pushing down on the killer's head for that to happen that way, where the top teeth are sinking in more than the bottom teeth, there had
to be pressure on his head. So they start to wonder, you know, what exactly heard that night in the apartments, you know, and if the killer had been backed into a corner or you know, how this came about because it wasn't a violent stabbing or slicing the neck.
Detectives also cite the fact that there is no forced entry, yet there's this incredible struggle in the bed and then it as the father. Your father had crawled into considerable distance to the apartment door but didn't make it. You also talk about the angle of the police pursue, and they pinet. They pursue all the angles of the pawnshop and the VCRs and the stereo and the stolen goods and the watch. So tell us what their look into the stolen goods nets them.
Well, they know that the two VCRs in Sterio had been taken because of the dust outlines on the shelves, they could see that there was something there. And in the closet at the apartment they find the boxes for these items. So they have the serial numbers to put into their database, and pawn shops have to report those serial numbers, they have to enter them the database or
however they do it. And so they got a hit on one of the VCRs that was pawned, and that led them to Montague, not the killer, but the drug dealer that the killer had sold the two VCRs to the bill didn't want the stereo because he's forgotten the speakers, and so that's how they find him. They fly to Virginia to retrieve the devil bag that the killer had stuffed the items in with my dad's nametag on it.
Now, with that information, again, these are promising leads. There is a description from this Montague, if I can pronounce his name, right, there is a description given. So tell us what that description is, what police think that they have in terms of a lead, right.
So what was interesting was that Montague was able to tell them his first name, didn't know the last name, but knew that his name was Travis, and knew that he was a scrawny, young, maybe nineteen twenty year old kid, you know, light skinned, dirty blonde hair, not very tall, and certainly not very large. So they did have that to go on once they came back to Florida.
You say too that again pursuing all these leads, as I mentioned, they get an education, practical education in some of the homosexual lifestyle and the S and M subculture, And so they even go to notorious gay cruising sites like Lee's Trail and find out all the again, all the terms and I hadn't heard some of these bears and cubs and Mary's and Muscle Mary's and twinks and so this entire world that they have to explore as part of this investigation, and that still leads them nowhere,
does it? Doesn't it?
No, Because this was a stranger that my father had picked up one night. So there wasn't any kind of connection. It wasn't family, it wasn't a friend. Yeah, they did get quite an education because both detectives were family men and they didn't know a lot about that world. Yeah, so that was quite shocking for them.
You talk about when the police contact you first about your father's murder, tell our audience, as you do in the book, the very point that's scene when you actually are given all the details, tell us about that.
Well, I had gone to the drug store and so I wasn't home when there was a knock on the door and the Orange County detective, the female detective, apparently came to the door to try and tell me in person what had happened. And my husband at the time was home, and so the woman left him at teletyped
message it said there's been a homicide. Called Detective Boland in Palm Beach or whatever it had said with a phone number, and so when I got home, my husband, who's not very good with emotions, just handed me the notes, and so I found out by reading the note there was a homice side, and I knew right then it had to be my dad because that's the only person
that was in call meach at the time. And so I called, and the miscommunication caused the Florida detective Detective Bowlin to think that I had already been told about the homicide in person, and so he says to me, I'm sorry to tell you that there's you know, there's been a homicide. Your father's been murdered. Were you aware
of his alternative lifestyle? And that was just too many things to take in it once I had just found out he'd been murdered when I sat down with that paper and made the call, and I had no idea about his alternative lifestyle. I had seen a couple of things that I just kind of, you know, it wasn't my business, and I just kind of put him out of my mind. And so that it was a shock I did not know, and so it was really hard. It took quite a long time for me to process both those facts.
When you got the next call, how long was it later and what was the tone of that call.
