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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.
And let me tell you, it did. I've been listening to it while I walk, and I am absolutely loving it.
I love all the different narrators. I love Audible.
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Hey babe, I'm Ash. And I'm Alina. And this is Dark Sided.
It's morbid. We can't get enough of Babe on TikTok.
Babe, I think about it every night and day.
It's so good. It really is. It's so good.
If you're listening, we love you. If you can't tell.
We love you so much. Come on the show. Let's talk about sinister shit on the show.
Yeah, we are going to talk about some sinister shit.
I would have Babe on the show. Absolutely.
To talk about something sinister. Manifest it, babe.
We're going to get her. Somebody go get her.
We're going to get her. Bye. Bye. Everybody's like, what the fuck are you talking about?
If you didn't listen to our last episode, which was a crazy fucking tale.
Truth. A survivor tale. We were talking about this Instagram that Elena and I are.
I have to give credit where credit is due.
Elena found it. And now it's just become an integral part of our lives.
It is. And it's called At Sinister Pond Babe.
And she's hilarious. And I just, I got to give, I got to give credit.
When somebody makes me laugh and brightens my day.
Yeah. I want them to blow up. And not in like a bad way.
No. Like in a good way. Like I want, I want her to get a billion followers and get paid.
You want her to get what the kids call clout.
There you go. Clout. I just wonder, I hope she's getting paid.
Because she's doing a service. Get that bag, mom.
It's like Mama Todd. I'm like, I hope she's getting paid because she makes my day better.
I hope Mama Todd is getting all the bounty of gifts that the earth has to offer.
Truly. Truly. All right. Well, that was all very wholesome and happy, babe.
And this is sinister, babe. Oh, no. It's dark-sided.
It's really dark-sided. This is, honestly, this is a tough one.
So I think we should just get right into this, though, so I can get out of that.
I don't know this one. Oh, you don't? I know the name.
I've heard the name. I just have not heard details about this.
It was actually pretty requested in our inbox.
Really? Yeah, I would shout everybody out, but there was a lot of you that wanted this story.
Shout out to all of you. Shout out to anyone who suggested this.
So this story takes place in how Elena and Kevin from TikTok would say, the 90s.
And it takes place on March 4th, 1999. But this was more than just the 90s.
The murder of Cordell Richards, which we're going to talk about today, is truly one of the most brutal cases I think I've personally covered.
Ooh. Not like we have covered, but that I've covered.
Okay. So Cordell was an Okaloosa County restaurant worker and father of two.
And his body was discovered on this day, like I said, March 4th, 1999.
He was burned, beaten, and found chained to a tree.
Oh my God. Yes. His remains were left in an isolated wooded area just outside of some land that was going to be soon turned into houses.
I think there was a couple houses on the plot, but it was like a newly built neighborhood.
Cordell's body was discovered by a 12-year-old boy.
Oh. Just playing in that wooded area in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.
Yeah. And when he found the body, he immediately ran home to tell his parents what he had seen.
They immediately contacted the sheriff's department, and the police headed out there ASAP.
So they found the remains actually partially skeletonized, intensely charred, and again, like I said, bound to the tree by a very heavy chain.
Now, upon closer inspection, there was a thick cord tied around the victim's wrists, which were behind his back, and there was duct tape covering the remains of his mouth.
The county medical examiner at the time, Dr. Michael Berkland, was obviously called to the scene as soon as possible.
At first, he wasn't even able to identify the gender of the victim because he was so beyond any recognition whatsoever.
That's awful. Couldn't even determine a cause of death other than, of course, the body had been lit on fire.
Yeah. Now, the body was not only burned past the point of recognition, but also significantly decomposed.
The body had been out in the elements for quite some time.
There was actually barely even flesh on the bones anymore, and there were no organs left to be tested.
I actually didn't realize how quickly organs decompose.
So when I first read that, I was just like, oh, so there's no like healthy organs to test.
But then I looked it up because I was like, were there no organs left at all?
Or just none to test? I'm like, wait a second.
So, and I knew you would love this. According to a BBC Future article, quote, soon after the heart stops beating, cells become deprived of oxygen and their acidity increases as the toxic byproducts of chemical reactions begin to accumulate inside of them.
Enzymes start to digest cell membranes and then leak out as the cells break down.
This usually begins in the liver, which is rich in enzymes, and in the brain, which has a high water content.
So those are the first to go. Eventually, though, all other tissues and organs begin to break down in this way.
Cell death. I didn't realize how quickly it happened that they just are gone.
Your heart is keeping everything going. Yeah.
It's so freaky when you really start to think about it.
It's a delicate process. Yeah, seriously.
So the first observation that Dr. Birkeland was able to make made me feel like I was reading The Butcher and Wren all over again.
The part where Wren explains the presence of blowflies.
As I was reading this, I was like, the butcher and the wren.
So Dr. Birkeland was able to determine that the body had been left chained to this tree for at least two weeks because he found the presence of maggots.
Mm-hmm. However, there was something strange about the presence of these maggots.
Some of them were also charred. Not all of them, some of them.
So, excuse me. This told him that whoever had left this body in the woods had come back at least two weeks later than to burn it.
Wow. Wow. Which I can't imagine the pressure.
Wow. Because they didn't want to disturb any potential evidence, so this is the way they had to do it.
Yeah. Now, once the remains were carefully transported, the examination started.
Dr. Birkeland found that the victim had suffered multiple skull fractures, evidence of blunt force trauma to the shoulder blade, sternum, and ribs, and also what appeared to be defensive injuries on the hands and arms.
Jeez. And he also noticed what he explained as a, quote, probable chop injury to the left neck.
Ooh. Yeah. So the victim was believed to be a man in his early to mid-30s, and Dr. Berkland believed that he had been killed about one month earlier. meaning that he would have been dumped in the woods close to February 4th of that year.
Now, because of the circumstances, a precise cause of death really couldn't be determined because there was just so much going on here.
But Dr. Birkeland concluded that, quote, the manner of death was homicidal violence with combined features of blunt force trauma to the head, body, and upper extremities and a probable chop injury to that left neck.
