Surrounded by Evil /// Part 2 /// 914

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The police want to talk to all the auto shoppers for ease, they're in the process of doing so.

And as said, too, that they decide to hone in on will be Ross Helms and Billy Minkley.

Now law enforcement will quickly learn that the person whose job title, he's basically,

I don't know his job title, but basically captain, he's the shop handyman.

He's your fix it guy, but he's not somebody fixing vehicles, he's not a mechanic.

The shop handyman, his name is Ross Helms, he drove an SUV that the police describe as not

unlike the one captured on surveillance video. So maybe he's the guy. And then he would have

access and probably knowledge of the surveillance footage. Well, and remember,

they're at a disadvantage of having to review surrounding surveillance footage rather than

the actual auto shops surveillance footage. And so at that distance, the best they can make out is

not exactly what SUV pulled up there, but as they said, his SUV was not unlike the one that they

captured on that video footage. So obviously interview this guy during his interview, Ross Helms said

that when Leah Martin disappeared, he had worked at the shop that day up until about 5.30 pm. So

this is about the same time that my man Raphael said that he was leaving. After this 5.30 marker,

leaving work, he says that he went off to a friend's home, the intention was to hang out and

drink until the early morning hours. The friend, his name is Michael Brown. He tells police, he's like,

yeah, I didn't see Ross that night. Liar, liar, pants on fire. He says, I was with my wife and

my kids and not with Ross Helms. Right. So I don't know why he told you guys that. So they sit old

Rossi boy down, our boy George Oliva would like this. Ross Helms fails a lie detector test. I don't

know what questions he was asked, but the record states that he failed the polygraph. Not a good sign.

Yeah. Well, he's lying to the cops about his whereabouts and his alibi. He fails the polygraph test.

Not good. Fails the poly. So what do you got to do here? You go looking for the paper trail.

So let's go looking for that paper trail. Phone records are great. The phone records showed

Ross Helms and his coworker Billy Minkley made several calls to one another on the night of

Leah Martin's disappearance. Interesting, right? Fish sticks. So by the time that we get to our next

event here, we are about a month and a half into the ongoing searches for our missing mother here.

Now authorities are talking to everyone they know, and they learned that Helms relative. So

a relative of Ross Helms, her name is Armonique Jefferson. And it looks like she can provide some

information here for our investigators. She told investigators that Ross paid her $20

to call Leah and make threats to her. Armonique also said that she was at Ross's house

on the Friday night that is in question. And then at some point that night, she says,

late Friday night, Ross came out to the house with a friend who she later identified as Billy

Minkley. Remember, we know from phone records, they were on the phone with each other several times

that night. Now we have a person who's saying, I saw the two together that night at Ross's home

and old, by the way, he paid me 20 bucks to call a couple times and make these threatening calls

to this person that I don't know. Leah's aunt, somehow this information makes its way to her aunt,

Renee Martin. She takes it upon herself to do a little snooping. And she visits Ross Helms

property. So her and a friend walked the property. And then they report back telling police

what they found. They say that they saw evidence of a fresh dig and the smell of decomposition.

Not good. Now authorities acted swiftly, leading to the grim discovery, the unfortunate

sad grim discovery of Leah's body buried on Ross Helms property. So this is August 2015 when

they recovered the body. She was bound and concealed in a blanket. This is August 5th, 2015.

When authorities exhumed the body of Leah Martin, she was found covered in a blanket and bound with

duct tape with a plastic bag wrapped around her head. Quote, she had a rock stuck in her mouth. The

rock that was stuck in her mouth was to keep her from biting the plastic bag that had been put

on her head. And quote, that quote came from her aunt Renee Martin. She said that

while she was very, very sad crying about this discovery. Leah Martin's remains were found and

recovered from 56 56 FM 209. The property belongs as said to Ross Helms, him and his wife Ross

and Christa Helms. It's a property just off of Farm Road 209 just outside of Graham, Texas.

But this changes everything because we go from she's missing what happened. We've covered a lot of

missing person cases. You start speculating. Did she run away with another guy? Did she run

away to start a new life? Did did something bad happen to her? Did she get hurt and doesn't know

who she is or where she's at. But because of this surveillance footage at the car shop, I think you

go, well, it looks like there's a good possibility that there's foul play. Now we have all those

answers by finding the body. And then obviously now this is narrowed down our suspect pole. So we're

going to at least be able to and not always, but it's hard to bring a nobody case to trial.

