Episode 307: The Grotesque Murders of Joel and Lisa Guy | Morbid

Hey weirdos, it's Ash here, ready to share a little secret.

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I have been listening to the Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which actually Elena recommended to me.

She did not listen to it, but she said, girl, this title sounds so you.

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The sale ends 831. Don't miss it. Hey weirdos, my name happens to be Ash.

And I am Elena. And this... is morbid. This is morbid.

It is. It is. We're here. I always try to like say it more dramatic each time, but you know.

It's been almost four years, so you can only be so dramatic.

So much drama. Can only happen. Much drama for your mama.

How is everybody doing? It seems like you guys dug that last episode a lot.

And you know what? We had so much fun recording that episode.

Fucking cheese, man. I'm so glad you guys felt the same way we did about it because I was like, this was really fun.

It was. And even though it's a topic that like obvious is real.

Yeah. And it's tragic that that was actually happening.

Like some, we were able to find the humor and like the language and the records.

Right. And I'm glad that you guys were able to find that, too, because, you know, I feel like you get us.

I just love to... with you guys yeah it's just really nice to know you get us you know thanks for thank you for being a friend Thank you for being a friend.

Thank you for traveling down the road. And back again.

Your heart is true. You're a pal in a conversation.

If he threw a party. I'm just kidding. You know what?

Speaking of music... I have some gospel that I need to spread to you guys.

You should, because she spread the gospel to me this morning and we've been jam-lamming ever since.

I'm recruiting. so last night this is a cult all right you know how i'm sure you can all feel this especially people like that are like you know, in their thirties, I feel like you'll really get this because... Elder millennials.

Yeah. Elder millennials. I think you're going to feel me a lot, but I'm sure I hopefully all you will.

But I think like music to me is like boring now.

Right now? Because it's all the same. It just feels like... Overall.

And it feels like rock... went away. Like I just, I miss rock.

That was my like genre. I just, I miss it and I want it back.

And last night we were doing a recording and when we came downstairs, we'd been, you know, upstairs for a couple of hours and John was like, just so happy when i came downstairs and i was like what you've been doing And he was like, okay, so I found out about this new band called Ghost.

And he said the entire two hours that we were upstairs, he had listened to the entire album by himself in the living room.

And he was like, I was smiling. I feel like I want to just like, rage I'm so excited like it's like it's the rock that we have been missing like he's so excited and he was like and they have this cool like aesthetic and I'm obsessed.

And I was like, what? So he starts showing me it.

The two of us, for the next three hours until we went to sleep, were listening to Ghost.

And literally yelling at each other how excited we are.

Like as soon as like. I wish I could have seen this.

I'm sure many of you have listened to Ghost because they've been around for a long time.

We just had never heard of them somehow.

I don't know how we were not on this train, but.

Holy shit. If you have not listened to Ghost... They're good.

You gotta listen to Ghost. And if you listen to Ghost... hey, friend, we're officially in this cult together and I'm excited about it.

And you have to say about their backgrounds. because it's fun and cool.

Yeah, you gotta look them up because they have this really cool vibe where they...

It's like, you know, it's a very tongue-in-cheek kind of thing. the lead singer makes these characters and he like makes them last for a couple of years and he gets they're like very like prosthetics and costumes and the fact that he can sing in the prosthetics that he has on his face are it's crazy Because he can barely move his mouth, but he can sing amazing.

And he kills them off or has them resign every two years.

Like in the middle of a concert and then just brings the new one out.

And. This new one is like the most of them are called like Papa Emeritus.

And it's like, you know, this cardinal character and it's really cool.

But I just love that it's rock. Like true rock.

True rock. I was like, this, I'm in. it's really good too but it's just one of those things like i showed ash this morning after we dropped the girls off at school i was like you have to listen to this And in the middle of the song, I kept being like, oh my God, I just love it so much.

Yeah, Elaine, I was geeking. I was freaking out.

And it's so rare that music, I haven't had music make me feel that way in a long time.

It's a good feeling because I know what you mean.

Like, I get it. It just like gives you that like, oh, I just want to consume all of this.

Yeah. And I actually was talking to Jordan from the Nighttime Podcast.

Hi, Jordan. Go listen to the Nighttime Podcast.

It's great. it is but jordan's like a very big ghost fan and he was very excited and he showed me a bunch of songs i hadn't heard and so now we're gonna geek out together all the time talk about ghosts because I'm just going to keep annoying him about it.

And now you guys can all geek out with Alina too.

Yes. So everybody. I'm sure most of you listen to ghosts because I feel like very remiss that I have not.

But if you haven't, go listen. Check it out.

So I just that was my public service announcement that I found for the first time in a long time, like music that.

Made me want to just fucking kick things.

Whoa. Whoa. So good. I don't really have any public service announcements last night.

I just went home and ate a tuna fish sandwich and then I went to bed.

Good for you, man. I was an old last night.

You were like jamming in your kitchen to rock music, which one of us is the older one here?

And I was like, I'm going to make my eternal fresh sandwich and get...

Get some rest. I got to get some rest. I stayed up late last night.

I've been going to bed at 10. I know. And then I went to bed at 11 last night and I'm feeling the ramifications.

That extra hour. I truly am geriatric. That's okay. it's fun yeah i'm into it welcome to the club get into it yeah get into it well you're not geriatric you're listening to rock bands in your kitchen now Yeah, you know me, man.

You're so hype, as the kids would say. John and I just yelling at each other in excitement last night.

Sometimes I think about the fact that I'm 25 and like not 82 because sometimes I feel 82.

And you know You know You know how I feel You know what I mean I think we all do Yeah man But You know what?

Listen to Ghost. Yeah, listen to Ghost and Ash is going to bring us into a pretty...

We're coming back. We're back in the true crime of it all.

This case is horrible. Like, absolutely horrific.

Not going to be like last episode. No, it's not.

It's not going to be as bad as Albert, but I mean, it's a pretty rough one.

So this case begins in November of 2016 during Thanksgiving weekend.

And this is the case of the Guy family. What a time.

Yeah. So Thanksgiving. weekend you know celebratory time break out the sweet potatoes the yams yams potatoes all of that There you go.

I think that's the song. And the Guy family was getting together. and they were going to celebrate one last Thanksgiving meal in their home in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Now, Joel Guy Senior and his wife, Lisa, had actually recently put their home on the market. and they were planning to move about 70 miles northeast to another area in Tennessee called Sagoinesville.

I believe is how you said it. I looked it up about 42 times.

I gave myself a phonetic pronunciation key here.

You did everything right as As far as I'm concerned.

I tried. You did everything you were supposed to do.

There's an R in there. It's like Sir Goinsville.

But every person I said... I heard say it, said Sagoinsville.

You're like, I can do this. I can do this.

So they were moving to Sagoinsville. No, and the reason they were doing this is because Joel Sr.'

's mother had recently passed away. So he and his wife decided they were going to move into her house, like purchase her home and move in there.

And their goal was to do that right before Christmas.

Okay. And his sisters were like super, super excited that their brother and their sister in law were going to be so close again, and they were really looking forward to spending Christmas together under one roof because it was something they really hadn't been able to do in years.

Now Joel and Lisa, just to give you a little background on who they were, they got married in 1985. and they lived in Louisiana for a brief period of time before they moved to Tennessee.

Joel Sr. was married once before to a woman named Patricia, and together they had three daughters, Michelle, Angela and Shandice, I believe is how you say her name. now after he divorced from patricia he obviously got married to lisa And together they had one child who was named after his father, making him Joel Guy Jr.

Eek. who I'm sure you've heard of. Yes.

So to distinguish the difference between the two of them, most of the family referred to younger Joel as Joel Michael.

Okay. to make things a little easier. So even though it was a blended family, everybody kind of seemed to get along well together, like as far as Joel's daughters and like their stepmother.

They were really young when their father married Lisa.

And Lisa became like a big mother role in their lives.

And they like totally look up to her in the summertime they would go visit their dad and lisa And I think they would stay like a month just because where their mom lived was kind of far.

So it was like, let's spend a month with dad.

Yeah, that makes sense. i remember doing that when i was younger um and they all said like what a good mom and what a good wife lisa was They said she always had supper on the table when Joel Sr. came home from work.

She always greeted him at the door, like excited to see him.

And when they were there, she made sure that the cabinets were stocked with their favorite foods.