Jeez. And he believed that the victim was likely beaten with some kind of club, he said.
Oh, my God. Now, what was stumping him, though, was the charred maggots.
The body had been discovered, like I said, with bindings on the wrists and tape covering the mouth.
So the man was presumably alive when he was transported to this area and then killed, most likely after being chained to that tree and beaten.
So why did the killer or the killers come back two weeks later and further destroy the remains by burning them?
Yeah. What was that about? So anyways, IDing this man was incredibly difficult at first.
But then the doctor noticed, and I thought this was crazy, the only reason why Cordell was ever able to be IDed is because there was enough soft tissue on the right thumb to get a partial fingerprint.
What? Isn't that nuts? My God, forensic science, man.
Forensic science is crazy. It's unbelievable.
It really is. So the doctor got that partial fingerprint and handed it over to detectives.
And he was like, do what you can. Now, back in the woods, investigators were combing through this scene.
They sifted actually through a significant amount of evidence.
There were empty cans. There was a roll of duct tape that matched the one that had been used to cover the victim's mouth.
Various clothing items that seemed to belong to the victim.
And there were tire impressions that were left in the dirt at the side of the road near the site.
Automatically, we're going to get excited about that.
But unfortunately, none of these things would give them any evidence that they hoped they would.
There was nothing. Nothing. So, but nonetheless, obviously, they went back to the station and they start sifting through all the missing persons reports they could find from early to mid-February.
Yeah. And they're able to narrow down their search based on Dr. Birkeland's approximation of the age and the confirmation of the sex.
And their pool was pretty small at that point.
And the most likely victim, they believed, was 31-year-old Cordell Richards.
Cordell was a military veteran. He had served in the U.S.
Air Force for almost 10 years from 1985 to 1994.
He'd been recently divorced and had two young daughters at the time.
And at the time of his death, he was living in an apartment in Fort Walton, Florida and working at a local IHOP.
He'd been actually reported missing by his friend Martin Stone.
Martin realized on February 13th that he hadn't heard from Cordell in over a week.
He called him on the phone. He emailed him a couple times.
He actually even made several trips to his apartment during that week, but just couldn't get in touch with his friend.
Oh, man. So Martin actually went to the IHOP and checked in with some of the coworkers.
He was like, have you seen Cordell at all?
They're like, we actually haven't seen him since the beginning of the month.
Oh. And that was super, super, super out of character for him.
Yeah. He was a very reliable employee. So after doing everything he possibly could to locate his friend, Martin went to the police and asked them to do a welfare check.
So the welfare check was conducted that same afternoon, actually, by Officers Josh Duma, I hope I'm saying that right, and Mike Nichols.
They pounded on the doors, they pounded on the windows, but they got zero response.
Officer Nichols noticed that there was one window, though, that was slightly open, and he was able to push it completely open and crawl through it.
And once he was in, he looked around to find himself what seemed to be in a storage room, like inside of the apartment.
So then he located the front door and was able to let the other officer in, as well as Martin and Sergeant Broon, who had shown up just behind them.
So they searched room by room by room by room, called out for Cordell, called out for anybody, but got zero response.
And then they finally reached a bedroom door, and it seemed to be locked with a deadbolt, and there was a towel stuffed under the crack between the door and the floor.
Hmm. Sketchy. Yeah, I would say so. Just a little bit.
Just a little bit. So they knock on that door, announce themselves, and finally, the door opens.
But it was not opened by Cordell. Instead, 17-year-old Ronald Bell answered the door and identified himself, and then identified his girlfriend, fellow 17-year-old Crystal Maestas.
17 years old. Both of them 17 years old.
She appeared to be just waking up from a nap.
She was wrapped up in a sleeping bag on the floor, just...
Sleeping. Oh, okay. Just snoozing. Yeah, just snoozing.
Now, they explained that they had actually been subletting the room from Cordell.
Crystal had been living there a couple of months now because she had been kicked out by her parents.
Ronald didn't live there, he said, and he claimed he actually really didn't know much of anything about Cordell.
And Crystal told the officers that she hadn't seen Cordell in the past week.
She said the last time she saw him, he had gotten some court papers and left in a hurry without saying anything to her.
Interesting. Yeah. So soon it would be confirmed, excuse me, that the body discovered in the woods was Cordell Richards.
Because he was a member of the Air Force, his fingerprints were on file and were a match for that partial thumbprint taken by the medical examiner.
What luck. Like, that's, in my opinion, like a one in a million chance.
Yeah, that really is. Now, so now that they had a positive ID, it was time for the investigators to really start ramping up here.
Who killed this guy and why did they do so?
Yeah. By all accounts, that's the thing.
Cordell was really well-liked. He was really hardworking.
He really seemed to have few, if any, enemies.
All of his co-workers at IHOP told the investigators that he was, quote, good-natured and popular.
He had a house cleaner who insisted, quote, he would have done anything for anybody in the world.
Even his ex-wife had only good things to say about him.
She told the investigators that he was a, quote, reliable hard worker and a good dad.
Oh, that's really sad. It is. I forgot he was a father.
To two young daughters. The only thing she could think of that was going like slightly poorly in his life was that he was having some money problems, she said.
But that was really the only thing she could think of.
And as the detectives dug deeper into Cordell's life, all their findings seemed to confirm what they'd been told, that he was a good guy.
They didn't hear from one person at this point that he was a shitty person.
And that's rare. Yeah. Like, you're going to find someone who's like, um, actually, if I'm being honest, like.
Yeah. And the ex-wife, for the ex-wife to say, I got nothing bad to say about him.
Like, he's a good dad. He's a hard worker.
Yeah. The only thing I can think of is he's got money problems right now.
And she didn't even make it seem like they were, like, major.
Yeah. She was just like, that could be just something.
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Hey, weirdos, we need to tell you about something that has completely blown our minds, collectively.
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They also found out that he spent a lot of time caring for his elderly grandparents who weren't doing so well around the time of his death.