Well, I sleep Upalm Beach, I believe, the next day, and I called the Texas. When I arrived there, I stayed at my mother's condo. She was in China, and I stayed in Dlray Beach and they came right over. The Texas came right over about twenty five minutes later
with the boat. My dad's photo albums in their arms for me to look through, and I instantly recognized them, and I left the man and we sat down at the kitchen table, and they wanted me to go through each photo and see if I recognized anyone, because they didn't have any leads, and I really didn't. We're going came to the men in the photos. I had been living in California for the past three years. I didn't know my father's new acquaintances, and so I really didn't
recognize anyone. I wasn't very helpful other than to tell them that AA was a big part of my dad's life, that he had been going to two meetings a day, and that was kind of a red flag to them, I think as to where he may have been meeting people at least, you know, somewhere for them to start questioning the people. And they said to me, he's only been in this apartment for a month. Do you know her where he lived previously? And I said, yes, but I don't. I don't remember the address. I said, it's
a few it was. It was a couple of miles from there. It was not that far from my mother's And they said, well, can you take us there? And that was pretty shocking for me. It was the last thing I expected them to ask, but I, you know, I said I would, and they put me in the back of their crown and we drove over to it. It was just off Atlantic Avenue in Delray Beach and they knocked on the tenant's door upstairs. My father lived in a guest house, very small guest house, and the
tenant upstairs wasn't helpful. And so they turned around to me in the back seat and said where to now. And so the afternoon turned into me taking them to recovery houses that my dad had had me swing by if we'd been on the way to lunch, and where he would say, I just want to see if so and so wants to go to a five o'clock AA meeting,
and that's all I knew about it. So I took him to a halfway house, a recovery house, and then they then an AA meeting hall which they had never seen before called Crossroads, I believe by the track, so they didn't know that was there, and they started to question people that you knew him.
It was interesting too, you talk about a Jen Sealy at the AA and he spoke of an incident or she spoke of an incident of involving your father and something to do with you about a dancing of a dancing Can you explain this and what it indicated the police? It seemed.
Well, I had I'd grown up with Chancilly and her daughter. Her daughter was a year younger than me, and he had met and so the four of us were just a daughter and I with you things to because one of my fondest memories and her disco. This was back in the late seventies, I believe, and there was a tall African American young man there dancing in bell bottoms and he was the best dancer and at the disco, I think, and my dad being very boisterous, very assertive
said when will you dance with my daughter? And the young man said no and continued dancing, and my dad would not relent, and he continued to ask him to dance with me until he finally gape in. And Jane remembered that very well, and she said that you just didn't say no to my dad, that he you know, he didn't let you say no, and eventually you would give in. You know, he was a salesperson for years
and he was good at that. So to the detectives, they thought someone who could possibly be very persistent, perhaps even manutulative, and was used to getting.
We're going to use this Denise as an opportunity to stop, just for a second, to talk about our sponsor tonight, Movement a very important wedding I went to on Sunday, which was my own wedding, believe it or not, I finally got married. And a little bit before this, I had to buy a new suit get in shape. And just as suits have changed, very slim style, very different than suits a few years ago, it was time for a new watch and so I looked online at Movement
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join the movement. When we last left off, Denise, you talked about that police were questioning people at AA meetings at this crossroads, the one that your father would attend meetings at twice a week. You had just been given this incredible information about your father's secret life. How do police proceed with this information from the AA meetings and what do they eventually find and from who?
Well, first of all, he's been one of the meetings twice a day. Pardon bod these young men, and it seems unlu And when they began to question people to meet that wrecks photo h pier has empires some praise on and gets the sex slaves praise on the worst of their lives and they're down and out A or an a.
M h y.
As your host. Someone has to be your sponsor. You're supposed to the list that your own sponsor, ask someone yourself, someone's offer. They have ulterior motives, and so that the police were kind of getting the picture that perhaps offering to be sponsor and you know, doing risk acts with them.
You talk about your signal was just a little garbled, but so we'll I'll go over what you had said. Is that you talked about that they learn the term vampire at the AA meetings, and the term vampire is for somebody that will approach someone about being a sponsor. And the rule, the unwritten rule or the rule that everyone knows is that that's not very a good idea and to be beware of that. And so that's where
the term vampire comes. And you do get a picture police that this is possibly how your father may have approached somebody. So tell us what this information leads to in further in their investigation.
Well, they picture of him and his character that it's not very helpful in terms of tracking down an actual lead because this particular young man, he did not find an a. He found him on the side out of the road near the Dixie Highway tracks. So when he questions people at the meetings, that doesn't really go anywhere for them. They just have, you know, in their mind, a picture of this lifestyle.
