Previously on Death and Deceit in Alliance.

Spent a lot of time on that, and I guess one question is three hundred dollars to murder a woman in cold blood?

The reason David Thorne is sitting in jail right now is someone that you acknowledge as a fucking liar.

I know that the allegations are out there that even some in the police force were taking advantage of Yvonne's services.

If that's in fact what was happening.

There's a full blown declaration that they went after three friends of David's.

Did they approached first and tried to coerce them into testifying against David.

There are things that make you say, well, why is he staying at a freaking hotel in town that night?

You know, right off the bat, A couple of things that raised my eyebrows are the knife and the pants.

How did Joe lead them to the circumstances?

And Joe did lead them there, then that's a big deal.

This is death and Deceit and Alliance a real time investigation into whether David Thorne killed Yvonne.

I'm Maggie Freeling.

After the jury came back in January two thousand with a guilty verdict against David Thorn.

His grandfather tried to sound calm.

The truth will come out sooner or later, he told the grandson he'd raised as guards led David Thorn away to prison, but David Kazisko's claim was a facade.

Outside of the courtroom, Kazisko started to shake with anger.

His face went red when he saw Detective Lloyd bud Sampson, one of the cops whose testimony had condemned David for life.

Kazisko told an Akron Bakrin Journal reporter quote, there's the one who made a fool out of himself on the stand, and they believed him.

Now.

I can't ask Kazisko his thoughts because he died in twenty fifteen, but to me, it seems like he wanted to have David's bad but knew deep down that it was going to take a lot more than just the truth to free David.

And twenty one years later, I think he's right.

If David is ever going to be released from prison, it won't be because his supporters prove he didn't kill his girlfriend, Yvonne Lane.

It'll be because we figure out who actually did.

When I met up in Ohio with John Harden and Danny Waxler, the investigators for Proclaimed Justice.

One of the first things we did was try to rule in or out our people of interest in the case.

The guys didn't start with Joe right away.

His story has changed so many times it's hard to know what to believe.

They decided to reach out to him later and gather as much information about the case as possible before trying to talk to him.

Plus the word and not Joe's prison denied our visitation request.

Speaking with Joe was going to be harder than we expected, so we started with Rose Moore and Chris Campbell, allegedly the people who Joe told he was going to murder someone that night.

But as you heard last episode, we didn't get anything new, so we moved on to the others on our list, starting with Jim, the neighbor who was the last known person to see Yvonne just before her murder, if the coroner's correct, around five thirty pm.

The coroner's window for time of death was sometime after seven pm March thirty.

First, Remember, Jim said he went over to see the puppies that Yvonne was selling, although it's unclear if he ever did go inside the house to see them after that.

Jim never had a particularly solid alibi for the time after five point thirty.

He said he went on a bike ride after leaving Yvonne's house and then was at work by ten pm, But was he actually on a bike ride.

That would have been hard to confirm back in nineteen ninety nine, and it's straight up impossible now.

So that leaves quite a gap of time from five point thirty to ten pm unaccounted for.

And there's also Yvon's four year old Vinnie saying Josh, Jimmy or Jeremy pushed Mommy.

The kids knew Jim since he was in the neighborhood and they were always running in and out of his yard.

We don't know if Jim was looked at as a possible suspect by detectives William Mucklow and Bud Sampson, yet it does seem they found him interesting enough to fingerprint and compare to the partial print found on the knife blade matching Yvonne's kitchen set.

The knife found down the street, not the lock blade pocket knife that Joe said was the murder weapon.

The print on the kitchen knife didn't match Jim.

However, it begs the question did anyone think Jim might have been involved?

If the police went as far as to fingerprint him, it's not likely they were unting everyone.

Some people closest to Yvonne were never printed.

But Jim, the neighbor who was the last known person to see Yvonne alive, was, so we figured it was time to talk to him.

Fortunately, Jim was easy to find.

Yeah, he's still living in the same house that touches the yard of nine sixteen Divine, the home where Yvonne was murdered.

When we first went over to Jim's, his.

Wife answered they.

Asked to speak with Jim.

We were hoping we could speak to him and kind of yeah.

Oh, we could do the morning too, that would be fine.

So we tried him in the morning.

Yeah, thank you, because we can't make him.

Answer the door.

As John and Danny walked away, I.

Don't want to talk about that.

That happened over to go and as far as I'm.

Concerned that it's out a note, Yes, sir, I don't know if you if your wife told you who we are, But we were just hoping for just a few minutes.

They tell him who they are and that they're reinvestigating the Yvonne Lane murder.

There was a lady that came here years ago and I talked to her, and I feel that with that should suffice.

I mean, that was like twenty years ago.

That probably I don't know, it's I don't know, it's twenty years befo.

