The following episode contains material of a graphic nature and course language. Listen or discretion is advised. Welcome back to Serial Spirits the podcast. It is me your host Brendan Shea and as always it is the beautiful the wonderful.
Annie Weeb what's up Shea Bay? We are on the final leg of our investigation here into the disappearance of Samantha Burns and we have another interview lined up for you today and it's a pretty good one as well. Tonight you will hear our interview with a host of podcast Killer's Crawl Space Bruce LeMaster. Bruce is a native of Hamlin West Virginia.
The same town Samantha Burns was from and he began independently investigating the case years ago starting by writing letters to Chad Folks. You will hear Bruce detail these conversations that he had with Chad through letters, emails and phone calls, interactions that Bruce had with Chad and Samantha's families and correspondence that Bruce had with other key players in the case that may have never even made it into the official investigation. So sit back, hold on and tune in because this is a pretty good interview as well. This one is a little you have to listen to this one in detail because again there are players that come into this case that you haven't heard about in previous interviews and in us talking.
So some of the names will be familiar but some of the names that Bruce brings up like I said never really even made it into the quote official investigation. Bruce has done years of digging. He has notebooks full of notes and we appreciate him so much for bringing this information to us because it makes you realize what a broad spectrum this case had. Things and people that could have been involved with this that we may have not even known about.
So this is our interview with Bruce LeMaster, host of killers crawlspace podcast. You guys tune in. Okay. So today for our episode of serial spirits, the podcast series on the Samantha Burns case and joining us today is a native of Hamlin West Virginia, a paranormal investigator and fellow podcaster, Bruce LeMaster.
He is the host of killer crawlspace podcast and he is joining us today because he has ties to this case. So I'm going to go ahead and bring him on. Bruce, are you there? Yes.
How are you doing this fine evening? I'm a lot of I guess. We can all be worse, right? Yeah.
Yeah. So let's just let's just jump right into this case. You you have direct ties to this case and you know we wanted to bring you on and get you know we're trying to look for everybody's perspective on this story because we know you know I am not a native of West Virginia. I rarely remember hearing the story when you know all these things happen and transpired but I know that Annie and other people we've talked to it this really hit close to home especially the Marshall University community when this happened.
So you know you were probably you were caught up in that whole scenario of when this went this went down. So you know how did you become affiliated with this case and did you personally know any of the parties involved? No, I did not know anybody like I was see 13 when all this went down. They're like you know I knew about it and everything well I basically like said it's local.
I've always been in the true crime. So I ended up becoming an apparent one basically about 10 years ago and one of my grandma's friends was talking about you know basically brought this case and stuff and she was like well wonder you know if you took a paranormal angle to it maybe he could figure something out. So I got to thinking because I started writing serial killers and killers back in 2013 and you know I saw most information that basically came to you know where Chad had been writing people trying to get a smand to the found and everything so I kind of put two and two together. I was like okay I could write them see if he writes back and then go from there and you know in the beginning of January 2014 he wrote back and I got a few letters from for a few years.
So I talked a couple of times I actually went to his grandma and Hamlin once. So who were you sorry you were 13 when you wrote Chad Fox on death row. No no it's only been like 2014. Okay gotcha.
I didn't start writing killer training until 2013. Okay so why Chad why what compelled you was it just the fact that you knew that he had reached out to so many people or was it because you're a native of Hamlin you and Samantha come from the same area was it an interest in the case because of that or was it just like hey this dude seems just like he wants to talk and maybe it'll be interesting conversation. Yeah pretty much both. Like I said I've always been in the true crime and you know this one hits closer to home and stuff but it's basically right right next door so I'm like with him reaching out and it kind of made me wonder I'm like I'm not a genius on anything but I was like well maybe somebody's missing something maybe there's more to it you know maybe I can you know look at it from a different angle and see if I can find out anything.
So like I did it. He said some interesting things and some stuff I've never heard about and then you know went pretty deep into everything like I you know he actually put me in contact with her family and yeah actually like right around in the middle of all this like I had a dream of Samantha and everything which was really interesting and I don't know what like I was telling her family about it and I'm like like I had a dream like she was buried in my backyard so in a sense like like she's literally you know literally not buried in my backyard right like I don't know it kind of made me feel like she's close like you know in a place closer than you know you know you're back yard right that's the way I was kind of portraying that dream and we end up going out to the site that he said she buried at a couple times and never could actually pinpoint what tree he was talking about and I still have no clue to this day what tree he's talking about. So let's kind of get into a little bit about your correspondence with him you know you said you've actually talked him on the phone the thing that you just said that really kind of makes me you know it's a little weird is he he's the one Chad Fox is the one who put you in touch with Samantha Burns family I mean how did that how does he have contact information for all that kind of stuff. He like email like I don't know if you think he wrote him to but he like emailed and corresponded with some stuff you know basically trying to help you know this is where she's at stuff like that so he like gave me an email and everything to talk to him.
I got to talk to another one of her family members like after the whole Jimmy thing blew up I ended up talking to another one stuff I talked like some of her well after the whole Jimmy thing I was in contact with two of her best friends in school and stuff like one of them actually gave me like newspapers and stuff from back from Lincoln Journal back in that time I went down. So when you reached out to them originally were they receptive when you reached out did they want to talk to you or you know did they kind of give you the cold shoulder and say we don't want to talk to anybody about this anymore what was the reception like from her family. Well I think like her like parents stuff they're kind of more hush hush on it but her and stuff like she was more appreciative and stuff and you know somebody else trying to help out in it and trying to you know find answers and all that and you know trying to find anything I could and just helping out because like I like all you know every now and then talk to your and stuff like hey you know this happened like I keep people in the loop of things like if I uncover anything or hear from somebody like anytime I heard from Chad I'd usually talk to her about him like hey he said this this compared anything he's told you and stuff like that and just kind of got like a feel of you know how kind of like a comparison is what he said to her and to myself what is his I mean talking to Chad Fox did his story ever change from from time you know from from letter to letter or call to call like about what the facts of this case really were or was it you know like was a consistent story or were there little variations from time to time. I don't know like at times they seemed you know pretty well straightforward and the same but like there's a lady I met through a panel investigation well when she found out like when I was talking about talking to Chad was she remembered like all that and supposedly a lady she was telling about well with Beth and stuff that was being involved where they stayed at her house in Huntington something about her she was driving Samantha's car well it was like late at night like I reported it to you know the family and they're like well we never know that ever came in because supposedly this woman like reported to the cops but I guess there's no record of it.