They were pretty much getting by his grandparents due to his physical and financial aid.
Oh, wow. Yeah. Now, the comment about his money problems led the detectives to believe that maybe it was some kind of factor in his death.
So they went down that avenue a bit longer, but they eventually ruled it out because it turned out the money issues really weren't that serious.
Oh, okay. He was just kind of trying to make ends meet.
Yeah, it just wasn't, like, great. Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. So next they turned to the area where Cordell had been discovered.
They canvassed a neighborhood that was adjacent to the scene and were able actually to connect with a couple that gave them a pretty strong lead.
Oh boy. Donald and Robin Burden lived in a cul-de-sac in that housing subdivision behind where Cordell was found.
Okay. And the two of them told detectives that in early February they had been out for a walk.
They always went out for a walk daily. And they said this day they saw three young people in a car.
They'd never seen those young people and they'd actually never even seen that car.
So it kind of made alarm bells go off. When it's that kind of neighborhood.
People notice things. On a cul-de-sac neighborhood, we always be knowing.
We always know. A dead-end street, we always be knowing.
Everyone is looking at the cars going through a cul-de-sac.
And if we don't recognize them, we say, it's giving sinister.
Oh, damn it. Oh, damn it. Oh, damn it. It's giving sinister.
It's dark-sided. It's dark-sided. It's giving sinister vibes.
This car actually was kind of dark-sided.
It's given sinister vibe. It truly was vibe.
They described the car as being a small brown or tan hatchback.
And they said the rear right window appeared to be broken and covered by some kind of board.
Donald, the man, said that he believed the car's occupants were a young black male, a young white female, and another person in the backseat that he believed was a white male, but he wasn't completely sure about that one.
Okay. So the detectives thanked the couple for their information, but because they had no leads or suspects, all they could do really was go back to the apartment with a search warrant, and then that was when they carried out a search of the home.
Now according to a forensic specialist, the apartment was unusually sparse, but quote, "...there were some items left behind that the average person wouldn't leave behind."
And one of those items was Cordell's bicycle.
It was really weird that it would be found at the apartment because he didn't drive and he used that bicycle to get around everywhere.
So like that's a big red flag to me. That's huge because the fact that it was left behind led detectives to wonder if he'd been forcibly removed from his apartment.
Because if that's how he got around, where the hell is he?
Exactly. So because this was now a suspicion, the detectives had the apartment sprayed with luminol.
When they did so, they found evidence of blood spatter in the living room.
And among the blood spatter were various bloody fingerprints and a bloody handprint.
Oh, yeah. And they did testing on the spatter patterns to determine what kind of attack would have created such a pattern.
And it was consistent with blunt force trauma to the head.
Oh, God. Just like the medical examiner, Dr. Birkeland, had noted on the autopsy.
This guy was spot on with his autopsy. Hell yeah, medical examiners.
And to be that spot on with a body in that condition, that says a lot about this medical examiner's life.
That's the thing. Practice, you know. I mean, the fact that they could only get fingerprints off of like the tiniest bit of soft tissue on a thumb.
Right. A partial print and he was able to get that and then able to tell all this stuff.
Right. It's like chef's kiss, doing your job, bringing justice to someone like that's all we ask for.
Like we out here. That's all we want. That's all we need.
So while technicians were busy processing the evidence over at the apartment, the detectives were working on interviews with Cordell's housemate, Crystal, and her boyfriend, Ronald.
Oh, boy. Crystal told the detectives that she had been dating Ronald for the last few months and that they were very much in love.
17-year-olds, you know, how it be. Very much in love.
Now, she explained that about a month prior, she had been kicked out of her parents' home, and Ronald was the one to help her find the sublease at Cordell's apartment.
He had seen an ad Cordell put in the paper about looking for a housemate, and the rest was history.
So the detectives asked how the living situation had gone, and Crystal said, at first it was fine, but then Cordell's behavior toward her started making her feel uncomfortable.
Okay. And it was inappropriate, she said, in a number of ways.
For one thing, she was 17 years old and he was 31, so if he was making advances, that was very inappropriate.
Absolutely. And for another thing, according to her, she was not interested whatsoever.
Mm-hmm. She alleged that he made inappropriate comments toward her and sometimes would come into her room wearing, quote, only bikini underwear, allegedly just to talk.
Okay. We don't know if this is true or not.
This is what Crystal's saying. This is just coming.
I would really take it with a grain of salt because everybody else in this man's life, co-workers, house cleaner, like people that really are barely even connected to him or completely connected to him, all agree that he's a great person.
Yeah. So this is interesting. And I'm assuming this person that's talking is not the most credible of humans.
I wouldn't call them trustworthy. I'm just like guessing out how the end of this goes.
Yeah. Yeah. So she said at first he would leave when she told him that she wasn't interested.
But there was one occasion recently where she said he grabbed her, pushed her against the wall and hit her head and her head had hit the wall behind her with like the force of the attack, I guess you could say.
Yeah. That would be fucked up if that was real.
That would be super fucked up. And you know, we weren't there.
We don't know. Does it justify murder? No.
No, absolutely not. I don't think many things do.
Nope. So she said this was the second time, though, that Cordell had become physical with her.
And in another room, Crystal's boyfriend Ronald told the detectives that he actually had only just learned about the altercations between Crystal and Cordell.
And it was because he saw bruising on Crystal's back from the last altercation.
He said he asked her about it and she told him everything.
And after he learned what happened, he bought her that deadbolt for her door and told her that she should have a friend sleep over more often to make her feel safe, like on nights that he couldn't be there.
Yeah. And that friend would end up being Renee Lynx.
Now, as the two were explaining their stories to detectives, the detectives were all thinking amongst themselves that something about this story just didn't seem right.
They said, to them, Crystal and Ronald both seemed to be being disingenuous.
They were already pretty skeptical of this couple when they found out that Ronald's car had a close resemblance to the one that Donald and Robin had told them about.
Huh. That couple from earlier. Yeah. And that was right about the time of the disposal of the body, remember.
