Previously on Death and Deceit in Alliance.

I know you have no idea who I am, but I have some interesting things that we've learned about Givan's murder through the years.

I know that someone as close as you you had to have had a million thoughts.

Run through your head and wondering who could have done.

This to her?

Who was there?

Who could possibly know something?

They're an officer that lived near here, in one of these houses close.

I don't want to get into all that.

I mean, like I said, this is the end of this conversation.

I know you've got family and law enforcement right, Yes.

Mister Jenkins is a captain there.

Well, hey, I gotta go.

You guys have a great day.

Every time we'd reference police, that would shut.

It down, I'm talking shit.

I'm done.

Came by one time threatened to split my throat.

I've met the killer and I know where he is, and I suspect he's still killing.

And yes he's a cop.

This is Death and Deceit and Alliance, a real time investigation into whether David Thorn killed Yvonne Lane.

I'm Maggie Freeling.

When I first learned about David Thorne's conviction, I'd really only heard surface details about the woman at the heart of the story.

I knew Yvonne Lane had five kids.

I knew she was pretty and fun, but I didn't know a lot about her life.

David spoke of her in glowing.

Terms anytime I was with her.

She was always great with the kids, and the house was always clean.

They were always pad But as I dug deeper, my understanding of this twenty six year old woman started to evolve.

She was complicated, of course we all are, but Yvonne was more than most.

She adored her children, yet by their own accounts, she was sometimes abusive.

She allegedly sold sex for money, and yet, from what I can gather, also wanted to be a good Jehovah's witness in the eyes of her religious parents.

Confused, I circled back to David a few months into my investigation.

He agreed, and he added, yeah, he hadn't told the full truth about Yvonne when I first asked, because he didn't want to quote besmirch her.

It's tricky to talk about someone when they're dead.

Nothing Yvonne did could have justified her death, and I want to be clear again.

Exploring her activity is not victim blaming their facts about a high risk lifestyle an important part in trying to figure out who was responsible for her murder if not David, and so David says he didn't talk much about the qualities in her that people might negatively judge.

But to understand a murder, you have to understand the victim.

Police know this, of course.

That's why one of the first questions they try to answer in a homicide is is there anyone who would want the person dead?

Most homicides are at the hands of someone the victim knows, so it's an obvious starting point.

And as I mentioned, this vicious crime didn't seem like the work of a hit man.

It seemed personal, rageful, messy.

Yet, according to the case file in Yvonne's murder, investigators in the case didn't bother interviewing a lot of the people closest to her.

There's no records of interviews with her sisters or her father.

We only know of her mother, Tanya, speaking to the police, as well as a young woman who, as far as Tanya knew, was Yvonne's closest friend.

Reading your parents impact your name was given us as Yvonne one of Yvon's bestranger.

You've had any information we might get the states, Well, whatever you keep post.

This is an interview with a twenty nine year old woman named Liz, conducted by detectives Samson and Mucklow on April second, nineteen ninety nine.

It's one of the few interviews on File with people in Yvonne's life.

According to Liz, Yvonne was a lot more complicated than she apparently seemed.

Yvonne met Liz through church.

Liz was a member of the same Jehovah's Witness Church as Yvonne's family.

Her dad Jaron ad to if I started Bible study with her to help for try to get her life on track with you know, try and straighten her life out and really hard Shoin and from Eric going up to jail and having portrait and she really needs an en porridgement in health and with Melan a tent straight down photo and well.

They Liz said, she met Yvaughn in nineteen ninety seven.

So we studied for eight months and she really would for Gredden and you want to children, and during that time when she would confide and I'd go there on Wednesday night, Edith walk and you know we talked about hour and then week.

Fetty, Liz said.

Yvaughn mostly talked about her relationship with Eric.

Eric even joined their study session.

A few times.

She would be to me that she wanted to marry her, and she told him the only the only way that she would marry him is that she wanted the fain thing as her.

He wanted him straighten up.

But during that time she wanted him to study the Bible also, and during that time she wanted to quick flop and you know, went free with him and was really trying to do, you know, what was right, and she would want him to do what was right too.

Liz told a simil her account of Yvonne and Eric's relationship to those we'd heard before.

She was really into him, but he was troubled and that trouble spilled into the relationship.

But then you know, she can't be in the parts before and I don't know if you know about that.

And he's very violent with her hand, very violent champing.

This matches, But investigative reporter Duayne Pullman had told us that Eric was angry and rageful.