Oh, that's sweet. Like she loved them and she definitely loved the family of it all.

Yeah. Now, one of the daughters, Michelle, remembered like really looking up to Lisa and she was like, I just wanted to be the mom that she was.

Oh. And when Michelle got engaged, her engagement ring was actually like a replica of Lisa's engagement ring. because she looked up to her that much.

Oh, man. She was like, my first engagement ring was like literally her ring because...

I just loved her so much. I loved her. And she was a step-parent.

Like, that's really cool to hear because when step-parents become like parent-parents.

You know, like that's like, I love hearing that.

And it can be a hard transition. Oh, for sure.

You have no, like on both sides. Yeah, exactly.

Like the kids, you don't know, like for the step parent, you don't know how the kids are going to receive you and how much, how much, grief they're going to give you until they finally give in.

And for the kids, you don't know how this isn't your parent like that you've grown up with. so it's like right a lot of the time at least so it's like this is a new person that you have to get used to so when it just like clicks and both sides like give each other the time and give each other what they need.

It's really nice. It's really beautiful.

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So that was really beautiful. Yeah, this is going to hurt my heart.

But Lisa and Joel's senior son, Joel Jr., he was... a little different, a little different kind of guy.

He was born on March 13th, 1988, Pisces.

And growing up, he was a really shy kid.

He had some friends throughout his early school years, but not very many of them.

And as he got older, he only clung on to one friend who I believe ended up being his roommate, Michael McCracken.

And even Michael felt like Joel was kind of distancing himself from the friendship the older they got.

And he was like, I don't know, it just seemed like he was pulling away from me.

Now, Joel's half-sisters look back on their experiences with him and they were realizing, they were like, we just didn't have... any memories with him because they said most of the time when they were at the house, Joel would just stay inside of his room and keep to himself. like they would have like family dinners even like thanksgiving and holidays and stuff like that usually he would either not come or he would be in his room just not talking to anybody.

Oh, that's concerning. Yeah, he just didn't want to socialize with anybody.

So that's why, when Thanksgiving of 2016 rolls around and he not only decided to join them for dinner, but was like happy and outgoing the whole time.

Everyone was a little confused by the sudden change in his disposition.

Yeah. Like, this is strange. I don't know about this.

Yeah, because they actually... Is this an omen?

They didn't even think that he was going to be coming to have Thanksgiving dinner with them in the first place, but he showed up on Wednesday like ready for some family time.

And they all were like, okay, cool, this is weird, but I guess we'll enjoy it.

Well, they're probably all thinking like the first thing you're going to think is like, great, maybe he's in a better place.

And like, we're all going to be like, this is a good thing.

Maybe he's turning over a new leaf. You never know.

He actually even took out a big thing of his childhood toys, which were like at home.

And he was showing them to his nephews and giving away the toys.

And his sister, all of his sisters were really surprised, but one of them specifically was like, I didn't even think he knew my children's names.

Oh my God. Like that's how distant he was.

Yeah. And like just disconnected from his family.

Wow. So Thanksgiving honestly seemed to go really well.

The family enjoyed their meal together. But after hanging out for a little bit, Joel's daughter, Joel Senior's daughters went home with their children later that night. and joel jr was going to be sticking back at his parents house he was going to stay for one more night because he wasn't quite ready to make his nine and a half hour drive back to his apartment in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Long drive. Now he had originally moved down to Louisiana in high school, actually. to attend Louisiana State University, and his hope was to one day become a plastic surgeon.

Wow. But he withdrew from the school the year before in 2015.

That was like kind of Joel's thing. Strangely enough, he had actually done really well in high school.

He even attended Louisiana School for Math and Math Science and the Arts in his final two years of high school.

And it's a school for exceptional students.

Wow. So he definitely was really smart. Yeah.

I mean, to want to be a plastic surgeon, you have to at least be on the path of being able to get into medical school.

Definitely. But he wasn't necessarily on that path because...

Once he made it to college, he really didn't seem to have any direction, any motivation, just like he seemed lost.

Yeah. And after he graduated from high school in 2006, he actually ended up going to George Washington University in DC. but he only spent one semester there before he decided to withdraw.

Oh. And he total had spent nine years in and out of college and had nothing to show for it.

Oh. Nothing like nine years in and out of college.

How does it go nine years, man? You got to like stop at some point and be like, okay.

Like this is not working. We got to think of a different way to go about this.

Exactly. So it's not for everybody. Yeah.

And I mean, I dropped out of college and it's completely fine, but you just didn't nine years to do so.

Well, it's like you got to take a moment and come to that realization eventually.

Exactly. And the other thing is, this isn't him like, shelling out his own money to pay for college.

Because if you know this story, and now if you don't, I'm going to tell you, his parents... literally paid for everything.

Joel Guy Jr. never worked a day in his life.

What an asshole. one like short-lived internship during college and that was it.

And his parents are paying for everything and he's just like bopping it out of schools.

Not getting anything. Like, that's shitty.

And living in, like, a Baton Rouge apartment that his parents are also paying for.

Yeah, come on. And Joel's half sister, Angela, said the only reason their mother, Lisa, worked as stepmother slash mother was to give her paycheck over to Joel Jr.

Oh, that's terrible. She literally went to work every day and didn't take the money for herself, handed her check over to her grown adult son.

That's bad. That's bad on all fronts. She paid for his clothing, college, apartment, bills, everything.

And her husband, Joel's father, Joel senior would give his son money too.

But at this point he was at his wit's end and he actually stopped giving him money long before the mom did.

But that was all going to change soon. Because Joel Geiss Sr., so he worked as an engineering designer for a company called Alstom.

Oh, wow. So he's a really smart guy. Super smart guy.

But right around Thanksgiving, he got laid off.

So at the time he was 61. And he was like, am I really going to go back to this or should I just retire?

Can I retire here? So he started to talk to Lisa and he was like, you know, like, I'd really like to retire.

There's actually no reason for you to be working because you're just giving your paycheck to our son.

Like, why don't we retire together? So like I said, he was 61 at the time and she was 55.

So they're like, two of them are ready to just figure this all out.

And just to be together. Yeah. And just like, that's the time when you get to just be together and just look back and be like, damn, good job us.

All right. Let's. We raised four kids together.

We had good jobs. We worked hard. Now let's have some fun.

Yeah. So the two of them, they sat down, they figured out exactly how much they would need to retire.

Like they were clearly super smart in the way they went about this.

They accounted for every last penny they would have to spend.

One of their daughters recalled that they even set their budget to include beer and cigarettes.

Amazing. Which I was like, I love that. You got a budget, man.

Yeah. got to the bottom of it, they realized that they would definitely be able to retire with what they had.

But in order to do so, they had to stop funding Joel Sr.

Of course they did. But you've been doing it for so long, and now it's going to be really hard to pull that So long, he was 28 years old by this point.

Yeah, you can't do that, man. I know it's like out of the goodness of, you know, parents do that because it's hard.

Yeah. I can't imagine. Like I want to literally buy the girl if I could like spend every cent I have just buying them fun things.

That's how I feel. But I would do that.

And it's like, cause it's so fun and it's like, you just want to help them.

You just want to do everything for them because you're like, well, I created you.

I feel like I should, I want to help you.

Yeah. but it's like you have to think it's so hard and I imagine it gets harder and harder and harder.

I imagine I'm going to struggle bus with this the whole my entire life but it's like It's a bad precedent to set because it's really hard to pull that back later because then this person thinks they're entitled to it.

And boy, did he talk. 28 years old, like surely you would be able to get a job and figure things out on your own.

Surely. Yeah. But we'll see what happens.

So Lisa and Joel Sr. told some of their family... including their daughters and Joel senior sisters, that they were going to retire.

And they were going to move out to Sagoinsville.

And everyone was just over the moon for them.

Like I said, Joel's sister... These sisters, yeah, Joel's senior sisters were stoked that their brother was going to be closer.

Of course. They couldn't wait to just bond and hang out.

Yeah. I don't know if they were retired, but, you know, these two are retiring.

Maybe they're going to plan trips together.

Of course. It's such an exciting time. When you see like your sibling or like somebody you care about has worked their whole life really hard.

And then comes to that point where they are able to retire because some people are never able to.

I mean, it's. It's so sad. And it's because you have to literally sit down and say, okay, this is hopefully when we're going to live until...