She's talking about Sue coming to see him almost two decades ago.

So I really don't want to talk about it any further than that, Okay, I mean she was to me.

I thought she was a nice person, and I don't you know, if she was a nice neighbor, you know that people seem to get along with her here, and so beyond that point, I don't want.

To talk about it.

It's like it was.

I was upset about it at the time.

Yeah, sure, and you know she was.

She was nice to me, and that's all I know.

So yeah, we you know, we were just hoping for a couple of minutes.

One of the toughest things is that I think that lady that came to visit you, when they give us information just because because they said this this or this or this, we have to kind of go validated, like I thought bad enough.

No, I get that, and if we didn't at least speak to you, we would have failed in doing what we're trying to do, which is try and say, hey, who was there, who could possibly know something?

If David's where he belongs.

David's where he belongs.

But we're going to give him a shot and see if there's credible information that maybe they got it wrong.

Jim says he doesn't want to talk again, but Danny and John keep going.

I guess she had puppies or something at the time.

Yes, she had puppies at the time, And.

That were you helping with the kids at all?

Because I read something about Preston was in your tree or something.

Preston cleaned my antenna, and I told her he cleanned my antenna, and because I was real worried about him climbing my antenna.

And despite not wanting to talk, Jim keeps going.

The only thing I can tell you was that day.

And this is the most bizarre thing, is it It was so dog gone.

I mean it was like there was no cars going down the street.

I didn't see anybody walk in the streets.

And that's What strikes me strange is why you would think that it was a nice and beautiful spring day.

No cars, nothing, nothing.

I didn't see anything.

I'm kind of like the non observant of the non observant.

I mean, I closed my curtains at night.

I you know, I work midnight shift at that time, so I really don't you know, I don't know much.

Of anything that went on over there.

Like I said, I felt bad about it.

I really don't want to talk about it beyond this point because I because I worked their shift and that's all I pretty much.

I'm like, I'm so dog got tired, you know.

They you know, I really don't know what's going on because I, like I said, I went to work and then next day I find out something that I don't even know what's going on.

Yeah, you're an officer that lived near here.

In one of these houses.

I don't really want to get into all that.

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

I mean, I feel like I've shared.

Enough with you.

Yeah, I just want to I don't want to think about it at further.

I don't want to relive this.

I want to just put it behind me.

She's a nice person and I just want to put it behind you.

I want to.

Forget it, but they tried to continue.

I know you've got family and law enforcement, right, Yes, mister Jenkins is a captain there and I know that sometimes.

Well, hey, I gotta go.

You guys have a great day.

Okay, thank you, Jim.

That was it.

I'm surprised you opened the door.

If he was going to say, is we were walking away, but he probably thought they're going to keep coming.

Yeah, nervous little fucker.

Yeah, he was a nervous fucker.

But I'm not going to talk about you get him to the porch.

You got got a little bit out of him.

Yeah, Jim didn't give them anything particularly useful from that brief interaction, but just seeing him and the kind of person he was helped them form an opinion.

He didn't jump out as an obvious suspect.

The reason I keep bringing up how brutal the crime is is because it seems whoever did this had an incredible amount of rage and anger towards Yvonne, someone who is likely known to have a violent history, and Jim doesn't.

And we couldn't think of any reason he'd violently want to kill Yvonne.

So the guys moved Jim to the bottom of the list for now and went on to the next best person of interest, someone Vinnie may have named.

Hi, how are you?

We're looking for Jeremy.

Does he live here?

He does not?

Okay, he did?

Okay?

Are you do you know him?

Very roughly?

Okay?

Do you have any idea where he moved to?

Okay, Like Chris Campbell, Jeremy seemed like he was going to be hard to find now.

If you remember, Jeremy was the boyfriend of Linda McLaughlin and Linda was the mother of Eric Cameron, who was the father of three of Yvonne's children.

Those three kids include Vinnie, who had special needs and lived with Linda rather than Yvonne, and there was tension between the two women because of this.

And I know this is a complicated cast, but the gist is that Jeremy it was something like a grandfather to Vinnie during this time period, or maybe even a father.

Jeremy it was in his mid forties at the time, and he was at Linda's house almost every day and he helped with raising Vinnie.

Hi, how are you goodhead looking?

For Jeremy.

Yeah, that's local.

Jeremy.

Is he here?

You don't let me he's in his name, brother, what Jeremy.

The woman we found at this address is Jeremy's sister who said she had not seen him in three years.

Rather do men.

Decent.

I tried to help.

He lived here, and I knew there was something wrong.

I said, Jeremy, what is wrong?

Are you on drugs?

He said, I'm not doing it here.

I said, I'm not gonna be the one.

Fine dad, you gotta live.

Yeah, and that was the last time you saw him.

Wow, came by one time, threatened to flip my throat.