We've tried to reach out to Eric multiple times through different means, and so far have had no luck.

So the only information we have about Eric and Yvonne is what others have said.

Liz also said Yvonne told her stories that reveal a lot about Yvonne's personality.

And she'd tell me any story.

I could not believe the fed happened to her, Like one time she had come any art film, she's putting it stack away and I towards the evening and she said, she told me that a tall man putting an antique jewelry into pocket.

And so she went out of the court and said, you know, couldn't go, don't get out of here.

Well did she believe he said that?

And said, aren't you afraid of getting hurt?

You know?

She said, if you don't, let somebody know that, but you're not afraid of them, and to contect them, she said, then we'll come back in the middle of the night to fill whatever else you have.

A jolia, I find her number five, but she fetched you.

Then the man from down the street from for and she knew been doing the drug dealing.

This isn't the first time we've heard that Yvonne was fearless, maybe to a fault.

I remember her trying saying last Pheer said somebody she heard somebody robbed the door and stole a part a cigarette and loft it at her door, and you know, and I'm like, why why did somebody do?

That's like, I don't know.

And I met you sitting stories and unders that thought that she didn't fabricate the things that had story.

But then you know, I don't know that just being odd for but you know, I guess your association through and around.

I guess she said, coming fact like that all the time, Oh Bob, know, you know, being afraid grand darents coming in and jolly no night and being fat.

It to me that both shocking, and.

I thought this tidbit was interesting, Liz wondering why these things could happen to Yvonne, and then she said, well, I guess it's her associations.

Although Liz never admits to knowing specifics, it seems like she sent the kind of crowd Yvonne ran with, wasn't studying the Bible on weekends.

And of course you want being a spear with that she want.

I mean, she was doing little tiny personally, but boy, she feared nothing, you know, and she's like, hey, okay whatever.

Despite Yvonne's mother saying she thought Liz and Yvonne were close, Liz said her friendship with Yvonne was pretty short lived.

After studying, they mostly lost touch.

The path with eight months.

I really don't know any personal information.

I know it's what happened last year in Night, Night made the Stormy.

After eight months of Bible study together, Liz saw Yvonne here and there, but they didn't really catch up.

Liz didn't know much about Yvonne's personal life besides Eric.

Detectives asked her about David, and she didn't know much.

You don't know, no, I don't know who's good.

Like I said, it hadn't chable boy.

You know, if that dad hadn't really talked to her fall, you.

Know, very.

Would expressed any kindac staring about it, it might have been different.

Like said, she didn't frank any sorry, and she seemed happy you fitting an addressed to the memorial.

So Liz lost touch with Yvonne, which makes it interesting to me that Yvonne's mother named Liz as her daughter's best friend, clearly even though her mother still saw Yvonne all the time she was raising Yvon's first child.

She didn't know much about what was going on with her.

Danny John and I wanted to see if we could find out what Yvonne's life was like during those final months, so we found another friend to him.

I don't associate with him.

I don't approve the things he does.

Yeah, hello, it's Danny.

Are you Pam?

Pam, I'm Danny John.

I'll grab a chair.

You sit down in the comfy chair.

No, no, go ahead.

One of the first things we did in Alliance was to track down a woman named Pam, who had come up in police interviews as someone Yvonne was close with.

She's also done media interviews about Yvonne.

However, it's important to note that they did have a falling out about a year before Yvonne's death.

Yvonne quote beat the crap out of Pam for stealing her purse.

Pam said she was on drugs and it wasn't a proud moment for her.

And yet it appears that even though others mentioned Pam to the cops as well as the falling out, the police never interviewed her either as a suspect in Yvonne's murder or as one of her closest friends.

Oh, I'm sorry I have to talk about.

Yeah, I get a sure on my boat.

I used to admire how she.

Did her on her Pam said she used to live next to Yvonne's parents and knew yvon since she was a kid.

Pam would have been a couple of decades older in her forties when Yvonne was murdered.

She's like my little daughter.

So what how long have you known her?

I'm to get over there.

And so you're talking about next to where she grew up, that her parents show had daughter.

Okay, so you had known her since if you knew her in the seventies, she was born in seventy two, so I knew well.

I knew her long way at Pam seemed to know a lot of things about Yvonne that Yvonne maybe would have been uncomfortable telling.

Liz, a strict Jehovah's witness, Yvonne revealed that all was not easy at home, and it wasn't just conflicts about the church.

