The Defense Commission of these war murders over a 10-day dream is one of the worst-killing sprees in history of the state. I'm here looking for the spirits of anybody that still remains. I have a device in my hand. If you would like to talk to me, please come forward.
Tell me your story. Maybe I should have killed 400 or 500 people, then I would have felt better. I felt like I was really off in society or something. You are listening.
To Serious Spirits, the podcast. The FBI is investigating human remains found outside of Huntington. 13 News reporter Hannah Gatz has the details now from Wayne County. It was here on Defoe Road, just off of German Ridge Road in Wayne County, where human remains were found by a property owner this past Sunday.
We've been told West Virginia State Police initially responded to the discovery, but the case has since been turned over to the FBI. We reached out to the FBI and were told in a statement from their public affairs specialist, quote, I can confirm we are doing investigative activity in the area where the bones were found. I don't have any other information to provide at this time. Neighbors along Defoe Road tell us they've been advised not to talk about the incident to anyone, including the media.
Reporting in Wayne County, I'm here to get 13 News working for you. And 13 News is working to get more details. Hey guys, it's Annie Weaves. We're coming to you this week with an unplanned, unscheduled re-airing of an episode and an update on a story that we brought to you more than a year ago.
Last year, we brought to you a series entitled Missing Samantha Burns. Samantha Burns was my college mate at Marshall University when she vanished in 2002. Two men, Chad Fulks and Brandon Basham, were later convicted of her murder and now sit on death row in Indiana. Just this week, something occurred and was brought to our attention, and we felt like it was necessary to bring you guys this update and let you listen to that original episode again.
We promised you guys that if anything happened, we would bring you updates about Samantha's case, and it's possible that something has happened. Just this past Sunday, human remains were found in the area where Samantha's burned car was found the day after she disappeared. Those human remains were immediately turned over to the FBI and are now with the medical examiner in Charleston, West Virginia. I have spoken with someone in Samantha's family who says that the family is hopeful, but also very upset at the possibility that this could actually be their loved one that they have searched for for the past 17 years.
The story has been close to our hearts, and so it's difficult for all of us to sit and wait on these DNA analysis until we know, have an answer whether or not this is actually Samantha. We've decided to re-air the original episode, episode one of Missing Samantha Burns, which details her disappearance and the crimes and tells a little about Chad Fulks and Brandon Basham. You guys can find the rest of the episodes, five in total, on our feed. Until then, we will cross our fingers and continue to keep Samantha's family in our hearts and our prayers until we have an answer and until they've brought Samantha home.
Hey guys, Shade here. A quick disclaimer before we begin this episode. I would just like to remind you that Weebs and I are not law enforcement or any type of news journalist. We run a true crime podcast.
We have spent time and hours looking into these cases. Keep an open mind when listening to the facts, as the facts in this case are public record. Some of the episodes you will hear have mature content, so listener discretion will be advised. Samantha Burns continues today.
This is the third effort for the national crew led by a North Carolina missing persons expert and the hope remained as strong as ever. The Marshall student Samantha Burns went missing in 2002. Chad Fulks and Brandon Basham were convicted of killing Burns and a South Carolina woman named Alice Donovan, all after a multi-state crime screen. Chad Fulks and Brandon Basham have both paid guilty to the institution and murder in her mouth sitting on death row in Indiana.
It never goes away. You never stop thinking, why do you have to maybe be here, maybe there? It's just something that you always think about. But it all started six years ago when Burns was kidnapped.
I've been charged with a guy who recently sent a map to the people organizing search. So now family and friends are standing by and hoping for closure. Welcome back to Season 2 of Serial Spirits, the podcast. I am your host, Brandon Shea, and joining me as always is my lovely, beautiful co-host.
Anyways, what's up, Shea Bay? We have quite a story. We're going to be working on this season. And we want to take the time right now to thank everyone who stuck with us during Season 1.
We have big changes happening here at the Serial Spirits podcast, and we're going to be changing platforms, and we're really looking forward to doing that. And without you guys, this podcast would not be possible. So thank you so much for sticking with us and listening to our Serial Snippets, the new weekly interviews that me and Annie are working on to bring you something weekly to keep you up and up of what's going on in the paranormal and crime world. I want to give a huge thanks to Mike Diamond and Chris Presenter of Paranormal Warehouse.
They have made this possible. So from now on, you'll be able to find Serial Spirits on iTunes, associated with all the other amazing podcasts that Paranormal Warehouse has to offer. You can hear my live show, RUV's Live, in podcast form, also on iTunes, in line with all of the other Paranormal Warehouse shows. So, Jay, the next few episodes that we do are going to be a little difficult to talk about.