Did you ever know of him being violent?

Okay?

Was that a weird statement to make, because that's exactly.

How the young girl was guilting.

Throat was slipp I think that's that was just the drugs talking.

It sounds like he's probably burned a few bridges over the years.

Okay, had a car.

I knew he was in.

Fire fone car.

We just left there, yep.

Obviously.

Yeah, yeah, that's.

All the actions turned into these days.

Well, thank you for your time, and again, if he surfaces, were put an alert out to if you see Jeremy had to call these guys.

We greatly.

Yeah, okay, thank you very much.

I appreciate y'all's time.

All right, sorry to.

We had hit every address we had for Jeremy and he wasn't at any but there were two phone numbers for him.

One wasn't him and the other looked fake, but we tried it anyway.

Hello, Yes, I'm trying to reach Jeremy.

Petty.

Is this Jeremy you have?

Do you have any free time to talk with us?

A bath weekly?

Okay?

What's your address?

And we found him the fake numbers.

The one, the one, three, four, boss seven.

Holy shit, we found.

Him, My god.

We found Jeremy living in Akron, Ohio, in a dilapidated house on a dirt road behind a U haul facility.

Hey, Jeremy, how are you?

Danny had a plastic bag in his hand, and Jeremy asked what was in it?

Oh, and I was sick.

The kid always got chicken noodle soup and saltines, nickers and gatoraing.

A little better.

Okay, So I'm John and that's Danny.

Oh.

Claim justice.

We're an innocent project and we've been asked to look into David's.

Case and Dan's still in prite.

He is, Yeah, he's in for live as usual.

John and Danny explained that they're looking into David's case to find out if he's actually innocent.

So that's what we're doing, is we came up from Austin yesterday and uh, just you know, talking to folks who knew everybody at the time.

Jeremy said Yvonne was his best friend.

Now remember we knew they were close.

Yvon would go to Linda's often to see Vinnie, who was living with Linda and Jeremy.

Jeremy is also interesting because, like Preston, another of Yvonne's sons said, whoever killed his mom knew Vinnie because Vinnie was taken care of.

He'd been dressed as though someone had started getting him ready for the day, and Vinnie couldn't dress himself, and he normally slept in his diaper, which Preston told us he was in when he went to bed, and to the guys, Jeremy seemed like a really good person of interest.

Yvonne had just taken Vinnie back to her home a few days before the murder, and Linda told Sue that Jeremy was really upset about that.

I should note Jeremy's not well.

He's dying of cancer, and honestly, we're lucky we caught him when we did, because, based on his age sixty for an advanced condition, this could be the last time anyone speaks to him about Yvonne or the case.

So what tell me about vonn?

I mean, so that's we just came close because, uh, because of the kid.

Remember Jeremy and Eric's mom, Linda were taking care of Vinnie.

The kids we see a long great I had thirteen of them.

You have thirteen of them.

By the same.

How did you know her?

I mean, how did you meet her?

You said earlier she was your best friend.

Yeah, ended up Linda and Eric and it's start coming home in once he had one one kid.

Of course, Bennie took right to me, Jeremy says.

When Yvonne brought Vinnie over, Vinnie took right to him.

So was that friendship based just on Vinnie or were you and her?

Did y'all have your time together too?

Were we in?

You know, you talk to me about what going on.

Eric.

Jeremy made very ar that he and Yvonne had a platonic relationship.

Contrary to belief a man hand hand Clayton right being sexually ma right on.

In fact, he said he had only been to her house two times, but both times with Linda.

Jeremy and Yvonne would only hang out at Linda's house, usually in the kitchen at the table talking and doing drugs.

Crazy.

We was.

We would pull out a bow's hands on the mars and would sit down at the kicking table at the house on the dynamo and uh with tell beer things, tell beer, see what passed out?

Or you know back what who pass up?

Or she just popping bills from?

Yeah, So where would you guys get the drugs from?

I mean, does she have somebody that she would get drugs from?

That of course like a legally.

If you couldn't make that out, He said he got his legally from the VA.

Remember the psychic's prediction the killer had been in the military.

Jeremy is a veteran.

And remember the psychic also said the killer had a cross tattoo.

Jeremy has a cross on his upper arm.

Yeah, do you know who it was she was getting drugs from?

John and Danny were trying to see if there was a connection to the cops and the drug scene that Jeremy knew about.

He said no.

Then they asked Jeremy if the police ever questioned him.

Best came through Donald.

So, even though there's no record of it, they did look into Jeremy allegedly.

In fact, his prints were also collected on April twentieth and tested against the same kitchen knife.

Jim's were no match, and if the police were doing their job, they would have also checked his alibi.

Jeremy said he was working at a McDonald's in Hartville that night.

Hartville is about twenty minutes from Alliance.