And we need to make sure we have money for the hopefully like 20 to 30 years.

Yeah. That's a lot of planning. It's a lot of planning.

So when people are able to do that, it's a celebration.

Like that's great. And especially people who have worked. worked really hard their whole life.

It's like... And given all they had to somebody else as well.

Not only taking care of themselves, but also just like did everything they could for someone else.

They did everything they were supposed to do.

And everything that they thought they were supposed to do.

Yeah. So they planned on telling Joel, too.

But I guess the original plan was that they were going to wait until Christmas to let him know.

I'm not sure what the reasoning was for that.

Maybe they were going to tell him like after Christmas and just in hopes to get through the holidays without some kind of backlash.

I imagine that was the... They were definitely expecting it.

Yeah. It doesn't seem like anyone is sure whether or not Lisa and Joel were able to have this conversation with Joel Jr. before they were killed.

But putting two and two together, almost everybody involved in this case knows that that conversation happened.

And probably happened earlier than Thanksgiving weekend.

Makes sense. And was probably the reason exactly why Joel was like, oh yeah, I'm ready for some family time.

I was just going to say, that's why he showed up being like, woohoo.

Let's do this. Now, as I said earlier, everyone felt like Thanksgiving had gone really well that year.

Like they were happy about it. But the Monday after that, though, was really strange.

So Lisa, she worked for a company called Jacobs Engineering as an accounts payable administrator in human resources.

Like we hear in a lot of these cases, Lisa was always on time.

She pretty much never missed work. And if she was going to take a day off or come in late, she would call beforehand.

Just a good employee. Yeah, and she got along really well with her boss, Jennifer Whitehead.

So Jennifer was waiting for Lisa to come into work on Monday morning And as she waited, she looked at the clock and she's like, okay, it's, you know, 7.05, it's getting a little later, 7.10, I'm getting a little worried here.

She let 15 minutes go by. And then she was like, I'm going to call her like 15 minutes is plenty of time.

Cause she was that. On time all the time.

Exactly. That tells you what kind of worker she was.

It definitely does. Because 15 minutes to a lot of people would be like, well, you know, they'll be...

Yeah, 15 minutes time. My bosses in the past love you so much, everybody, but I was very late all the time.

I'm so sorry. Yeah, like whenever I hear that in cases, like she was always on time.

I'm like, not applicable. Yeah, not applicable here.

I am a constantly late kind of gal, but Lisa was not.

So Jennifer was like, I don't know, something's off here.

Like, why wouldn't she call? So she gives her a call and the call rings obviously for a little bit, but then just eventually goes to voicemail.

She keeps calling, calls a couple more times, lets a little more time pass in between each call, starts texting her, not getting a reply at all.

So Jennifer was like, okay, you know, I don't like, maybe she has car trouble.

Maybe like something's going on. I don't know.

I should call Joel Sr., her husband, let's make sure everything's okay.

So she calls Joel Sr., no answer. Calls him again, no answer.

Texts him a couple times, didn't get a reply.

Now, the other thing on Jennifer's mind was that later that day, some of the other people in the office were actually supposed to be getting together with Lisa to to celebrate her retirement, they were going to take her out to lunch.

And she's like, she wouldn't have missed this.

No, like why would she just not show up?

Yeah, she was looking forward to it. She had worked there a long time.

And she just wouldn't have missed the lunch.

She was excited. So Jennifer was like, no, I am calling the police.

Like, I'm nervous. I'm just going to see if they can do a wellness check.

So the police agree and they go out to the home.

Now upon first glance, everything seemed okay.

And they left and that reported back to Jennifer, the residents looks fine.

We didn't get any answer at the door, but it doesn't look like anything's wrong in there.

So she was like, OK, cool. But she kept trying, kept trying to reach Lisa or Joel. and she's failing to get any kind of response so she calls the police again and she's like can you just go check on the house again like This is really weird.

And the panic that must have been starting to arise here.

Yeah, exactly. You know, like when I can't get a hold of my parents anymore.

Oh my God, we drive to their fucking house.

We literally will drive to their house. We can't get a hold of them for like an hour.

We drive to their house. Panic. Full blown.

And it's like they are very capable human beings.

Like they are not like... No. Every time we show up, they're like, guys, we're okay.

They're like, oh, the phone was just off the hook or something.

I'm like, guys... Or they're like, oh, sorry, the cell phone wasn't on the ringer.

Yeah, and I'm like, come on. Like, leave it on the ringer.

I need to know you're okay. Exactly. And I imagine this is exactly how Jennifer felt.

And then we'll get into it in a minute. Joel Sr.'

's daughters were also trying to get in touch with him and they were getting nervous.

So Detective Jeremy McCord was the one tasked with doing the second welfare check.

He was because another officer had gone out first. and obviously didn't find anything.

So Jeremy McCord gets sent and they're like, maybe check a little bit further.

Yeah. So he remembered that as soon as they pulled up to this house, there was just like an ominous feeling in the air.

He immediately felt like something was wrong.

Nothing looked wrong, but the situation just felt off.

Yeah. And now both Lisa and Joel's cars were parked in the driveway.

But there was no answer at the front door.

And they only had these two cars. And the front door was locked.

Now, when they got up to the house, they saw that there was a for sale sign in the front yard because remember they're moving.

Yeah. So they assumed, maybe there's some kind of lockbox somewhere, maybe we can call the real estate agent, figure out the code, get entry that way.

But the lockbox was nowhere to be found.

Usually they're like around the front door, um, doorknob.

And it's also like, why are there cars in the driveway?

Immediately, you're like, that's so strange.

So can't find the lockbox. So they're like, okay, let's call the real estate agent.

Maybe she like put it somewhere else. He or she.

And this real estate agent tells them there definitely should have been a lockbox on the front door.

But since there wasn't, she said, Maybe check one of the guy's cars for a garage opener.

I think you can probably get in that way through the door.

Yeah. So Detective McCord and the other officer who did the first wellness check, Stephen Ballard, They wanted to save that as kind of a last resort, obviously, because you want to... They're trying not to break into the house, basically.

Precisely. So they surveyed the scene a bit further.

Now they took note that the doorknob on the front door didn't seem to match the deadbolt above it.

And that there was all kinds of scratches around the metal part.

So it kind of looked like whoever had installed this had some trouble doing so.

It was very... very scratched up. Yeah.

And now when they went around to the back of the house, they had to like hop over a fence, but they go to the back and they are seeing maybe there's a back door, we can gain entry that way.

So they find the back door. But they realized why the front door knob looked so strange.

Because the door knob from the back door had been removed and installed onto the front door.

So the back door had no doorknob. There was a hole.

What? Now as he peered down to look into the hole that was left in the back door...

Detective McCord immediately felt heat coming from the inside of the house and and realized that he was detecting some kind of chemical odor also coming from inside.

Oh my God. And from his vantage point looking through this hole, he could see that there were groceries sitting in the front foyer. that clearly would have been put away sooner rather than later because there was like bacon, ice cream, perishables.

So it was at that point that they checked both of the guys' cars to see if they could get that garage open and gain entry that way.

Luckily, one of the cars was open and they were able to get the garage open and go into the home through the door like that.

The garage door. Yeah. always lock your garage door by the way i know ps i know i know they were home and stuff but like you should lock it even when you're home Yeah, definitely.

So as they made their way inside the home, they saw that there was a large pot sitting on top of the stove top. and the stovetop was on and the oven was on as well.

Now, the smell of chemicals in the air at this point was so overwhelming that Officer Stephen Ballard said it actually made the skin on his forehead start to tear. tingle holy the humidity in this home was like borderline unbearable I wonder if they were worried that there was something that was going to explode here.

Probably. If I smelled chemicals and stuff and felt that heat, I'd be like, we need to get out of here.

Like, Yeah. But, you know, like I got this wellness check done, I guess.

I mean, good for them. They're good investigators.

So they walk past the downstairs thermostat and they see that the downstairs one has been set to 90 degrees.

Oh. So immediately they're like, Oh, what the fuck is going on here?

The stove is There's groceries in the front foyer.

You guys aren't answering. It smells like chemicals in here.

It's a 90 fucking degrees. what is going on.

I can't imagine. I would be immediately nauseous walking in there.

Oh, yeah. And then they had to go upstairs and it was even hotter up there because heat rises.