When we started in with Season 2, we had a really firm idea of how we wanted to lay this out. We wanted to bring you stories that would offer multiple episodes. We really wanted to dive in deep to some of these true crime stories that touch us so much. The one that we're going to focus on for the first few episodes is a story that...
A story that hits very close to home to you. And I know this story touched you in a lot of ways because when this was all happening, you were the same age as this woman who went missing. We were in college together. We were college mates at Marshall University.
So, November of 2002, the town of Huntington, West Virginia, and our school kind of went on this, I don't want to say lockdown type mentality, but it was kind of like when we talked about the Gainesville Ripper episode and, you know, Ted Bundy, some of these guys who terrorized college towns, our town kind of experienced the same effect when she went missing because there were so many unanswered questions. It was just she was there one minute and the next she was gone. We don't even really know how many episodes that this story is going to entail because it's still unfolding as we're doing this. We have an interview with one of the murderer's attorneys that we are going to play in full that ran almost an hour and a half.
And every time I've listened back to it, I've cried until I made myself sick. He made some revelations to me that really made sense that were never touched on by the local media and made me very sad and very angry all at the same time. We're also going to bring to you one episode of me reading letters that I have received from one of this missing girl's convicted killers. He is on death row in federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, and I have been corresponding through mail with him.
And some of the things that he has said to me have been absolutely shocking. I don't know how many letters to expect from him, but as long as I keep receiving them, then we will keep telling you about it. Another episode that we're going to do for this series involves a man, a local man in 2017, who claimed that he knew where her remains were and went on this Facebook rant posting live video after live video that caught the attention not only of local media, but media across the nation. This guy's claims were absolutely outrageous.
We're going to find those Facebook videos and bring them to you and let you hear just how crazy this guy sounded. But it all ties into the story that we want to introduce to you tonight, a series that we are entitling Missing Samantha Burns. Search crews are still coming in an area of Wayne County where they are looking for the remains of murder victim Samantha Burns. New Channel 3 Day bet and spent the day at the scene where, as far as we know, they haven't found anything.
That's right, Tim. The search shifted to another area close to the first site. This all started six years ago when Burns was kidnapped. One of the men charged with her death recently sent a map to the people organizing the search.
So now family and friends are standing by and hoping for closure. The search began Tuesday morning in this wooded area. The local police and a crew from North Carolina combed the area where cadaver dogs led them. The goal, find the remains of Samantha Burns.
This is the spot where police found Samantha Burns' burned-out car on a hill in Wayne County. A lot of things have changed in six years. You can see the brush has grown back up, but one thing that hasn't changed, they still haven't found her body. That's why they've gone back to the same spot where they searched 18 months ago.
And now that's the focus of their investigation. This map puts it into perspective for you. The Burns car was found just a couple miles from where crews began their search on Tuesday. Wednesday afternoon, crews shifted their focus, and with tools in hand, they walked a quarter mile to a new area.
The new search site is near the intersection of Route 75 and Buffalo Creek Road. Now, Chad Falks also sent a letter and map to the search group to help him find Alice Donovan. Brandon Basham and Chad Falks got a life sentence for killing her in South Carolina. But the map led the crew to find what is believed to be Donovan's remains.
So the question is, will this letter and map leading the crew in Wayne County have the same results? A lot of people are crossing their fingers down. And Dave, the search will continue as far as we know. This story evolves so much, and as Annie said, that keeps evolving.
And it's a multi-state crime spree that culminated right here in West Virginia. And it gets crazy. And, you know, Annie said that we spoke with one of the attorneys. We did.
We had a long interview. And we, you know, it was very strange to hear this guy's take because he firmly believes that this guy was completely honest with him. But, you know, after reading some of these correspondence that Annie had with one of these convicted killers, who we'll get into, it just seems that some of the timeline does not make sense. Some of the things he said doesn't make sense.
We've retraced some of the steps of the places they went where they claim to have gone after they kidnapped Samantha, and it just does not make any sense whatsoever. So, you know, there's always that point of the story where these guys, you know, they want to themselves in the limelight and keep, you know, the story alive for their own pleasure and sick fantasy because they, you know, and that's just my opinion. But, you know, they have nothing else. This guy's sitting on death row.
He has nothing else to offer society but this. And I think it's a claim for him to just say, I know exactly where she is. And just the stories don't make sense. So our goal here is to try to bring it to you as factually as we can and try to maybe get to the bottom and bring some type of closure, whether it's to her family or just to the people, you know, involved in this case in every way.
Shay, if you're ready, the first episode that we're going to do in the Missing Samantha Burns series tonight, I'm just going to lay out for you the details of Samantha's disappearance and the men who are on death row for her murder. And this is all the players involved in the case. So it gets confusing. So, you know, just stay tuned.
Samantha Burns was a 19-year-old college student from the small town of Hamlin, West Virginia. At the time of her disappearance, she was studying to be a physical therapy assistant at Marshall University's Community and Technical College. She was 5'4", weighed approximately 110 pounds and had brown hair and brown eyes. Her distinguishing marks included a chicken pox scar on the right side of her forehead and a butterfly tattoo on her back.
She lived at home with her parents and younger brother while she attended school and worked at J.C. Penney's department store at our local mall. Samantha was living a typical teenage college life until the night of November 11, 2002. That was the last night anyone would see Sam alive.
At 9.45 p.m. on November 11, 2002, Samantha called her mom from her cell phone to tell her she was leaving a friend's apartment in Huntington, just blocks from the university campus. It was the last call she made from her phone. The drive from her friend's apartment to her house should have taken her just under an hour.
However, Samantha never made it home. Samantha's family immediately notified authorities of her failure to return home. Samantha's phone had also been turned off, which was uncharacteristic of her. On November 12, at 3.30 a.m., Samantha's burgundy Chevy Cavalier was found abandoned and on fire in a rural area called German Ridge Road, about a 15-minute drive from the friend's apartment Samantha had departed from earlier that evening.
Samantha was nowhere to be found. Now, say, this is where the story and the timeline start to get tricky. Within the first 24 hours of her disappearance, the police had no suspects. Samantha had no known enemies.
Her disappearance and the fact that her car was found on fire and in an area opposite of the direction Samantha should have been traveling made no sense to her family or authorities. But within just days, two suspects emerged in Samantha's disappearance and would tell tales to authorities of crimes you'd typically only hear on America's Most Wanted. Their stories would involve a multi-state crime spree that began with a prison break, followed by robbery, abduction, and eventually murder. And at the center of the story was Samantha Burns.
This story starts to get crazy now. So as Annie's given this timeline and description of what happened in this crime spree, keep in mind, this was all documented through the confessions of these guys. Nobody really knows. And just like any other case, nobody really knows what happened because nobody was there except for these two guys.
We'll get into the fact that there were two girls that rode around with them for a short time, but they weren't with them every second of the day. There's something that just does not make sense in any of this. And it could be the fact that these guys, you know, no one's heard from Brandon Basham. No one really, you know, that remorse and regret and that shame that you don't want your family to know exactly what happened.
So that's why what follows the timeline of events, just keep in mind that it's not, it's coming from the convicted killers. The men at the heart of this terrifying criminal spree were 25-year-old Chadwick Falks and 19-year-old Brandon Basham. Falks, a native of rural West Virginia and Basham, born and raised in Kentucky, were cellmates in Hawkins County, Kentucky jail in November 2002. Falks was imprisoned for credit card fraud and robbery.
Basham was doing time on forgery charge. On the day of November 4th, 2002, the two men escaped from the jail's unsupervised recreational yard and began a multi-state reign of terror. So basically the way that Chad recounted this to his attorney later was, yeah, we were outside just doing our exercise time and there were no guards out there so Brandon and I just walked away. That's how easily these guys broke out of prison.
And that's what, we will hear that in the interview when we talk to one of the attorneys involved in the case. He said that he went and visited this jail and he said it's not some maximum security jail where they watch you every second. He goes, you could easily walk out of here if you were in jail. So, I mean, that just tells you how under supervision these guys really weren't under supervision.
The timeline of Falks and Basham's crimes over the next two weeks after their jailbreak is as follows. November 4th, they escape from jail. November 6th, a 42-year-old man from Hanson, Kentucky named James Hawkins is abducted by two men who stole his car and left Hawkins tied to a tree. Hawkins later identifies his abductors as Falks and Basham.
November 11th, Samantha Burns disappears from Huntington, West Virginia. A five-hour drive from the last location Falks and Basham were seen. November 14th, Alice Donovan, a 44-year-old mother from Gallivans Ferry, South Carolina disappears from a Walmart parking lot in near... by Conway, South Carolina.
She was reportedly ambushed by two men who forced their way into her car at gunpoint and demanded Alice drive away. This was the last time Alice Donovan was seen alive. November 17th, Basham, who found his way back to Kentucky, was arrested after an attempted carjacking at the Ashland Town Center, just 20 minutes from Huntington, West Virginia, where Samantha disappeared. November 20th, Falks leads police on a high-speed car chase through Ohio, but is able to escape.
He is arrested when he arrives at his brother's house in Goshen, Indiana, where Alice Donovan's car was later recovered. So this was just a basic timeline that authorities began to piece together to link Falks and Basham to the crimes. What police did not know until years later was the extent of the cold-hearted crimes that the two men later confessed to, crimes fueled by drugs, histories of family abuse, and accusations of mental incompetencies. Now, the information I want to give in this story has been pieced together from multiple news sources and recounted hundreds, if not thousands of times over the past 17 years.
Falks and Basham's stories have varied greatly. Multiple wild goose chases for the remains of Samantha Burns, the murderers both pointing fingers at the other to take the blame for the crimes, and two unnamed women who claimed to have traveled with Falks and Basham during their course of the crime spree littered local news and continued to baffle authorities and torture the families involved in this insane story. These guys had an agenda. You see, like, this pattern with people who end up murdering.
They always start small. And I don't want to give too much away because, like, as we, you know, we proceed with these interviews and these episodes, you're going to hear who this guy Chadwick Falks was from his counsel, his legal counsel that he had. And we'll describe in detail who this guy was when we play that interview for you in the following episodes. But it just appears to me that these guys had an agenda.
And all of these crimes always culminate into something more. It starts small, and then they become bigger and bigger and bigger. And these guys just, they tested the limits of their, of what they could do, what they could get, what they could get away with, because they did. I just want to make a clarification here for people who don't understand, um, United States law, how these things fall into certain jurisdictions.
When you commit a crime in a single state, and it stays within that state, you are in the custody of that jurisdiction, that state. So if these guys would have just committed a crime in West Virginia, it would have been a West Virginia case. But instead, they went from state to state and committed different crimes. So it becomes a federal crime, a multi-state crime.
The U.S. government then takes over the jurisdiction of these two individuals. And they ended up in, uh, Indiana federal prison, because that was the closest federal prison to where the crimes were committed. So let's look first at the history of these criminals.
Chad Falks was born and raised in rural West Virginia into a culture of poverty and drug abuse. It was said that his mother was an alcoholic and drug abuser. Attorneys even claiming at one point that Falks suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome and had a below average IQ. During Falks' teen years, he too turned to drugs and alcohol and was in and out of juvenile detention centers.
In November 2002, he found himself in a Kentucky jail, placed in a cell with a Kentucky boy named Brandon Basham. Brandon Basham's story was much the same. As a toddler, Basham's mother would blow marijuana smoke into his face to calm him down, later sharing drugs with him throughout his childhood. He spent time in multiple state-run children's homes, even psychiatric centers.
It was no surprise to anyone when he ended up in jail in Kentucky alongside Chad Falks. So many versions of what actually happened during Falks and Basham's crime spree have been told over nearly two decades of investigation. But one of the accounts that I found the most credible wasn't actually told by the men. Like I mentioned before, a local news station recounted the tale as told by two women who claimed they traveled with Falks and Basham as they committed these heinous crimes.
The women were Tina Severance and Andrea Roddy. Severance was the former girlfriend of Chad Falks. So in going forward with this, one thing that I want to mention is it took me a while to dig and find the names of these women. From my recollection, they were never actually told in the media.
I don't know if that was to protect their privacy, to maybe protect them from whatever retaliation that people would have had against them. I didn't actually find their names until I started digging through court documents. The women's story is as follows. Sometime between November 6 and November 9, they were picked up by Falks and Basham in Indiana where Falks' brother lived.
The women confessed to helping the men steal guns, jewelry, and checks. They even claimed that at one point while they were staying in an Indiana hotel, the police showed up at the complex where they were staying, but left before searching the room they were staying in with Falks and Basham. On November 10, the group left Indiana, driving into Ohio. They claimed Falks and Basham stopped somewhere and bought groceries and camouflage clothing.
The next day, the group drive into Canova, West Virginia and rent a hotel room. The town of Canova is about a 10-minute drive from Huntington where Samantha Burns goes missing. The women said Falks and Basham leave the hotel the evening of November 11 and return the early morning hours of November 12, dirty and carrying muddy clothing. The morning of November 12, the group checks out of the hotel in Canova, West Virginia and begins their trip to South Carolina.
The women claimed that during the trip, they noticed a box of candy in the men's car, the kind of candy you would sell for kids' school fundraisers. It was later determined that Samantha Burns had a box of candy like that in her car when she disappeared. The women also claimed that they now noticed Basham was wearing a heart-shaped ring around his neck. It was also later determined that that was Samantha Burns' ring.
The women say they found Samantha's ID in the men's car. When asked where it came from, Basham told them the items came from a car they burglarized. After the group reached South Carolina, they attempted to rob another home but were involved in a shootout with the homeowner. Falks and Basham stole a truck at the home and headed towards Conway, South Carolina.
During this time, Alice Donovan went missing from a Walmart parking lot there. The women claimed Falks and Basham left them in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and that was the last contact they had with them. So this is where Severance and Roddy claimed they parted ways with Falks and Basham. In the coming days, Basham would be arrested in Kentucky and Falks and Indiana, putting a halt to their reign of terror across the states.
But the investigation into the disappearance of Samantha Burns and Alice Donovan were just beginning, the police beginning to point fingers in the direction of both men. I want to go back to the ring. And we get into this in that interview with his legal counsel. Brandon Basham had a heart-shaped ring around his neck that he wore.
And one of the things they said, right, to those girls said that he would constantly play with it, right? He was constantly fiddling with it. Yeah, it was on a chain that he wore around his neck and she said they noticed it because he kept fiddling with it as they were driving. And that's like a souvenir kind of thing.
You know, why would you, if you were burglarizing somebody's car and you found a heart-shaped ring, why would you put it around your neck? Because I fully believe that if they hadn't been stopped because they were stupid and got busted in their crimes, I think they would have continued to kill people. I 100% believe that. They were damn near, they were one person, one victim away from being serial killers.
And if they had been given just another day or two, I'm fully convinced they would have been serial killers. Now we get into the fact that they were arrested separately. What caused that? Why did they split up?
So you'll hear it in our interview with Matt, so I don't want to get too much out of the way, but when they went to the Ashland Town Center, they were still together. So that's in Kentucky. That's literally 20 minutes from where we're sitting right now. So Basham got out of the car, was attempting to, I guess, carjack another car, and left Fulks in the running car that they had stolen.
It was Alice Donovan's car. And he said, Basham said to Fulks, don't leave me here. I'm going to go rob somebody else. They were out of money.
They were out of everything at this point. And so Chad decided to leave. He knew that they were in over their heads. At this point, there are two women who were missing and presumed murdered, and it was what he thought at that point in his best interest to run.
So he leaves Basham at the Ashland Town Center, where Basham is arrested, and Fulks continues on to his brother's house in Indiana. I firmly believe that. Like you said, they would have continued killing, and I think it would have became more sadistic because I think it would have turned into stalking. So, you know, it seems like it was just a random person that they just happened to be, but both of them were women.
So I think there was some kind of stalking involved. They may have watched somebody for a while, or just, you know, for Alice Donovan, she's picked up at Walmart. Perhaps they were sitting at the Walmart, seen her walk in, and waited until she came back out. And I don't think that this randomly picking two women was by chance.
I don't think it was a random crime at all. I disagree. I think it was random. I think they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, because as we go along with the story, you will realize these guys were not geniuses.
I really think that they found the first two petite women who were traveling by themselves that they thought they could overtake and just jump on the situation. But that's what I mean. They had to have been watching. They had to have been looking for that type of person.
Well, yeah, that was their only type. Female, petite, and alone. So that was their MO. So they had a certain idea of what they wanted to do.
And that's what I mean. Like, you know, maybe not sitting there for days watching this person, but I mean that they waited until they found somebody who fit that type that they could easily overpower. And it just happened to be these two women. And I honestly think it would have gotten worse.
It would have gotten worse. Both Fulks and Basham were questioned about the disappearances as police continued to piece together the crimes. However, each man blamed the other. During questioning, Basham allegedly told police that Fulks, quote, got a girl in West Virginia.
Basham later recanted that statement, saying he only meant that they had robbed a girl of her credit cards in West Virginia. However, on November 26th, Brandon Basham told police that Samantha Burns was dead, and he and Fulks had rolled her body into the Guyandot River, just outside of Huntington, where she had been abducted. In December 2002, Basham called a former teacher of his in Kentucky, and during a recorded phone conversation with the teacher, he said, quote, Yes, sir, we killed them. The details of what happened during the trials of Basham and Fulks were drawn out, but can basically be broken down into a few short sentences.
Number one, both men had confessed to the crimes of abduction and murder in regards to Alice Donovan, and both men were charged with carjacking and kidnapping resulting in death. In 2003, both men were charged with carjacking resulting in death in Samantha Burns' case. Chad Fulks' attorneys decided that, in an attempt to save his life, they would skip a trial by jury and go straight to the sentencing phase, knowing that they had two options, either life in prison or death. In May 2004, the court sentenced Chad Fulks to death.
Brandon Basham, however, took a different approach. His case went to trial and commenced as follows per court records. During trial, Basham admitted culpability in the carjacking and kidnapping, but argued that Fulks committed Donovan's murder and was the instigator throughout the crime spree. To that end, during Brandon Basham's opening statement, counsel argued that the only issue in controversy was Basham's intent to commit serious bodily harm to Donovan at the time of the abduction.
In framing this issue, Basham noted that he could not drive a car and had never been outside of Kentucky prior to prison, that all the places they visited were places from Fulks' past, and that Fulks was dominant and intelligent, and Basham was limited intellectually and passive. After a 13-day trial, the jury convicted Basham of eight counts in the superseding indictment. The penalty phase began in October 12, 2004. The government introduced the trial records as its principal evidence, but also introduced testimony from correctional officers and a female nurse regarding Basham's misconduct, drug use, and sexual misconduct towards female employees in prison.
The government also introduced testimony from Donovan's husband, daughter, and sister regarding the impact Donovan's death had on their family. Finally, the government entered a videotape showing a courtroom scuffle between Basham and the U.S. Marshals that occurred during the guilt phase of trial. In mitigation, Basham offered six statutory and 13 non-statutory factors.
The six statutory factors were, one, impaired capacity, two, duress, three, minor participation, four, no prior violent criminal conduct, five, emotional disturbance, and six, just quote, other factors. In particular, Basham put forth evidence that his parents encouraged his bad behavior, forced him to steal, to support their drug habits, and even introduced him to drugs. Basham was also sexually abused by one of his father's friends. Basham put forth the mitigation evidence regarding his mental condition.
It was shown that he was diagnosed with learning disabilities at a young age and eventually placed into the homes following his expulsion from school. Basham also put forth evidence suggesting that he had a deteriorating mental condition, which had declined from 100 as a child to approximately 68 as an adult due to illegal drug abuse and other factors. Experts testifying on Basham's behalf diagnosed him as suffering from brain impairment, multiple-caused dementia, drug-inhalant psychosis, and anxiety. His psychiatrist admitted him under oath, however, that these problems did not contribute to his offenses or keep him from distinguishing between right and wrong.
Finally, Basham put forth evidence of his ability to adapt to prison life through the testimony of prison officials. However, on November 2, 2004, following a 16-day penalty phase, Basham was sentenced to death. I cannot believe you hear so many stories of all these guys who are just this arrogant, basically piece of shit while they're out, while they're free, while they're running around. And this guy was not limited.
This guy, he was the mastermind. And you hate to judge it both by its cover. But when you see pictures of these two, you can see which one was the brooding leader. And it wasn't Chad Falks.
I guarantee you, and I've said this before, and you'll hear me say this in all these recordings that we've done when we're in these locations, they both were there when both of these women were killed. You will hear claims from Chad Falks that he was not there. He would walk away, and Brandon Basham would commit the crime. But I can guarantee you, they both were there.
And to hear that these guys put in all these things saying they have limited brain function and because of drug use, well, that's not the issue. The issue is that they killed two innocent people and didn't just kill them, horrendously killed them, made them suffer. And to me, they deserved what they got. And as this story unfolds, you'll begin to hear how both of these guys pointed fingers at each other through testimony and everything else here who the real ringleader was.
And it wasn't Chad Falks. So, Shay, that's basically how the story plays out, the timeline, from the minute they break out of prison November of 2002 until finally Brandon Basham is sentenced to death in November of 2004. So over the course of two years, this story plays out. But it's 17 years later now.
And the biggest problem that I have remaining in the story, and one of the reasons that I even wrote to Chad Falks originally or wanted to bring the story to our listeners, is that Samantha Burns' remains have never been recovered. Chad Falks has never denied that he knew where these women were. In fact, six years after Alice Donovan disappeared, Chad Falks drew a map for authorities in Conway, South Carolina, and said, this is where you'll find Alice Donovan. And where he didn't want to live.
He did not live there. No, no. Chad Falks was born and raised in West Virginia. And so the police went.
They searched for Alice Donovan. And they came back to Chad and said, she's not there. And his exact words were, no, you have to push further. You have to go through this thicket of brush way out into the woods.
And this is where you're going to find her. And by God, that's where they found her. It has been a very long, seven years. And at the same day of the day, I can't believe the day has finally come.
The day that I'm gone for. The day that I have turned up. The day that we could make home, Alice, to rest. A chance to finally say goodbye.
Mommy will threaten me in my heart and soul. I love you that I'm back with my feet. And have a little closure. We're glad it's over and we're finally able to lay mom to rest.
And we're looking forward to starting a new chapter in our lives as we end the chapter as a mom. The 44-year-old mother, too, went missing in November 2002 and was found in South Carolina in January. After her convicted killer, Chadrick Falk threw a map that led to her remains. The Q Center for Missing Persons in Wilmington led the way in the search for Alice and was there when her remains were discovered.
But on a personal endeavor for me, it was something personal because the children, the girls, relied on me so heavily to help them. And we were able to do that for them. And that was a great sense of accomplishment. Kacen and the family had a team of volunteers help with the searching.
Jim Williams was one of them. He didn't know Alice, but still stood by them in a long search. It brings a closure in a way. It doesn't do away with the memories.
But we know it's no longer an enemy to search. Those memories are something all we hold on to. Memories of a mother, always missed and never forgotten. Ashley White, News 14, Carolina.
Chad Falks knew where Alice Donovan was. He drew a map to her exact location. The part that pisses me off so much about this. is that on several attempts he's done the same thing for samantha and her family and local authorities but he's drawn maps to different locations these locations have been searched and searched and searched and samantha has never been found so three of the locations that stood out to me that they talked about number one he talked about an area called beach fork lake when you and i drove out to german ridge road yesterday to the location where they found samantha's car on fire that's the direction of beach fork so you're talking about a half an hour south of huntington in a very remote area they searched areas of beach fork where where folks said her remains were and nothing was ever located now remember chad's telling them that during the course of these crimes they were super high on myth so they it was it may have escaped him the area where she actually was so he gives them another location and this location is the one that bothered me the most and one of the reasons that this story has haunted me for 17 years 2006 or 2007 my dad calls me on his way home from work and he said something really strange happened here today my dad owned a business that sat right along the guy in dot river and so he was at work one day and about midday all of these police cars and unmarked cars started showing up on his property they drive over dad's property over the railroad tracks and down towards the river and park on this big bank and people start getting out and they start walking and they start looking and my dad walks out and says can i help you folks with something and both state and local authorities said no sir this is a private matter and he said well this is my private property my dad says okay well if you need anything i'm over here he didn't push the issue and his dad is walking back towards his building another car drives in this obviously not a police car not an unmarked like fbi type car and there's a man and a woman in this car who dad said we're about his age and his dad walks past them the man rolls down his window and my dad says to him sir do you know what they're doing here can i help you guys with something do you know what they're looking for and the man says they're looking for my daughter and it really my dad was so hurt because he remembered that samantha and i had been in school together at the same time and he remembered how terrified that people were to be on campus i can't tell you how many of my friends bought hazers and pepper spray and nobody was allowed to go anywhere on their own and it terrified all of us for so long and eventually you just get used to it and everybody i guess felt like they were safe again but in turn people kind of forgot that samantha never made it home you know these guys are now in jail on death row convicted of her murder and the murder of alice donovan but samantha's family never had that closure samantha's younger brother was the age of my younger brother and they played basketball against each other during junior high and high school and i remember going to their games and seeing samantha's parents come in and one game in particular they sat in front of me on the bleachers and as they come in you know the whisper start people realize who they are and i don't think either one of them said a word during that entire game and you realize that these are people who are just going through the motions of their life do you have a daughter imagine what would happen if your daughter left one day and never came home i could never imagine i would never rest and that's why you know i can mirror your dad's your dad's um demeanor in his the way he approached the situation when they were searching his property because he starts to realize that he had you know he has a daughter and she was the same exact age you know you were the same exact age that she was i could have been samantha i've been in that apartment building where she disappeared from i had friends who lived there i spent countless hours at that mall that she worked at it could have been me as easily as it could have been anyone else and that's why it bothered me so much and to this day it continues to bother me and dad dad was stunned when he talked to mr burns and he said i'm here looking for my daughter and he just basically stepped away and said if you need anything i'm inside you know if you guys need to just come in and use the bathroom or get a drink of water or whatever you need to do feel free to come in you've got free reign of the place and they searched that day and i believe some of the next day and left and nothing was ever found that's the worst part about missing people is that there's no closure there's no even if you know that they are dead or that somebody confessed to the murder you don't in the back of your mind you don't really know there's still that hope inside of you that maybe they were wrong maybe they got it wrong maybe they meant somebody else and until that person is brought back home and they can be laid to rest properly it's a never-ending nightmare it's a continuing going through the motions as you said it's it's a it's a loss that i could not even imagine and i've said this before you know we've talked a lot about human trafficking and all that other stuff if something happened to my child i would rather know and see that their life has ended than know that there's a chance that they're out there somewhere waiting to be found or even still alive and it's something that that's why it means so much to people to keep these stories alive and going because in the end of the day you want the story to close and you want samantha to be brought home and two selfish people know where she is and in my opinion i think they're playing a game and that just makes the story even more more uh more terrible because you know they want something in return for something else like quid pro quo and it just doesn't work that way i fully believe that the only reason that chad folks has not told authorities exactly where samantha's remains are is that in whatever state of intelligence he is he believes that it will be his kind of his lifeline on death row i fully believe that he thinks they won't put him to death as long as he continues to make these claims to know where samantha is he drew map after map after map and she you've read the letters that he wrote to me and when we get into that episode you will understand the depravity of this man and of brandon basham because even in these letters he still points fingers at basham i found myself after the interview with matt rawlings one of chad's attorneys almost feeling a little sorry for chad folks like maybe he fully didn't understand the reason that he was on death row he