Well I was telling Chad about it and then he's like oh yeah you know like he was trying to like go with that and I don't think there was really any connection to it from my understanding Beth never to drive her car so I don't know if he was just going off of that or what. That's stuff like that like little things kind of made me say hey as he just trying to like add to the story with other stuff just to kind of cast the blame from him I'm trying to think I remember which it's kind of weird to it well like anything like between him and Brandon they both blame each other. Right yeah we had a conversation with one of Chad's attorneys a guy named Matt Rawlings I don't know if you've ever spoken with Matt he was a law student at Cornell University in New York when all of this happened but he's from Portsmouth and so he had to do work on they had to do trial work while they were in school and one of the cases that was handed to them was Chad's case and so he took Chad's case and Brandon not has spent hours on the phone with this guy and the story that he recounts to us he always said that he felt Chad was very straightforward with him but there were also moments that Chad stated that his memory was fuzzy because they had been high on meth the entire time. Yes so when you think about it you know if they're trying to point fingers at each other then it makes sense that he would kind of try to add to the story because if he thought that it was something in his favor then maybe that was his motive to do that.
Like that's one thing I always kind of wondered because like I was sitting at work one time I was going through his letter and I was like really craft like what if somebody actually moved her body because like I said he was blaming it on Beth and I'm like you know you're thinking Brandon Chad the way he was kind of implying was that like Beth was like the place that he told me they break her out was the place Beth picked out they stored her Samantha's body by the way went to South Carolina Beth Mom's house and so I was like what if he was a body and then he kind of went off on that like you know they might have moved the body like I think and she'd be the only one that could do it and then she'd probably have that help. Yeah I'm trying to think yeah right here is where I'm trying to find out about the car situation because I mentioned it to him and I found out that it wasn't ever reported well nothing I ever called was like that and I think the lady said she had seen blood in the car but like the question I have was like how you gonna see blood in the car when it's like you know 10 11 midnight you know late at night and at this time you know Samantha's car she wasn't reported missing that's kind of one I wondered if it was just kind of like one of those stories that somebody just interacts with and says hey this happened I was there like I seen some of it actually never did just kind of put theirself in the story. So was he claiming that Beth was actually with them the night that Samantha was murdered? That I'm not sure like because he was talking like like said she picked out the location and said about she confessed to her boyfriend at the time that would be the Nicki guy I found.
Right. He was he was a lost cause but yeah he was telling me that there's others involved that she was and they said they got away with it the FBI covered up her involvement as she became their number one witness at the trial against me and I could have offended and they couldn't have got the death sentence without her in the last she told and supposedly one of his investigators talked to her two years ago and she had confessed that she had a relationship with one of the FBI agents and he talked about the trial was crooked and you know stuff like that he's saying that them three are the only ones that know where Samantha is buried at. So he claims that himself Brandon and Beth are the three people who know where Samantha was really married. Yeah according to him like that but like you mentioned about she got she was wearing like Beth was wearing one of Samantha's shirt at like somewhere and I heard another story that because where the location they told me that she was buried at it basically all connects and it takes you you can find a road that if you stay on that road it takes you to take you to Conova where they stayed at and supposedly there was a shirt found out there beside the road like Marshall University shirt or sweater and from my understanding it's supposed to have been reported and turned in his beliefs and then it disappeared.
So I don't know if it's true or not if it actually was found. Let me ask you your opinion on this you know this is where my where I kind of take uh there's a lot of people who say that especially talking to Matt Rawlings who was involved in the case as one of his attorneys that he basically said that he you know sexually assaulted Alistair that he was involved in that and and the story that he tells is you know he was straightforward and honest with Matt and then when it came to that part of the story he wouldn't look him in the face and he just nodded his head that yes he did that he and but the thing that bothers me the most about this whole scenario this whole case is that years later after drawing maps in a location that he wasn't familiar with they were able to recover Alistair Donovan's remains and you know in the story is that it took years for him to recollect this thing but why is it that he can recollect something in a place that whether he was high on meth or not he can recollect it years later in a place that he wasn't familiar with but he can't pinpoint what happened in a place that he grew up in and he was very familiar with and you would think you know that it doesn't matter how high you were you kind of have a recollection of where you were that night I mean what is your opinion on that do you think it's fine somewhere I can remember where I was trying to find it he lived from my understanding he lived in South Carolina at one point because a lot of that was kind of like their thing against him was that everywhere they went was his stomping grounds so I know he kind of said like Brandon forced him to kind of like rape Donovan and all that but he like what was it they said that he basically he set in a car while Brandon took her out in the woods like he's saying he drew a map and from my understanding like he never went away from where Alistair was at like he always said she's here but they would never look for there until I'm Monica you know miss uh what the missing person grew she actually went to where he said to go and basically go deeper in that area and you found her and they eventually found her even I think they said a bulldozer had been through that area and stuff but he ended up found in her though and yeah you would think because I remember in one of the letters he told me about like why would I help with the case that basically gave me the dis in you know to like he's like I got life for Samantha he's like why would I help with it one and not the other but my question is with all of this you know he says they buried Samantha and done all this and then like with Alistair it just seems like they kind of just put her out in the field and just cover her office and brush like why do you two offices and so like where he told me that he buried right like there was a house not too far away and you know you know they said they put rocks on top of a grave like I've got a lot of stuff to do and not get caught but he he has physically said that to you that he was involved in burying her yeah yeah um yeah he said like uh he told me where it was at and I got kind of google picture of it and sent it to him and he sent it back and said you know this was the area and then what he was talking about a v state on the buffalo buffalo creep and that there was a v of e shape tree and it had a mark in it from a shovel where Brandon had marked the tree so he goes into that kind of detail you sent me this picture of the google map picture that you sent and this is okay I grew up in Wayne County and you know I've lived in Huntington for years this is a place that is well known to anybody in Wayne County it's behind a well-known pizza joint called Rocky Tops um so if Chad had told this to authorities did they ever actually go out there and look see that's from understanding like when they brought him back here that's where they took him at and I'm like because I've asked him before and he never responded to me but like the day like takes you out the field you know out on the area to say hey this tree right here you had to point from the car because yeah he basically said there's got a tree shaped like a bee and the base you'll see a chunk missing a brand and marked with a shovel and the ravine drops down a little and there'll be a pile of railroad rocks this is a spot and he saying he doesn't know