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So they called for backup as soon as they made their way further into this home because they made. several gruesome discoveries, but one especially that left them absolutely horrified.

So walking up the stairs, they heard a dog crying somewhere up there.

And they would later find out that the dog had been locked in the laundry room.

Oh my God. And it's like 90,000 degrees in there.

And it's probably even hotter in there because it was a door that was locked.

Exactly. shot in a smaller room, I'm assuming.

Yeah. And a laundry room is always hot. It's just humidity anyways.

Right. Oh, that dog. And God only knows how long he was there.

So they also saw blood splatter covering the walls.

Once they made their way to the top of the staircase completely, they walked past several bloodstains on the carpet.

Oh, no. A pile of woman's clothes that seemed to have been cut off because there was a pair of scissors that was just laying next to the clothes.

And then in one of the rooms off of the hallway, they made a discovery so spine-chilling that it led the officers outside like they literally just left and called for backup and called in the house as a crime scene.

What they found in that room was a pair of severed hands seemingly belonging to a man.

So what a pair of man's severed hands just sitting in a room.

Now, as the yellow tape went up around this house and the forensics team was being called in to start taking and marking and eventually taking the evidence, Joel Guy Jr. drove past his parents' house and he saw the chaotic scene unfolding on the front lawn.

And it was at that point that he turned around and started making his way back to Baton Rouge without a care in the fucking world. because he knew that his apartment was all paid for for a while, and his mother had just paid about $10,000 toward his rent. paid off some of his school debt, most of his utilities for the months to come.

But the money, maybe she didn't necessarily pay that.

I was going to say, did she do it herself?

Yeah. She had already been killed when that money was used.

Oh, my God. He paid from his mother's account $10,000 toward his rent. his school debt, like a portion of it, and utilities months in advance.

How are people like this? I have no idea.

Like this kind of human, you're just like...

Oh, it makes you just want to like shut yourself in your house and just be like, nope, not talking to anybody.

It also makes you not want to have children.

These are his fucking parents. Jeez. I was going to say, yeah, I want to lock myself in my house, but alone.

Alone. yeah like bye you're like i love my kids but now i'm like a little terrified So, one way or another, Joel caught wind that his parents were going to be cutting him off soon and his days of mooching would be over.

If they were going to cut him off, he felt like he had to do something to stop them.

So he got to planning. In a black notebook, he wrote down about five pages of notes.

Most of the notes planned out meticulously the way he would kill his parents, but make it look like his father was the one to kill his mother.

Wow. That was the plan. So not only are you going to murder your parents who have taken care of you your entire life and your entire adult life.

Yeah. Like, the whole time you've been on this planet.

But you're also going to besmirch his... legacy your father's name by making it look like he killed his wife yeah I mean, have no fear.

This guy turned somehow into a bumbling fucking idiot.

Good God, but... But holy shit. His plans were so deeply evil.

Oh my, like evil? There's not even a word for the length of evil. evil he went to it's despicable is what it is it's like worse than Yeah.

So first he decided he and this is all written down.

He would somehow incapacitate his father.

The original plan that he wrote down in his fucking notebook was to throw... This is also like...

I'm like, you're a teenager, like you're a man child.

Oh, yeah, I can already see that. His plan was to throw something down the garbage disposal to break it and then go tell his dad that it was broken. get his dad under the sink, and attack him while he was fixing the sink.

I'm sorry. I have nothing to say. You are 28 years old and you're going to go be like, Daddy, the sink doesn't work.

Yeah. You're 28 year old man. 28 years old and you can't figure out a thing.

Yeah. Unreal. But if you're going to incapacitate your your father, you're like older father that way.

Who's just about to retire and cut your ass off.

So brave. Yeah. So brave. Right. You're so, this is a great plan for sure.

Yeah. So he decided once he had killed his father, he was going to sneak up on his mother and obviously kill her as well. but he was going to get his father's DNA underneath her fingernails. to somehow make it look like they had struggled before they both ended up dead.

Alright, stop watching. forensic files.

My God. Whenever these guys... these people go through all that and they're like, well, I was going to do this to make sure this, and it's like, oh God, you're like such a, ugh.

Because it's like, okay, cool. Like, great plan.

That's, yeah, top notch. It's just so ridiculous.

It's so over the top. And you see how this plan just thankfully fails so miserably.

Of course. And his DNA is... everywhere in this house.

And it's like, he wrote down notes to prevent that.

Like he was like, Don't touch this. Line this with plastic.

Stay this long. Which even that is stupid because it's like if you were...

If you really were like cunning, like you think you are... I would not be writing this down.

You wouldn't write fucking notes, you idiot.

Like what's... That's like literally 101 of not being caught is not writing down your entire plan in a notebook.

Like that's pretty much That should be the first rule, very much.

And it's like, you can't remember? You can't remember? to leave like copious amounts of DNA everywhere like you need to write five pages of like the things you should and should not do what an actual imbecile yeah he had all kinds of notes about avoiding the dna around the house how he was going to dispose of the bodies to make sure he left the least amount of forensic evidence possible.

Killed it. Which you did not. He even had plans of burning the house down, which is why I think in his head he was like, oh, I'll leave the notebook there and it will burn as well. no one will know what I did.

Now he wrote that he would set a timer for the house to start burning down Friday morning, because as he put it, "...sunlight masks fire, but not smoke."

Everyone at work, so they can't report it.

Everyone in your neighborhood is going to be at work.

I have ever heard in my entire life. Sunlight masks fire. a blazing inferno with a house burning down.

Like, I'm sorry. No one's going to notice it because they're all at work.

There's no one on the street. None There's definitely at least one person on your street that is home or is around the area.

And it's like, no, sunlight does not... make fire just invisible.

That's not how that works. What? And also, like, how do you even know it was gonna be a sunny day, you idiot?

And, like... What? No, none of that makes sense.

And then everyone at work can't report. It's like, oh, yes, everyone in the entire world is at work on that day.

You can't account if somebody calls in sick.

How the fuck are you supposed to know about that?

What if somebody's a stay at home? Person.

They call that a variable, my guy. What if somebody works from home?

Exactly. Idiot. So the motive, although it would become clear to everybody at one point or another, it was also written down in the notebook just in case we couldn't figure it out.

Wow. He was after his mother's life insurance policy.

So crazy, right? Life insurance policies.

I'm so sick of them. I know, me too. I feel like every case I cover lately is about insurance money.

And I'm like, not even intentionally doing that.

Oh, no, it's more just like, why do people use them? that way it's like right come on dude it's supposed to be for protection the other thing is and i'll get into it a little bit later but i found out about like what happens obviously if like you're the person that kills somebody and you think you're going to get the insurance money, it's interesting how it works.

And there's a whole rule that goes along with it.

It is interesting. When you get into it, it's like the ins and outs of it.

You're like, oh, yeah, nobody knows this stuff.

No. But it's a complicated process. The motive of life insurance is just like, oh, God, you're dumb.

Right. Not it's been done, but you're literally the worst.

Like nobody ever. You're going to kill a human being for money for life insurance money.

Right. Meanwhile, she's given you and he's given you money your whole goddamn life.

Yeah. Very cool. Now, he even knew he must have known what was in these accounts, assuming he had access to her passwords as well. or maybe they were written down somewhere that he had access to, because he knew exactly how much he would get.

And in addition to knowing the life insurance policy, he He also had a list in his notebook of the assets he could potentially get if his mom had died. and some others that he might be entitled to apportion to if his father died.

But what about the other two? What about the sisters?

Like they're not going to get a portion of this life insurance money, you think?

Well, so they wouldn't get a portion. I think he knew that he was the beneficiary and his father because his sisters were like her step children, so I don't know if they were in this life insurance.

Maybe they got, like, something somewhere else kind of thing.

You would think because they were so... So close.

Right. That that would be part of the thing.

Yeah. I don't know. I don't really know.

But but he did account for that. Don't worry.

So he wrote down $500,000 would be all mine with him missing or dead.

I get the whole thing. Because the way the life insurance policy was split was that he would get half and his dad would get half.

Okay. And he knew that his mother had this life insurance policy through work. and he had to kill her before she retired in order to get that money.

And he knew he had to kill his father too, or like I said, he would only be entitled to half.

And I say only because I'm telling you how he felt about it.

How he would feel it, but $250,000 is a...

