Murdered in Their Home: The Brutal Killing of Edwin & Bessie Morris | Part 2 of 3

A horrifying betrayal lies at the heart of Edwin and Bessie Morris's murder. The elderly couple was brutally killed in their Kentucky home—not by strangers, but by the son of Edwin's best friend and his violent accomplices. 

The nightmare for the Morris family began with a confusing phone call delivering unimaginable news, but it would be months before they discovered who was responsible. Roger Dale Epperson—whose father was so close to Edwin that he served as honorary pallbearer at his funeral—along with Benny Lee Hodge and Donald Bartley had carefully planned the robbery and murders, part of a violent crime spree that devastated multiple families across Kentucky.

We sit down with family members who take us through their forty-year journey through the justice system, revealing courtroom horrors few could imagine. From killers who taunted and blew kisses to family members during trial, to the shock of seeing Epperson's mother wearing the murdered grandmother's stolen wedding ring in court, this story exposes the extended trauma victims' families endure long after the crime.

Perhaps most chilling is the insight into the minds of the remorseless. "They love it, they love it, they relive it," explains our guest, dispelling the myth that imprisoned killers spend their time regretting their actions. For truly evil perpetrators, their crimes become treasured memories they revisit with pleasure.

The case also reveals how media can revictimize families, when Sherry Hamilton—one of the accomplices who helped purchase supplies for the murders—later appeared on shows like Oprah presenting herself as a victim rather than a willing participant in brutal killings.

Four decades later, the pain hasn't diminished. "It's still as fresh sitting here now as it was that morning I got the phone call," shares one family member, reminding us why justice matters, why victims deserve to be remembered, and why some wounds never fully heal.

Shop for Murder Police Podcast swag by clicking HERE today! 10% of ALL swag and merch proceeds are donated to the DNA Doe Project.

See what you have been missing on YouTube!

Chapters

• 0:00 Beginning the Aftermath of Murder
• 5:42 The Investigation Unfolds
• 11:55 Tracking the Killers to Florida
• 18:25 Discovering the Morris Connection
• 22:45 The Trial Experience
• 30:13 Facing the Killers in Court

Transcript

Mark Morris: 0:02

yeah, and basically she tried to play the battered woman syndrome with oprah yeah oh, he forced me to do this and I'm trying to do better.

David Lyons: 0:09

And uh, you're not supposed to hate, but I hate her no but you know, it's just one of those things, if she walked by warning the podcast you're about to listen to may contain graphic descriptions of violent assaults, murder and adult language. Listener discretion is advised. Murdered in their Home the Brutal Killing of Edwin and Bessie Morris, Part 2 of 3.

Mark Morris: 0:58

Once the description came, we didn't know they'd murdered our grandparents, but one of the names was Roger Dale Epperson. The Epperson name in our family meant a lot because my grandfather's best friend was Eb Epperson, which he was honorary pauper at my grandfather's funeral, and his son is the one that murdered my grandparents.

David Lyons: 1:18

You're kidding.

Mark Morris: 1:19

So when they went to start questioning Eb about Roger's involvement in the Acker case, ebb kind of was like you know, I don't know, and the detective kept pushing and pushing and he said do you know anything else? And he said I think he may have killed my best friend.

Wendy Lyons: 1:38

Oh.

David Lyons: 1:39

How did they come about finding those three after the doctor woke up?

Mark Morris: 1:43

Well, that gets interesting. They the manhunt started. Once they extract, explain that to the detective. He came to us. Then we're like, no doubt that's who did it there. There was a phone call that was made a week before that. We think they cased out the place. They came by to look at it, but it was a bunch of kids there too, uh, on a saturday afternoon. So we think they didn't do it that time, uh. And then they were a little loose with their money. They gave some to some people there nearby. They decided they were going to travel straight to florida.

Mark Morris: 2:18

Uh, so they were headed down to florida, stopped in atlanta a couple times, showed some and gave what they. In my grandparents' case they got a big diamond ring. My grandmother had one big diamond ring and a couple other things. They pawned a few things but the diamond ring comes into play much later. But that came up we found in the murder trial on the mother of Mr Epperson. His mom was wearing my grandmother's wedding ring, which caused a lot of trouble that day.