why she's been found and all that but I remember hearing that something about the dogs like picked up scent on the dirt or the roots I'd have to look at my notes but they never could find her because he told me that she's buried in a tarp a brown tarp it's crazy to me that he has told you this because the interview that we did with Matt it seems like he told him something totally opposite when he spoke with Matt he told him that they went down to he said the Gaiandotte River but Matt thinks that his because of their drug altered state that he was a little confused that he took him to the Gaiandotte River where there was a boat that was a restaurant and that they there was a dumpster there they parked beside the dumpster and Brandon led Samantha into the woods and that's where apparently he murdered her and when he came back out of the woods Samantha wasn't with him and Brandon told Chad it's done so what he told Matt was that they actually went down to the river and if you remember I'm sure you do there's a restaurant down there called scooters there that was the restaurant you know everybody go and listen to live music or whatever and when I said that to him he said yes that sounds familiar so it's like Chad's recounting these different stories to different people and none of them add up yeah like I'm trying to think I remember going down there and looking at the area because Brandon has always said that he dumped her in Gondaw River like he's never changed his story at all and like I said going back to what I said earlier about why I do all this with Samantha because the way he explained it to me was like that they left her here at best grandma's mom's father they went to South Carolina so they was saying she was there until they got back and then they buried her like why go through all the trouble when Alice you know they just stood out in the woods and covered her up like you have a river right there you know like not the sound me but the blunt truth is they could just roll her off in the river and then you know then you're done with it while it goes through the whole thing of finding a place to bury her and call around the body and not get caught and that's exactly what Matt things happens Matt he came here and and he walked you know he said he didn't know how many hours three different spots he went from beachfork down to the river um all these different locations along the Gondaw River the Ohio River he even went down to places where they had blocked off the Ohio to I guess there were things that they would put out to catch debris in the river he even went to those places to look and see if that was a possibility and he fully believes that she was in the river that they rolled her into the river and that's where they left her see I knew when the Jimmy's video came out like they tried to make a connection with all that because Chad is actually from the Hamlin West Hamlin area like he likes to get grandma lives doing well I don't know she's passed away since I've left like I went to her house to help to help her with her phone because he was trying to call her they were trying to say that like Chad knew uh Samantha maybe they could have passed like said there was an age difference a little age difference that would have been you know the same grade or nothing but uh was it somebody wasn't somebody in Chad's family married to somebody in Samantha's family I think so but it was like way way like not really nothing to matter to like not like close close he wrote that in the first letter that he wrote to me that there was a somebody said his uncle wasn't it his uncle was married to her aunt his uncle was married to Samantha's aunt I think that's what he said okay somebody be a little bit closer now thought to him I'm trying to find out that I'm going back to the river this guy when the Jimmy's video video came out he said he worked at a barge company directly across McGahn dot boat ramp and he said that they brought Chad there and that's where he said he's supposedly putting water there and but he was saying that the company was dredging at the boat ramp though he feels like the crane may pick your body up and that they hauled all the mud to the field there and then somebody else was talking about that too he remember where I read down my notes but like he said he saw like bones or something but he never reported it until basically after the Jimmy video so you know all you hear later and like the place Chad said she's buried at from understanding they dumped like a bunch of dirt on that area so that's another issue there too see that is the theory that you know we've been told and given is that you know she was if she was dumped in the Ohio River they do dredge that river and you know they don't know if they would ever recover Samantha and and that's heart wrenching to think about you know because in these cases you just want to bring your loved one home you want to make sure that they're at peace and that's why I have such a problem with you know these cases even though a case is cut and dry and you think that just because it's public record this is exactly the narrative of what happened you know nobody really knows because you get so many different stories and he's telling you one thing and then telling somebody else something completely different so what is the actual facts you know what I mean yeah look into my notes this is another thing it goes back what we were talking about earlier because my my old address like I still live in the same area but it changed but there's another holler just like that but it's up my river and hamlin well he was telling me that he remembered problem on that road which I didn't tell me different but he was talking about he remembered the McDonald's because there's a McDonald's at the end of the mud of the road but he said he remembered that location strange thing is it wasn't built there until like four years after the fact so he wouldn't even know there yeah I know one of somebody I think one of the FBI agents was talking about that that I've talked to like he basically like said you feed him a story he kind of goes off that like oh maybe that's what and he's getting like all these people sending them various things right over the years and then he's just getting confused more on it so you think it's kind of one of these cases that people are placing these thoughts in his head basically and whether it's you know the fact that he was high on meth or his limited intellect he's just kind of building on all of these stories but what he doesn't realize that he's done is he's told you know how many different accounts to these different people and now nobody's gonna believe him that's basically what I think happened like at first you know like when he gave me a location like I went out there like just my gut feeling you know I'm like you know it seemed like this is a location on the tree like right next to the railway traffic he shaped I had a ravine I'm like nobody's gonna carry a bunch of railway rocks through a field and stuff as he said like weather wouldn't affect her because I'm like it was a pretty good flood area and he said no to that effect her but if you go down the water is gonna hit her and it's like right by the railway tracks it's right there you know be quick but never he said no that wasn't the tree so then there's so many fish trees you can find marks in the trees but you know with it being that long trees won't get a little bit bigger so the chunk mess is not gonna be at the exact area it was all those years ago but there is somebody um if he's he should I have an address for him he actually wrote to uh as Samantha's mom a few years back and according to him he said Chad told the four people knew where Samantha buried where he told me the three and said that Chad got upset over the letters and basically his name the guy the inmate that wrote him was a David Paul hammer but he was basically writing like said right in the smith of mom saying hey you know that I know where she's at and but Chad got mad over it and said don't listen to him he's just trying to leave them away from her and another thing that was interesting they said uh her Chad would get angry and it was brought up to his brother new where Samantha was at well here's the interesting fact about a lot of cases like this you know I'm sure you've heard and I've referenced this podcast a lot on our show uh and there's a podcast up and vanished and they do a case on missing Tara Grinstead and come to find out that there are facts in this case that people did in fact know what happened to this school teacher for years people knew and it was just you know talk of the town people didn't know what actually to believe or not but there was more than two people that knew what happened and it's 100 factual that there could be more people who knew exactly knew what happened but it's whether or not you want to believe