Yes, it doesn't happen very often. In fact, you don't want to, we've talked about double

jeopardy over the years. You don't want to bring something to trial until you feel like you've

tapped into everything that you could put in your arsenal to get a conviction. And that is a

difficult hurdle to clear. Now here what you have is you have enough to charge this guy with murder.

I, you know, you have an SUV that isn't unlike the one you saw in the surveillance footage,

pulls up person gets out of the SUV, goes into the shop. This man works at the shop,

Ross Earl Helms. And you see the vehicle you believe belonging to Leah, you believe Leah

getting out of that vehicle going into the same garage bay later, you see the person leaving

getting in that SUV and you never really see Leah leaving. And now you have found her remains.

And in the state that they're found, buried concealed, wrapped, found in the ground on Ross

Earl Helms property. And then you also have Armanique telling him or telling police about, well,

I was paid to make these threatening phone calls. I also saw this is your kink in the hose here.

I also saw Billy Minkley out here or a person that she later identifies as Billy Minkley

at the house on the night in question, where the bodies later found. So we got to tap everything

we can here on this Minkley situation. So law enforcement here, they catch another break.

We learned this from the arrest warrant affidavits because I couldn't, this wasn't found outwardly in

any one particular news source. But if you dig for the arrest warrant affidavits here, you get some

more of the information nuggets. So this shows that the investigators got their break in the

Leah Martin case after a man told them that Ross Earl Helms had come to his house the day

after Leah Martin vanished. And he goes to the house carrying a paper bag that contained clothing

and a salt off shotgun. Helms told the man he intended to throw these items away to trash them.

He wanted to put them in a random trash bin. This man, look, I'm not going to be

friend him because he was friends with Ross Helms. But God bless him for doing this because

he says he talked Ross out of getting rid of the shotgun. He says, he persuades Ross Helms to

give him the gun because he says, look, if you just put in some random trash bin, some kid could

find it. Right. And we don't want to deal with the outcome or result of what could be a horrific

accident here based off of just throwing a firearm in a random trash bin. Well, and it has value.

So give me the gun and I'll either take care of it or I will sell it myself. He just wanted to

secure it. And he still has the gun when he comes after he after the finding of the body, he now

realizes that his friend Ross Helms is not is no friend at all. He goes to police and says, hey,

this happened the day after this Leah person went missing and oh, by the way, here's a gun that I

talked them into giving me. And so he gives this gun to the police. They're talking to Ross Helms,

of course, Helms claims he got the gun from Billy Minkley. So you're working to buy some time

here. If you're the police, if you're the investigators, you're working to buy some time. This is

to collect more answers. You've just recovered the body. You are going to be seeking more answers

from the autopsy that's going to take place. You're also working to build a case as everything is

coming nicely into the purview here. Yeah, but with every step you're turning up the heat,

right? Okay, you lied to me about where you're at. Now I got you lying on a polygraph. Now we find

the body. Now we can do a autopsy every little step. All now we got this friend of yours that has

one of your guns. Every little step in this investigation starts turning up the heat. And that's

just the information that these two suspects know about. They don't know about some of the details

that the cops and law enforcement are working behind the scenes. Or what else is coming out? Who

else is talking to law enforcement? Well, and you can arrest a person. You can hold them. But you

can only hold them for a certain period of time before you actually put charges to that hold. So

Ross Helms, we talked about trying to buy some time here to get those autopsy results and some more

information. Ross Helms and Billy Minkley, they are arrested on gun charges, but it's stated very

clearly and publicly this is not connected to Leah Martin's disappearance or her death. So

you're holding these guys here. Billy Ray Minkley, Jr. is arrested and charged with tampering with

physical evidence possession of a firearm by a felon. So he's already a felon before any of this

happens and possession of a prohibited weapon. Ross Helms also arrested and booked on similar charges.