Not only. Yeah, not only at all. But he also like wrote down something about killing his siblings too to get more money oh so he was gonna keep going with this you definitely was going to keep going Yeah, it definitely makes sense to kill your entire family.

No one will think it's weird. No one will think an eye at that.

Sole survivors. yeah they'll just you'll be you'll be held up like what are you screaming for you're gonna be oh my god girl i was just gonna say what are you emma roberts i'm gonna say that's so funny you're jill from scream 4 you're just gonna be held up as a survivor seriously yeah So Joel Jr. had not spent Thanksgiving night with his parents to get some extra quality time in, in case you were wondering. he did this so that he could find the perfect time to kill them and cash in on the life insurance policy.

My God. So the Friday after Thanksgiving, Lisa told Joel Senior and Junior that she was going to head to the grocery store and stock up on grocery food and groceries and that she also had to get pet food for the family dog so she'd be back in a little bit Now, there is literally footage of her walking out of, I believe it was a Walmart that she went to for groceries, walking out of the... walmart like on the way to head home and you're like oh my god you don't know what's waiting for you How many times do you just walk out of somewhere and like you never know that that's the last time you're going to be somewhere?

You're walking out of there to go home to your husband and your son.

Right. Why would you ever expect that something is going to happen?

Yeah. It's just a normal day. With groceries for the whole family, with pet food for your dog.

Just such like an innocuous situation. Yeah.

So when she headed out, it seemed as though Joel Sr. headed up to the workout room on the second floor of the house to get in a workout while his wife was gone.

Oh, my God. all over his body. The stabs punctured Joel Sr's kidneys, lungs, and his liver during the attack. and he suffered multiple breaks to his ribs as well as countless defensive injuries that were later seen on his hands, which were severed at some point.

My God. He had been stabbed with such force that there was still a piece of the knife lodged into the muscle of one of his shoulders.

The muscle. Oh, this must have been so brutal.

Unreal. So brutal. Unreal. So when Lisa returned home with the groceries, it was clear that she was attacked almost immediately.

She was stabbed at least 31 times and suffered stab wounds to her heart. her aorta both lungs her left kidney her liver and her third thoracic vertebrae My God.

Some of her wounds were six to seven inches deep.

Ugh. to your mother with which he did this.

Unreal. So over the course of the next couple of days, Joel Jr. got to work dismembering his parents' bodies as he had laid out in his notebook.

So flashback to this crime scene. The forensic team is making their way inside of the home. and they start gathering evidence and they are walking through a bizarre and absolutely shocking scene. multiple officers and people working on the scene became physically ill and at one point they actually had to have hazmat come in oh i believe it yeah And everybody who worked on this case said that they will never, ever get this scene out of their heads.

I remember hearing the details of this and I can't I don't know how you, I can't, this would never just leave.

They would never leave you. Because I watched the trial.

Actually, you can watch the full trial on YouTube.

It's like two hours long. And part of it is that they show the video of...

Like everything is blurred out, obviously, but they show the crime scene video.

It is. I can see it in my head right now and it makes me like physically nauseous.

It is the most disgusting, brutal, callous thing I've ever seen in my life.

There were guns laid out on the dining room table and and ammunition just laying about the room.

Like in the dining room, there were just like boxes of ammunition piled on the floors and guns just on the table.

There were garbage bags strewn about the kitchen floor, alongside multiple gallons of bleach and packages of baking soda.

Just like Arm & Hammer baking soda, just chilling right out there.

Lisa and Joel Sr.' 's wallets were laid out on the kitchen table next to some cash. a hammer, a set of pliers, and Lisa's purse.

Oh. And her like, she had like a windbreaker coat just draped over a chair.

So it's like... It's this cute little like almost like country looking kitchen.

Yeah. But with... and pliers and chemicals lying about everywhere.

So they walked past the pot on the stove again And they would later realize that Lisa had been decapitated because they found her head inside of this pot, which was full of a boiling chemical mixed with water.

They found her head in a pot. His mother's head.

On the stove. There were also multiple space heaters throughout the house.

So not only is the thermostat set to 90, There are multiple space heaters laying about the house, all turned on.

And as they made their way upstairs past the blood spatter and heaps of Lisa's torn up clothing, they saw multiple jugs of corrosive chemicals.

So he was really trying to speed up this decomp process.

Oh, yeah. That was laid out in his notes.

He thought exactly like how long it would take.

We'll get to it. It's so, so disgusting. so making their way into the master bedroom they saw that the bed was covered with plastic sheeting and so was the floor leading into the master bathroom There was also a note found on a yellow post-it that was left on the dresser in the master bedroom. and it was dated 12, 1913 and signed by Joel Sr.

It read 401k with a bank account, or excuse me, on a money amount next to it.

Bank... money amount, insurance, money amount.

I just don't really want to sit here and tell you what the number said because I feel weird telling you about these people's money.

And then it said, hold my old dead ashes, LOL, and sprinkle us both as, excuse me, Sprinkle us both after you pass at Buzzard's Roost by Angela.

Tell all my children I love them, and as you should know, I do love you truly.

I have had a blast. And it was signed by Joel Sr.

But that's the really only like mention that was made of this note.

So I don't know if this was like supposed to be.

Yeah. Like, was a plan for when he did die?

Like, was that supposed to be in with his will and stuff?

You know, like, just a... because I know like people will do that they'll just like when they have a you know a moment where they're thinking about what they want to do to happen, especially when you're retiring.

I'm sure that's like one of the things you're thinking about. if you're like working with a lawyer or like an estate planner or something like that, they tell you you write it down these things up so people know what you want and it's like just write it down and like you know people will do that and they'll just write it on like a post-it note or like an napkin or something and then they can bring it to their lore later and it can get like actually entered into the will.

So in my head, I'm thinking exactly what you're thinking.

I think that's exactly what this note was.

And I think maybe Joel Jr. found it somewhere.

That's what I was thinking. And he thinks it. could also read as a suicide note.

But it really doesn't read like a suicide note.

It doesn't. It says hold my old dead ashes, lol.

And like, I love you. So it's like, why would he leave that note for Lisa when he's going to kill her? doesn't mean yeah no that doesn't make any sense exactly so I think he's saying like I want you to continue on and like And like sprinkle my ashes.

Yeah. Like because I want to be cremated.

Yeah. No, that's just that's a. That's like a very lighthearted, like, when I die, this is what I want. literally wrote like lol and told her like the amounts that were left like at the Yeah, no, that none of that.

That definitely was to me. He found that and he thought it sounded somewhat like it or that he could at least argue it.

Yeah. That's what I think. It doesn't work.

You're dumb. So we're still making our way through this house.

They're in the master bedroom. They see that plastic sheeting that's leading into the bathroom.

They're like, We have to go in there. Like, that's not great.

This is gruesome. I just want to let you know, if you want to skip forward a little bit, now's the time to do so.

Inside the master bathroom, they saw that there were two, excuse me, there was a large garden hose attached to the shower Like instead of a showerhead, the showerhead was removed and a garden hose was attached to it.

That's different. Yeah. And it was at this point that they discovered two 45 gallon blue bins which were full of different dismembered body parts.

What the... Fuck. So the investigators believed that the bins were filled with a mixture of water and those corrosive chemicals. because some of the body parts inside were nearly broken down to just bone.

Holy shit. They would later find out that Joel Jr., had been dumping the solution down the toilet as the body parts were deteriorating and the flesh was separating from the bones.

He had written in his notebook, which they hadn't found quite yet, but they later would quote, use sodium hydroxide to destroy soft tissue and soften bones for transport.

And he also made note to quote, based once every hour to accelerate.

This fucked up individual was talking about basting his parents remains in corrosive chemicals in order to break down their body parts as fast as possible.

His mother and father. Wow. Wow. basting them like he's talking about cooking Thanksgiving fucking dinner, which he obviously didn't do because he's a piece of shit who doesn't do anything.

Because he's a loser. loser. A grade A loser.

Wow. Based once every hour to accelerate.

I got nauseous Just the amount, like the grotesque nature of this.

And just so cold-hearted. And so over the top.

And so... He enjoyed every second of this.

You do not go... this gruesome, this grotesque, this intricate and complex unless you are getting some kind of enjoyment out of this.