So they had been able to do a search of Ronald's car after getting a warrant for it, but it actually didn't turn up much of anything.
But detectives weren't ready to give up on this lead yet, and that was smart.
Questioning staff and fellow classmates at their high school, where they were both students, would prove to be more than productive.
It turned out Ronald had been absent from school from February 2nd to February 5th.
And a classmate told detectives that Ronald had asked him to borrow his truck within that same time frame.
A separate student said that in early to mid-February, Ronald and Crystal asked him for help getting into a computer that they didn't have the password to.
Huh. And he said that when he went to Crystal's apartment, which he knew belonged to a man named Cordell...
He said that after he attempted to get into the computer, Crystal and Ronald had driven him home, and along the way they threw out multiple trash bags full of stuff from the apartment.
Yeah. I always wonder in these situations.
High school students. No one's questioning.
No, none of you. Even when I was 17 years old and if I got a ride home from somebody that was throwing trash bags out the window, I'd be like, hey, what are you doing?
I'd ask. I would just throw it out there.
Always ask. Or, I don't know, observe. Just quietly observe.
See what's happening there. If you don't feel safe asking what's going on, write that down somewhere.
Just go, huh. Just tell your mom, tell your dad, tell your adult.
I don't know. Like even then, even then and now when I drive by a trash bag on the side of the road, I'm like, well, is that a body?
Is that body parts? I'm like, I always wonder.
So I feel like it's like that would be on my mind.
I'd be like, hmm, trash bags. I'd be like, what are you throwing out this window?
What's happening? But so the detectives tried to search the dumpster, excuse me, in those areas.
But the trash from that period was long gone at that point.
Because remember, it's been a month at this point.
So it's like in a landfill somewhere. Yeah.
But they were not far from their big break in the case.
Yes. On March 17th, somebody placed an anonymous call to the Emerald Coast Crime Stoppers hotline and said that they actually had information about the murder of Cordell Richards.
The caller was very nervous and frightened about any repercussions that would be involved if they did give information.
And they said that they would only come forward with their information if they were allowed to remain anonymous throughout the process.
This person was granted that on anonymity.
And then he told the detectives that around early February, a friend of his, Renee Links, remember her name, she was the friend that slept over, told him that she and her friends Crystal and Ronald were planning to kill Crystal's roommate Cordell because he made advances toward Crystal.
My God. Just came right out and said it.
Okay. Mm-hmm. It turns out that Renee Lynx had been interviewed prior to this tip, actually, in the presence of her mother because she was a minor.
Both women, the mom and Renee, denied knowing anything about Cordell's murder.
But luckily, the evidence police had already taken in was plenty to arrest all three teens at this point.
Ronald Bell, Crystal Maestas, both 17 years old, and Renee Lynx.
On March 18th, police officers arrested that 17-year-old couple at their high school, and Renee Links was arrested at a local animal shelter where she was doing community service for a previous parole violation.
Wow. Mm-hmm. Now, when Renee was able to speak with her mother, her mom was able to break down how serious the situation was, and she was like, you need to make a plea deal because you're in deep here.
Renee was 15 years old at the time of Cordell's murder.
Fifteen? Fifteen. Holy shit. But she was able to make that plea deal.
Wow. She would be able to plead guilty to manslaughter instead of murder if she confessed to helping Crystal and Ronald and explain what the whole story was.
Jeez. So she told the detectives that she had met Ronald earlier that year and that she had been spending more and more time with him and Crystal as of late.
At the time, she wasn't getting along with her mom, and so she kind of moved in with Crystal and Cordell at one point.
She, too, said that Cordell had made comments to her that made her feel uncomfortable.
For some reason, she said that he was under the impression that she and Crystal were in some kind of relationship, and he suggested that they should all sleep together, she said.
Okay. She said that she was made so uncomfortable by this, actually, that the first night that she was there, after he made this comment, she ended up leaving and spending the night somewhere else.
Okay. Now, the next night was February 2nd, and Renee went back to the apartment because Cordell was planning to be out pretty much all night, and she knew that.
So Ronald came over to hang out with the two girls, and Renee alleged that he was the one to bring up the idea of, quote, beating up or killing Cordell Richards.
Those are two very different things. Yeah, both very wrong and both two completely different things.
Yeah. But he said he was pissed off about the advances that he'd made to Crystal, and he needed to learn a lesson.
So Renee said at first she didn't think that Ronald was serious, and she especially didn't think that Crystal was going to go along with this.
But she was wrong. Jesus. Crystal agreed and added on to this that if they were to kill this man...
They could stay in the apartment for the rest of the month because the rent had already been paid.
Oh my god. And if they needed extra money, they could just sell off some of his stuff, she said.
Oh, okay. This kind of... Like this, to me, there's a different motive here.
Totally. Like that's a lot of thinking. That's a lot of planning.
That's not just I'm angry because you did something that made me feel uncomfortable.
So I'm going to go off in a rage and like a crime of passion kind of thing.
Obviously, this wasn't a crime of passion anyways because of the prolonged torture of it all.
Exactly. But even if something like that had happened and like they were pissed and all that, like this doesn't make sense anymore.
No. That you would come up with, oh, you know what?
Yeah, I'm really pissed that this happened, so we should kill him because I'm so mad about it and I'm so, like, uncomfortable here.
But you know what's cool is we can stay in this apartment for the rest of the month.
And if we need extra money, we can just sell off his stuff.
Like, all of that doesn't just come together in a moment.
No. I'm sorry. If you're really sitting there going, something's wrong here, we need to get rid of him, which is a wild way of thinking anyways.
It's like, just get a fucking different apartment.
You're also not going to be thinking of, like, other things that you can do to make this better.
You're just thinking of the one focused, we need to rid ourselves of him.
100%. I mean, we will not know because, obviously, nobody was there except for the people that are involved here.
But, like, to me, this is... It's not semen.
Semen, right. The math's not math. Yeah, the math is not math.
No, not at all. But Renee said she knew for sure that they were really going to do it when the couple went to Walmart and came back to the apartment with a rope, a chain, and a lock, which they said would be used when they killed Cordell.