Mark Morris: 2:48

That was an interesting time, so they got involved in that. They had Roger Epperson in Atlanta back in April, had skipped on an assault charge, so they were looking for him. Then Lester T Burns at the time was the Johnny Cochran of Kentucky lawyers. If you were guilty of something or a defendant, you wanted Lester to be your attorney. Once they got arrested. Lester was actually helping them launder some of the money. They wanted to get some of the money gone, so he ended up getting disbarred, served prison time for it. They went to Florida, were partying, had a boat set up to take them out of the country and was going to be great. They got a couple of girlfriends. Sherry was Hodge's girlfriend. They met this other group that was partying pretty hard with some cocaine and decided you know what, we'll leave tomorrow, don't worry about it. And so they partied that night and at 536 o'clock in the morning the FBI kicked the door down and arrested them then and extradited them back. And then that's when our whole process started.

David Lyons: 3:56

So did they find out who these were? Because the doctor knew them.

Mark Morris: 3:59

And the doctor told them Once the doctor described and then word got out. Everybody knew who it was.

Mark Morris: 4:03

Everybody said, well, it has to be this person they had met with an individual not the best individual there in Letcher County and he's like well, they talked to me about maybe doing something to him. And then, well, this one said, well, yeah, they wanted to borrow this from me to do that part of it, or they wanted to see if I could help them with a car that looked like a cop car and everything started piecing together. And even then now we have CSIs TV where you can find everything. Back then DNA wasn't around. You didn't have all that forensic stuff Like old school. You had to actually dig and find stuff and what was up? Beat your feet, hoofs on the ground to try to figure it all out.

Wendy Lyons: 4:42

And that's actually still true despite all that. The advances and dna, cell phones uh, the genealogy on the yeah, that's all great but? But we we emphasize over and over when we interview detectives on here that people have to talk that stuff means you have to have a story to get you to look at that stuff.

Mark Morris: 5:05

I can't imagine now trying to convict people because they expect you to have everything to do on TV.

David Lyons: 5:13

They did that in 40 minutes.

Mark Morris: 5:15

They had it all solved and you had this, this and this. Well, that guy didn't have that. How come this is there? It even came up. In our case, one of the overturns was over a uh a hair sample. Yeah, that was found 20 some years later, but it's just uh. Yeah, the old school ways when it comes to that still apply, but sometimes you have to have common sense to make it work too there.

Wendy Lyons: 5:37

That's a good point, common sense so they were going to leave they were leaving the country, if they had left that night.

David Lyons: 5:42

They, they were gone.

Mark Morris: 5:43

We probably never.

David Lyons: 5:43

you know, who knows Unless somebody eventually told we knew who they were, but who knows? Who knows if you found them?

Mark Morris: 5:48

Or if they would have. Actually, if Bartley would have kept the chokehold on probably another 30 seconds, it would have killed the doctor. It would have killed the doctor. And then, because there was no evidence there either, everything was that part to be that long ago. They were, you know, they had gloves, the hats. They did really good about not leaving anything behind, wow.

David Lyons: 6:11

So that part was, uh, it was interesting so then the poor doctor had to go in and find his daughter found her and we got to be really close with the family.

Mark Morris: 6:20

Uh, after that, because we felt like we owed them a little bit of gratitude because if without them we may have never known, and it still took, you know, five months, four months, until we found out. But then their trial was for some reason in front of ours because they arrested them first on the Akron murder and then they started building their case for ours, with Bartley talking, and then some of them cracked a little bit.

David Lyons: 6:44

So they told about your grandmother and grandfather. That's how it.

Mark Morris: 6:47

In the conversation when they were, bartley was the weakest of the three as far as mentally uh, just, he was along for the ride. But so when they started quite hard, who did this, who did this, who did this? The one thing he said was when I was choking they, when he said we had to kill him, they said well, we did the last two, you have to do this one, and the tape's like what was the last two? He's like I didn't say that so he kind of told

Mark Morris: 7:15

him he's like, well, what was the last two? And he said, well, the, the morris, the jackson county. He said, oh, you all were involved in that and said, yeah, they did that when I was at the lookout, and then the wheels really started turning there.

Wendy Lyons: 7:27

I was going to ask what the connection was.

Mark Morris: 7:29

Wow.

Wendy Lyons: 7:30

Because it's a pretty good story about the MOs and stuff and everything which you learn those really later kind of and my bet was somebody loose lips.