you know at the time like if you heard something like that and you're like oh there's no way do there's no way you did that you know what I mean you get drunk you get high you start running your mouth you know what I mean there's just no way you did that you know who's to say that it's not I mean in my personal opinion I think you know uh it's I'm not you know I've never been to Hamlin and I don't know the lay of the land but I'm but if it's a small town I mean people talk and people know each other people know each other's business so it's possible that that yeah more people do know yeah like with his brother himself because my understanding he like him and his brother were really really close I came here if that's one that killed himself or not um yeah because he actually sent me a copy of pictures that he drew of his brother and him so if that's the case and that could be you know why you know he'd get upset because about it which which we can open vanished that's like one of my favorite podcast yeah it's a really good one it's a really good investigative podcast and it led to them eventually capturing the two guys involved so I want to get back a little bit to chat and his letters you know he's you've corresponded with him quite a bit and everything that he said to you what is your honest opinion do you believe that he really knows what happened or do you think he's playing some kind of manipulation game you know I mean what honestly in your opinion well how do you feel since you've had personal correspondence for you know more than once I would have said at first you know I put a hundred percent in belief in him and then throughout the years and kind of how he's gotten I'm kind of like kind of like out in his words now but like no matter what though I kind of still hold him back my head like he did lead them to Alice or maybe you know I'm just overlooking something like I doubt my thoughts on it but like I said there's so much that he just don't really seem to because like there's other things that he's tried to say hey I'll send you a man myself or I'll send you this I'll send you this and then he never sends it or he'll be like I told him I'm like give me every detail where you're at who you talk to give me a list of everybody he's like I work on it never got that and well probably because you didn't send money correct did he ever ask for money even I even I even I last time right around Christmas he actually emailed me and well it wasn't just me but it was a group group of people that he like tagged in it and was asking you know can you give me money but I never responded back to him he ended up removing me from his email list not like earlier this year but yeah he did the same to me yeah he wanted the the very first letter that he wrote to me he laid out this detailed plan he told me that he had all these case files boxes of case files maps that he had drawn two books that he wrote while he has been on death row and that I needed to send him he sent me the exact amount was like five hundred and eighteen dollars and sixty four cents or something random like that because it cost to like make copies and have all of this stuff western union to me and he would even throw in those books I didn't respond to it that was the first letter that he wrote back to me and within about two weeks he sent me a second letter telling me how disappointed he was in me that the money wasn't in his western union account on the day that he expected it to be and that I really didn't care if Samantha was found because I didn't put forth the effort by sending him this money so he could send me these case files I mean seriously do you think these case files even exist what the hell's yeah he actually told me he had boxes of stuff and he would send me but he told me that I'm correct with like two hundred twenty dollars it would cost him all the boxes out and he told me about the books he wrote and I was like if you need help I'll send you money like now I don't worry about I'll get it I'll get it figured out and I never never got anything right I did get Gip though with the Nikki guy a friend of mine when the Jimmy video came out like because I think Chad spelled his name wrong but I was able to track him down he's in prison but he was like in Florida but he had shot a cop in Charleston well I wrote him well he was wanting money so I ended up sending him money and basically he gave me some information that most likely isn't true but I was like hey it's worth a shot and what kind of selling a book I bought a rare book I bought off Amazon before it got taken off of Amazon so in a way I kind of went from something good nothing bad to something good yeah we got heard of the what is it named doing Canada with the pigs Robert picked him yeah yeah yeah I know I've heard of Robert picked him yeah he wrote a book in prison and gave it to somebody and that got published it well they had it for sale and I was actually likely ordered a copy before they took it down like later that day and I was like oh crap I'm not going to get it I still got it but I end up selling that to a collector to send out to somebody to correspond with the Nikki guy so Nikki was the guy who was involved in when all this went down right yeah I suppose we like to according to Chad so they were all just basically a bunch of thieves that's what I didn't really talk to Beth like that everything that Chad told me I'm like oh crap I was like I want to get you know try to talk to her and then it all you know it would be a bad thing but well I eventually did talk to her though because she wrote like a big long thing when the Jimmy video came out like told her style story so for my blog I end up talking to her and she had to talk to her on the phone like she could be lying but my personal opinion I think the story she's given like she might be some little things here and there she missed out but I think what she said basically was a gift of it you know they she knew Chad for a long long time and him and his guy shows up and he said you know didn't really give his name and then she ends up liking Brandon and everything and basically used her to get drug summer stay here and then Boogie got to South Carolina for well when they came back I mean but he's like he's saying they read her house before they went to South Carolina but her they couldn't get there until they came back and basically like they'd used to find drugs and she talked about having the necklace with a heart-shake ring on it right and about he did give it to her then about she put underneath the pillow and I guess she lost it or something what she said it was gone because her and Brandon had a good flame of mine which is kind of weird though to her child where she got pregnant a lot too long after that her son's name is Brandon really Jesus I did not know that I found that out wait could he be the father of that kid she said like me and some other people like try to trace it back like it is possible but that means you had him like pretty early yeah and might you know she might have I like why she said that her kid picked the name out I'm like you would think if you're kind of tied in with you know two criminals like why do you name your child after one of them even though you're gonna print the other name but you know when you're involved and stuff like that like I'm pretty sure I wouldn't name my child after that yeah well if it's true if it's a true story I mean why would you sleep with a ring of a girl that you I mean you know what these guys were involved and you know that something bad happened to her this girl had have known and why would you sleep with that ring under your pillow I mean that's just as demented yeah I talk to somebody that was somebody at the back then and they were saying she did know that they they had escaped or at least knew that something was going on because about one of her daughters mentioned that like you know they're like SpongeBob and stuff was on TV like others when but when yeah the news came on I think right when they were talking about they got a they got a rest of their escape sometime around there well they came on their call their SpongeBob and Patrick like that's the name that she gave them to her kids so but I don't know how true all that is though right it's so crazy because you know you grow up in a small town and something like this happens and it rocks everybody and then all the rumors start to fly and it's everybody knows everybody there's no way that you could avoid rumors happening in all of this especially when Chad and Brandon came back here after all this stuff happened you know it's it all those makes me feel like like Brandon said before you people knew more than what they said people were being hush hush about it because they didn't want to be implicated in it in any way shape or form you know obviously they're buying drugs from somebody somebody had to