These men, even though they're arrested, they're being peppered with questions about Leah Martin's

disappearance. How did she die? Why is she on your property? So on and so forth. These men say

very little, very little until Billy Minkley, Jr. and this presented to him by law enforcement,

they say, you know what? Since you won't talk about Leah Martin, Minkley, you are our number, you

have just become our number one suspect in an unrelated 2014 triple homicide. This is a strange

turn of events. Yeah, I was going to say, how does that happen? So here we go, Captain. This is

from a fort worth Texas triple homicide, a case that truly, truly was starting to go cold.

The details summarize everything because we're going to run through it, not crawl through it.

On June 2, 2014, the bodies of Ronnie Jackson, age 57, his common law wife Elizabeth Bernard

sesams age 47 and their friend visiting friend to their home, David Adams, age 50, they were

discovered inside Jackson's fort worth home located in the 200 block on sunset lane.

Each of these three victims had been shot once. Okay. Two of them had been shot in the head,

found in one room and I believe it was Ronnie Jackson, who was found shot in the chest dead in

a bedroom lying on a bed. This discovery of these three dead individuals at the home of Jackson

and sesams came about because a neighbor was concerned. So a neighbor, a concerned neighbor,

Jackson and sesams, they couldn't say no to a stray cat.

Stray cat shows up, they feed it, they keep it, they care for it. So they had like, I don't know,

it does in stray cats, let's say. And this neighbor said that like clockwork every day at 730 AM,

Ronnie Jackson and most times Elizabeth would join him. He would be seen outside of the home in

early morning feeding all of the cats. And this neighbor had noticed several days had gone by

and these cats hadn't been fed. She hadn't seen Ronnie. She hadn't seen Elizabeth.

Now Ronnie Jackson's father actually owns the home. So this neighbor calls Ronnie's father.

And Ronnie's father's 80 years old in 2014. And she tells him, hey, I've not seen your son.

These cats haven't been fed in several days. I've not seen Elizabeth. I've not seen anybody come

and go from the house. So she contacts this. The father, Elton Jackson is his name. He says he

goes out there to the home. And he didn't go inside. He approaches the house. He looks in a window

when nobody responds. He said immediately, he really felt like something terrible had happened.

He looks through the window and he says that he saw a person who appeared to be dead on the couch

and a person who appeared to be dead on the living room floor. Jesus. Yeah. He calls police,

of course, there and they're going to, they're going to dig through this, this crime scene.

Homicide detectives believe that the murders occurred on the evening of May 28.

So this is several days before they're found. So nearly a week before the bodies were found.

Detective Kyle Sullivan is the one that catches this case. He stated to the media that Ronnie Jackson

and Elizabeth Sessions who lived there, they were renting the home. They were known drug users.

And he believed because they were the occupants of the home and known drug users, they were likely

the intended targets here on what they were saying was no sign of force entry. So they theorized

that the killer was someone that they had that they knew right and knew enough that they were

willing to let this person into their home. Now quickly, I don't want to create a whole two other

episodes on this particular case, but I went into the investigation in this case and found it

fascinating. One thing they were able to figure out was while neighbors reported that a lot of

people can't would come and go from this house, maybe a little more activity than you would want to

see. All the neighbors said that these, they were very, I hesitate to use the word street smart

because it just seems like too vague of a statement here, but they, they were very particular about

who they let into their home. And so that's interesting for your investigation because this is saying,

this isn't somebody that they just knew. This is somebody that they knew well and for whatever

reason felt comfortable letting them into the home. And it's possible that they have drugs.

It's possible that they owe somebody money. It's possible that they have money for drugs. It's

possible that because they are drug users that maybe they felt like, well, maybe we should sell

some drugs. So there's a lot of motivation or there'd be a lot of motives here that you could

look at if you're law enforcement, but it's all revolving around that drug lifestyle.

And police knew this, the detectives knew this very early on. I would say almost immediately,

but what they purposely kept from the media was it was about three days before they announced

that this wasn't a murder suicide situation. They kind of let that linger for a little bit,

probably to see what would shake loose in the meantime. Now, they would go on to say that this

wasn't a murder suicide. That it was Jackson and Cecil were the likely targets that atoms

appears to have just been an unintended victim simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And they would later report that there were items that were missing from the house.