He's Sick fuck. Now in another bathroom upstairs, they found multiple sets of bandages in the shower. and strewn about the vanity on this bathroom along multiple sets of seemingly used surgical gloves, and there was another set of men's clothing on that bathroom floor, but this set was not torn up.

And it was noted that there was blood all over the place.

So it seemed like somebody was trying to tend to their wounds in this specific bathroom.

And these were the killer's clothes. Now they don't know who it is yet, but they're going to find out.

So the investigators then made their way into the exercise room, where it was clear that Joel Sr. had been attacked.

His clothes were cut up and laying in a pile on the floor.

There was an overturned Bowflex machine.

Holy shit. And that's where his hands were found next to the Bowflex.

And in the corner of the room, there was a massive amount of blood covering the wall and the floor. it was obvious that that's where he had been killed.

There was also a day bed in the room, which had been stabbed in multiple areas.

So this attack, like clearly Joel Sr. put up some kind of crazy fight because it went all around the room.

I was going to say, it seems like it was in multiple areas.

It was, definitely. Finally, inside of a spare bedroom, they found a box of ammunition sitting on a dresser. alongside a gallon of chemicals, which was stained and covered in like coagulated blood.

They saw a laptop sitting open on the bed connected to an external hard drive.

And in the corner next to the bed was a red backpack.

So they were like, what's in here? Inside of that backpack, there were multiple books that had Joel Guy Jr. written on the inside cover.

There was a printed out paper about the mechanics of a water heater.

And of course, that notebook that I mentioned, which had five detailed pages about why I and how Joel Guy Jr. wanted to murder his parents.

Wow. Now it was never confirmed why that page laying out the mechanics of the water heater was in the backpack. but it was the same water heater that his parents had And investigators assumed that maybe he was planning on starting the fire that way with the water.

I was going to say that must, I was thinking it could have had something to do with that.

Yeah. I didn't get like super into the mechanics.

Or he's trying to like break down the bodies faster.

So maybe he was trying to set it really high so that everything would be like hotter.

Exactly. Who knows at this point. I think that at this point they were just like, we know what you did and we have enough evidence so we don't even need to touch that.

Yeah. But they did obviously say that it was there.

So by this point, the investment working this case had actually already spoken to one of Joel Sr.'

's daughters who was worried because she and her sisters hadn't heard from their father.

The Sunday before Joel Sr. and Lisa were found was actually one of his daughter's birthdays.

And she hadn't heard from her father, which was obviously heartbreaking, but also extremely out of character.

So the daughter that they were able to speak with told them the last person who had been in the house with her parents was their son, and her stepbrother, Joel Guy Jr.

Now, once they realized that this notebook belonged to one Joel Guy Jr. and contained pretty much every answer to their questions, now they were ready to track this motherfucker down.

So during their search, the detectives on the case actually linked up with the FBI to see what they could uncover.

Wow. about the days leading up to the murder and then the days following.

And they were able to pull surveillance footage from multiple stores in the area, knowing full well that there were a lot of items laid out around this house and obviously they had been bought locally or like somewhat locally.

They assumed that they had been bought in the area and they were correct.

Joel Guy Jr. was caught on surveillance at a Walmart buying multiple boxes of Band-Aids, rubbing alcohols and treatments for some pretty gnarly cuts that he got on his hand during these murders.

He was caught again at a Walmart before the murders buying those two 45-gallon blue bins. which one of his sisters saw in the backseat of his car.

At Thanksgiving. Oh, my God. And just probably assumed like, oh, maybe he's like moving or I don't know.

Oh, my God. One of his sisters saw it. Saw the bins.

And had no idea. No idea. Because why the fuck would you ever think... that your stepbrother bought that and came to Thanksgiving so that when you guys leave, he can kill your parents and dissolve their bodies in that right why would you ever think that right but looking back on it she's probably like holy shit that was right there it was right in front of me And looking back, one of them also was like, was that why he was giving all his stuffed animals to my kids?

Of course it was. like absolutely he didn't want his shit to be burned down so that's like it was another way to be selfish honestly oh these poor the poor sister I feel so bad watching the trial was absolutely heartbreaking.

So he was seen buying those bins. He was also caught at a different sports store buying a Marine K-Bar knife.

Oh my god. And then at a Home Depot buying a bleach sprayer.

I need to know like what goes through an employee's mind when someone at their store purchases a bleach sprayer.

Like, you gotta be thinking. You're never gonna think that's for... cleaning.

Yeah. It's like cleaning something innocuous.

It's got a ding in your head a little like...

What you doing with this? If I worked at Home Depot or Lowe's, I would work at Lowe's.

But if somebody came through my line buying a bleach sprayer, I would be like, What's this for?

I'd be like, are you okay? You know we have cameras like everywhere.

Yeah, I'd be like, you're on camera buying this.

Just so you know. Stop your plan right now.

Timestamp. Like, boom. You know what I would say?

I would just go... don't do it don't do it don't do it have a good one whatever you're doing don't do it And they'd be like, well, I'm just cleaning my bathroom.

And I'd be like, don't. Honestly, like nine times out of 10, they'd be like, I'm literally just cleaning the side of my house.

Oh. God, creepy. Creepy, though. I hate it.

So, yeah, buying all that stuff. He... clearly thought that he was smart though by exclusively going to self-checkout.

So he avoided any suspicion that may have landed on him from cashiers.

Oh yeah. No one sees you at self checkout.

That's a good thing. He forgot about this nifty new thing called surveillance.

Yeah. Everybody always does. Raise your hand if you go to the self-checkout and you immediately look at yourself in that camera that shows you yourself and you go...

Ooh, that's what we're working with today?

Okay. You get humbled real quick. Yeah, it humbles you immediately.

So he was humbled by that camera. He knew that was happening.

Oh, yeah. That camera does not discriminate.

I'm like, I know he's the killer and he's disgusting and he dismembered his parents.

So I'm just going to go ahead and say this.

He's a troll. He looked in the mirror every day and should have been humbled.

He's a troll. An actual troll. His disgusting on the inside was on the outside.

He looks like the guy from Harry Potter that turns into a rat. and fucks everybody over.

That's exactly what he looks like. I haven't finished Harry Potter the whole way through, so I don't know if that guy gets nice, but he kind of sucks.

There you go. So by that point, the investigators were ready to move.

But at this point, Joel is already back in Baton Rouge.

So they're able to find that out. And they also found out that he went back to Baton Rouge to have his cuts on his hands treated at a student center. and had also made his way back to his parents' house after that, but like I said, turned around once he realized that the police got to the scene, before he could finish his plan.

Of course. So Detective were immediately sent to Baton Rouge with instructions to arrest him for murder as soon as they fucking found him.

So when they pulled up to his apartment, he was getting into his Hyundai Sonata, which like, I'm just like, what?

You're like, what? I'm against Hyundai Sonata.

I am. I used to have a Hyundai and I'll never have one again because of you, Joel.

No, they're actually like really great cars.

But anyway, he was immediately apprehended.

And when his car was searched, there was a KitchenAid in the trunk. alongside a meat grinder attachment and a gas canister.

Now, investigators knew exactly why this grinding attachment was there because at one point in his notes, Joel had written, quote, Bring blender and food grinder.

Grind meat. What the fuck? Grind meat of your parents' bodies?

Why are you grinding meat? Oh no, grind, like grinding his parents.

No, I know. Why? That's a valid question.

Why? No, no, not, not me. Like his parents.

Yeah, like, why are you grinding their meat?

To get rid of them, in his mind, I'm assuming.

You're adding an extra step and an extra thing that's going to have DNA all over it.

That's an extra piece of evidence, you idiot.

He loves this, though. It's like you said, he.

He wants to go to the nth fucking degree.

No, he's enjoying. You don't go through this.

A meat grinder on a KitchenAid? What the fuck?

Don't defile a KitchenAid like that. Thank you.

My KitchenAid is my favorite thing in my entire kitchen.

Elena and John got me a KitchenAid for Christmas two years ago, and I cried when I opened it.

Literally cried. I can confirm. I cried.

I was so overwhelmed with joy that my tear ducts just flooded the world.

My mother in law, who I love, she got me my kitchenaid mixer it must be like what like 10 years ago now for my birthday That thing still works like a, and it was my, I was so excited when she gave me it.

That is an amazing appliance. How dare you?

Agreed. Thank you. Now when they searched his apartment, they found that his bathtub was filled with a blue chemical liquid.