know that they were in the picture there somewhere and still even after all this the pieces can't be put together 17 years later so let me ask you one more question about these letters you know I found this weird I mean and he couldn't figure out what it was we we tried to google it and maybe you have more insight on it but at the end of every letter that he received first of all the letters look like they were written by a woman so I don't know if somebody dictates or he dictates the letter and somebody writes it down but he signed it quick question did they smell like alone that like his cologne strawberry letter no they didn't smell like okay like the letters I got it smelled like he sprayed his cologne on the paper like they were stout forever like as soon as you opened the thing it's like oh god that's creepy that's like it was like it was like every one of the love letters no the ones that I got just smelled faintly of cigarette smoke which he sent me the one like all the letters I got from hand besides I think one was actually like the big like envelopes like the orange ones oh yeah no mine were just in regular envelopes but they look like they were written by a woman that's the weird thing it looked like woman's handwriting but he signed the end of it yeah he was like he asked I can't write in if it is his handwriting but it is I agree that does it like a woman well he actually signed it t s f l do you have any clue what that means that's down any but like I'm pretty sure it's true soldiers for life I remember correctly because that's like when all the thing with Jimmy came out about people like his family it's one of a message me and she's like well I know your letters are real and what you're saying because that's how he signed off on everything and I'm pretty sure it's true soldiers for life that's kind of weird too kind of like I don't know like I don't know I'm not sure exactly why I think like it was like a family thing that they all said each other maybe you're just with everything going on I racked my brain I thought it was some type of prison thing I even googled it thinking that there was you know he had to sign it that way but talking about the handwriting no I think Chad wrote all of them because you sent me the picture of the google map where he had written his the directions on there it's the same handwriting yeah like he has like like I said I do agree it is a looks like girl handwriting so here's a question for you did you ever interact with any local law enforcement when you were doing any of your research any of Huntington Police Department any Cabell County sheriff did did you ever reach out to him and if so were they willing to speak with you about the case I didn't really reach out to me like I did talk to him like about the whole best thing and they said they were looking on it without as far as I got because from my understanding the brown tarp they got was supposedly from a best brother uncle or something and the cop had said you know we have talked to him everything but I guess he had cancer and wasn't doing very good and they were like I guess backtracking to see you know what all happened and if it was true and then I talked to the one FBI on the case and he told me that they were going to like they basically just shut down they're like we don't need anything he said that their main focus was on Brandon now since he said that you know they put her in the river which they did search so river pretty pretty hard but there was a lot of flooding back then too and like he told me oh crap then probably two years ago I got I was kind of overthinking it yeah he told me that expect to see something around the beginning of August or so on the search for Samantha Gondog River now back in 2017 as far as my knowledge they've never searched Gondog River in over two years but what I found interesting when he said that everybody found the body by the boat ramp and gondog yeah that was in September 24th that was basically he said it was searching then a month later they actually find the torso and a leg yeah but I don't remember who that belonged to you um actually I actually have the picture that a woman posted of all that on my phone really yeah I think they haven't really posted a lot about I remember reading an article a dude turned his uncle I think in because I guess he was like trying to discard some of the body in like the dumpster at a car wash oh my god but I can't remember what her name would I'd have to look I remember vaguely but I don't remember it ever being associated I mean not with any of that I do know that they did search the guy in dot river one time and that was when they searched the property that my dad owned there my dad owned a business just outside of Altizer that sat basically it was separated from the river by the railroad tracks and he was at work one day and all these police showed up and unmarked cars and my dad went out there asking questions what they were doing and nobody would tell him and as he was getting ready to go inside another car which he said it was obviously not a police car came onto the property and there was a man and a woman in there and the guy rolled his window down and dad asked if he knew what they were doing there and he said they're looking for my daughter it was Mr and Mrs. Burns and so they were there a day or two searching that area looking for her but nothing ever came of it and and they never spoke a word of it to dad of what they were doing there so that's the only kind that I know for sure that they actually searched an area of the guy in dot river yeah there's something I thought was in a race I don't know if there's anything to it but I remember in your guys episode you mentioned if there's anybody else and felt like anybody else they could have picked up and then you ever hear about the girl that disappeared that was uh six teen years six years 16 but I want to say she might have been at the mall maybe her name was Sarah Owens okay yeah she's 16 years old from Huntington she was reported missing 11 12 0 2 but she allegedly barred herself from a woman to be richmen Virginia at a movie theater to call home and she was hiding from two men who had taken her from the Huntington mall what she was reporting missing after she don't return from a job interview to the evening at the Huntington mall and she had taken a bus to the mall and completed interview and she accepted her after two men who were at the mall and she'd call him 11 15 to three days and that's when she said she was hiding from him and had some small injuries but that's like I never could find anything else on it like for the two men them okay so you're talking 10 days after Samantha disappears was she okay I mean they she has a bank like this is only 11th so this means the next day right the next day that doesn't make it yeah that's what like I've tried to think it was in a news site where it's right right right at and I'm like wait a minute what about like me she like did they get her because from my understanding I know some people said that Samantha got taken from the the apartments by them Marshall right but from my my understanding she actually got taken from the mall because they were basically driving the parking lot and basically stumbled upon her like wait Chad explained like he was they split like breaking the cars and bringing them back with Samantha in the car and I've read that too and because I think they hit her parents sued them all and got quite a bit of money out of it and yeah ending like how it all went down was like where they let her call home they I'm pretty sure they already had her that's not what 9 9 40 I've wondered that as well if 9 45 she calls and says she's leaving the apartment building in downtown Huntington but then Chad says they picked her up from the mall was it ever corroborated that she was at the apartment where did that story come from because I read that on multiple news outlets yeah I'm not sure you're like because it says 6 30 she was last thing at the mall and that's where like the Chad said they got her there from my understanding she met her aunt or something and one went the other way and one and she went out the other way and then she got it that means from 6 30 to 9 45 she would call home because see that kind of fit because of how it's gone if then they let her call home and said hey you know I'll be home later and all that then stuff like that so you're looking at 6 30 she was a doctor at 6 30 like they give them to 9 45 they let her call home so that's over three hour gap that they had her and then from 10 to 3 30 her car was found on fire so you know that's a big long gap there and I've actually found the line that lives in that area G.C.C. is a vehicle at that cemetery or where they burn a car it was like right at right intersection of both of them was in Dermann Ridge and Paney Road yeah German Ridge yeah at 8 p.m.