No signs of a struggle. No signs of forced entry. They never reported what those items were

that were missing from the home. And in all likelihood, they probably didn't fully

understand every item that was missing from the home. But it's interesting that they knew

stuff was missing from the home. The victims, family members described these victims as kind-hearted

individuals who struggled with addiction. Ronnie Jackson was remembered by his father as a giving man,

almost to a fault, he says, who battled addiction for years. Elizabeth Sessom was described by

her sister Donna Lot as very beautiful and outgoing before a lifelong struggle with drugs began

in her later years. It's one of the saddest things to see is somebody that seems like they have a

good life and a lot of things together and then they get sucked in and their life seems

to be controlled by this dark drug entity. Yeah. And Elizabeth had a lot of personal tragedies that

I think may have led to her addiction. Yeah, self-medication that turns into addiction.

David Adams was a 10 year Navy veteran and former city water department employee. He was described

by his brother Joe Adams as a very smart individual. In fact, I read some statements where Joe was saying

David was always the really smart one and he wished he had David's brains, his intelligence,

but he said, you know, and at some point he falls into addiction as well, but he still

kept up with his family, kept in contact with his family. He was still working odd jobs as a

handyman and very sad. He was still caring for their elderly mother at the time when he was

killed. He was actually reported missing by his family the day before. Well, this would have

been three days before he was found dead in that hole.

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So when Billy Minkley is presented with this information. Yeah, if you're the detective you're

got him in this interrogation and there's clips of video of this. This is actually later obtained

and released by the TV show buried in the backyard. Right. Billy Minkley is yelling and crying

and he's confessing to this triple homicide shooting. Okay, but let me just see if I'm following

you. They they basically know that this individual is connected somehow so then when they present it

to him, he's like, ah, shit. Time to spill the beans. Well, the remember the break in the case.

What was not so clear as to why was that a big break in the Lea Martin case? Right. The big break

was that shotgun. She wasn't killed with the shotgun. So it seems strange to go, well, that's a

big break in the case when this guy comes forward with this random shotgun saying that I got it from

Ross Helms who says he was given to him by Billy Minkley, but then you have three dead people

all killed by gunshots a year prior in another city for it worth. That gun was the gun that killed

those three people. Right. So why does he have this? God, him, but also, okay, if he killed these

three individuals, he's capable of killing. Oh, yeah. Yes, Martin, right? That goes that goes

with the very quote that I was going to cite right where we're all on the same page here, my friend.

I still want to hear the quote though. Quote, the Fort Worth triple homicide made us realize that Billy

Minkley is a person that could have no problem killing Lea said Lieutenant Smith. Bingo, boy, go.

So Billy Minkley agreed to discuss Lea Martin's murder, the details of her murder,

because he now needs to avoid facing the death penalty and the triple homicide case.

This triple homicide case is going to be pretty easy for them. Okay. As far as investigators go to

taking it from finding the guy, arresting the guy and getting a conviction. Why? Because, well,

Billy Minkley actually confessed to a couple people during that time period. So keep in mind,

it's almost a year between the time that between the two, the two crimes, right? And over a year

before Lea is found during that time period, he had confessed not a full on confession, but I'll give

you the first one. The second one's better as far as getting a conviction. The first one comes from

his father. His father says Billy told me that he killed those three people, but he told me it was

in self defense that one of them pulled the gun on him. He took the gun and he shot him, right?

Minkley's girlfriend who lived with him. This is why you should never have a girlfriend. She was

sitting in the car when he shot and killed those three people. Not only that, she went into the home

after they were killed. He told her the, he told her the same story, right? He told her the same

story that he did it in self defense that he, in fact, he says Ronnie pulled a gun on him. He

shot Ronnie and then was forced to shoot the other two. I don't really believe that, but she goes

into the home. She says that she witnessed the three of them dead and the two of them collected

items. So Billy lived at that home, not at the time of the murders, but months and months prior,

right? And there was some kind of property dispute between Billy and Ronnie.