She talked to Pam about some behavior that made her uncomfortable and even made her want to stay away Allegedly, it was a complicated household to say the least.

John and Danny asked Pam if she was aware of Yvonne's soliciting money for sex.

Pam said she only heard after the fact, but there was some information.

Pam did say she knew.

But I never known Yvonne do what she did.

What I heard would about life, but I know she had trouble with cops and she would.

Day in a cop.

This was the first time we'd heard from someone that Yvonne had specifically told them she was seeing a cop.

You were dating a cop or she didn't tell me who it was and I didn't want to know, So.

You never knew which cop she was.

So she was dating one willingly, yes, and you don't.

Remember who that was.

She didn't tell me, Oh, okay, okay, she didn't tell me.

But Pam did seem to know about something else you were wondering, and she probably tried to.

Black the daddy.

Was that something that you could see her doing, like blackmailing to get a little money.

Or something.

To keep it quiet?

Yeah, or who's the baby dad would have been?

They wanted to keep it quiet.

Allegedly, Yvonne had a habit of telling guys she was pregnant and getting money from them.

I asked David about this, Did she ever tell you about shaking people down?

I knew that that's kind of something that she did before.

I knew that she would tell people that she was pregnant and then asked for money for an abortion.

That's how she would send money to Eric when he was in the joint, because she was in and out and so often.

And the shakedown scenario isn't just from David and Pam.

It also came from the mouth of one of the detectives on Yvonne's case.

According to investigative journalist Duyne Pullman.

As a detective who handled the case, I was kind of surprised.

He even mad.

Dweene met with Detective John Leech at a restaurant during his investigation.

According to Dwayne, this is what happened when they sat down.

So you're at a restaurant and he just says this to you, Yeah, in a sit down.

I don't know what the hell we were I didn't.

I don't even think I ate.

I was like, this is really weird.

Without any context, just blurts out that some.

Or had gotten a hold of his wife.

I don't use that term.

He did gotten a hold of his wife, tried to shake it, to try to blackmail him, shake him down, And I said, who else could that be?

Because Yvonne had done that?

According to people I had talked to before.

We haven't talked much about Detective John Leach, but Detective Leach was at the murder scene with detectives Mucklow and Samson and was with them when they conducted some key interviews, including the one that led to Joe Wilkes's confession.

And if you've been wondering who the cop was that George Hale said he identified leaving Yvonne's house the morning of her murder.

George said he identified a cop who looked just like Leech in the line up he was given.

And because of this, Detective Leech was always interesting to Duyne.

You know, I'm not saying that Leech had anything to do with this.

I want you to be clear on that.

I am landing on probably not, but you know, it did kind of project a motive for covering up things and trying to make it go away.

That's what I just took away.

From all that.

Yes, I had speculated earlier in the season that based on the amount of corruption in the Alliance Police Department, it was possible the cops had a reason to cover up Yvonne's murder.

But now is there even more motive to make it go away?

Besides a potential drug connection to the cops and allegedly sleeping with the victim?

Was Yvonne shaking someone down?

Was it a cop?

Did that kill her?

Did another cover it up for his buddy in blue?

Maybe it was drug related, like Jeremy said.

I asked David about all of this, Like he mentioned, he said he knew about the shakedowns while they were dating, but there was a lot about Yvonne, he said, he didn't learn until after she died.

So did you know about Yvonne dancing?

She told me that she had danced before.

Yeah, and then I guess she was going to two little clubs or something like that, kind of on the side, after her and I had already broken up.

It's like three phases that I know of her life, you know what I mean?

Is that like shocking to you?

Are you?

Like?

I mean, maybe now you've processed it, but was this like?

Who the hell was this person?

I was dating.

Then David told me something we had never heard before.

At the time, she told me that she was going to a convention.

And then later that's whenever I found out that that was she was like a high end call girl.

David said she'd asked him to drive her to the train station to go to neighboring states Indianna, Illinois, West Virginia to work at conventions.

What did you think she was doing when she was going to the conventions?

She said something that she got an office job and she was going to a convention for something.

I don't I don't recall what it was.

To be honest, it was only half paying attention to what it was that she was even talking about for a job.

Even whenever she picked up a job, she never stayed anywhere for very long because something always come up.

With the kid.

Yeah, because whatever she was telling everybody, it had to be some variation and it couldn't be the same.