Oh, my God. Mm-hmm. Now, Renee told detectives that that same evening, Ronald called his friend Calvin Smith and asked if he could be of assistance in the murder, but Smith told him that he couldn't sneak out that night, so he wasn't going to be able to do that.
So then they called Renee's friend, Demetrius, and she had actually stayed at his house, she said, the night before when she had been made uncomfortable.
His answer was along the lines of, quote, he might help beat someone up, but not kill them.
Oh, okay. I was like, well, everybody's got one.
Either way, you know. He said that if he changed his mind, maybe he would page them.
My God. Yeah. This is so callous and so... Like, if I change my mind about helping you murder that man, I'll shoot you a beep.
Like, what? He never ended up beeping them that night or paging them.
Wild. So since they couldn't find anybody to help, they said they gave up on their plan for that night.
It just, it wasn't really panning out, you know?
Not for tonight. Mm-mm. You know? So Ronald headed home, but told the girls to page him if anything went down.
The 90s. Oy. Renee said that something did happen after he left.
I guess the two, or she says that the two girls got a call from somebody that who identified themselves as Heather and said that they were Cordell's girlfriend.
The woman said that she, oh, yeah, I was just going to tell you that all over again.
One more time. I was just rereading my same line.
But then she told the two girls that they should kiss each other.
They said they then realized that the caller was actually Cordell calling from the next room.
Like, I don't know. Okay. So one of them went to confront him.
Something went poorly, and they ended up back in Crystal's room, and they had locked themselves in.
They paged Ronald, and he showed up soon after that.
And as soon as he heard what was happening, he went into the living room to confront Cordell.
And as they were arguing, Cordell started to move toward the front door, they said.
Like, almost like he was just going to, like, dip because he was like, what the fuck?
Yeah. That was when Ronald grabbed him, shoved him, and got him into a headlock.
And as Ronald was holding Cordell, he told Crystal to go get the baseball bat that he had brought to the apartment that night.
Oh, boy. That's the other thing. It's like this is very planned, very prepared for, very we know what we're going to do.
You don't bring a baseball bat somewhere thinking you're not going to kill someone.
I'm sorry. You hit someone with a baseball bat, that's attempted murder.
That's exactly what that is. Like, come on.
The math is not mathing. Not at all. So she was the one to hit him first, hit Cordell first.
As Ronald was holding him in a headlock.
That doesn't shock me. Crystal started hitting him in the legs.
Renee said weakly at first, but then eventually she hit him in the temple area of his head.
My God. That hit, knocked off his glasses, and split his skin up near his temple, at which point he obviously started bleeding.
Renee said as she watched, she saw the man lose consciousness from the beating and the intensity of the headlock.
And once he lost consciousness, she said all three of them, so she was very much a participant in this, tied him up with ropes and wrapped him in a blanket.
He's not dead at this point. Nice. Nice.
That's how she wanted to kill him. Crystal?
Crystal suggested that they light him on fire as a means of murdering him.
Crystal needs to be in, bye. Forever. Like forever.
Like throw away the key. Like that's a, that's diabolical.
Like that is real cold, cold, I want to watch someone suffer kind of shit.
And your brain, like, I know people who have been abused before or, like, been in horrible situations.
And I've never heard any of them say that they want to light their abuser on fire.
Well, and that's the thing. And it's like, and if somebody says that, that's one thing.
Like, I want to light this person on fire.
You know what I mean? Yeah, totally. Like, I'm sure somebody has said that, like, I just, you know, hyperbolically.
But to be standing there... with the action actually able to be carried out and be like, let's go.
Let's light this man on fire while he's still alive.
It's like, whoa. Like pump the fucking brakes.
And at this point, again, they've already purchased a fucking chain.
Like he brought a baseball bat. They got a lock for the chain.
Like, yeah, that's the thing. If this was a let's beat him up and teach him a lesson kind of thing.
You wouldn't buy a chain for that. Well, and it would have already been over.
Exactly. It would have been over. There wouldn't be a second location.
No. There wouldn't be a let's light him on fire while he's alive.
There wouldn't be a let's tie him up and bring him somewhere else.
There wouldn't be a bat involved. There wouldn't have been any of that.
You would have beat him up with your fists.
You would have left and never come back.
Exactly. This was something very different.
The intention was very different. This was fulfilling a different void.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So she said, Renee, that they used the can of cigarette lighter fluid that Ronald had in his car.
Renee said it was actually her idea to get the man to give them his ATM pin so that they could steal his cash before they lit him on fire.
Oh, my God. They removed the blanket from his head, and he actually agreed to give them the number and begged them not to kill him.
Ronald was angered by his pleading and started hitting the man again with the baseball bat.
Oh, this is awful. Eventually, all three of them had taken multiple swings to this man, now in the woods after chaining him to this tree.
I don't understand this. I don't understand somebody getting a lesser sentence either for giving this information.
Like, you took swings at him? You're a different kind of individual if you can look at a man tied to a tree and hit him with a baseball bat.
Begging for his life. While he's begging for his life.
And you sit there and say, oh, we should get his ATM pin while we're out here beating the shit out of him while he's chained to a tree.
Wow. What the fuck is wrong with you? Yeah.
And... I think this would have happened regardless of any of the circumstances going on at play here.
Because if you're capable of doing that, you're capable of doing that.
Oh, absolutely. No matter what the circumstances are.
Absolutely. It's so bleak. While this was happening, Renee said that Ronald hit Cordell so hard that he ended up making a comment that he was Babe Ruth.
Oh, my God. That is so beyond. The callousness involved in this.
The callousness here. And how nobody, none of that registered for any of them as like, what the fuck?
Like, this is a man. This is a man. oh this is someone's dad yeah like this is somebody's son wow after they were done hitting him they dragged him even further into the woods so i'm sorry he actually wasn't chained up at this point this was elsewhere this was just out of the car exactly so at this after they had all done that and ronald had his babe ruth moment according to him they dragged him further into the woods and then excuse me chained him to that tree where he would eventually be found that is Ronald was the one to chain him up and Crystal was the one to light him on fire.