she said she's seen a car slash truck and then at 9 p.m. she still she still saw vehicles there that's kind of wondering like I said what like I think like what did they do for that whole entire time right if you're looking at she called home and down pretty fast she even she died at 10 11 midnight they didn't take that long to do the whole track where they burn a car at right because the way he made it sound the way that Matt recounted the story to us was that they drove her around of course it doesn't okay so let's say they took her from them all and then they're driving around trying to find ATM so they can take as much money as possible so how did they end up back downtown if they're at the river like at schooners it would make sense that they if they picked her up there I mean though no the last place that she was seen was at the mall but that's what got me was the time frame the conflicting accounts and then you find her car on german ridge road on fire did they just drive it out there because they were trying to find somewhere out kind of in the middle of nowhere to dump it why didn't they just continue on in her car they needed a car well from understand they had a team as van right so the athlete because i'm not sure i came here if i ever found time frames of when they actually if any times were released when they're at ATM right he mentioned see this yeah okay this is what he's talked about because he mentioned about you know the dignity and all that because that's on their way there from the german ridge and but he was telling me a story about something else though because i asked him if there's anything that's you know stuck out about her and he goes in that he was already in tears and everything but said that she was so calm and he said he tried to keep his face hit from her and he was looking to mirror and that she had offered Brandon some weed and i guess i don't know if he's just trying to act like you know i didn't do any of this i wasn't part of it or what but like if she was calm and my my personal opinion is she's probably like with some you know some victims do that you know they're calm just like hey if i do what they say nice to them that's what you do right which it still would be scary that'd be with you know two of them because like they were how on about anything they'd probably be on get their hands at that time you don't think there's any way that some eighth i recognize chad i wouldn't think like i said there's to see there should be what a six-year age gap like somebody might have crossed paths maybe but because somebody's trying to stay like they were in the same school but i'm like if they're a six-year age difference because they're saying she's in sixth grade you know he's a senior right if he even finished school i mean i don't i don't know yeah but they did that's still no excuse to do what they did right so during this whole time they're going around and they had these burner phones correct they had these phones and you came into possession of these phones now these the burner phones were from uh jimmy video with Rebecca okay yeah so let's talk about jimmy hysel for a second there so jimmy hysel in 2017 he does all these crazy facebook videos saying that he knows where the body is because he just married this woman and this woman spilled her deep dark secrets and says that samantha is buried on her property so in my understanding jimmy and or jimmy's new wife rebecca somehow had ties to chad and his family correct yeah like that's basically like i said i hadn't heard from chad and so long and i think it was at the end of 2014 around christmas he called me and then he sent me an email in 2015 well i hadn't really ever got on their check and like that and receiving letters and stuff from them well after the whole somebody tagged me in a post that was made about a guy had claimed that his wife was a serial killer so i didn't think nothing of them called you know that's interesting and then the next thing i know here's jimmy's video you know and i was like hoping you know there's something to them like you know this might be the end of it you know they might find her well and then i get on there i i forgot my password to the email site that's what core links wind up getting on there bam there's an email waiting for chad and he was talking about that he received the news yesterday he can only shake his head and said that girl and guy was best friends so maybe sam must go guilty and all that so he's trying to still say he didn't really know him but i know they're trying to make a connection that they didn't know but i think chad and brand new one but it goes back to best again yes he ties her as the link to all of these people so jimmy makes all of these crazy outlandish facebook post and then kind of disappears off the face of the planet how did you come in contact with those burner phones and did they have anything on them that were of any value um she i've actually i've talked to me back and stuff too but yeah i got contacted she um lady was married into the burns family back when all this happens what's the night the burns and all that oh she had messaged me and she's like hey i had jimmy send me the phones and you know i would feel basically what she wanted me to have on anybody else because she didn't trust like anybody in law enforcement all that because i guess she talked to somebody she said the fbionna said you know just their mawai there's nothing on them she's like i don't want to do that in case there's something on them well so i told her i was like well i leave him working you know we can meet why go out there and meet like i'm kind of like you know i see her facebook patron so i'm like you know it's not hopefully she's not somebody else i go out there and you know get jumped or something but i can get there and there's nobody there but there's somebody sitting in the vehicle i didn't know if it was her or not well this lady comes around and i guess they were kind of scoping me out to see who i was to make sure i was the right person too but i ended up talking to her for probably half an hour or so and she was talking about where she'd been in um married to the family and all that and hopefully you know there's something on the phone so she gave them to me i think there's five of them but i don't i don't have the phones anymore but i think i still have the envelope for jimmy i know them to her but one phone might have had maybe like a text about maybe like a drug deal like a small drug deal maybe on it i think two of them didn't work maybe there's three of them like most of them like didn't work one of them one other one that did like i think of the kids phone maybe and the other one had like personal pictures of like family you know children so it was nothing on it if there ever was it looks to me it just seemed like old phones that people you know got new updated and just threw that on to the side just for emergency in case they're new messed up and i end up we back i found out that i had the phones and i ended up mailing them back to or um not too long after that so what did he claim that you would find on these phones if or if anything i can't remember because i don't i don't know if i actually watched that full video but the way he talked like the burner phones had like everything on it right like he found them like all within a wall or something in the wall yeah behind a hot water heater or something like that he goes on and on about yeah these i got all these burner phones found them in a while i'm buying the water you know some crazy stuff like that so yeah like to the point like after a while i just i just gave up watching videos like then people like well i think some might seem like two thousand dollars that's crazy like why but yeah he did yeah he did message me um kind of like after it kind of all died down but he didn't really ever say nothing and i don't know if he has done it to do it because the way she like her