Now, how is it we talked about how the police finally find out who has killed your father? Tell us how they proceed with this and in the interim, what are you doing and what are you realizing and what are you discovering?
Well, I have flown back to Florida after a week. I stayed and buried my father at the funeral, you know, and helped detect us as much as I could, and then went back home. And I believe it's about five months later. Very common practice in police work happens where they will either pull over someone for traffic incident that has a warrant. In this particular case, someone who knew the killer, who was friends with the killer, had been
caught fleeing, eluding flute fleeing and eluding the police. He ran out on a hotel bill and the restaurant bill at a hotel in Palm Springs, Florida, and was fleeing from police, and they caught him and put him in jail, and he gave up Travis's name in order to help himself.
So that's how that came about. And then the detective called me in California and gave me the news and told me that I would be needed at the trial, that it was imperative that i'd be there, that the jury see that there was someone grieving on my father's side.
Now, we talked also about deadly secrets that could help your father's killer escaped the potential death penalty should you come forward. So we talked about your life with your father. We didn't talk about your mother and your father's relationship marriage. What is it? What was it that was this deadly secret that could help your killer potentially escaped to death penalty by being of that profound importance?
Tell us, well, something had happened when I was nineteen, but I really wasn't able to deal with it, and so I pushed it out of my mind. And when I was sitting through the trial, the killer's trial, I heard him testify that my father had been choking him on the bed. And I remember back when I was about seven or eight, I suppose where my father.
Mother.
He would drive down from Fort Burdale, Talmpano where we were living in a duplex, and choke her just about three times a week, it seemed like, because he had visitation with me Wednesdays and weekends, so on his trips down to pick me up or bring me home, he would be drunk and just knock on the door and she would answer every time, and he would choke her
and she would She never once called the police. So I believed the killer that he was choking him because I'd seen that that was a pretty common scene for me to witness. And when he started to describe the scene on the bed with the choking and him having to stave my father off with this steak knife from underneath him, I started to remember what happened when I was nineteen that I had pretty much forgotten about because I couldn't do anything with the information, or I wouldn't
do anything with it. I just had to put it out of my mind. One morning, it was about seven o'clock in the morning, when I was nineteen, living at Prascondo and Dali Beach. I got a phone call and it was my father. He was drunk at seven in the morning and he said, Tonise, I think I killed somebody. Come pick me up. And you know I had been asleep. This is the first thing out of his mouth on the phone.
And I.
Hang up the phone, grabbed my car keys. I'm in a T shirt, a long T shirt with no shoes, and I jump in the car and drive over there. And it's only about a three minute drive. It's right across Feederal Highway where he had temporarily rented a trailer. And I'll never forget if it was gravel on the ground. And I drove up and my father was already waiting outside the trailer, and he immediately got in the passenger and I said, Daddy, is he okay? I just assumed
it was a man. My father never hung around with women. It was always ment that, at least once he'd moved back to Florida, and I just assumed it was a man. And I said, is he okay, Daddy? And he said to me, take me to my car. It's at the repair shop on Atlantic Avenue, on Fifth Avenue in Atlantic, And I started driving, and I asked him again, is he okay? And he didn't answer me. And I didn't know what to think at that point, and so I
dropped him off about five minute pair shop. And it occurred to me that I had maybe about ten minutes or so for him to pay for his car and drive back to the trailer. And what was I going to do about what I had just learned? So I drove back over to the trailer and pulled up on the gravel and parked with the car running, I think, and just I remember glancing over at the window of the trailer and just thinking, you know, the door is
probably locked. I'm probably not even going to be able to get in, and if I do get in, then what you know? And I'm thinking, if the man's alive, is he going to be disoriented and think that I was the killer or you know, the aggressor and hurt me, or is he dead? And then what do I do I have to choose? Am I going to call the police? And that wasn't an option. I was so close to my dad, that was not an option, and so I
couldn't deal with it. We never spoke about it. I drove home and for three weeks I watched the news and I never heard anything about a body or anyone missing, or an attack or anything. And I never asked my father about it, you know, because he had ignored me in the car, and I really didn't want to know any more about it, and I just put it out of my mind after that for all those years, say a prosecutor.