Fuck. And then they just left in Ronald's car.
I mean, this girl, our parents kicked her out of the house.
Obviously something is going on here. Yeah, she was having a lot of problems before this.
So once the sun came up that morning, they went back to the woods and Crystal and Ronald went back to check on the body.
Renee said that she waited in the car. Crystal and Ronald assumed that they would find Cordell dead, but they were actually shocked to find him still alive and faintly calling out for help.
Are you kidding me? After being lit on fire, he was still, and beaten brutally, left out in the middle of the night, chained in the middle of, like, nowhere, basically, still alive.
Wow. Now, when they found him like this, they were actually worried because there was a construction crew working on a house in that cul-de-sac nearby.
So they were like, oh, no, he's going to alert the construction worker, someone's going to call the police, and we're all going down.
Yeah. They're going to try to save this man.
How dare they? Yeah, exactly. For real. We gotta stop that.
Mm-hmm. This is really fucked up. I mean, all of this is really fucked up, and it's only gonna get more and more grisly as we go.
I don't know how that happens. Ronald actually, at this point, attempted to break Cordell's neck, but wasn't able to.
Renee said that when they got back to the car, they immediately drove to a local store where they purchased a large meat cleaver for $9.99.
Oh, my God. Then they went back to the woods and Ronald used the meat cleaver to cut Cordell's throat.
That was that. Chop. That was what the chop was.
Exactly. Holy shit. Then they drove. This is going to send you to the moon, Alice.
Yes. They drove back home to clean the meat cleaver and then returned it to the store for a refund.
Are you fucking kidding me? They cleaned it and returned it after cutting a man's throat with it.
Like, what? I have no words. The fuck? Detectives were actually able to locate the store where Renee claimed they bought the knife.
They got surveillance. Holy shit. All three teens are on surveillance, not only purchasing the knife, but then returning it to the store for their $9.99 refund.
My God. And then they ended up being able to locate the woman who had bought the knife.
Okay. Like, imagine the police knocking on your door and being like, hey, did you purchase a meat cleaver recently?
It was the murder weapon in a recent brutal homicide, so we're going to have to take that back.
And imagine if you're like, I just cooked dinner with it.
Like, what the fuck? Yeah. Mm-hmm. So they were able... So not only are they... Like, these kids... are fucking demons demons like to go through all of this you have to be a demon and then to add on to it these different layers of like let me just return to the store i want my 10 bucks i don't give a fuck that somebody else is going to buy it and use it to cook dinner for their family and it's like you really needed your 10 bucks after you stole that man's pin and you were going to take all his money you needed your 10 bucks And you needed to terrorize the life of somebody else who was going to buy that meat cleaver.
Holy shit. Can you fucking imagine? No, obviously not.
But like, I think that's like just what I always say.
I need to come up with something else. I just, I can't.
It's horrible. My brain doesn't compute that.
It's horrible. None of this. Holy shit. And that woman absolutely had to have used that meat cleaver because remember, he wasn't discovered for a month.
Yeah. So she had that cleaver in her possession for a month.
And she bought it for a reason. You don't buy a meat cleaver when you don't need one.
No, you buy it to prepare meat. Because you need to cook something.
So the police took the meat cleaver into evidence, but unfortunately, they couldn't get any traces of blood because it had probably been washed 10 times over at that point.
Oh, my God. After Crystal, Ronald, and Renee were all certain that Cordell was dead, they went back to the apartment, and Calvin Smith, that friend from earlier who wasn't able to sneak out and help them, came over that night and helped them all forge checks in Cordell's name and pawn off some of his belongings, including a TV and his violin.
Oh, my God. I don't know why the violin just got me.
No, it's like the glasses got me. The glasses got me when you said the glasses were knocked off.
I don't know what it was, but I got a pit in my stomach.
It's just like, I don't know what it is.
I think it's, you know what it is. It's a unique part about someone.
It's a unique part about someone. And it's also, I feel like bullies always use glasses with their tactics.
So knocking them off feels like a very helpless moment.
And it is. It's like... oh he has glasses like he's the guy with the glasses and it's like I don't know when they get knocked off it feels very like something's being ripped away I don't know what it is but then the violin is like that's a part of his identity it's played the violin you know what I mean you're just like haunting it off like it's nothing because you just brutally tortured and murdered him ridiculous oh It's insane.
Now, Crystal actually also confessed to her participation.
That's nice of her. Yeah, how kind. And actually, much of what she told detectives lined up with what Renee had already told them.
The only difference in the two girls' stories was that Crystal said she was the one to have waited in the car, and Ronald and Renee went back into the woods.
And that was when Ronald placed duct tape over Cordell's mouth and cut his throat.
Yeah, isn't that convenient that they both can't decide who was in the car?
Well, and isn't it convenient that Renee didn't have the bit about putting the duct tape over his mouth, but Crystal did?
But Crystal did. Interesting, because Renee didn't tell us anything about that.
So who really was out there? Exactly. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. She told them that about a week later, they all worried that they had left too much evidence behind in the woods.
So she, Ronald, and her 14-year-old sister, April, all went back to the woods where Ronald covered Cordell's body a second time with lighter fluid and set it on fire again.
So that was why when he was discovered that there were maggots, but then there were other maggots that were charred.
Because he was set on fire twice. Two times.
And why are there so many kids? A 14-year-old.
Just completely fine with this. I'm sorry if my fucking 15-year-old friend was like, do you want to come out and light a body on fire that we murdered?
A couple weeks ago, I wouldn't be like, yeah, sure.
Of course not. What the fuck is going on with these kids?
Like, Jesus Christ. Yeah. Like, what? Someone question something, please.
You're like, what is happening at school?
What is happening at home? Yeah. What is happening?
Wow. It's insane. Wow. So between all the information they got from Crystal and Renee, police were actually also able to arrest Crystal's sister April.
She was charged with accessory to murder after the fact, but the charges later ended up being dropped because witness testimony against her couldn't be corroborated.