story makes more sense than what he does like his was just all out there like she was just saying it went by the area and it's like hey this happened here whatever and then he just said to start researching and be like oh you're you're done this because they never found anything out there like i think the whole that was a reporter was the other person's supposed to be buried there i just remember them talking about uh some of the remains being in a burn pile there that he was mowing around or didn't want to mow over so they claimed there were other people out there too yeah he's saying i want to say there's a reporter but like because that one like didn't match up like i think i actually knew who killed him and all that i think he was saying there's like a hammer or something i knew well that he wanted a pond a koi pond i think i was talking about the koi pond yeah that he kept wanting out there and just talking about there's stuff in that burn pally she didn't want to see like i still have the video on my phone which i think i'm gonna put up with it on but like that he like he cries in like he has a motion in it like i said i had a whole lot of belief in it and then till it just went down he only just kept going and going and then they found nothing i'm like what like why did he do it was it just for attention but what kind of just what kind of just makes it weird it's like samantha wasn't really being talked about like like if he mentioned it to him then he went down a bunch of research on and starts flipping out but like if that's what caused it but it's like i can understand if there's like other information happening around that people talking about it then you know it comes out so just kind of like nowhere here it comes i think it was just one of them cases where he you know maybe his first couple he was super emotional about it because he really believed it and then it became an attention thing so he had to keep it going on that's just my opinion yeah he had a lot of followers like i said people still send the money man you know of course he's gonna do it which i hear he's back in west virginia doing that too so i wondered whatever happened to him i tried to look him up on facebook i couldn't find him anywhere yeah that's that was one of the rumors i heard recently is what he's done but like i said even if nothing did come out of it you know well one thing did everybody started talking again about it i like it did bring her case back to the surface right people started talking that's like a lot of stuff i started finding out stuff to you're reading people's comments on everything but it's kind of still hard to track you know what's what's true and what's not because over time like i had somebody message i saw um that i basically said chad didn't kill nobody but he wasn't involved he's like he knew him and he's like he just wouldn't be like that like well he's already been you know charged and convicted with all that right even for a long time but he couldn't believe it like he didn't even like he act like he's clueless on it like we're being right i mean i don't think chad never said that he wasn't there that he didn't take part in it something that matt rolling said to us that i thought was interesting i i straight up asked him if he thought that chad and brandon deserved the same punishment if they both deserved to be on death row and his answer was no he said he fully believed that brandon deserved to be on death row but that chad was more of i guess an accessory and just deserved life in prison do you have an opinion on that yes and it's like that's kind of what we were talking about earlier like i said you know they went to chad stomping grounds like he was a lean reader i'm not sure exactly you know how it all went down basically with all that because he seems sincere with a lot of stuff he says but then like i said with him one money from you and stuff right and all that's like where's your head like if you're are you really wanting to find her like why are you demanding you know money and stuff so you go that um you guys remember the topic side side yes old topics shape never read topics i don't think i did that is so topics was a website i don't even know if it's still in existence where it's because it is they took the message towards now you could google a zip code on there and it would basically be all these new speeds where people could get on and gossip and it was the talk of the town around here for a while yeah but i read a thing on there which kind of made i try to get a hold of the guy i find out what he messaged me like wanted like 20 bucks to feed a family or something and then then he went on like oh that wasn't me to message you and they never really said anything but i like a message like a few guys found out it was the right one but he said that he had gotten a fight when uh chad was here on trow and he was putting a hole with him well next to him and he said that uh he said that chad would always go on about how he was the killer of smith burns that girl from south klana how he was such a bad person but he gave him details on how he killed her and how he thought the place never found her body and that he was wanting to walk because they didn't have enough evidence to convict him like that i tried to talk to the guy and i think he just more drug down anything so i really didn't get any other information about that because my old boss i had he actually worked at the jail the correction officer when chad was there he said chad like carried i think what's that bible with him all the time and he said he was very quiet but i knew like anytime when there's a killer in prison jail whatever you always have that inmate like the one i talked about earlier whether it's true or not suppose we they confessed to him they might just be trying to help you know their their case so i don't know trying to help themselves they think they're gonna if they give them some type of information whether it's true or not it's gonna get them out of something that's kind of like things like that like like i still keep back my hair like what if he you know because i've heard other people say that too like chad just doing this so he can try to get another trial so that's kind of what makes me wonder about if he's in seer with all of it and actually is telling the truth and whatnot well that's uh that's uh that's the other question we wanted to ask too uh you know you've had people corresponding with you know keep people in this case that haven't been mentioned like you know in the media and that kind of stuff and people have reached out to you both good and bad so what are some of the you know the you know people reaching out to you what are they saying like well what is the negative stuff feedback you're getting from this uh one of her personal friends basically she kind of told me which is nothing negative like she was talking to me stuff and then she like she's like i gotta step back and stuff like that saying that you know might kind of be in more trouble than what you want to get yourself into type thing because from my understanding like it's a bad stuff she seems she seems fine everything there's possibly other people in it because i guess from the way i understand what they used her for drugs basically going to people that was doing drugs back then you know you kind of getting tied up with all that and you just never know how people's gonna get because my here's a wrong person that you're digging one or two so and so whiz you know you don't know what's going to come out of it but it's like what's another which even with uh like demean Rebecca because you know you hear that you know Rebecca might have had you know bodies on a property like when i talk to her like i send her the burner phones i didn't put my address enough not i just put my name you know put in there and send it to her and then she'd talk about meeting up and everything like yeah you seem like nice