You say this all came back at trial. The prosecution and the defense obviously have a much different twist on the tail of the story of innocence and guilt. You talk about the prosecutor's theory on what happened in his depiction of the events, and then the defense and you did listen to the defense argument and you say that was like a trigger to bring back memories. So tell us what the prosecution idea and theory was and how close were they to this was the death penalty a reality?
The death penalty was a reality because he had stolen my father's watch. The watch was in every photo of my dad. My dad always wore that watch. And when you steal from the victim like that during a murder, it's a double felony, I believe, And it's that's that gets you the death penalty. And so it was definitely
on the table. The prosecutor was very good at his job, very very canso and very theatrical, very smart, and he put on quite you know, a presentation, and you know, and he wasn't there at the killing, at the murder,
none of us were. And he's you know, painted the picture of this, you know, thirsty young killer killing my father to sell his goods or drugs, which is probably in fact, I believe, I believe the killer when he said that my father was choking him on the bed and the way I described it, I'd seen it so many times with my mother, and I remembered that trailer incident, and I knew it all pieced together me in that in that moment that my father was picking up young men,
and you know, I didn't even know if there were more that had gotten hurt. I had no idea, but I believed him. And I told the prosecutor about the trailer incident and he said, well, what do you want me to do? And I said, I want you to tell a jury And he said, well, I can't. It's hearsay. You weren't there. You didn't see a body? Yes we did. Did you see a body? And I said, no, I didn't see a body, And so I couldn't testify right.
The idea that the defense said it was self defense. Was there any consideration like some people might, you know, despite the memories that you had to reinforce just what Travis Jones was saying by his attorney. Sometimes attorneys will say too much exagger or weave a tale that's just unbelievable. Was there aspects of what that defense attorney Mitchell Beer said that rang untrue.
Yes, it's it's funny you brought that up there. The problem with the defense was and then the killing obviously was the obvious cover up of the crime that looks guilty, and it was quite the cover up you've got. You know, we're still uh didn't do a very good job. Like I said, left is she very bloody on the bed, but see it in the dark. There was blood in the light switch. They had a bit of DNA from the killer, but he wasn't I in the cist turned him in. They wouldn't have been. So that was the
problem where I remember that. Mitchell Beer's the defense attorney, asked Travis, why did you put the letty sheets in the tub? And his answer was, I don't know. I know why I did that, And obviously that's a lie. That was It was very obvious to everyone in the jury that he didn't want to get caught. But I don't believe you went there to father. I believe that father was choking him and wasn't going to let go.
What was the scenario that you saw that you believed. Obviously you didn't get to talk to your father about this, But what did you deduce again. You talked about you believed that Travis Jones was being choked by your father. What was the scenario we as you're talking in the book, there was investigation that there was the two wallets, which was important, and then the testimony from witnesses said, listen,
he had the two wallets for this purpose. He didn't like to pay, He didn't think he wanted to pay. He would pretend he didn't have any money when he did have money. He was warned that he could be robbed. Tell us the scenario from everything that you saw, and you know, and you learned about what actually happened that night.
Well, obviously I wasn't there, but the killer got on the stand and testified, which is pretty rare at a trial that they do that. I think he believed he would get off for self defense because he you know, he in his mind he was telling the truth, and I believe he was, you know, not knowing why I
was trying to cover up the crime. But he described that night as my dad picking him up, walked along by the tracks and asking him if he wanted to watch some sex films, and you know, the idea was for money, and he got in the car with him and went back to his apartments, which was on the second floor, and they went immediately to the back bedroom, and you know, I believe my father performed a sex act on Travis, and then Travis wanted to get paid
and leave, and my father wanted him to reciprocate, and he did not want to, and he asked for his money, and my father, you know, struggle with him on the bed and began choking him and told him that he was going to give Daddy what he wants, is what Travis had testified to. Again, we weren't there and wasn't letting up, and Travis was trying to point the knife upwards, poking him, trying to get him off of him, and
my father wasn't letting go. And so he claims that, you know, he stuck him in the neck trying to get him off, and he wouldn't get off, and that he finally when he nicked him in the neck, that my father finally kind of got kind of stunned and fell to the side of it, and he did get get out from underneath him, and then my father chased him across the bedroom into the closet and Travis describes it that he threw Travis into the closet door and then then you know, then he threw him against the
bedroom door, and the doorjam broke off, and you know, by that point, my father's bleeding, and so he finally, I guess he's crawling down the hallway towards the front door. And then, as Travis described on the stand, he said, and the defense attorney, so, what do you mean my froze and he said, he just froze. I guess he was unconscious and right there on the floor in the dining room, and next moved again.