Okay. So Ronald, Crystal, and Renee, however, were all held in a juvenile detention center in Pensacola.
A judge then ruled that all three of them would be tried as adults, and they were all subsequently brought to the Ocalusa County Jail to await their trials.
I personally believe that they should. 100%.
Me too. This is an adult crime. This is beyond.
Yeah. So on April 1st, 1999, a grand jury convened to hear assistant state attorney Bobby Elmore's arguments, which were in favor of trying all three as adults.
And after two days of arguments, they all ruled in favor.
But because the Florida Supreme Court had previously ruled that anybody under the age of 16 would not be able to be tried as an adult, Renee would have to be tried as a juvenile.
So essentially, she got off with a shorter sentence on a technicality.
But it's like, you were very much their girlfriend.
Absolutely. You very much participated. That's awful.
This man died not only at your friend's hands, but at yours too.
But you had every hand in it. Absolutely.
Your hand was on the bat. So Now, because she was offered a plea deal for her cooperation and agreement to testify against both Crystal and Ronald, she pleaded no contest to that lesser count of manslaughter as well as false imprisonment, and she was sentenced to the maximum at the time, which was 15 years in prison.
That's it. 15? And she was released after 12 years in 2012.
Holy shit. So she's just out there somewhere.
Oh. Yup. Okay. Now Crystal went to trial in mid-February 2000, a year after the murder.
The prosecutor and the defense were said by the media to have, quote, sharply contrasting views of her involvement in Cordell's murder.
Crystal sobbed in court while the prosecutor described the full extent of Cordell's injuries, which had been inflicted in part by her.
That would make me so angry. Just sitting there sobbing.
If I was a part of Cordell's family or friends watching her sob, I'd be like, please.
Shut the fuck up. Were you sobbing while you did it?
Nope, you certainly were not. Were you sobbing while he was sobbing, begging for his life?
Did that make you sob? No, you were swinging harder every single time.
Or is it just because you're being shamed in a public place right now for doing what you did?
The latter. Yeah. The latter. The prosecutor called her, quote, an enraged killer seeking revenge for a sexual advance.
And he told the jury that although it was Ronald Bell who set the plan in motion, Crystal had not only partook, but mocked the man as he was dying and asked him how does it feel.
Oh, God. Like, she's a monster. Yeah, a true monster.
She's a fucking monster. Crystal's defense attorney painted a picture of a girl who was simply caught up in a situation she just couldn't control, calling her a crying passive bystander.
She didn't testify in her own defense, but the jury was shown a video of her interview with detectives in which she places pretty much all of the blame on Ronald.
Renee did the same thing during her testimony.
She said that Ronald was, quote, very angry that Richards had touched Crystal.
But in his closing arguments, the prosecutor stated that Ronald had always planned on more than just beating Cordell.
He brought a rope. He bought a chain before Cordell had even gotten home that evening.
And the prosecutor ended by saying, quote, they wouldn't have chained him to a tree if they intended to let him live.
There was only one reason they got the meat cleaver, because Cordell Richards continued to defy the odds.
Exactly. Now, the jury deliberated for just about three hours before returning with a guilty verdict for the armed kidnapping and first-degree murder of Cordell Richards.
The DA made the decision not to seek the death penalty, and Judge Thomas Remington sentenced Crystal to life in prison without the possibility of parole, which is the mandatory sentence for first-degree murder in Florida.
So she went away. She went away. She went away.
Now, Ronald Bell's trial was next, and that started on March 13, 2000.
The prosecutor's argument in that case was pretty much the same as in Crystal's case.
They argued that Cordell was murdered, quote, as revenge for making sexual advances toward Crystal.
The defense argued that it was a situation that had gotten tragically out of hand.
That's always my favorite thing, is when they're like, yeah, it's wild.
It just got out of control. And it's like...
No. Out of control is when you buy too many shoes during a sale.
And whoops, I spent the money I was supposed to use to pay my phone bill.
Like, that's out of control. Out of control is when I finish an entire tub of Ben & Jerry's rather than the half that I intended on eating.
Exactly. Out of control is not brutally torturing and murdering someone.
I hate when the out of control thing, it's like, we are not, we're supposed to be humans here.
Right. We're supposed to be a higher species of, like, on this earth.
You're just equating us to a full-on jungle animal that, like, has no knowledge of anything and just goes off of hunger.
The other thing is, okay, so this was a situation that got out of control.
Mm-hmm. So then why did they go back multiple times?
They were out of control that entire time?
They were out of control still a week later when they went back and burned him even further?
Yeah. What sense does that make? That was a very long period of out of control.
Yeah. Huge. Out of control is a brief moment of being out of control.
Out of control is not like a sustained state of being for that long.
Of course it's not. But luckily, the prosecution was able to remind the jury of how callous Ronald Bell had been.
They showed the video of the teens returning the meat cleaver and all of the evidence that shows that this murder, no matter what, if it was a moment out of control, which it fucking wasn't, was premeditated.
They bought all of the things used in this murder, aside from the meat cleaver, before any of this had even gone down, before this night was even happening.
Exactly. That's what bothers me. They knew what they were going to do.
There was even further testimony given by Ronald's old friend, Calvin Smith.
I'm sure they're probably not friends anymore.
Probably not. Smith testified that Ronald had, on more than one occasion, tried to get Smith to help him to murder someone.
Yeah. So this is just something he wanted to do.
And this was an excuse. Yeah, 100%. He said that on those occasions, he just lied and said that his mom wouldn't let him out.
Because remember, we're talking about 17-year-olds.
My God. Sorry, I actually can't help you murder someone tonight.
My mom's cooking Brussels sprouts for dinner and she says I can't leave.
My mom said I can't come out with you to murder tonight.
Sorry. Maybe next time. Yeah, I'll try again.
He also stated that the day after Cordell was murdered, Ronald had told him, quote, Jesus.
Now, another friend, Thomas Baldwin, testified that he had been given that TV and the violin and multiple other items that turned out to obviously belong to Cordell.