And there was a bone inside of it. Fuck you, man.

It became evident that he was going to try to do some kind of experiment to see how this bone would deteriorate. and obviously was going to apply his findings when it came to disposing his parents' bodies.

Such a scientist. In addition to that, investigators also found a 12 gauge shotgun and multiple receipts that were all for the nefarious things found at the crime scene, like chemicals, cleaners, bins, etc.

Literally, literally had the receipts. everything they need to unfortunately whatever they found in his apartment they actually couldn't use at trial because I think it was something about like search warrants and they didn't have them and blah, blah, blah.

But I think they literally were like, okay, cool.

Like, we don't even need to use that. Yeah, we honestly don't even need all that smoking gun evidence.

We have a literal... notebook full of plans.

We have a manifesto of him explaining exactly what he was going to do and why he was going to do it.

So Joel's trial would actually take four years to start, and it began in September of 2020.

There were 27 witnesses and 700 pieces of evidence to go over.

The trial only lasted four days. Wow. Right.

Joel Guy Jr. was an annoying piece of shit garbage from the start.

Sure. Shut up. The reason he did that was because he wanted to be put to death if he was convicted.

He was like, like requesting it. Now, the problem with that, though, was that the prosecution was not seeking the death penalty in the case.

So try as he might, Joel was just not going to win that one.

No, of Of course not. He actually even wrote a note to the judge overseeing the case.

Judge Steve Sword, telling him he had his permission to sentence him to execution if he were to be convicted.

You have my permission. Oh, I need your permission.

Dude, you amoeba. Dude, I need your permission.

What? Apparently he doesn't know how this process works.

It's up to the prosecution on the case whether or not they want to implement the death penalty and if they do it's up to the jury to implement it. looked at him at one point and said, is this really what you're concerned with?

Like literally said that. But don't worry, that wasn't Joel's only concern.

While the trial was getting ready to start, his actual main concern was, whether or not he was still entitled to receive that payout from his mom's life insurance policy.

Oh my god. He was worried about that. Where are you gonna spend it, bro? the commissary what are you gonna do are you kidding me he was told that he did not have the right to any of the money due to the slayer rule But he went back at the rest of the policy.

I'll get into it. Like cool band name, I call it.

He went back to the reps of the policy saying that the Slayer rule didn't apply to him at the time. because he had not yet been convicted and had not yet exhausted all of his appeals.

Now, in case you're wondering what the hell a slayer rule even is, Essentially, it says that the beneficiary of any estate planning will not receive whatever money or property was left to them. if they were the one who intentionally murdered the person who left them said property or cash.

Now, it also applies if the person kills someone who would have to die before they got their money.

So in Joel's case, if his mother had died in a different manner, he would have to split that payout from his mother's life insurance policy with his father, like I was saying earlier.

Yeah. So if he hadn't killed her and she died like from natural causes or something. but he had killed his father to get that money, he still wouldn't be entitled to it.

Like the Slayer rule also has that. Now, in this case, he's obviously not entitled to any of the money.

But the life insurance firm that Lisa's policy was held with, they didn't want to decide who the money went to.

And they asked that the court be in charge of that.

Honestly, I probably would too. I'd be like, I don't know what to do here.

So while Jules seniors daughters who were trying to grieve the loss of their father and a woman who had literally been a second mother to them but they were not only dragged through a murder trial Oh, I didn't even think of that.

Yeah, dragged through a murder trial, but also had to work with their own lawyer to make sure that Joel didn't see a dime. from parents that he had quite literally slaughtered.

Yeah. See, I didn't even, I completely forgot that there's a whole other side to this.

And it's like, now it's like, yeah, the insurance company should have just been like...

Yeah, it goes to them. Now that I think about it, it took me a second, but I'm like, yeah, they shouldn't have to go through a whole fucking trial just to get that.

Exactly. It definitely puts them through that.

It's horrible because they're going through a fucking murder.

Yeah. In like a murder trial that nobody should ever have to go through.

No. at all. So when the trial did begin, Joel sat there, completely unfazed by any of the testimony or recounting of the events that happened the day he murdered the two people who not only gave him life, but the money to live and pay for literally every earthly possession that he had.

He even laughed and smiled with his lawyers at different times throughout the trial.

Wow. He barely flinched when the medical examiner took the stand and testified.

This is very gruesome if you want to skip forward.

A medical examiner had a job cut out for them.

Oh, yeah. And they testified that it was very hard to do this.

Yeah. If you want to skip forward, like I said, this is gruesome.

Joel Guy Sr.' 's arms were removed at the shoulder. his legs at the hip joints, his hands at the wrists, His head was completely skeletal at this point.

And there was a part of his forehead that was so damaged that the medical examiner wasn't sure if blunt force trauma was used or if it was from the chemicals.

Wow. The medical examiner testified how difficult this case was to deal with.

She said, "...in documenting the wounds, I have to give a number of wounds." as in at least, because there was so much loss of tissue.

You know, even some of Mr. Guy's arms were down to the bone. and some of the bone had begun to dissolve.

There could have been more wounds. So she couldn't even get an actual complete estimate, an estimate.

She was like, it's an at least. Yeah, because at some points, like the wounds aren't going to hit the bone every time.

So you're not going to get those little markings.

Exactly. And even if they did. Even the bone is starting to dissolve at this point because of what he did.

So she went on to say that it was impossible for her to give an exact count, but That, she said, but that on what was left of the skin on Joel Sr.'

's back, there were 34 quote unquote sharp force injuries, which means stabs or cuts.

Jesus. And that some of them went as deep as six inches.

Wow. And Joel didn't let out a single tear when the medical examiner went on to describe his mother's injuries. and explained to the court that Lisa's legs were cut off at her knees. her arms were cut off at the shoulders, and that her head had been removed and placed into a pot to cook on the stove.

Lisa's body had 25 sharp force injuries. and a forensic anthropologist from the University of Tennessee testified it would have taken quote substantial effort and time to dismember these bodies in this way.

And it went on to say how much work it was to disarticulate a body at the joints.

Yeah. It's not like they just pull apart like a Barbie.

No. That's a lot of work. When you're doing that...

You have reached a level that is so beyond anything anybody can comprehend.

And these are your fucking... Yeah, never mind if this was a stranger or like a friend or something like that.

Even that is like unfathomable. Like that's the thing, like even if it was a stranger, this is like a level of depravity that you can't even comprehend.

Right. When you take it into the fact that this is his parents, it's like you grew up with these people.

Your brain just doesn't even comprehend it.

It doesn't. Now, there was evidence presented that Joel Guy Jr. had actually been planning these murders long before Thanksgiving. and the planning started at least as early as November 7th.

My god. Now, Joel's lawyers tried to argue against the prosecution's evidence, saying that there was still room for reasonable doubt.

No, there isn't my friends. Where is it?

Good try. I know it's your job, but it's.

Throw in the towel on this one. Is it wearing an invisibility cloak like the house was going to?

Yeah, exactly. He wrote it down, my friends.

Like, I'm not even kidding you. They literally said that.

They argued that Joel's attitude leading up to the murders was described by many as...

Happy, friendly, outgoing. Oh, forget it then.

Court adjourned. He was happy. He was jovial.

Dude, Ted Bundy was like really happy when he picked up ladies and then absolutely brutally murdered them.

John Wayne Gacy was like a clown. One might argue happy, friendly, outgoing.

Maybe let's Let's not just be like, wow, they were jovial.

So they definitely couldn't have done this.

His lawyer said, happy, friendly, outgoing people don't kill their families.

No, they do. They do. We have a lot of history saying they do.

Have you ever heard more of a true crime podcast?

Yeah. They also argued that the family hadn't cut him off yet.

They weren't going to tell him until Christmas.

So what would his motive even be? Yeah. Gee, I don't know, guys. you could reference the notebook page that lays out his mother's life insurance policy and literally states $500,000 would be all mine.

Yeah, it's like, oh, no, no, they didn't want to look at that notebook.

That notebook maybe didn't even belong to Joel, they said, because they argued that there was no handwriting analysis done and that the detectives didn't test for DNA on the pages inside the notebook, only on the outside.

Which, by the way, was covered with Joel's DNA.

Obviously. These defense attorneys are doing work, work, work.

Like, I know you have a job to do. I understand that that's your role, but...

I hope they got deep tissue massages after all of this bending over backwards.