Well, also like Billy had gone there according to the girlfriend to collect this property and he

collected, he was going to take it whether Ronnie was going to turn it over to him or not. And that's

what I think happened here. The result is three people dead and then Billy and his girlfriend

removing items from that home. Yeah, it's one thing. If you show up and you're wearing

a coat 45, right? It's Texas. Everybody's carrying. But your story is that this guy pulled a gun on me

and then I pulled a shotgun on him, right? Yeah, that's the part that's unclear that I couldn't

sort out. There was not enough information available to clearly decide did he arrive at the

home with this gun and just shoot three unarmed people out of anger or was portions of his story

true. Now, but either way you killed three people. Yeah, I'd lean that he showed up with a gun, but

then throwing that into the equation, you would have to charge the girlfriend and I was unclear

as to whether they charged his girlfriend with with any things substantial anyway. So, but now he's

he's scared. He's got to sing like a bird because they're threatening him with the death penalty

for killing three people. And so this is what they figure out and this is according to statements

released by the prosecutor. Remember, they've already they're charging these two with crimes

unrelated to Leah's case, but very soon going to be charging them with with Leah's murder. So,

according to this prosecutor, he says what we learned from Billy Minkley, Jr. was that EC Blair

was at the center of all this, the shop owner, the Leah Martin's employer, Billy Minkley's employer,

Ross Helms employer, the grandfather to her child. Billy Minkley tells investigators that EC Blair

was not happy with Leah and the difficulties that it was causing with his marriage and that EC

Blair wanted something done with Leah. In fact, there was some report out there, but I couldn't

absolutely confirm it where there was a statement by Billy Minkley, I believe that he says that

the EC believed that Leah Martin wanted to get back with Aaron Blair, his adopted son, the father

of their child. And that had a big had a big issue with that as well. Now, I don't again,

I couldn't back that up other than that one statement. But the the prosecutor believes that EC

Blair Lord Leah Martin to the office on the night of her murder. And this would make some sense.

She tells dad I'm going there to pick up some items, but remember her parents don't know that she

had any kind of relationship with EC Blair. So she might just tell dad that I got to stop my work.

Oh, why? Oh, we got to pick some things up. For whatever reason, the prosecutor seems to have

information suggesting to them that EC Blair Lord, her to the office that night that she was killed.

She once she's at the office, according to Billy Minkley, Leah is sitting on a couch in the office

looking at her phone. So she's not completely paying attention to the room. And Billy Minkley comes

up from behind her and violently strikes her in the head with a crowbar.

We're tired. I'm a pry bar crowbar tire and big heavy metal object out. In a different news article,

it is stated that according to Billy Minkley, he struck Leah with a crowbar at EC Blair's request,

describing a chilling sequence of events. Minkley and Helm's then placed a bag over her head to

quote, keep the blood from gripping everywhere. And quote, Billy said that he saw she was still alive

when the bag began to fill up with air. So he hit her one more time. And then the men put her body

in Ross Helm's Chevy top. The following day, Billy Minkley rented a backhoe and he and Ross Helm's

buried Leah on Helm's property. The rental came from Westside rental and Graham, Texas.

And here's a quote from the show says, quote, I went back there and I dug the nicest hole I could

and quote, that was a quote by Billy Minkley said in an interrogation video obtained by the TV

show buried in the backyard. So he says I went back there to bury a nice hole. I dug the nicest

hole I could. Wow. Minkley and Helm's were charged with murder and tampering with physical

evidence of a corpse to which Minkley pled guilty to the first charge and Helm's to both. Right.

Okay. So now Graham police Graham city police promptly arrested EC Blair owner of EC's auto repair

Blair was arrested and charged with murder after a search warrant was executed at the body shop

and Graham police sent out a press release. This is on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2015.

The press release is as follows. It says Graham police and Texas Rangers conducted a third

search of Blair's auto repair and are formally charging three individuals in the murder of Leah

Martin on September 8th, 2015. Investigators interviewed Billy Minkley, Jr. and during that

interview, he implicated himself and others in the murder of Leah Martin and also confessed to

participation in a homicide that occurred in Fort Worth in 2014. That case is still being

pursued by the Fort Worth police department because of the facts that came to light during the

interview of Minkley, a search of the premises where Leah Martin worked was conducted to search

for evidence that was unknown to investigators at the time of the previous search warrant suspects

being charged with Capitol murder in the death of Leah Martin are identified as Billy Ray

Minkley, Jr. age 42 of Graham Texas Ross Earl Helms age 42 of Graham Texas and Elton Carroll

Blair age 43 of Graham Blair and Helms will also be charged with tampering with evidence and a

human corpse. Oh, we got three pieces of shit right here. So we get these guys a confession plus

guilty police to the charges and obviously like he has to probably testify on some level.