What did the jury and the court and the judge react to his testimony? What was the decision? How long did it take to deliberate? Was this the testimony that was the most important to this trial? Tell us about that?
Well, that's a hard question to ask to answer. Which was most important in the trial. To me, it was to me the kid was telling the truth, and he was terrified, and it was apparent to me and he was crying. But again, the prosecutor was very good, put on an excellent presentation. It was very persuasive. So there's that, And I don't really recall how long the deliberation was, but I don't believe it was very long, because my
husband flew back. He left before the verdict. He left and got on a plane, and now you know what, I think it was the next morning. I think I went to dinner with my mother and it was the next morning that we got the verdict and they found him guilty of manslaughter and he got ten years, but he'd already served a year and a half while awaiting trial, so he got time served for you and a half.
So he.
Spent eight and a half years in prison and then got released on work release for a year, which means you got to work in the day and you sleep at the prison at night. I got a letter about that when he moved into that stage.
What's interesting is that when you were called to speak with the problem secutor, is that there was an offer from the defense of a fifteen year sentence, which the prosecutor suggested or recommended, that they did not accept and suggested to you, recommended to you that they go do you take this to trial or that you support him take an ant to trial.
Yes, I forgot was that was very interesting because A. Travis and his attorney, they were fifteen years. The Proseeuor wanted to trial a strong case, and he advised going to trial, and so we did. And if what happens is after the trial the victims make picked an impact statement. And in my victim statement, when I stood up and spoke, I asked the judge give him treatments. I said, I think he had you know it wasn't allowed in the trial that I believe it has a drug problem, and
I you know, I think he should get drugged. And because of that, instead of getting fifteen years, he got the ten years and then five years probation with drug treatments. That's how that's ended. I people ask for that, and he may have well gotten fifteen.
Years, right, interesting, very interesting. The input that they have from you is very very very interesting in all of this, again, this is it's not a great question. Was this worth the looking into the secrets to find out the truth. What has this done for you to find out this? Has it been a positive or negative or a mix of both. This entire journey, this entire book, Daddy's Little Secret, everything he went, the trial, all of this tell us
about the impact this has had on you. What has it done for you overall?
Well, it's something that I had to do because I wasn't dealing with it. I had issues I wasn't dealing with. I believe I put in the beginning of my book inter that there was sketch of my father that I had in the closet. Apparently my oldest daughter's high school boyfriend, who's a famous artist now, had sketched this picture of my father from a photograph, and when I would come across it in the closet, I couldn't look at it, and I would just push it in the back of
the closet. And I was a framed photograph. And so about a decade after this murder, I, you know, I made myself pull it out and look at it, and I thought, you know, you're not dealing with it. And you know what else was I not dealing with in my life? You know, I was tending to, you know, be in denial about things and push them out of my mind instead of dealing with them and my relationships. And I decided that I was going to have to, you know, process my feelings for him and understand him.
And so I, you know, I dredged all that up order. The transcripts led through them an entirety about a lot of them, and did a lot of research, and now I feel like I finally knew him, the good and the bad, and so I you know, I have a full picture and I can face it now and move past it, certainly.
I want to thank you very much Denise for coming on and talking about Daddy's Little Secret, a daughter's quest to solve for father's brutal murder. For those that might want to find out more about this, I know this is a Wild Blue Press release, tell us a little bit more about how they might contact you or find about Facebook page or Wild Blue Press. Tell us a little bit more about contact information. Well.
They can certainly go to Amazon and order the book in several countries as well as the US. They can also go to Wild Bluepress dot com and order it through there. They can order it from my website, Denise Wallace author dot com. It's available on Kindle, Prince ebook and even.
Audio sounds great. I want to thank you very much Denise for coming on and talking about Daddy's Little Secret. It's been a pleasure, a very very fascinating book. Thank you very much for coming on and talking about it.
I want to thank you for having me ann I appreciate it.
Thank you, good night, good night.