lady you probably got light on but still in the back of my head i'm like what if you are this crazy person that he would claim to be i got kid i'm not gonna go meet you and then get you know dumped in river somewhere right what would be her purpose of meeting up with you you know what's what's the point of that yeah i've never met up with me i just thought that was odd i'm like yeah i think i'll say stay away from that like you just never know how these people are gonna react like you said these are people who have their lives have kind of revolved around crime whether it's theft or drugs you know these aren't high society people and so you started mercing yourself into their world you have no idea what could come about of all of this did Chad ever ask you to come visit him in prison yes he sent me in the very first letter a request i don't even know what you would call it or it was something that you would have to fill out to come visit him did the thought ever crossed your mind that you would go i thought about it because he was asking me to talk about how much the calls were and stuff and that he made me want me to come talk to him in person so there's no misunderstanding and all that and he was basically talking about how long the drive would which here he said seven hours i even think if i remember correctly he was talking about like i could stay with somebody out there like his family or at least you have anything like what are your final thoughts on this if you had to say anything about about this case and the time that you have spent researching it what's your final thought what would you like to see come from all of this at the end of the day well the obvious would be defined some answer like the blunt truth kind of stares at all of us like if she was dumped in the river because there are talks the old bridge that's set there but i think Tina said they threw off that bridge and stuff but like if she hit the river like the blunt truth that's staring at us she's never gonna be found which is sad swallow but i would it would be amazing one day to find kind of any remainder found in this area the family gets their hopes up but it would be nice one day they don't have to get their hopes up and she actually is found and you know her bones are able to be at a proper burial ground so place you can go to to you know pay your respects to like i would love for that to happen like when the jimmy came out like i basically i'm a full grown man and i want to i cry i came out and like you know this might actually be it and then i was so i'm when nothing was found like i just hope like i'm not a religious person but like she's in my thoughts all the time i think about her and like that just working on it so long like i feel like she's a part of my story as well in life like i want you know to find her and like anytime i see anything about her post and i try to look and say hey you know this what's going on type thing i always try to read anything and any new stuff that comes out it's like i'm always trying to be all over top of it and like i'd love for her to count and hopefully one day we can for some one-wheel where can uh you know everybody find your podcast um i'm not sure of all of them that's on like i originally go through pod beaming by pod being out to you and stitcher and i'm pretty sure a bunch of islands i'm not sure of all of them but like my facebook page is scalar crawlspace and i got a youtube channel that posts a little bit of videos and stuff on which still killer crawl things and stuff like that well thank you so much for taking the time you know to talk about this and you know to have somebody who has as much insight in an issue i mean you've done a lot of work you've done a lot of research you've corresponded with so many people and i mean you know it's an invaluable resource you know to have other people who are just interested in this stuff as we are and i really really you know really appreciate you coming on and talking with us thank you for having me anything else you want to say so that was our our complete interview uh i wouldn't say complete because i did edit out some of the uh some of the interview because there were a lot of things that that kind of went up and down that you know we're lost in translation i should say we take everything with the green assault and as he's sitting there he's he's recounting some of these events from Chad Fox himself and the way that it sounds you know what we've seen and he's personally seen in the letters that were written is that i in my personal opinion can't really believe everything this guy is telling us Chad Fox because he's gotten nowhere to go he's he's on death row so you can take this story of things that he said with a grain of salt but it's important to know that these the details are out there for the public what was told at court and what is being said here are two different kinds of stories and even recounting back to Matt Rawlings interview he was told something different as well so it's hard to really sit there and know exactly what the actual facts in this case are but it's interesting to hear all the different sides of it i think the one opinion that we share in common with Bruce very much is the fact that Chad Fox is kind of a desperate man on death row who would reach out to anyone who would reach back to him and i don't know that he really remembers or understands all of the details of the night that some man that disappeared but this interview with Bruce gives you a much better idea of what a broad reach this case had for this tiny little town that we live in when you look back over everything and i said this in the interview when you look back over everything more people i think knew about this than what was originally thought and i think that even years later it's still an open wound that some people just don't just want to forget that happened and you can't forget what happened because it's such a monumental loss and we have to keep in mind that this isn't about these two men on death row this story is not about them it's not about feeling sorry for them because in my opinion i don't feel sorry for them i think that you know the justice system works in a certain way and sometimes it fails and sometimes it doesn't but i think in this case the justice justice was served we have to keep in mind that you know samantha is still missing and you heard the facts you know about people's opinions where what could have happened to samantha but we have to keep in mind that there is a possibility that she's still out there we all have that responsibility to keep this story alive because there is family that still has to deal with this every day and i think it's important that we at least try to bring some type of closure to this case whether or not we are actually affiliated with it or just a passerby on the street we're very grateful to everyone who has tuned into this who has reached out to us i've had so many local friends and you know people that have reached out on facebook to say thank you for doing this and like shay said before this is not about the criminals this is about the memory of samantha burns and allastanaben and their families who still struggle daily with these heinous crimes that happened 17 years ago to anyone listening if you have any information on the disappearance of samantha burns or this case in general please reach out to us we want to talk to you this case will never be completely solved this case will never be closed but our mission is to make sure that samantha is never forgotten once again thank you for listening to serial spirits the podcast check us out weekly on paranormal warehouse at paranormal warehouse dot com on iTunes at serial spirits and on soundcloud please rate and review the show follow us on all your social media apps facebook at www dot facebook dot com back slash serial spirits on twitter at serial spirits and on instagram until next time be aware and be safe