If he did kill Yvon, Jeremy would have had to leave work during his shift, drive twenty minutes to her house, kill her, dress Vinnie, and drive back.

He would probably have been gone from work for over an hour and someone would have noticed.

Assuming the police did their job, they checked his time cards when they showed up at McDonald's that day.

And one more thing, Jeremy didn't drive.

Linda said she picked him up that night.

In fact, it seems like Jeremy still doesn't drive.

His sister told us she'd see him walking everywhere.

John and Danny asked him straight up.

You weren't there that night, Your DNA would not be on her clothes at all, had no involvement whatsoever.

Okay.

Yeah, And from talking to him, he seemed to really care about Yvonne a lot.

And obviously this is.

A little personal, but I'm just curious of the emotional effect that Yvonne's death had on you.

Oh it dropped me.

Yeah, it's somebody that I could talk to you and talk to me and be Uh at that point I'd be open about for him.

Not personal, no will it could volve in anything like that.

But uh, did she ever confide in you that she felt like she might have upset somebody that could have could hurt her.

You know, she was never a great never paid anybody or anything to me that time and time again.

One thing I do know about Yvonne show me back down.

Jeremy talked about how she was a confident, composed person, but in her last days, he said he noticed a change.

Yeah, Jeremy said, four days before the murder, she came to Linda's house and was in a rush.

He said, that was unusual.

You could just tell something was wrong that day.

I'm never Jary never, he said.

She was frantic dropping the kids off.

She told him she was going to an appointment, and Jeremy figured he talked to her later about it, but that never happened.

So that would have been your last encounter with her alive.

Wow, that's why I think.

I think he could have done I could die and I could have somehow something.

Did she go to her funeral?

Did you ever see any of the kids again?

I'm sorry to lead you back into these memories.

I know they're painful, I can tell, but we're trying to figure out what happened.

And I know that someone as close as you you had to have had a million dots run through your head wondering if it could have done this to.

Her a million.

Yeah, she Linda has publicly said before she passed away.

Baby didn't do this.

Yeah, baby didn't do that.

I really don't.

I mean, twenty years later, what do you think happened?

I think you life switch from it.

I'm I do.

I honestly believe that for some reason.

I don't know why.

But please, Jeremy, we appreciate your time very much.

And yeah, you sure did, and you've got our information, and.

Yeah, it was surprising that we left Jeremy with the feeling that he wasn't involved.

He'd seemed like a really strong possibility for starters.

Jeremy has a record that includes violent crime.

His own sister said he threatened to slit her throat the precise way Yvonne had been killed, and he admitted to us he was incredibly fucked up back then, so could he have snapped.

But mostly what we've heard about Jeremy is that when he's sober, he's a softy and wouldn't fight anyone.

Even the sister he threatened said the threats he made to her were just the drugs.

She never knew him to actually be violent.

Though again, there's always the possibility he snapped, but from speaking to him, the guys felt he really cared for Yvonne and had no motive to kill her.

Sure, they speculated maybe Jeremy wanted custody of Vinni, but after talking to him, he told the guys he knew he and Linda wouldn't get Vinnie even if Yvonne was dead.

The children were supposed to and did go to Yvonne's parents after she died.

It seemed to us Jeremy cared for Yvonne outside of Vinnie and wouldn't want her dead.

But he did confirm a possible drug connection.

Like we had heard from so many people before.

His strong suspicion was that the police could have been involved.

And one thing is clear to us.

People in this town do not trust the cops, and maybe there's a good reason.

Remember there was a new chief of police at the time of Yvonne's murder.

The previous chief was fired for stealing drugs, guns and money, and other cops were implicated to Clearly, it's not just in our heads there's something up with the Alliance police.

But did they have anything to do with Yvonne's death.

We still couldn't shake the psychic tapes and detectives William Mucklow and Bud Sampson bringing up the possibility that it was one of their own.

So it was time to speak with some people who may actually know who Yvonne was involved with back then.

It's just so bizarre.

It's really she had so many secrets.

I don't know how she kept everything straight.

Coming up, some of Yvonne's secrets start to unravel coming up on death and deceit in Alliance she had come.

To you saying she'd pissed off the wrong person.

She had so many secrets, it's like.

Three phases that I know of her life.

She was dating a cap They said they thought she was pregnant, and she probably trying to.

Black you know, the daddy.

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

That's how she would send money to Eric when he was in the joint.

I think she was pregnant.

She had a belly eye when I.

See her, and she would shake them down, say I'm want to tell your wife or something.

She had some dark sides too.

What about this sex tape that Sue said you filmed.

I don't know how she kept everything straight.

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 Eve Fishman.

Our engineer and production coordinator is Austin Smith.

Eric Axelrod is our assistant producer.