talks about being on suicide watch that he was left naked and alone in his cell because they wouldn't give him anything that he could possibly end his life with and then i receive those damn letters and everything changed and i find myself being so angry over the story all over again angry and sad and disgusted at these people who took the lives not only of alice donovan and samantha burns but they took the lives of their families these people will never be the same again the burns family lost their daughter the donovans lost a mother and a wife and it's to me like you said before i think death is easier than never knowing where they are never recovering them knowing that your child was thrown away like a piece of garbage or somebody's sick pleasure or somebody's desire of their own of their own making like these guys burglarize people and you will hear that in the interview that chad folks clearly says yeah i'm a thief and now he's a he's a murderer and now he's attempting to spare his own life on death row by claiming to know where samantha burns remains still are but i want to touch on a point and very important point and this is what sticks in my head about this they were high on meth that's not an excuse but they were on drugs the whole crime spree that's what this all was about getting high okay and he drew a map to alice donovan and they found her they know exactly where samantha burns is there's just no there's no way that he doesn't because if he can draw a map a detailed map to a location that he was not familiar with where he was not from but he's from this area he knows exactly and i think annie hit the nail on the head when you hear these letters he's using it as a lifeline to maybe keep himself from being executed but it ain't gonna happen if he wants closure he needs to tell this family where their daughter is something else that really deserved me about this case were these two women who traveled with them like i said before i don't ever remember in local news media them talking about picking out these two women now again this was 17 years ago and a lot of news was covered but that was a part that somehow escaped me i've never been able to find that these two women were charged with any type of crime during these sprees and to me that's a huge injustice these women knew that something was going on they helped them rob they helped them steal they were involved in whatever this shootout was in south carolina but these women were never charged with anything at least no court records that i have ever found that they were charged in this crime and i 100% failed to believe that they didn't know that some of this shit was going on they have plea bargains i mean there's no way you spend that much time with somebody and you don't see even if you don't know exactly what's going on you suspect something terrible they come home with muddy muddy clothes you know and they're real weird and being whatever about the situation like you know something happened you know something terrible happened you can sense it you know being a paranormal investigator and going to all these haunted locations when you walk into a place you can feel when it's not right it's the same thing as dealing with people on a daily basis when somebody walks into a room and something is going on that's not right you you sense that that shift in the energy you know something's going on and these two women knew exactly what these guys demeanor were who they were because they were with them on a daily basis they know what happened and it was one of these women who first noticed that random basham had a woman's ring around his neck and so i think that was their first real clue that something more was going on during these crimes than just running around robbing people and trying to make it down merdle beach no you take you take a woman's ring what's your main goal that's your if you're gonna sell that right you're gonna find this ring all this is golden i'm robbing her i'm gonna sell this ring for money right you're not gonna wear it around your neck that's a memento they were so petty that they took a box of candy cars from her car you cannot tell me that these are two men who had any sort of heart or compassion or whatever the hell else you want to call it no they had none these men are cold-blooded killers and deserve to be where they are right now on death row and as this series of episodes plays out we're going to bring to you this letters we're going to bring to you matt rawlings the attorney's um interview and then again we're going to bring to you this crazy man who claimed in 2017 in chesapeake ohio which is 10 minutes from here just across the river that his new wife said that samantha burns was married on their property it's crazy it's 17 years later this story is still blowing my mind and i you know you'll hear me say it throughout the whole thing you're gonna hear clips of us going to these locations describing the area and some of it makes sense that you know maybe they did come here we retrace the footsteps of that night what happened but i must say that you'll hear time and time again of these two guys limited intelligence but i want to go back to that ring that's not limited intelligence that's knowing exactly what you did and these guys these guys are right where they're supposed to be i feel no ounce of sorrow for either one of these guys i guess in the closing statements of this episode i again would reach out to anyone who's listening to this that if you knew anything about samantha burns if you knew anything about chad folks or brandon basham and would be willing to talk with us about it in whatever capacity if you were friends with one of these people as a child if you knew them from another incarceration whatever i don't care we have said that as long as people are still willing to talk to us about this case we are willing to talk to you and bring it to the public through this podcast so you can always reach out to us on any of our social media platforms facebook twitter my personal instagram whatever we will post all the links to all of that on this episode detail and if you have anything that you want to add to this case please feel free to do so and if you wish to remain anonymous we can make it anonymous so like any said contact us with any information it would be most appreciated because the goal here is to keep this story in the limelight and hopefully someday bring samantha burns home thank you for listening to another episode of serial spirits the podcast if you have any information on the disappearance of samantha burns please contact your local law enforcement or us at serial spirits on facebook.com follow us on twitter at serial spirits listen to us on soundcloud at soundcloud.com serial spirits the podcast visit us at www.paranormalwarehouse.com