David Lyons: 7:42

It's like Tommy Lynn Sells told on himself at the. Texas murders about the little girl in Lexington. I guess they just If you're ever going to do one, do it by yourself. I guess you can never count on it.

Mark Morris: 7:54

They've been up at the Catalina Hotel, which is still here on Nicholasville right behind stuff.

Mark Morris: 7:58

They've done a lot of drugs and stuff up there. They've been camping for four days when they ended up doing my grandparents sc stuff up there. They've been camping for four days. When they ended up doing my grandparents scoping everything out, um, but yeah, they just they'd run out a little bit of money. So they wanted more money for drugs. They picked up sherry and another girl, so the the girls went and bought the gloves and the hat or the, the boggans that they wore, and then they went and did it, picked them up and that's when they went on their spree and then sherry wanted something a little bit more.

Mark Morris: 8:28

So they're like well, let's go to dr acker okay, and they dug into that part of it and, like I said, it it's awful that it had to happen, but we're so thankful because who knows what would have happened afterwards it's like the stars have to align for the real statements.

Wendy Lyons: 8:44

That's one of the criticisms I have of some of the people that do. The true crime thing is they'll put a. There'll be somebody who has an idea who did a crime they haven't been charged yet and they'll put that name and the situation on blast. And I'm always like we don't do that here because it reminds those people to stay low. I can't get people to understand that if you do that, you're jeopardizing the case. You need them to sort of start relaxing a little bit so that they'll slip like that, they brag.

Mark Morris: 9:17

That's it.

Wendy Lyons: 9:19

But if you go to YouTube or you go somewhere and somebody goes, my God, David, you ought to listen to this podcast. And they swear at you.

Mark Morris: 9:28

They're getting close.

Wendy Lyons: 9:30

They know this Well then that just reminds me to go low and to shut up, stay off the radar, when really there's a thing to one people who do these things, mark, they don't have any remorse At all, let's get that out of the picture.

Mark Morris: 9:46

They don't, we'll get into it with the trial.

Wendy Lyons: 9:48

Yeah, they're devils and it's demons, and so they don't have a conscience to rub, but they're smart enough to shut up. So again, my point being is that you've got to hope at some point they slip, that they brag, they tell somebody just like that, and especially if it's groups of shitheads, they get so comfortable. But there's no loyalty there either.

Mark Morris: 10:13

They want to start bragging about it, and that started happening once they were put in jail.

David Lyons: 10:17

That's it. No, they didn't do that I did this.

Mark Morris: 10:20

Don't let them take credit or I was a part of this.

Wendy Lyons: 10:22

Yeah, exactly, or I'm not running down for that.

Mark Morris: 10:24

I might have done this.

Wendy Lyons: 10:26

I might have sat on a car and waited, but you know.

Mark Morris: 10:28

And then do this part. Yeah, exactly.

David Lyons: 10:30

Do you remember when you all got the phone call or how you were informed that they had found these three people? Because you probably still didn't have a clue.

Mark Morris: 10:38

We knew who it was. Well, we had an idea when they started describing it. We didn't know the details. They hadn't told us, hey, it's Eb's son. We knew. They said, hey, there may be a connection, because the murders were kind of similar. They tied them up kind of the same way you know, no forced entry, robbed people that the community knew, smaller communities. The community knew they had money but we didn't have any idea it was theirs. So when they did make the arrest, even for the first, a couple weeks after that but then I remember detective ron I cannot remember his last name, I tried to look it up uh, called I can remember his dad or bobby, and said we got him. And they said what do you mean? He said do you know, roger, epperson, what was that? Ebbs something like yeah well, yeah, we know him, he's you know.

Mark Morris: 11:27

And then everything started it From that point. It went really fast.

David Lyons: 11:32

Did you all already know the other two people?

Mark Morris: 11:35

No, just Epperson got them in. So it was Roger Dale Epperson, benny Lee Hodge and Donald T Bartley. We'd never seen Bartley or Hodge before.

David Lyons: 11:43

So he just kind of recruited them in.

Mark Morris: 11:45

They just all got running in drugs and he said, hey, I know somebody where we can get some money. And he, they used him to get into the house. Um, and everybody said, hodge, to this day, if they would let me pull the switch, I'd be more glad to pull the switch. He uh, he would taunt us. He blow kisses at us in court during the trial. He'd hold his cuffs up and tell us if we was mad enough to come do something to him, that he'd do it again and he was the lookout no, he was the he was in there, he was.

Mark Morris: 12:16

He was in there with epperson yeah, he was the one that uh killed granny, so they told what each of them did, yeah well, we, we kind of figured it out, but yeah, and then he was the one that stabbed tammy so many times and killed he was was probably the most brutal of them, but he ended up being the biggest coward because during the trials him and Sherry had made a pledge that they were going to take cyanide if they were found guilty and we actually found the cyanide pill on them but he wouldn't take it and we'll get to that in the trials because they had sheets.

Mark Morris: 12:54

One of the trials that started out we went to Jackson County. Of course they wouldn't do it there, so they moved it to Laurel County In the jail cell they had handcuff keys for both of them they were found with. They took the sheets and put them into a tie rope. They had pizza boxes. They had a TV. So there was a lot of stuff we found out Once they were found guilty they didn't tell us beforehand and once they moved them to Eddyville, that was all stuff that was found in their cells.

Wendy Lyons: 13:23

Well, let's go to so they're arrested. There's that first. I guess something kind of like a sigh of relief not a big one for you all Did I do that, yeah, first. Uh, I guess something kind of like a sigh of relief not a big one for you all did I did it yeah, I mean there's, at least we know who's some answers too.

Mark Morris: 13:35

Yeah, we had some answers, gotcha not not the why, though right no, we didn't know why yeah, so uh, walk.

Wendy Lyons: 13:42

Maybe start with that with uh, what was it like? Because you know it takes a while to get to trial, longer today than back then. But what was it like waiting? Did you get frustrated? Did you like hear that they had a hearing?

Mark Morris: 13:54

and we did so? Yeah, they would be. You know you have a lot of hearings. Just put, you had the preliminary hearing first, which in jackson county is where it took place. Uh, we were treated more like criminals probably than they were the. If you look at the newspapers and in the clippings, I can remember there was police everywhere they were. If you look at the newspapers and in the clippings, I can remember there was police everywhere. They were lined along the walls, they were lined behind them, trying to separate us from them, not even hardly been able to see them. So you had that happen. Then they get you know change of venue because they said they were too well-known. So you're going back seeing them again for that. And all this time they're looking at us like ha-ha-ha look.

Mark Morris: 14:34

Look what we got you. This is what we did and at that time, once the trial started the first trial started in 86 for the Acker murder, so we were a part of it. Our family was there most of the time. I was in school still, so I didn't. In 87 is when we had our first trial for ours. I had graduated high school and started college in Richmond. Uh, so I was going back and forth from the trial dates in London to school and back and forth that way.

Mark Morris: 15:04

So it was again another dose of reality you got. Then it was new, you didn't have internet, but you had newspapers, tv Again another dose of reality. Then you didn't have internet, but you had newspapers, tv crews. And now it's a big story because it's this crime spree that they went running across Kentucky killing couples and a younger lady. They had Lester Burns involved in it, which was a big-time attorney. You had Pilsdorf, which was an attorney out of Pockville that was representing one of them. So it became headline news every night. Yeah, you know what's going on here, what's going on here. And then, no matter how much evidence you think you have, the scary thought is what if they say no? What if they say they get away with it. And then some of the lies that were told on the, you know, when they get up to talk they didn't testify, but part of it and what their attorneys do and they try to make you the bad guy it was. It was a lot, you know, two years before we even got to really get our first sentence.

Wendy Lyons: 16:05

I don't think people see that is but I know, I saw it with my victims Families is the fear that they have, the anxiety that they have, and there's no way I'm going to paint defense attorneys with a broad brush because there's so many of them that I respect quite a bit, but it's rough on a family to watch an attorney or attorneys do what they're supposed to do and advocate for somebody. That alone is tough But's. That's that's the right now throw in there. If, if, if, the attorneys do add a little salt and a little punch, are they uh, uh, if they represent something in a way that people don't agree with? I'm not gonna say that they lie, but that's hard to watch there was a lot of arrogance in this.

Mark Morris: 16:51

Yeah, not because, well, we're right and they're wrong, but it was all right. You're all from a small hick town, we're going to be this, we're going to show you. Uh, and it became really personal. James wally craft was our attorney. He had done the acker case. We requested him to do our case ended up being everybody just passed away last year mayor in Letcher County and so that's where he was from. But he had done that case as the Commonwealth attorney. So we had him on ours and it became between him and their attorneys this all-out war almost. You know, we got the death penalty in the acker case. Uh, we didn't know for sure how long it would stay. There was some things we were worried about with the judge there, so we wanted to make sure we're going to get them for this so that did on the acker case.

Wendy Lyons: 17:43

Did all of them receive the death sentence? You?

Mark Morris: 17:45

had two death sentences in the acker case and the same thing. So epperson and hodge on both cases were given death. Bartley got life without parole or life with possibility of parole. In both cases uh turn states evidence. Um, and then sherry uh received some time and testified in the acker case but testified in her first one but not and that's one thing that's interesting about the court system. You think if someone testifies and there's a retrial or it comes back, they have to do it again. They don't. No, no, the testimony is good for one time and one time only. Now you can read their testimony back, but sometimes that's not the same as the individual sitting there.

Wendy Lyons: 18:28

It's not as simple as people make, and that's Sherry Hamilton, that's correct.

David Lyons: 18:32

Why did the one guy not get the death penalty?

Mark Morris: 18:35

For us he turned state, I mean just without a doubt If it hadn't been for him, it would have been really hard.

Mark Morris: 18:42

We had evidence and we could place the motive, we knew why they were there, how they got in, but he provided some stuff that we probably never would have got. Now, when the mom showed up with my grandma's ring on during the trial and that was really one of the first times we had seen her that was a whole other story, because then not that we had any doubt, because just how they acted when we saw them we kind of knew what was going on. But yeah, when she showed up with the ring on, that was a whole Did she know it was your grandmother's?

Mark Morris: 19:13

ring, yeah, and showed up with it on, without a doubt now is sherry still in jail prison.

David Lyons: 19:19

No, she's out, she got she got famous.

Mark Morris: 19:22

She got on oprah. She's traveled.

Mark Morris: 19:24

She was on dr phil back when dr phil first came out all to do with the, the trial, when there was a book written about it. Um, and, and I don't want to say good or bad, darcy o'brien wrote a book called a dark and bloody ground, uh, and it has a picture. The original had a picture of tammy on the front with a knife and blood coming from it, and then in the book it details sherry and and and, well, the whole crew, but sherry hodge epperson, they're kind of bonnie and clyde style, and it gets into how they found out about granny and papa's murder, um, and then some about their plan when they were in jail, how they're going to kill themselves and die together and never be apart. And so she went on a tour with darcy, or mr o'brien, uh, oprah and all that, trying to promote the book.

Wendy Lyons: 20:19

To get that part I was going to ask what her, what the interest would be in that.

Mark Morris: 20:25

Uh, and that was it just a book just yeah, and basically she tried to play the battered woman syndrome with Oprah. Sure sure. Oh, he forced me to do this and I'm trying to do better. You're not supposed to hate, but I hate her. No but it's just one of those things If she walked by.

Wendy Lyons: 20:42

That's a super common defense, though, and it'll be used by people who are 100% in Right. But listen, if they didn't think of it before, a good attorney, walk them through that, too, in a heartbeat. And again, that that's I. I can't criticize that piece, but they'll lie. I mean, that is that, uh, that whole thing of I was forced, I was, I didn't really want to uh I had a couple like that that, uh, loretta white, you know what?

Wendy Lyons: 21:09

there's two defendants on that one and that was part of the pitch that one of them tried to use is that he made me this, he made me that and unfortunately, in that one the jury didn't buy her story and she got the same verdict as the guy did. But yeah, that's the. That's insult.

David Lyons: 21:23

Now is she still in Kentucky.

Mark Morris: 21:35

No, no, I don't. I don't know where she. I know she's not here. She popped up on the radar back in. Our last retrial was in 2003. She popped back up on the radar for that and she tried to reach out a few times to some of the family members.

David Lyons: 21:42

But we have Ooh, what did she want to talk to the family? Why would she reach out?

Mark Morris: 21:48

personal satisfaction, to gloat to try to get some pity, uh, wanting to thank you, which she didn't do anything for. I mean it was, she was as much a part of the problem, sure, as as they were. She didn't pull the trigger, but I mean she was doing the drugs with them. She was instigating this part of it. We got to get more. We got to get more. She was instigating this part. We've got to get more.

Wendy Lyons: 22:13

We've got to get more. Can we do more?

Mark Morris: 22:14

This is fun, let's do this Was she one of them that you said went and got gloves and hats. Yeah, she helped get some of the stuff. She knew what they were doing. Full-on accomplice yeah, full-on, 100% yeah complicit in everything.

Wendy Lyons: 22:24

So interesting.

Mark Morris: 22:39

So yeah, but again I kind of read that in talking to you that waiting like that and then watching the maneuvering and every time that the attorneys go to the bench and you can't hear what they're saying, there's nothing worse than when you're sitting back there, and even on TV you see them give these 10-minute opening speeches for the defense and then for the prosecuting. Nobody interrupts, nobody says anything. In the first minute and a half there were 17 objections to Mr Kraft's opening statement.

Wendy Lyons: 23:01

And so he couldn't get a word out.

Mark Morris: 23:03

And then you see him run up to the counter and then, all right, we need the jury to step out. It took four days to see the jury in the first trial and in the first trial it went 11 days. Some were continuances or whatever. So you're like, golly, what are we doing? And then, when they go back to deliberate, there's nothing worse, it's just you're like, all right, how long is it going to take? And you know, the rule is, the quicker it can be good, or it can be nothing, or the longer it goes, the worse it can be. Luckily, ours was fairly quick, you know, but it was one of those you're like all right, now what's happened? Some of the things that's interesting. We found and I've talked to a couple of other people that's went through this when they were found guilty. Of course we want the death penalty. They both agree. If you'll give us life, life, we'll tell you everything, the truth okay, yeah, they try that too, and we're like no, and every trial that we've had three retrials, every trial they've offered.

Mark Morris: 24:00

Well, we'll tell you what really happened, which now we know without a shadow of a doubt what happened well, and it would be a lie exactly we take it off, that's.

Wendy Lyons: 24:10

That's it. What a? I don't think I've heard.

David Lyons: 24:12

What does it change? Really nothing. And the other guy you said probably told the most of the truth.

Mark Morris: 24:17

Yeah, for the most you can piece together between what they tried to say happened and what he said happened and the evidence and what dad saw.

Mark Morris: 24:25

You can kind of piece together everything that, yeah, it's the timeline, you know because yeah, with my grandmother they ripped the clock out of the wall so we knew what time that had happened, because it was the old-fashioned digital clocks everybody had, so you could see the time that that stopped, uh, the time of hearing the fire. What my uncle bobby thought was firecrackers. He knew about what time it was. He was out, so you could start piecing everything together to know crazy.

Wendy Lyons: 24:50

That's like a serial killer that tries the same thing where they'll. They'll say well, if you let me live, I'll show you some more bodies that didn't work well for ted bundy or tommy lindsells or rescinded ramirez is just the last two I know of. But it uh, and again, like you said, when he wants to change changes nothing. It doesn't bring them back, it doesn't change.

David Lyons: 25:10

So it's, it's not even worth it to know it was evil and it was brutal.

Mark Morris: 25:15

They get to glow. It's almost like they get to relive it in their mind and say, watch, I'm going to watch you hurt, because I'm going to tell you and even when we talked about doing this, it's never out of my mind. But now you start going like okay, what was that day? Like you know, what was this like? And you know I sit with my wife, we were talking about it and she's like I just can't I can't imagine and I'm like, oh, you never will, you know and you hope nobody does.

Mark Morris: 25:43

But the one thing that a lot of people forget about, you know, 40 years is a long time. Most of the people that you know nowadays well, that happened forever ago. Who cares what happens to them? It's still as fresh sitting here now as it was. That morning I got the phone call. I mean I could feel the chills when I said you know, grandpa said your grandparents have been murdered. What I felt that moment and the drive and seeing them and then having to try to think what my dad saw and the drive and seeing them and then having to try to think what my dad saw. And yeah, he saw it.

Wendy Lyons: 26:20

But then the other three, the main kids and their wives and now the grandchildren that's how a boy will never get the feel, and you made a good point about them and giving them the ability to gloat and to brag and everything. One of the things that drives me crazy from people that just don't understand is they'll talk about. Well, they should put them in prison so they have to sit and think about what they do. They do, they love it, they love it, they love it and they love it and they relive it. A lot of masturbate to it. I mean, this is what you're dealing with. It's not like they're sitting there sulking, saying I've ruined my life.

David Lyons: 26:57

That's why they would do it again if they got a chance. Well, and they definitely have said they're having remorse for what they did or what the family's going through. No, they can't exist, they don't care.

Mark Morris: 27:04

Yeah Well, and I always tell people. They said, all right, think about it. If you can't sleep at night, and I said, you're just sitting there, what happens? You run through everything you did that day over and over and over. So that's usually why you can't sleep. Well, when they're in the jail cell, there's nothing else for them to do, so they get to fantasize about I did this. Or I remember we walked in when I hit him that first time how it felt.

Wendy Lyons: 27:26

That's it, that's what, what runs through their minds.

Mark Morris: 27:28

Just constantly over and over. You know, when you take a Bible and ask a 68-year-old lady with one eye, are these four little clovers going to bring you luck? And then shoot twice. You know there is nothing there.

Wendy Lyons: 27:42

No, and it's like in that book, I think, from David Simon Homicide is that there's the top rules of homicide and rule one is the I think it's number one is the guilty party always sleeps. And I found out I used to share with Wendy that when we'd have the holdover room before we interviewed people, or when we got them in the interview room and I'm not kidding you you had to wake them up. So that's back to what you said. You and I, if we had to take a life to defend ourselves or somebody we loved, it would change us forever. We're not wired for it. We would probably need all kinds of therapy and stuff.

Wendy Lyons: 28:17

But they were tired, not because they were emotionally run down, it's because it doesn't bother them they just like I don't know how many, and you could ask all the people I work with and murder cops all over the country how many people they've had to wake up or keep awake on verse 48.

David Lyons: 28:30

When you watch them, they're asleep and they're like hey, wake up and like within.

Wendy Lyons: 28:35

You know, as in the military, you're taking a nap whenever you can yeah, they go in, and I mean they're asleep they shut the door and they're sleeping, yeah there's just no, and so that's an important thing because it uh, it's a small peeve of mine where, uh on in today's social media world, where they'll somebody will talk about a case and people will mitigate the behavior, I just saw one where a younger person stabbed a 14 or 15-year-old to death in Louisville, and I'll just describe this and in his mugshot his tongue is sticking out a little bit. I think it's because he thinks it's funny, because I've met guys like that, but it was funny how people were. Well, he's autistic and I'd ask. I said I've never known of autistic people that are capable of murder. That's exactly right. So two problems with that You're guessing and you're insulting the shit out of people that are on the autism range. Stop making that, because my number one comment is they'll say something and I'll like, or they might be evil. Yeah, that exists and it's obvious.

Mark Morris: 29:30

Most of the people that say that's never had anything tragic in their life?

Mark Morris: 29:32

No, no, they've never had anything like that, Because you know, like with ours for Hodges, to blow kisses, you know, at me, or the time my wife during one of the retrials, or at my dad, or you know, laugh at him and you know come on, come on, come on, do something, do something. Mouthing it. There's nothing about that, that's sorry. No, you know, they love it when they do get retrials or get to go out, because that's a day out for them.

Wendy Lyons: 29:58

Sure, well, yeah, let's go there real quick before we dance away. You said three trials. We've had three trials, if you can remember. So you have a trial, you get a conviction.

David Lyons: 30:12

What was reversed or sent back down for trial. Two hey, you know there's more to this story, so go download the next episode.

Wendy Lyons: 30:16

Like the true crime fan that you are, the Murder Police Podcast is hosted by Wendy and David Lyons and was created to honor the lives of crime victims, so their names are never forgotten. It is produced, recorded and edited by David Lyons. Never Forgotten. It is produced, recorded and edited by David Lyons. The Murder Police Podcast can be found on your favorite Apple or Android podcast platform, as well as at MurderPolicePodcastcom, where you will find show notes, transcripts, information about our presenters and a link to the official Murder Police Podcast merch store where you can purchase a huge variety of murder police podcast swag. We are also on facebook, instagram and youtube, which is closed caption for those that are hearing impaired. Just search for the murder police podcast and you will find us. If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe for more and give us five stars and a written review. On apple podcast or wherever you download your podcasts, make sure sure you set your player to automatically download new episodes so you get the new ones as soon as they drop, and please tell your friends. Lock it down, judy.