He didn't realize it at the time. And he pawned them at Ronald's request just days after the man had been murdered.
Oh, my God. So on March 17, 2000, the jury found Ronald Bell Jr. guilty of one count of armed kidnapping and first-degree murder.
And the penalty phase was held the next day.
Oh, good. Yeah, it's like, but I'm so glad you're doing great in there.
Yeah. Yeah. Good for you, bud. Very glad.
Both his father and his grandfather, which is really sad that like they even had to do this.
Absolutely. Testified on his behalf and both men told the jury that he was a good man who had been involved in both his church and his community.
The judge and jury were also presented with a petition urging mercy signed by 200 members of his church where his father was the pastor.
The prosecution called one single witness during this phase, who was Detective Stan Griggs, and he was able to remind the jury how callous Ronald had been and how he and his friends, again, returned a meat cleaver that they used to kill a man just to reclaim $9.99.
And I don't give a fuck that he goes to church.
People who go to church do a lot of bad things. guys just like people who don't go to church do a lot of bad things btk went to church yeah plenty of them went to church most of them blame like god talking to them or somebody talking to them yeah like it's that doesn't mean anything it doesn't mean it goes both ways people who don't go to church do shitty things people go to church do shitty things and people who go to church don't do shitty things and people who don't go to church don't do shitty things like so it has no basis in reality that's just another part of his life entirely like that's cool that he goes to church Has nothing to do with anything.
That's not pertinent. Yeah, not at all. But the jury heard both sides.
And in the end, they voted unanimously in favor of the death penalty.
Whoa. And on May 15th, same judge, Judge Thomas Remington, sentenced Bell to death for what he called an unspeakable horror committed against Cordell Richards.
I mean, it was. That's exactly what it was.
That's exactly what it was. And he was the ringleader.
The judge actually acknowledged the petition that had been signed by the members of the church and said, the defendant abandoned his religious training to commit a crime of indescribable brutality and unrelenting torture.
Yeah, that's the thing. This is not... It's bad enough when somebody stabs someone or somebody shoots someone.
It's murder is murder. Yeah. But this is so far beyond.
And it's like you want to sit here and say like he was a good church going boy.
Okay, he might have been. But exactly what this judge said, he abandoned ship when this took place.
That's honestly not even helping the case.
That hurts. Because it's like, honestly, that scares me more.
Yeah, that he had the fear of God and went and still did this.
And that he sat in a church and, like, did whatever he did in there, and then he comes out and this is what he does?
Like, that's even scarier. And you think about it.
Okay, so his dad is the pastor at this church.
His grandfather's involved in this church.
There's this huge community. Remember, Cordell Richards wasn't found for a month.
Yeah. So a month... Went by where he sat in that church and pretended to be a good church-going boy, knowing full well that he had lit a man on fire two times.
And tortured him. Tortured him and sliced his neck because he couldn't break his neck when he tried to.
And it's like that. So that's even scarier.
You sat there in church knowing that you did that.
That's so much scarier. That's the thing.
I'm like, you guys probably hurt the case by doing that.
Yeah, that didn't help. Not at all. Now, in 2002, Ronald appealed his death sentence on the grounds that Judge Thomas Remington had not given his age due consideration when the sentence had been imposed.
I think he did, and he was like, wow, that's even scarier.
Yeah. Now, during the sentencing, the judge had concluded that Ronald's age at the time of the murder was of little consequence.
He noted that Ronald had no history of abuse and had come from a loving, supportive family.
And on appeal, Ronald's attorney argued that the judge was laboring under a misapprehension of what the legal principles were that he was to take into account at the time of the weighing process.
So Ronald's age, he said, was not given consideration.
But the Supreme Court ruled 4-3 in Ronald's favor, saying that even though a killer will become eligible for the death penalty, youth remains an important consideration in deciding whether punishment should be life in prison or death.
So the death sentence was reversed, and now Ronald is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole, just like Crystal.
I would take that. Yeah. Now, in 2019, actually, both Ronald and Crystal appealed their sentencing based on that 2012 U.S.
Supreme Court ruling about no life sentences.
Yeah, without the possibility of parole.
Yep. In juvenile cases. I feel like I could, I think I say that in my sleep now.
Yeah, truly. But the appeals court reviewed both sentences.
And upheld them. Oh, good. Okay. I was like, don't you dare.
Effectively resentencing both of them to life in prison.
Good. Now, one of Cordell's daughters commented on this resentencing saying, quote, the only thing I can say is my family and I are just still in shock that we had to go through this in court.
I thank God the judge found the wisdom to rule the way he did.
Jesus. It's like those two little girls had their father taken from them.
In the most horrific way. Exactly. For no reason.
And had their father's reputation like ruined.
After his brutal murder. After his brutal murder because of what this girl says about him.
Which is like now that we know what this girl did.
Right. Like, we're really going to take that?
I'm not taking anything, she says, without a grain of salt.
This one person who said that, or three kids who said this happened, but every adult in his life, his ex-wife, the mother of his children, his grandparents, his co-workers at IHOP, his house cleaner, all agreed that he would have done anything for anyone.
Yeah. And it never made them uncomfortable in any way.
That's a truly horrific and tragic tale.
It is. And all that to say, even if he did make some kind of advances that made her uncomfortable, that's fucked up.
You don't tie someone to a tree and light them on fire because they are acting like that.
Like, no. No. No. No. I think we can all agree.
No. Nope. You don't do that. Not at all.
You go to the police. Yeah, exactly. You let the law do what the law needs to do.
That's the thing. It's like, you do not.
This is not justified in any way, shape, form on any galaxy.
No. Nope. This is truly one of the most... Yeah, that is truly one of the worst things I've ever heard.
Mind-boggling. And I just feel so bad for his family.
I know. But yes, that is the case of Cordell Richards and the three teenagers who brutally murdered him.
That's horrific. So with all that being said... Jeez.
We hope you keep listening. And we hope you... Keep it weird.
Bye. Yeah. Bye. Bye. 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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