Oh, yeah, against the other two. Yeah, so he's going to testify and then I mean, of course,

they got Ross Earl Helms dead to rights, right? I mean, they found the body on his property and

other people pointing the finger at Helms as well, not just this Billy Minkley, Jr. But what's left

hanging out there? Yeah, as Jerry would say, that's a big mots of all September, but your balls

are showing 18th, 2017 EC Blair old EC Blair. He doesn't admit to anything. Of course he doesn't.

So he's going to face a Capitol murder trial and that trial began on said date. And again, at this

trial, everything we've already discussed, everything that we've already uncovered, everything

that Billy Minkley Jr. was saying is all presented at trial. And the prosecutor's suspicions

all presented at trial, including the prosecutor pointing out and highlighting for the jury.

His belief not only was EC Blair involved, but he was at the center of this.

That he was the mastermind. In fact, when you look at it, when you look at the story, he's the

only one. He may have ordered the murder. He may have brought all the players together to the

same venue to watch it play out. But when you review the information, he's got evil on his heart

and on his soul, but he don't have no blood on his hands. According to the story that I've just

reviewed, Billy Minkley did the killing. Ross Helms helped them. And then the two of them were the

ones that took care of the body afterwards. They're the only two that were charged with tampering

with evidence. And for what? For I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I have no idea how this

worked out. I have no idea why these people. Now, Billy Minkley Jr., it's not, it's only a hopskip

and a quick jump to get from triple murder to killing somebody a year later. Right. It may mean

nothing to him. The cops never liked this Ross Helms either. I couldn't quite put my finger on it

why they wanted to look at him. It's also a little unclear as to who became important first,

right? Chicken or the egg. Ross Helms or Billy Minkley, but at some point they know based off of

records that, well, with Ross Helms, it's actually clear as dead now that I think about it. His

alibi for the night doesn't check out. Right. And then you figure out that he's talking to Billy

Minkley Jr., who has a record. Yeah. So the prosecutor saying at this trial, you have Leah

on the night that she goes missing talking on the phone and texting with EC Blair.

According to the prosecutor, that's fact. It's his shop. She got there somehow. She was

Lord there somehow. The defense theory for EC Blair was, oh, no, no, no, he didn't have anything

to do with it. He just happened to be the shop owner who at one time had some affair with this

girl. And she went there as said to collect her belongings like she told her father. And you got

these two losers, these two criminals in there at the shop at the time. And she their defense was

EC Blair had nothing to do with it. Leah Martin walked in on some sort of felonious behavior.

She witnessed something that she shouldn't have witnessed. Maybe a drug deal was going on. We

know that Billy Minkley had drug ties, methamphetamine. We can base that back to the triple homicide

in 2014 and Fort Worth. Yeah. Or you also maybe wonder like because it's a car shop or are they

doing a chop shop after hours? Yeah. But but whatever you surmise, whatever you are hypothesizing,

you have to kind of, well, you don't have to kind of you, you need to show some proof

that that was happening and that you weren't involved. And then you have these other two individuals

that I guarantee you they're making the statements of, well, we wouldn't have done any of this if it

wasn't for EC Blair. True. I mean, yes, that's a fair statement. But it's also the, you know,

the way that it should work is that you that they have to prove your guilt more than you have to

prove your innocence. And in this case, it was too big of a hurdle for the jury to get over

unfortunately. The defense idea and positioning of these two, we know these two guys did this.

Was Leah Martin just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Did she walk in on something? Did she

witness some sort type of felonious behavior? Did she witness something where they where Billy

Minkley Jr. Ross Helms just needed to kill her so she couldn't talk? However, the defense

packaged that they packaged it in a way that the jury could not find beyond a reasonable doubt

that EC Blair was involved with the murder. And therefore he, he was acquitted despite the

prosecution's best efforts despite law enforcement and detectives best efforts and work. He was

acquitted. And we already know that he's a piece of shit, but he is acquitted of this. He can't

be charged again unless they can find some kind of other angle, right? But then it would be

different charges. And so this guy just goes back to Graham, Texas. And he or close to Graham,

Texas. I guess he lives just outside. I would move away. But yeah, I don't think he goes out much.

I don't know. You know, again, like I said, this, this, because it's such a small community in

such a small population, these shops were big deals, right? And so this, this shop is then,

this is a reminder of the, the bad parts of, of humans. It's a constant reminder. Yeah, the,

the shop didn't was no longer an operation after 2015. That's, yeah. I guess some form of punishment

for this EC Blair. I, I hope his wife kicked them out of the house to kind of put a bow on this

here. August of 2018, Ross Earl Helms, 45, one of the three men accused. So this is after the trial,

right? After the trial where they don't get the conviction on EC Blair, Ross Helms body found on

his property, one of the three men accused in the murder of Leah Martin. He accepted a plea deal.

He pled guilty to three counts, murder, a first degree felony, tampering with and fabricating

evidence with the intent to impair a human corpse, a second degree felony, an unlawful possession

of a firearm by a felon, a third degree felony. He was sentenced to 20 years, 20 years, and 10 years

respectively. Helms is credited with three years for time served from August, when he was,

when he was arrested in 2015 up until the time of accepting the plea deal in 2018. So his time

on that 50 years starts in 2015 rather than an 18. So he's serving 20 years for the murder conviction

another 20 years for tampering. He's at the all red unit in Iowa Park, Texas. He's still there

being helped there. And then we have Billy Ray later learned that his nickname was tank,

but judging by his picture, dumbass would have been a better name. Billy Ray Minkley continues to

serve life without the possibility of parole at Telford, at the Telford unit in New Boston,

Minkley was accused of digging Martin's grave. As we said, Martin's body was found 10 miles west

of Graham. And he pled guilty to Martin's murder and change for life in prison to avoid that death

penalty. And unfortunately that EC Blair, he got lucky. He got lucky and they couldn't get a conviction

here as said that the case is featured on that show titled buried in the backyard that season six

episode two from the folks over at the oxygen network. And then what's left here, Captain, is you

have all these people without these four. Unfortunately, we stepped into this thinking we were going to have

to carry with our hearts one victim. We leave carrying carrying four victims, excuse me, with our

hearts here. And one of them very sad that she was a mother to a little girl Avery who was only

two years old at the time that her mother was was so brutally and cold heartedly killed at her

place of work. And she at the age of 12, she went online to her mother to her mother's obituary

online obituary and left the very nice message for her mother there. And it sounds like

as of 2024 that she was was doing well, living what's still living with her father and her they

were doing their very best to move on and carry on. She has a stepmom, stepbrothers and pets that

she loves and had some very nice thoughtful things to say about her mother that she misses.

This is very dear.

All right, I want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage each and every week.

Thanks for telling your mother. Thanks for telling your brother. Hey, try to tell your sister this

week as well. Colonel, do you have a chance to listen? Probably not. Do we have any recommended reading

for the beautiful listeners? Oh, I'll tell you what, this one I tell you something was a delight.

So I had a road trip. I didn't read this one. I listened to this one shout out to the good folks

over at Audible and I told you prior because I had a bit of a road trip coming up. So I knew I was

going to be facing a nine hours issue in the car. And so I listened to this one and it was a delight.

Might not be for everybody, but it was for me, Captain. You'll remember this one Hannibal Lector,

a life by Brian Rafferty. Yeah. And really interesting. He basically creates a biography about

a fictional character. And I'll give you the summary here. And it says portion of it anyway,

drawing from exclusive interviews and previously unseen archived materials. This is a one of its

kind biography of Hannibal Lector that documents the cannibal's journey from terrifying villain to

unexpectedly adored anti hero. This one was really interesting to me because it was as much about

the fictional character of Hannibal Lector. I learned a lot about the author who who gave birth

really and brought into this world Hannibal Lector Thomas Harris, who is a been a rather reclusive

celebrity, if you will, or a well-known individual. So you learn a lot about Thomas Harris. You

learn a good deal about the makings of some of those Hannibal Lector films in the TV series as well

as the actors and actresses that were involved in the making of those films. And as said, of course,

you'll learn a whole lot about Hannibal Lector. It was a fun read for me. And it feels a little

true crime without having having the heaviness of real life true crime. So that's Hannibal Lector,

a life by Brian Rafferty. You don't have to write that title down right now because we will have

it listed for you on our website on our recommended page. And our website, of course, is truecrimegarage.com.

Hey, and while you're there, sign up on the mailing list. And until next week, be good, be kind.

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