So I don't know how she kept her life and a.

Look for real, Again, I'm not shaming Yvonne.

It's incredible.

I have to keep saying that because even just talking about sex work makes people think someone is shaming.

But why is it assumed to be shameful.

We don't know that it was for Yvonne, but for our purposes, it's important to note that if she was a dancer or an escort or a sex worker, that is notoriously dangerous work, and that is because of the stigmas around it that these folks often don't feel comfortable reporting.

So the more we investigate, the more people we find saying these rumors were true.

That broadens the suspect pool, which becomes even larger if Yvonne was traveling to other states.

Things are starting to get messier than we expected.

So we decided to talk to another person who may know what was going on in Yvonne's life.

Yeah, so has has anybody talked to you about Yvonne in the last few years?

Order sister of Linda was doing.

This is Vi, Eric's uncle.

Linda is Eric's mom.

So your sister is okay, So you knew Yvonne pretty well then, yeah, pretty decent.

Yeah, she seems like a complicated person.

She was in a lifestyle that apparently.

Was you know, I used to different kind of women.

My mom was real sweet.

Sisters and stuff.

I wasn't used to that, Like a little bit of deevs.

Dark side people.

She was up ryde and I tried to be there at poor because she was my nephew's girl on aging and he had some dark sides too.

He also said she was often on pills, like Jeremy had mentioned, and I only bring that up again not to shame anyone's use or addictions, but to note the potential drug connection and Yvonne's state of mind.

And speaking of her state of mind, we asked Vic about something else we had heard.

She had come to you saying she had pissed off the wrong person at around that saying went to your mom's house looking for you is what it was.

Told us because she was in some kind of trouble and she was wanting your help and said that she had fucked with the wrong person.

She never got to me, and told me that Yvonne supposedly sought Vic out for help, but Vic says Yvonne never found him.

However, this story does fit into what we heard from Jeremy that she was frantic just a few days before she was murdered.

So did she kiss someone off and if so.

Who.

So?

One other thing that we hear, and you know, we have no idea this is true or not, but that she was, you know, involved with some number of police officers, a couple, you know, two, three, four, whatever it was, and that she would shake them down essentially like maybe they were married and then she would shake them down, said I'm want to tell your wife or something.

Yeah, you wouldn't put it past her at that time.

Yeah, okay, okay.

Did you hear much that she was involved with a lot of men for money.

That I didn't?

You know, I couldn't really confirm that, but I different times I drive through a line, sir, and I'd see her.

She got a little station waging car, and I's he her pulled over a lot of different times, like normal times talking to the police.

M Okay, were they pulling her over or was she willingly just pulling over and talking to them?

Friends do you have?

Do you know any of those cops names that she was friends with?

Oh there was one, okay she's talking about.

So she didn't ever say anything about being like romantically or sexually involved with you.

Know, but like I told you, she has some dark side.

We're going to beat this cops name because he was not formally mentioned as a suspect.

Wouldn't it happened when you first got wind that she was dead?

What'd you think somebody in the place?

Yeah, I don't know.

To be well, that's why we wanted to talk to you, because we that this was true, that she came to your mom almost desperate looking for you.

Yeah, that makes to say who would have been that mad at her?

Based on everything we heard in testimony, through interviews and police records, no one wants said David was mad at Yvonne or ever had been mad or violent with her.

At trial, Yvonne's dad testified that they had a good relationship and remember even the child support agent said everything seemed fine with them, but we will find out that not everything is as it seems on the surface, coming up on deaf and deceit in alliance.

Somebody was in that house then it was a It sounded to me like a woman's voice.

And I really don't want to say anything.

Why is that?

Because I'm tired of being dragged in the middle of it.

If if you're not in the middle, oh, I have been.

For the last two years.

Why did you find me here?

So you remember seeing him?

My boyfriend, my ex husband now but my boyfriend at the time we saw him there that night.

If Joe's giving her permission so to speak to talk with us, you would think Joe's not worried about what she's going to tell us.

I truly, honestly believe you didn't do it.

I know David wanted.

Him to, and I was under the impression that Dave was going.

To pay him to death and deceit.

In Alliance is produced and reported by me Maggie Freeling, with editorial consulting from Amber Hunt.

Aaron Case is our legal researcher.

Our executive producer is Steve Fishman.

Our engineer and production coordinator is Austin Smith.

Eric Axelrod is our assistant producer.

Very mean, you see hungry