My goodness. Unreal. Talk about a stretch.

And the prosecutor. Yeah, the prosecutor.

I was going to say the prosecutor attorney.

You know. She was like, even if we had done a handwriting analysis, you literally would have just said that's junk science and thrown it away. out I was literally just gonna say how many times do you do a handwriting analysis and people are like well that's doesn't count science it really doesn't And they did have the DNA, the notebook tested for DNA.

They just didn't test the inside pages because they were like, oh, cool. the outside is covered in his DNA and so is this entire crime scene and it's all in his handwriting and it literally says like my mom's life insurance policy my dad like it also says like this journal belongs to Joel Guy Jr.

It's in a backpack with a bunch of books that literally have his name on the inside.

Yeah. Are you kidding? And also... They're doing a job, I suppose.

Not for nothing. everything in this notebook is like happened like it literally says bring meat grinder to grind meat and he was arrested with a meat grinder attachment in his trunk.

They found a blender plugged in in the master bedroom.

Which it's like, what you doing? Are you making smoothies in the master bedroom?

Right, you're not. No, I understand that defense attorneys have a job to do.

Totally. But wow. But I don't know how they do it.

Neither do I. I really don't because I don't know how they were able to do that stuff. with a straight face like I would honestly start laughing I think just at the absurdity of my story that I was trying to concoct about this.

Like, I don't think I could do it. I'm also like, why didn't you go for insanity?

Like in a case like this, I would think you would at least try.

But it's hard. I'm sure. And the other thing was I was trying to look and see if there was any kind of psych evaluation done because I was like, What is going on here?

I couldn't find anything about that. Yeah.

Everything I looked at, like other people were asking, too, and it was a tough one to go. yeah if you're not gonna go wholly into it and you don't have a a history to gather from, it's a tough one to get.

And if there's no real tangible history of like psychological issues or anything like that, then I think they thought it may be too risky.

But I was like, damn, even that makes more sense than like, that might not be his handwriting.

What a way to go. What a choice. Seriously.

It's a bold move. Let's see if it works out for them.

It doesn't. The jury was not impressed. On October 2nd, 2020, Joel was found guilty on two counts of premeditated first degree murder. three counts of felony murder and two counts of abuse of a corpse.

Oh, I was going to. I was going to ask you, did he get?

Yes, he certainly did. He went back to his cell to await sentencing, but while he was waiting, he had one. more trick up his sleeve. he really didn't want to share a cell with another inmate.

Nobody gives a shit. And he was like, I'd actually be a lot happier in solitary confinement because, you know, like, people sentenced to spend time in prison for murder, it's all about their comfort.

It's all about making sure it's like a hilt in it.

You butchered your parents and dismembered them.

Can we get you an extra pillow? We definitely want you to be comfortable.

No. So Joel decided to cause a scene. Four days after he was found guilty, he wrote a letter to the Tennessee Department of Corrections asking to be moved to solitary confinement.

In the letter read, this is a direct excerpt of the letter.

This was a bad idea. I'm psychologically unstable.

I'm having fantasies of using my fingers to gouge this gentleman's eyes out of his head while he's unconscious and therefore wouldn't be able to defend himself.

Given that in these fantasies it is essential that I use my finger, Fingers and no sharps restriction will accomplish nothing in deterring these actualization.

I'm writing this letter because I don't want to end up with a disciplinary infraction or worse, more criminal charges. nor do I logically believe that this gentleman deserves to be blind.

I don't know what to do. I shouldn't be allowed to access to another person while they're unconscious.

This was a bad idea. Please stop me from acting on these fantasies.

Thanks, Joel Guy. What an insufferable piece of shit.

You don't get... special treatment in prison after murdering, dismembering, and defiling these corpses.

You think that you're going to get your every last motherfucking wish out here?

Also, just the whole like this gentleman's eye.

Shut the fuck up. Fuck up. You don't talk like that.

Get out of here. I don't believe he deserves to be blind.

Trying to sound so above it. Yeah. So cunning.

Oh, yeah. Oh, like, good fuck, dude. Ugh.

That is insufferable. Insufferable. And when you look at him, you're like, yeah.

Ugh. You do try to talk like that. You're an insufferable motherfucker.

You're an insufferable loser is what you are.

Nor do I logically believe. Nor do I logically believe.

We're going to talk about logical beliefs here.

Gross. And that's what you did to your parents?

You're going to talk about logic? yeah okay i'm good so the letter did nothing beneficial it didn't weird And instead, the prosecution actually just cited it when they asked that Joel serve consecutive sentences.

Yeah, because they're like, look. They were like, cool, thanks for another piece of evidence.

You're really a good one here to give us all this.

Gouge someone's eyeballs out. Yeah. So at sentencing, Judge Stephen Swords said that Joel seemed like he was proud of his actions. and that he doubted Joel's quote unquote depraved mind would change over any period of time.

And he said, he was like, you're pleased with yourself.

And you're, he said something like, you're not as smart as you think you are.

Exactly. He was like, get fucked. Yeah, he was like, you're actually a bumbling idiot.

Yeah. So he was sentenced to life in prison and will not be eligible for release until he serves 103 years.

30 years yeah so we'll see you know i get to be continued i suppose but you know i like to end this victim focus so just to end on a note about lisa and joel guy jr I did want to share a quote from their joint obituary.

And I also wanted to let you know about a donation that you could make in their name if you're able to and if you'd like to.

So their obituary said, quote, they both had a great sense of humor, were loving and kind hearted and the most compassionate people.

They were the loves of each other's lives.

They enjoyed anything that involved being together. which included being in nature or on the water.

They loved their kids and adored their grandchildren.

Oh, I know their grandparents. I know. And the place that you can donate to in their memory is Young Williams Animal Shelter.

Um, because the obituary asked that in lieu of flowers to please make a donation to this animal shelter. in Lisa and Joel Sr.'

's memory because I mentioned that the dog was locked in the laundry room.

Yeah. Joel's original plan was to kill the dog.

He had written in the notebook, like, kill the dog and then scratched it out. i can't hate him anymore so young williams animal shelter took care of the family dog until he was able like other family members were able to pick him up.

So I donated. Oh, I'm going to donate immediately.

I'm donating immediately. Or I did. and you donate immediately and do it in Lisa and Joel senior or you could do Lisa and Joel guy um um and i have the link where you can donate and i'm gonna put it in theirs in their name and i'm gonna do it in bubba's name two donations two donations they deserve of it the animal shelter seems like amazing um so i'm gonna put it in the show notes and i'm gonna put it on our socials i love it So that is the absolutely horrific, gut wrenching, devastating tale of the murders of Lisa.

Joel Guy Sr. and it's just I can't imagine what their family has to deal with I feel so much for their family and for their grandchildren yeah Who are going to grow up without these amazing grandparents for their children that are left, that are going to grow up without these amazing parents.

Right. Ugh. And for their daughters that just had to deal with the aftermath of like losing both their father, a woman who helped raise them, And like, weirdly enough, a brother.

Yeah, because it's not that they ever really had him to lose them in that way i just feel really bad for them so i mean Rest in peace, Joel and Lisa.

Yeah, and if you're able to, definitely make a donation in their name.

For sure. So, yeah. It would be nice to like bombard that animal shelter with some donations suddenly.

That's what I felt. Nothing but good can come out of it.

Exactly. And especially just to do it like in their names is really special.

Yeah, for sure. So, yeah. Wow. That was really well, like, well told.

Thanks. It was a really gruesome, really horrible story, but it was really well told.

It was really, really hard to get through.

Can't imagine. I think that was one of the gnarliest ones I've done.

Yeah, for sure. So yeah, we hope you keep listening.

We hope you keep it. Weird. You know not to keep it that weird.

I don't have to tell you that. But you know what?

Listen to Ghost. Keep it that weird. Keep it so weird that you listen to Ghost and become a cult follower.

Yes. And also keep it so weird that you eat a tuna fish sandwich before bed.

Thank you. If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

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[The Brutal Case of the Guy Family: A Calculated Betrayal]-[Episode 307: The Grotesque Murders of Joel and Lisa Guy]

📋 Summary

The Tragic Case of the Guy Family

A Life of Entitlement and Disconnection

The Motive and the Manifesto

A Gruesome Discovery

The Trial and the "Slayer Rule"

Commemorating the Victims

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript