Hey weirdos, it's Ash.
Before we dive into today's twisted tale, let me tell you about the spooky perks of Wondery+.
It's like having a skeleton key that unlocks ad -free listening and early access to new episodes.
So don't wait, try Wondery Plus today.
You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or in Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast. cost. Listening on Audible helps your imagination soar.
Whether you listen to stories, motivation, expert advice, any genre you love, you can be inspired to imagine new worlds, new possibilities, and new ways of thinking.
Listening can lead to positive changes in your mood, your habits, and ultimately, your overall well -being.
Audible has an incredible selection of over one million audiobooks, podcasts, and Audible Originals, all in one easy app.
Find the genres lovers you love and discover new ones explore bestsellers new releases plus thousands of included audiobooks podcasts and originals that members can listen to all they want with more added all the time right now i am listening to the southern book club's guide to slaying vampires by grady hendrix and i just cannot get enough of it i never want to pause it i'm literally like loading the dishwasher listening to it on the treadmill listening to it constantly it's so awesome i love being able to listen anytime anywhere i want to and there's more to imagine when you listen.
Sign up for a free 30 -day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free.
Visit audible .com slash morbid.
You guys, I tried my mochi ice cream the other day and I was lifted off of this planet into just another galaxy entirely.
It is a cool, creamy scoop of ice cream wrapped in a soft, chewy dough.
It's literally like a little sweet ice cream dumpling.
bling. It's pillowy soft, D to the E to the L -I -C -I -O -U -S, and it just feels very indulgent.
I loved it. I tried the cookies and cream flavor, and I still have the mango flavor to try.
I'm so excited to try the mango because if it's half as good as the cookies and cream, I'll probably just like fall on the floor and start crying.
Tears of joy. My Mochi is only around 70 calories per piece.
My Mochi is gluten -free, and each box has six perfectly portioned mochi snacks.
And guess what? up.
My Mochi is the original mochi ice cream, the founder of My Mochi invented mochi ice cream.
That makes My Mochi the Mochi OG.
Feel joyfully chill this summer with every bite of My Mochi ice cream.
Look for the purple box of My Mochi ice cream at Walmart or visit mymochi .com to find a store near you.
Hey, you weirdos, I'm Ash.
And I'm Alayna. And this is Morbid Honey.
This is Morbid Honey.
It's Morbid Honey Baby Sweetie Pie.
It's Morbid Honey. And if you hear a, I don't know if you will, I don't think you will, but I'm just hedging my bets here.
I'm covering my bases.
I'm covering my butt.
If you hear a lawnmower in the background.
No, you don't. It's not my lawnmower.
If you hear a lawnmower, no, you don't.
No, you don't. It's one of my neighbors is having their lawn done, and it's loud.
It's loud. But we tried to wait until they were further away.
Yeah, hopefully they don't come back around these pots again.
Yeah, I don't feel like you're going to hear it, but, again, it's covering all my bases, you know?
I don't know if you're going to hear it.
I don't know your life.
I don't know your life.
I don't know how good your hearing is, okay?
I don't know. Oh, my God.
We're, like, silly goofy because it's the end of the week.
It is the end of the week.
I'm a little bit tired.
I feel very like, is that a plane?
Oh, fuck. Okay. So now my neighbors mowing their lawn and planes are flying in the sky.
Planes are flying. Can we have a moment of peace and quiet around here?
Jesus. Never. That was a loud fucking plane though.
It was loud. It was like, wah.
I was like, are you going to stay in the sky?
I don't like that. Please do.
Are you good in the sky?
Are you staying up there?
I recommend it. All right.
Well, with all that silly goofy out of the way, I do have a case that is incredibly tragic because this is morbid.
Yeah. It's a wild one, though.
It's a distressing one.
It's a distressing one.
I saw an episode of Forensic Files, and I said, doing it.
Well, there you go.
Doing it, and then Dave. If it's good enough for Forensic Files, it's good enough for me.
I was raised on that program.
That's right. Literally.
But then Dave really helped me get a lot more information.
We love Dave. We beefed up this case.
We love a Dave moment.
We love Dave. We love his podcast, Bring Me the Axe.
Yeah, go check it out.
And his other podcast, 99 Cent Rental.
Yeah. I mean, look how good he is helping us out.
He's got podcasts on podcasts on podcasts.
He's so good. He's a brilliant mind, that man.
I don't really know.
I think I'm in a place of old timey right now.
This is not super old.
You know, that's where I live.
Yeah, you brought me into that neck of the woods.
I was just researching like a bunch of old cases.
So I feel like I'm just talking like this now.
You're talking with a transatlantic accent.
Shouldn't we all? I think we should.
When did that just go away?
I would love that. I know.
I feel like that's where I live.
Hey, I'm for it. I would love that.
I'll never tell you to stop.
Just, hey, baby. That's it.
I don't know. Nailed it.
I don't know. I'm literally so tired.
It's been a long week.
It has. But let's focus on this, because this is a gnarly, very sad story.
This is a tale. Yeah.
And it all starts with a woman named Betty Wilson.
Wilson so Betty Wilson was born and I believe it's called Gadsden Alabama on July 14th 1945 she was one of four girls born to Oscar and Nell Woods now Oscar was a police officer and Nell worked at a factory okay friends and family would later remember the Woods family as quote -unquote poor but Betty described the family as typical lower middle class so okay just kind of depends so yes, but they were in a family that had a ton.
And at a time when most of the rural South was transitioning from wartime production, causing massive layoffs, Oscar's job as a police officer actually kept the family afloat.
Wow. It was good that he had that position.
And what also helped was, like many police officers at the time, Oscar supplemented his income by accepting bribes from local bootleggers, union busters, and gambling operations.
You know. Yeah. Just things.
Like, not Not good things, but.
Just side hustles. Kept food on the table.
You know, it's hustle culture.
It is. It's not the best, but they had four kids.
That's what he did.
Yeah, it's not honest money, but it's money.
So in the early years, the Woods home life was, it was, this is, it's dysfunctional.
It's very sad. Oh no. They had a disruptive and a pretty dysfunctional life because in addition to Oscar's involvement in illegal activities, he was also a heavy drinker.
And he also carried on multiple extramarital affairs with other women.
Saw that coming. Like multiple women.
Yeah. According to author Jim Schutz, I believe, during the day while he made his rounds, Oscar drank.
He drank with his women.
He drank at the illegal establishments he helped protect.
He drank in the police car.
By the time he came home at the end of the day, his condition was somewhere between fairly drunk and stinking.
Ew. Yeah. So he was just shit -faced at all times.
Ugh. With four young children.
Yeah. So while that obviously made for quite a challenging home life Betty recalled mother made up so completely for daddy's absences and drunks that we never felt any lack of love or attention Oh man So Nell was just out here making sure that Literally being both parents and making sure that these girls didn't fear or any of these kids felt any kind of Wow, Nell Abandonment from their dad Nell's an MVP VP. Truly.
That's a parent right there.
That's a parent and a half.
Yeah. So while her husband was off drinking, cheating, gambling, any of that kind of thing, Nell devoted all of her time and attention to her children.
And by the time Betty and her twin sister Peggy came along, the couple's other daughters, I think it's Jadell is one of their names, and Martha, they were eight and ten years old.
So they were kind of establishing their independence, like they could like get their food together get dressed on their own that kind of thing yeah so nell shifted more of her focus onto her twins peggy and betty she lavished them with all kinds of attention praise any penny she earned she spent on her youngest daughters nell wood's life had not been easy and it never would be but by devoting all of her energy to shielding her children from their father's drunken abusive wrath she managed to actually show them a life of comfort and love was possible even when the the circumstances weren't ideal.
So she really was like...
She went above and beyond.
And she was a pretty good role model to be like, this could be your...
And obviously, it wasn't as easy to divorce back then.
No, of course not. She wouldn't have...
Likely, she wouldn't have been able to support four daughters on her own.
Yeah. So she was like, I have to stay with your dad, but he's a fucking asshole, so let me do my best that I absolutely can.
So that you can have a better life going forward. Exactly.
So by the time she reached high school, Betty had developed a strong and somewhat theatrical personality.
All her years performing in the school plays and speaking in church had actually made her really comfortable in front of an audience.
But she actually preferred to spend most of her time by herself.
She was a little bit of a wallflower in that regard. A little bit of a loner.
Yeah, but Peggy, her sister, her twin sister was a lot more gregarious and Peggy would drag Betty into social situations.
Okay. So Betty said like she probably in high school at least wouldn't have had as many friends or time spent going to social outings had it not been for Peggy.
Yeah. So it's like they credit each other.
Yeah, they do. But while Betty was shy and bookish in most public settings, she had considerably fewer reservations when it came to boys.
She really liked boys.
Liked the boys. Schutz wrote, There was a devilish streak in her that enabled her to do things Peggy would have never dreamed of doing.
Skipping school, coming home late in cars with boys who had been drinking.
so so she was she was going for it and it's funny because it's like i think to peggy she's like oh wow like my sister betty was so shy and i had to bring her out to introduce her to these people and betty's like yeah i'm shy but like if i'm hanging out with somebody i think is handsome let's fucking go let's go which like is cool for now oh yeah oh because i don't know this story i almost said this show i don't know i don't know the show well you will so when she graduated from high school, Betty married her high school boyfriend, and the couple had three boys in very quick succession, but it
didn't take long before their marriage started to fall apart.
Betty said, My husband was a good man, but we both knew we'd gotten married too young.
The truth was a little bit more complicated than that.
Oh, okay. Sure, that was part of it.
Yeah, that sounded like a nice...
Yeah, that was really chucking it all up to like one thing.
Yeah. By all accounts, Betty's first husband was said to be a good man.
That's the truth. But he He also believed in very specific gender roles and he wanted to be very much in charge of what his wife did, what she wore, and where she went.
Was his name, what's that guy's name?
Harrison Flathead? Oh, the kicker?
What's his last name?
I don't even know. The kicker?
Was he the kicker? Yeah, his last name isn't even worth knowing.
He's that guy reincarnated.
Honestly, it kind of sounds like that.
And the thing was, for somebody as spirited as Betty, like we know she likes to go out and have a good time, the idea of having somebody control every aspect of her life was just not something she was going to jive with.
Yeah, I mean, nobody should control any aspect of your life.
No. You control your life.
And it was also the dawn of the 1970s, so it went hand -in -hand with the women's liberation movement, and things were changing, and women were realizing, like, fuck this, I don't have to listen to this guy.
Yeah, times they were a -changin'.
And Betty wanted to change with him.
So recognizing that things weren't working out, they did end up getting divorced, and Betty's husband agreed to keep custody of the children until she got settled because she was moving to Huntsville, Alabama.
Okay. So he was like I'll keep the boys you get settled in Huntsville and then we can work something out.
Exactly. But now freed from the responsibilities of a children and a husband of a children of children of children and a husband Betty wasted no time establishing her new life in Huntsville.
Initially her plan was to get settled find work and then send for her children.
Got it. Makes sense.
Totally. In some capacity.
Yeah. Yeah. But instead, she worked two or three low wage jobs and spent all of her money on clothes, drugs, and partying, and essentially completely abandoned those children for quite some time.
Wow. What an asshole move.
Yes. During the day, she worked at the local JCPenney department store.
And at night, she worked the desk at a local health club, a job that not only helped her pay the bills, but also provided opportunities to meet other young single people.
She later said, I've heard the stories and read the books about me that talked about the wild partying, the drugs and the heavy drinking that went on there some of it was true and i make no apologies for it i make no apologies for abandoning my children yeah the party yeah okay okay got it totally got it girl okay i understand like women's liberation 70s like yeah you don't want to sit around having your husband tell you what to do of course but you two collectively made the decision to bring three lives into the world and you both owe those children equal love attention and care It's not about you
anymore. It's just not.
When you have kids, that's just, accept it.
That's the way it is.
It's not about you anymore.
You're not the main, the primary.
Like, you don't get to party anymore?
Sorry. Yeah. You gave that up.
Exactly. Like, you can be a full human being while being a parent.
Absolutely. But you can't.
But you don't get to prioritize yourself anymore.
Exactly. You don't get to prioritize, like, frivolous shit.
That's it. Like, partying and not come, like, and especially just, like, straight up abandoning your kids.
Yeah. And just, like, doing drugs and drinking.
Like, obviously, go get your hair cut and have some you time.
Absolutely. Like, that's necessary for, like, a healthy, normal relationship with everyone in your life.
Yeah. But, like, don't just never see your fucking kids again and be like, I'm going to go to the bar.
Yeah. Like, that's crazy.
Like, fuck off. And I think we're, like, we're obviously, like, over explaining because, like, you know.
You know how it is.
You know how it is.
But that's fucked. Yeah.
It just is. It just is.
I'm not going to over -explain it.
It's fucked, in my opinion.
Well, and it continues to get more fucked.
Yeah, so fuck that.
Fuck. So fuck. And Betty never did send for her children.
Wow. Instead, she spent the first few years of the 1970s working.
She worked a few jobs at a time.
She dated around. And she just enjoyed the freedom that she felt she never had.
Yeah, she's childless now.
Yeah, exactly. So look at that.
Now, a few years after arriving in Huntsville, a woman Betty met at the health club recommended that she apply for a job at the newly built um i think it's humana hospital the woman told her you're too smart and pretty to spend your life doing this like working at the health club and she suggested betty could use her as a reference since her husband was one of the investors who funded the development of the hospital so the reference worked and betty did land a job at the hospital as a secretary a unit secretary she recalled from the first from the very first day i loved it i could hardly wait
to get to work every morning which it's like cool Cool.
It's wild that you can like dedicate yourself to a job, but not three beings who lived inside of you.
That you created. Like, whoa, that's cuckoo nuts.
That's interesting.
I think eventually, and it's not like the main focus here.
I think eventually she does end up reconnecting with her children, but she didn't raise them.
It doesn't sound like.
I mean, that's their business.
It's none of my business.
But just to throw that out there, they did reconnect at some point.
And hey, I'm glad. I hope it all worked out.
I think she was part of her grandchildren's lives for a period of time, which could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you look at it.
Again, I do not know the story at all, so I'm speaking from total ignorance here of what happens next.
Oh, you just wait. So the more Betty became involved with the patients, the more it occurred to her that working in healthcare, and specifically one -on -one with patients, was exactly what she wanted to do with her life.
So within the three years of starting as a secretary, she had completed the nursing program at the University of Alabama, and soon she was hired as a dialysis nurse.
So, I mean, that's a big accomplishment.
And it was through her work at the hospital that she came to meet Jack Wilson in 1976.
He was a newly practicing and noticeably nervous ophthalmologist. Is it ophthalmologist?
I always say ophthalmologist. Me too.
But then you think of, like, aesthetic.
Yes. And it's, like.
and you see it's not aesthetic it's aesthetic aesthetic and it's like is it ophthalmologist actually yeah it might be that now that let's google it so quack so quack so quack well we'll google it so quack so quack ophthalmologist it feels like that makes sense yeah i agree but i've always said ophthalmologist but what i've learned especially through this podcast is that i've been saying things wrong a lot for my life.
Exactly. Exactly. Ophthalmologist. See?
Oh my god, it's ophthalmologist. No, it's not.
Ophthalmologist. No, that I don't buy.
I won't, I will not subscribe to that.
I'll subscribe to ophthalmologist, but I will not subscribe to ophthalmologist. I won't do that.
That sounds like a rap song.
Literally, I won't.
sounds like ophthalmologist ophthalmologist i feel like my brain is breaking no i'll i'll accept ophthalmologist but i'm not he i'll say i'll continue saying it wrong he was a doctor who specialized in eye care and health boom there you go got around it ophthalmologist there it is stop saying it please ophthalmologist never it's losing all meaning so she met she met jack wilson a doctor specializing in eye care uh in health and he was performing surgery this is when they met he was performing surgery on an elderly patient and complications actually like arose in the middle of this surgery it was like
a medication allergy that the patient had so the patient had to be rushed to the dialysis ward to be treated for renal failure oh wow now betty became increasingly frustrated as jack nervously paced around the room worrying and repeatedly asking her if the elderly woman was going to be okay because i mean this is his patient yeah and he's a new doctor he's like i don't need a malpractice suit right off the bat yeah but so betty was like jesus christ like can you just let me work on this like you're pissing me off but despite her annoyance she also couldn't help but find what she described as the small
anxious man somewhat endearing she later said he reminded me of a little boy with an impish smile on his face all the time with an impish smile yeah adorable he just sounds very Very, like, sweet.
He sounds very unassuming.
Yeah, unassuming, sweet.
Non -threatening. Very non -threatening.
Yeah. A little nervous.
Yeah. A little type A.
Very type A. You know, we don't hate it.
Yeah, no, we don't hate it at all.
We don't hate that, you know?
No, let's talk about Jack.
Let's talk about him.
Okay. Well, like Betty, Jack had been raised under difficult circumstances.
His circumstances are just as heartbreaking.
Oh, that's sad. He was born in 1937 to a single mother who lacked the means to raise her children.
So he ended up being raised by Werta and Bill Wilson.
I don't know if it was like a traditional adoption story or if it was like a we know like his mom knew these people, but they ended up becoming his adoptive parents for all intents and purposes.
So he was raised by Werta and Bill Wilson.
Okay. Now, just as one of Betty's parents had been a pretty hard and cool person, Werta Wilson lacked the warmth and affection that, you know, is stereotypically characteristic of mothers, and she just constantly reminded Jack that his mother had abandoned him, his real mother.
And this is awful, but she would tell him, she's a whore, she walks the streets of Los Angeles.
Wow. Like, a little boy.
Oh. And then, like, all the way throughout his life, if she would just tell him like your mom's like a whore oh my god can you imagine just looking at like a little boy a child that you took in yeah to like protect yeah however if jack's i don't even want to call her a maternal figure because she's not but what was supposed to be a maternal figure if she was cold and mean which she was his father bill was the complete opposite bill wilson worked as a line cook in a restaurant and spent all day on his feet often returning home completely exhausted burned out from a long day if you've worked in a kitchen
as a line cook you know but no matter how tired he was he always made time for jack and was always over the moon excited to be with him bill bill bill's a real one bill bill bill but just as betty had longed to get out of her small town jack spent his days dreaming of a life somewhere other than where he lived, and he was raised in Chicago.
Fortunately, he had always been very, very, like, incredibly intelligent, which along with the determination and motivation instilled in him by his father Bill, actually got him early admission to Occidental College.
So during the day, he worked just like a regular old job to help support his family.
And at night, he studied relentlessly for his classes.
Now, after they ended up getting married, because they do get married jack told betty he studied and worked hard and worked so hard then because he quote wanted to be somebody because he wanted to make money because he wanted to be respected i mean good for you man he just got drive yeah and he went through it so he's like you know what i wanted to become someone exactly no matter where i came from right right smallwoodhome .com turns your favorite photos into gallery quality framed prints or wrapped canvases all handcrafted in the usa shipped in days and priced to make your whole home smile it's
nice to have something on the wall that's not just designy but it's personal they sell custom framed prints that are made just for you pick your favorite photo and they're going to turn it into a beautifully framed piece, handcrafted with care.
Every single piece is made to order, so there's no assembly lines or robots involved.
And you can choose from natural wood finishes for the frames, like stained, almond, black, or white.
And if you want a little more, you can even add an acrylic front for a little polished touch. I love that option.
They're also more than just frames.
Wrapped canvas options give you even more ways to elegantly customize your space.
It's big style without the big price.
They are high -quality prints that bring warmth and personality to your home, but it's not going to break the bank.
And there's a Fast Turnaround, which I absolutely love.
These prints are made to order in just a few days and are shipped straight to your door.
Right now, get 30 % off when you use code MORBID at smallwoodhome .com.
That's promo code MORBID to get 30 % off your first order at smallwoodhome .com.
Give your memories the showcase that they deserve.
Hey there, my weird weirdos.
I want to take a minute to recommend another podcast called Who Took Misty Copsey?
In September of 1992, 14 -year -old Misty Copsey leaves the Washington State Fair with her best friend and is never seen again.
Her body is never found.
At the time, western Washington is home to prolific serial killers like the Green River Killer, which leads to different theories on who's responsible for what happened to Misty.
Over the course of eight episodes, host and cold case investigator Sarah Sarah Kalin, speaks with Misty's friends and family, looks at police records and different anonymous tips to try to figure out if Misty's disappearance is the work of a serial killer or someone who knew her.
No suspects are ruled out.
After 33 years, Sarah Kalin hopes to answer the question, who took Misty?
You guys are going to love this.
If you listen to Morbid, we know that you love a cold case and we always tell you a cold case is never cold.
So definitely Definitely give this a listen.
Definitely look into the case.
Listen to Who Took Misty Copsie wherever you get your podcasts.
But he also studied because he was fascinated by the material and the subjects.
He felt the idea that a person could suffer from a theoretically correctable vision problem, he felt like that was really frustrating.
So he became completely determined to find cures for common vision impairments.
that's badass. He's just like a good person who's completely driven and just like wants to make a difference.
And he was in it for the right reasons.
Like obviously everybody wants to like you know be successful, be respected, like yeah make money to support your family, all that stuff.
And it's like but he's also in it because he's like I want to help people.
Yeah he's like I want to help people's vision issues.
Yeah like I'm frustrated that people have to deal with this and if there's something I can do to help let me learn how to do it.
Yeah exactly. I just really like him.
He He sounds like a really nice guy.
So that drive eventually took Jack to Memphis where he studied for his doctorate at the University of Tennessee.
And it was there that he met his first wife, Julia.
Jack and Julia's marriage was pretty normal.
They lived a quiet life.
They had two sons together.
And they actually eventually adopted a third son.
So he, as an adopted person, was like, I want to adopt a child.
Yeah, I want to like pay it forward. Yeah.
However, as like ordinary as their marriage was, it was marked by periods of upset.
set and julia became more and more frustrated by jack's almost pathological commitment to his work and the ways in which it kept him from his family so by 1976 the strain on their relationship was just too much to bear and julia ended up leaving jack with a plan to work things out through a trial separation but she was like something's got to change because we have this awesome family and like i do love you i know you love me you're a good dad but you're exactly you're great when when you're here but you're not here a lot yeah so at first Jack was actually shocked when Julia left and I think I
wonder if he was just because like we know people like this that you are so dedicated to your work that you don't even realize that things are falling apart around you yes yeah because you're successful where you're focusing right exactly so at first he was like what but the more he thought about it the more it occurred to him that having never had a normal stable life he didn't really know how to build one with another person he didn't know that like he didn't know what that looked like yeah of course he wasn't taught that yeah but despite the challenges jack spent over a year trying to rebuild
his relationship with julia until he met betty from the moment they met jack was immediately drawn to betty unlike the more traditional southern women that he was pretty much accustomed to at that point i mean we know but he was very very strong, independent, and she did not seem interested in deferring to men.
Certainly not. No. Their meeting also helped Jack understand that his marriage to Julia really was truly over.
Like, there wasn't a lot of hope there.
Yeah. There was nothing that they could salvage.
No, it didn't seem like it.
So they divorced soon after, but they actually were lucky enough to remain friends with each other.
Oh, and that's good.
Yeah. And I feel like that so speaks to who they both were.
Yeah, that they clearly loved each other.
It just didn't work.
Exactly but to Betty And Jack Betty recalled looking back Jack and I never really dated So it was more like they kind of just like met Each other and then just like It just happened It just kind of happened on its own yeah They became friendly enough through their work at the hospital And on their second date Jack said If we're gonna spend the rest of our lives together He may as well move in with me I was like okay Like alright then So about a year after Jack moved in Because I think they just kind of like moved in with each other very quickly Betty got offered a job with a company in Atlanta,
which Jack encouraged her to take.
He was like, go for it.
The distance was hard, but they were determined to make their relationship work.
So they stayed in touch through long distance phone calls and visits whenever possible.
But that all came to an end in 1978.
Now, at this point, they've only been together like two years.
Because in 1978, Jack, who had suffered from Crohn's disease his entire life, he needed to get surgery to actually remove part of his lower intestine.
That's tough. Yeah.
Betty said there was never any doubt as to what I would do I quit my job, gave up my apartment and moved back to Huntsville to be with Jack I'm just like does he know that you have three kids that you just abandoned I don't know if at this point she became I'm not entirely sure at which point she became reconnected because like I said she does eventually and she talks about grandkids so I don't know who knows interesting that you would There was never any question there as to what you would do.
But you were so quick to just kind of— I wonder if—I feel like there is some kind of psychology to the relationship that she has with Jack because she herself said she sees him as not like a little boy, but remember she said she saw him very unassuming, very— Innocent.
Almost like wounded bird kind of thing.
you know so maybe it is like and she said she almost is mothering a little bit or nurturing with him i should say you know and i wonder if she said like to herself you know like i didn't go back when i should have and like is this life maybe i can make up for it yeah like is this is this my second chance to like be there for somebody maybe i don't know maybe but the surgery prompted betty to take the relationship more serious and a short time after jack's recovery the two were married to the outside world their marriage was the type that most couples aspire to they were wealthy successful they
actually really seemed to enjoy one another's company and that's nice it is in a 1996 interview betty said we were happy and satisfied with each other he met every need that i or my children or my grandchildren had so there you go so at some point he became involved in their lives too but despite what others saw in betty and jack's relationship or how Betty described it after Jack's death, the truth was that there had been tension involved in the marriage too for quite some time.
Betty had been charmed by Jack from the moment they met, like I said, but while she found many things about him endearing, the fact was that they were very different people.
And that can either work like swimmingly.
Yes. Or it can become the biggest issue.
Exactly. Now, Jack was incredibly, and to be frank, almost obsessively dedicated to his work.
Yeah, that's what it sounds like.
He was very work first. And often that came at the expense of other parts of his life.
As we see from his previous marriage, unfortunately.
And I think it's something he tried to work on.
I don't think it's something that he completely ignored or anything like that.
But I think that might have just been who he was.
That was part of his personality.
personality but Betty she was driven and she worked but she also always made time for a social life yeah she sounds like she did yes and Jack also wasn't materialistic in his professional or personal life and he really went out of his way to help others well he sounds so nice he really does he sounds like a good guy but Betty was far more money and things oriented like she she was kind of materialistic yeah which is not necessarily a bad thing but it does become a bad thing and here and it can be a butting heads thing yes and so those were all the kind of like smaller things that they were butting
heads about yeah but the greatest point of contention in their relationship was their intimate life and i'm going to try to talk about it as delicately as possible but it is a huge part of this case okay so since leaving her first husband and moving to huntsville so many years earlier betty had fully embraced that sexual liberation that helped define the 70s and 80s But Jack, on the other hand, he was very, very shy when it came to the subject.
He didn't like to openly talk about intimacy.
Okay. If they were going to have a conversation that was even, like, remotely sexual in nature, Betty would have been the one to initiate that conversation.
So for Betty, she felt like this was almost an awkward adolescent attitude toward intimacy, and she found it very frustrating.
Okay. And things got worse once Jack had that operation to treat his crones, because it resulted in him requiring an ostomy bag.
Now, for Jack, who was shy to begin with, the ostomy bag made everything a lot more complicated.
Oh, that breaks my heart.
Which you can understand.
That breaks my heart for him.
I know, I agree. Now, the physical reality of the bag itself, quote, made him even more painfully self -conscious than before.
Oh, that like really breaks my heart.
Because he just seems like a good person.
And it's out of your control.
It's completely beyond your control.
Yeah, like that just sucks.
It does. And the subsequent surgeries and medications caused various problems when it came to sexual functioning.
So, it was also just a, it became a physical.
Yeah, of course, reality.
Reality, exactly. Thank you.
Now, Betty, too, struggled to adjust to the post -surgery lifestyle and confided to friends, and this is just a cunt thing to say.
I'm just going to put that right out there.
Wow. It's a cunt thing to say.
She confided to friends that she found the ostomy bag to be repulsive.
That's fucked up. I'm sorry.
That's fucked up to talk to your friends and say that.
Because if you love somebody, you get past it.
Yeah, you just, yeah.
You figure out a way to move past it.
Because sorry, but I could never find any one part of my husband to be repulsive.
No, I was just thinking that.
I was like, no. And especially something that he – Is beyond his control.
That was pain for him.
Yeah. And that like needed to happen to make him – his life better.
Yeah, painful physically, but also painful emotionally.
Like everything. think he's having a hard time coming to grips with it your job as a wife and as a support and I'm not saying like I as a waft as a waft like as his wife and like his partner is to support him yeah you guys are a team like you build each other up it's supposed to be teamwork man teamwork isn't saying that the other one is gross because of something completely out of their control I just I just don't get this I don't get it personally yeah and that's just really mean to say it is really mean to say to like gossip with your friends about your husband's thing like that That bag that he
has to have because he had part of his intestines removed because he's been in severe pain for years.
It's repulsive. Also as a nurse, to say that.
That's the other thing.
I'm like, well, cool, Betty.
Yeah. We love a supportive partner.
A supportive queen.
But the thing was, Betty had relied on her desirability to prop up her self -esteem for most of her life.
So being romantically intimate was something that she pretty much required in order to to feel valuable, which that, sure, I understand that to a degree, like you want to be wanted, but rather than adapt to their new circumstances or come up with any alternative way of expressing desire for one another, the problem festered.
Yeah. And each of them found unproductive and harmful ways of dealing with stress and the emotional pain of the situation.
And it's not like they were going to go to therapy together and figure out, you know, some like sex therapist and see if they can, you know, make this work some other way.
Still the seventies.
Yeah, exactly. So Jack retreated into himself, often getting lost in work, which it seems like that's just his MO.
That's all he knows.
That's what he knows.
While Betty, all she knew, was heavily drinking and spending most of her time away from her husband.
Years later, when Betty was on trial, so it's fine that I called her a cunt, the prosecutor would make a big deal of this dysfunction, pointing to it as one of the driving forces for murder.
her oh but betty always denied that she and jack's intimate life was part of the problem she said like all marriages ours had its problems but strangely enough none of them had to do with sex jack and i were both grown people who believed that what we did in our bedroom was our business as long as both of us agreed yes i had affairs but i never cheated and neither did jack but and here's the thing so betty's like i never cheated i i had affairs but i didn't cheat and it's like like that's an oxymoron yeah it's like what like that doesn't make sense to most people no and if i mean i would assume
that if you have an open relationship you wouldn't consider your other relationships and affairs yeah right maybe i'm wrong i don't know i don't know it's like i don't know how that works i don't either and i don't think jack knew how that worked either yeah so it doesn't sound that way yeah because whether or not jack was fully on board with their having an open relationship is very unclear but at the very least he did know that betty was having relationships with other men and typically just looked the other way and his his acceptance of her extramarital affairs just wasn't sufficient for betty
she still wanted him to want to be with her even though he couldn't physically fulfill that desire yeah it's not that he didn't want to be with her he was i was like i can't in the way that you want me to be different right we we have a different reality.
Exactly. So even after she joined AA and stopped drinking, she, and even after she managed to find satisfaction with other relationships, Betty continued to resent Jack for what she felt like was a complete desertion of his responsibilities as her husband.
Wow. At first, she kept those frustrations to herself, but in time, she couldn't contain it anymore.
And she would complain about her marriage to literally any soul that was going to even remotely listen like anybody so naturally those closest to her were like hey have you thought about a divorce because it doesn't really sound like either of you are in this anymore yeah but betty would always flatly reject the idea saying she wasn't willing to give up her lifestyle i knew that was coming or her role as the wife of a successful doctor everything was just smoke and mirrors at that point of course so at the end of the night as as the end of the 1990s dawned, not only had Betty's relationship all
but fallen apart, other aspects of her life were crumbling as well.
After years of regular participation in AA, a place where she actually had found solace and community, several of the other members of the group had become concerned about Betty's presence at the meetings.
Among other things, in the meetings, she had been particularly vocal about her marital problems and kind of like flashed the fact that she was having affairs with other men.
And a lot of other people in the group found that triggering or kind of viewed it as an indication of her relapse in sobriety.
So whatever the reasons, there was enough of a concern over Betty's behavior that the majority felt it best that she find another AA group.
Whoa. They were like, you can't sit with us.
Like how often does that happen, I wonder?
I don't know, to be honest with you.
That's wild. But I guess you can kind of understand why they would find that behavior triggering.
Absolutely. Because it seems a little reckless.
It does. Which I'm sure would feel very like, this is what I'm trying to get away from.
This kind of reckless attitude and laissez -faire attitude to reckless behavior.
Yes, exactly. And that's something that people who are in recovery can't really be around and don't need.
So she got kicked out of her AA group.
And around the same time, several of her own friends were experiencing similar frustrations.
Because it would be strange.
change. Yeah, to have somebody be, like, flaunting that.
Like, I feel like it would make me a little uncomfortable because I'd be like, I can't relate to you.
Like, I don't know.
Well, not only that, but it's just like, you just complain about your husband all the time.
And like, everyone's giving you a, like, you don't want to be with this man.
So don't be with this man.
Yeah, you can't just cite, I want to be rich still.
Because here's the thing.
Like, obviously, we cover cases where it's like, I don't want to be with this man, but it's dangerous to get away from him.
This is not one One of those cases.
Yeah. She could have, he would have been like, okay.
This is just you don't want to give up the lifestyle.
Exactly. Exactly. For years, she'd been relying on friends of hers and friends of, like, hers and Jack's to give cover stories to Jack on nights that she would be out with other men.
And they were done with it.
According to Jim Schutz, they felt the behavior had become increasingly wrong, morally and destructive.
Yeah. It kind of seems that way.
It does. So with her world just falling apart around her and her strongest support systems abandoning her betty decided that she needed to take drastic action quickly or she was just going to lose everything she had all that wealth all that privilege that she'd grown accustomed to i just want to warn you this murder the murder part of this is very brutal so a little before 5 p .m on the evening of may 22nd 1992 jack arrived home from the office and pulled his car into the driveway just as he did every other afternoon a few minutes later neighbor saw him come outside onto the front lawn, where he
used an aluminum baseball bat to drive a campaign sign for a local politician into the ground.
And then he went inside.
Okay. That was the last activity anybody noticed at the Wilson house until Betty arrived home from an AA meeting.
I think she found another one a little after 9pm the same night.
Betty couldn't have been in the house more than a minute when she came running out of the front door and started pounding on the door of a neighbor.
As far as the neighbor could tell something had happened to Jack and Betty needed to call 9 -1 -1.
So on the phone with the dispatcher Betty explained that she'd just gotten back home and she went upstairs to found her husband's badly beaten body lying on the floor in the hallway just outside their bedroom.
So officers arrived at the house a few minutes later and secured the scene finding Jack just as Betty had described him.
He was on the floor in the hallway in a lying in a large pool of blood.
somebody had murdered him that was very obvious but more than that they had brutalized this man his skull had been crushed in several places presumably with the aluminum bat that was laying beside him there were also crushing wounds to his hands his legs his arms and his collarbone oh in addition to the crushing injuries he had been stabbed twice in the stomach holy shit and And there was heavy bruising around his neck, making it appear that somebody, in addition to all of this, had also tried to choke him.
What the fuck? Overkill to the highest degree.
Oh my god. A few days later, when the autopsy was completed, the pathologist would identify the cause of death as any one of the nine blunt force injuries to Jack's skull.
Oh wow. But if that hadn't done it, he most likely would have bled to death from the stab wounds to his stomach, the second of which had been made with a sawing and twisting motion.
Holy shit. This, like...
Oh my God, that's so brutal.
It's so brutal. Now, that was in and of itself just flabbergasting to investigators that this was a home invasion maybe and this is what happened to this man.
Yeah, like, what the fuck?
They're like, what?
what? Something felt off about this scene altogether from the moment they arrived.
In 1920, a broke immigrant in Boston became one of America's richest, most infamous men practically overnight.
He swindled the modern equivalent of a quarter billion dollars and etched his name into history as the mastermind behind one of the most notorious scams ever, the Ponzi scheme.
Hosted by Maya Lau and featuring award -winning comedian and actor Sebastian Maniscalco, this is Easy Money, the Charles Ponzi Story, an Apple original podcast produced by Atwill Media.
Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.
You know what time it is?
It's time for a fresh approach to dog food.
And that's where the farmer's dog comes in.
Developed by board -certified nutritionists, which is pretty impressive, the farmer's dog is human -grade dog dog food that's made with real meat and veggies and gently cooked to preserve those nutrients.
Traditional pet food is highly processed and difficult to portion correctly, but the farmer's dog, it's changed that with their freshly made food.
They take the guesswork out of serving sizes by precisely portioning your dog's food based on their very unique nutritional needs.
Sydney and Blanche are eating the farmer's dog right now, and we absolutely love it.
What's really fun is each packet has their name on it.
So it says Blanche's Food, Sydney's Food, which is just fun.
They love it. They can't read, but I kind of pretend that they do.
Maybe they can. Maybe they can.
Who am I to say? Get 50 % off your first box of fresh, healthy food at thefarmersdog .com slash morbid.
Plus, you get free shipping.
Just go to thefarmersdog .com slash morbid to get 50 % off.
That's thefarmersdog .com slash morbid.
so it seemed like somebody had been poking around in the upstairs bedroom but the house was far from ransacked and there was actually no sign of a forced entry and it didn't appear like anything had been stolen all the valuable items like jewelry televisions vcrs everything was laid out in plain sight and it would have been some of that would have been easy to grab like running out the door you know but what was curious was that the phone line had been cut And there were also multiple cigarette butts at the scene when neither Jack nor Betty were smokers.
Now those two facts, along with the green ski mask found in the bedroom, suggested that the killer had been lying in wait and surprised Jack when he got home.
Meaning this wasn't a robbery gone wrong.
This was an intentional murder.
So Detective Mickey Brantley found Betty next door at the home of her neighbor, whose phone she had used to call 911.
and he was like hey i gotta sit down and talk to you for like at least a couple minutes yeah so she explained that she returned home a little after nine and she found jack at the top of the stairs but she couldn't be sure she said she actually thought it was possible that when she got home he might have still been alive oh which i'm not positive but she also added that the couple hardly ever locked the doors because both of them were constantly coming and going so often okay so that's why there was no sign of forced entry yeah and finally she provided the names and contact information for all
the other people, workers, friends, their children, who had access to the house.
But otherwise, she had no information, and she was deemed, quote -unquote, too distraught at the time to be questioned.
So they couldn't really go much further.
Now, from the moment Detective Brantley arrived at the scene, he strongly suspected that Jack's murder was not robbery, as others had suggested, but instead a crime of passion.
It felt too much to be robbery.
Right? I mean, there's personal shit behind that.
it seems like it feels like at least it feels like it and speaking with friends and family investigators quickly learned that jack and betty's marriage seemed to have been in trouble for quite some time in an interview with their housekeeper shirley green they learned that the couple had been sleeping in a in separate bedrooms for a long time and that betty frequently made derogatory comments about jack's ostomy bag which she almost always referred to as his shit bag oh to be that crass what an asshole like you're like what an asshole Shirley Green, the housekeeper, also told detectives that Betty
often entertained, quote -unquote, male visitors at the house when Jack wasn't home.
Damn. So on Saturday, the day after the murder, Detective Brantley was running down some leads when he came across a note about a call that had come into the precinct the day before Jack's murder.
The call was from the sheriff in Huntsville, who received a tip from one of their informants who claimed that she overheard a conversation in a local bar about a quote -unquote rich person, possibly a doctor or a doctor's wife, was going to be killed.
My God. Now, Brantley called the Shelby County Sheriff's Office, where the tip had originated, and traced it back to a woman named Janine Russell, who claimed she was a drinking buddy of the man who was making these threats.
Huh. Now, unfortunately, Janine didn't know any of the specifics other than the fact that the victim's wife had a twin sister who was romantically involved with the supposed hitman.
If you remember, Betty has a twin sister named Peggy.
Holy shit. And now there's a hitman involved.
And the twin sister is dating the hitman?
Supposedly. Possibly?
Allegedly? Possibly, allegedly, according to this tip.
so the hitman in question was 41 year old james white he was a handyman whose children went to the school where betty's twin sister peggy taught first grade oh shut the fuck up in vincent alabama she's a first grade teacher dating a hitman possibly allegedly possibly possibly yep suggestively that's wild yep she was teaching in vincent which is was about two hours from Huntsville where Betty lived.
Now, among other things, James White had a considerable criminal record, a long history of substance abuse and mental health issues, and also a dishonorable discharge from the military.
So this guy's got some stuff going on.
A lot on his record. Yeah.
He also had a spotty employment history.
He was fired from jobs frequently for failure to show up or just never showed up to these jobs at all.
During a 10 -hour interrogation, he confessed to the killing of Jack Wilson and claimed he had done so at the request of one Peggy Lowe and her twin sister, Betty Wilson.
What the fuck? Yes.
According to James White, he met Peggy when his daughter was enrolled in her first grade class.
I cannot. I can't. Like, what?
I can't. And eventually, she hired him to do some work in her home.
After the work was completed, the two continued talking on the phone regularly, and at least on one occasion, Peggy told White that she loved him, and this is according to him.
The relationship, quote, started with a few kisses here and there, he said, and soon they were talking on the phone more and more regularly.
No, it was in these conversations that Peggy first mentioned having a friend who was in a, quote, bad marriage and whose husband mistreated her.
Wrong. Incorrect. eventually though peggy clarified that the friend she was referring to was actually her sister betty between march and april of 1992 the conversation evolved into making a plan to help betty get out of her marriage by having jack murdered and eventually james white agreed to commit the murder of jack wilson in exchange for five thousand dollars five thousand dollars yeah to murder a whole ass human that what five thousand dollars what it was down on his luck i suppose what the fuck kind of person do you have to be i mean what the fuck kind of person you have to be for any amount
of money literally five thousand and also if you look up a picture of jack wilson just adorable adorable like he just adorable just seemed like the most mild -mannered kind man like I would not cross the street if I was walking past him.
I would say, hello, how's it going?
Hi there. And he'd say, good, how are you?
Yeah, he just feels, oh, it's just really heartbreaking.
It really is. And especially for his children and his first wife, Julia.
Yes. It's like, Julia knows how it is to not feel loved in the marriage anymore.
Yeah, because he's like, because he was working a lot.
But they stayed friends.
They still stayed friends, exactly.
They were able to still care about each other.
Just get out of a marriage and you might be able to just be friends.
Yeah, that's the thing.
You could still be friends.
He seems like he's, you know, a good guy.
But no. Damn, got to have status.
So, although White, James White, had a criminal record in Shelby County, none of his arrests were for anything violent.
And there was certainly nothing to indicate that he would commit a capital murder.
Holy shit, and one as brutal as this.
Yeah. So when asked why he'd committed the murder, He rambled on about his expenses and the troubles he'd been having with his ex -wife over custody of their children.
But when pressed, he admitted he had done it to prove his love for Peggy.
He told investigators, I was trying to win Miss Lowe's love and affection, and she was putting me in a crack to prove myself to her.
What? According to White, he said it started as a joke, but she kept calling and pushing me to get something done to help her sister.
her. Now, at first, he said he was only going to take the money and find somebody else to commit the murder using the .38 caliber pistol that Betty had given him.
Betty? Jesus. I know.
You're a first grade teacher.
No, Betty. Peggy's the first grade teacher.
Sorry, I'm confusing.
It's hard. Jeez. So Betty, eventually he meets Betty and she gives him a pistol and says, like, kill him.
But because he was desperately in need of money, he said he decided to do it himself.
In the days is leading up to the murder he said he went back and forth with himself over whether he should just call the whole thing off he said yeah of course you should have he said i've been drinking the last three or four days popping pills drinking smoking dope and all i knew was i wanted to get away but ultimately he decided to go through with it oh that is a horrible decision and just to know that he was like i hate to say on the fence like it feels like such a casual thing to say trying to To come to a human decision?
Yeah. So, on the night of the murder, Betty had met him at a park nearby, drove him back to the house, and told him where to hide in the upstairs bedroom.
In the time that passed between being dropped off and Jack's arrival, James White just poked around the Wilsons' home, which is why it looked like it had been poked through, casually going through Betty and Jack's belongings, including Jack's adventure closet.
Adventure closet? He had an adventure closet.
It was filled with helmets and wigs and capes and swords.
shut up yeah you just like you know this is the most wholesome like just wow i know so he went through all this shit humanized this man as much as he possibly could yeah and then went through this yep that's fucked up oh yeah 100 % fucked up so he's go he's just going through all their shit like you said humanizing this man before he brutally attacks him but james white became startled when the phone rang and he got frustrated when there was no answering machine to pick it up so it just kept ringing and ringing and he was all i don't know if he was high when all of this happened but it kind of sounds
like it the way he says it and the way he's like the way he's responding to certain things he panicked and ended up cutting the phone cord to ensure that the phone wouldn't ring again because it was really stressing him out he said later about jack coming home i didn't hear him come in and we were face to face and and he grabbed me, and I freaked out.
Of course he grabbed you.
You're in his home.
You're an intruder.
What the fuck? He then claimed he started grabbing around him for something to defend himself with and eventually grabbed the bat that Jack had just used to pound the lawn sign into the ground.
He said, I kept reaching until I found something, and I hit him until he turned me loose, and then I ran.
What the fuck? Also, not that simple.
No, you didn't. No. You also strangled this man and stabbed him.
He stabbed him with twisting sawing motions.
Yeah. Like, come on.
That's the thing. To hear James White tell it, the assault sounded like he was just fending off Jack until he could get away.
Yeah, no one believes that shit.
No, the truth was far more brutal.
He hit Jack in the head with the bat a total of seven times, crushing his skull, and as sheets of blood poured out over Jack's face and head, White continued to hit him, landing heavy blows to his arms, hands, which were raised to protect his face.
Oh my God. It's heartbreaking.
breaking causing the bones to break and actually tear through the skin holy shit like compound fractures after several more swings of the bat jack had fallen into a crumpled heap on the floor at which point white began strangling him until he felt his hyoid bone snap what the fuck is wrong with this asshole i can't even begin to tell you then to make sure that he completed his task which which it's like, I'm pretty sure you did.
White took out the folding knife that he carried with him and stabbed Jack first in the chest just below his right nipple and then in the upper abdomen, sawing through the stomach and pancreas and severing two major veins.
My God. He then fled down the stairs and out through the garage and his first story is that he headed for the woods behind the house and eventually to his truck, which he drove back to Vincent.
At some point, he changes his getaway story.
Shocked. I know. So, when investigators searched White's home in Vincent, they discovered a shoe with what turned out to be Jack's blood on the sole of it.
A copy of Sleeping Beauty and the Firebird, which was a book of poetry that had been checked out of the Huntsville Public Library by Betty Wilson.
What the fuck? When they searched the abandoned house next door, they were also able to locate Betty's .38 caliber pistol.
and the blood soaked clothing that white was wearing that night and the knife used to kill jack were later recovered when white directed police toward the location under a rock where he had hidden them so they found his bloody clothes and the knife that was literally used to kill jack but because they were found so much later in the investigation and had been pretty much like degraded by the elements at that point later on the prosecution couldn't use those two you things fucked up i know but it's like obviously this man is involved he has betty shit in his possession the abandoned house next
door to him has betty shit jack's blood is on his shoes yeah like come on and he can bring you right to multiple locations where multiple things were used in the murder let's be real like come on now given what detectives had learned about jack and betty's crumbling marriage and what was discovered in the search of james white's home the scenario he described seemed entirely plausible but the part that they were having trouble believing was to the the extent to which peggy was involved in this conspiracy because it's like what and it gets crazier by all accounts she was a pillar of her community
she was known as a devoted wife like i said a fucking first grade teacher she was a regular attendee of the first baptist church of vinson where her husband wayne was the minister of music music okay okay based on what they learned about betty it was well within the realm of possibility that she would conspire to kill her husband but to everybody else peggy seemed like the last person on earth who would get caught up in that kind of scheme they're twins man folly i do yeah yet every other part of james white's confession appeared to check out so investigators had no reason not to believe him when he
implicated peggy low and district attorney mo brooks asked reporters what What other reason would you have for a stranger to come to Huntsville from Shelby County to murder Dr. Wilson, have complete access to his home, and steal nothing except for the explanation he's given?
Yeah. It's true. How can you explain that?
You can't. So, on May 28, 1992, Huntsville police arrested Betty White and Peggy Lowe, much to the shock of everybody in Huntsville and Vincent.
sent peggy actually managed to post the three hundred thousand dollar property bond thanks to generous church members church bonds run deep but betty was denied bail when asked for comment on the arrest peggy's husband wayne lowe told a reporter those girls weren't raised that way all i know is when betty saw it she could hardly talk she was in shock and she was just in a daze all through the funeral okay it's like yeah you can be through a daze and like yeah i mean no matter what it's fucked up it's all fucked up whether you had a hand in it or not yeah exactly but Betty's lawyer agreed saying
his client would have no motive for wishing her husband harm the people who knew them said there was no strife and I've seen no evidence that there was trouble between them are the people who knew them in the room with us right now?
all of their friends literally everyone who knows them people at her AA meeting were like we can't handle your hatred of him anymore their friends were like Like, yeah, we can't hear you talk about how much you hate Jack anymore.
And we can't keep lying to him and keeping him out of the house while you're entertaining your other manses.
Exactly. Like, what are you talking about?
Like, that's not even real.
Like, come on. Like, try for, try better.
A little bit. Try better there.
But of course, in their investigation, detectives had learned there was actually quite a bit of strife between Betty and Jack going back several years at this point.
And as for motive, the district attorney had a fairly compelling theory that Jack's murder her was the result of greed and status.
Can you imagine? You don't say.
In interviews with Betty's friends and associates, they learned that she had made several statements about not wanting to get a divorce because she claimed, I would lose everything.
I would lose my lifestyle.
Oh, boo. Yeah. Instead, Betty wished to become a widow, which not only would win her the sympathy of her social circle and gain everybody back, but in addition, she would also retain full access to to Jaxa State, which at that point in time was valued at nearly $3 million.
Damn. Yeah. Now, in order to avoid the death penalty, James White agreed to a plea bargain.
He would receive a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole in seven years.
I'm sorry, what? I feel like they were like, yeah, no parole board is ever going to grant you parole, so we'll put it on the table.
But sure, damn. But in exchange, he would have to testify against both Betty and Peggy.
In early July, both women were indicted by a grand jury for first -degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, with Betty's trial scheduled for February of 1993 and Peggy's trial to follow shortly after.
Now, in the months following Betty and Peggy's appearance before a grand jury, the press ran absolutely wild with coverage of Jack's murder.
Page after page of newspapers across Alabama, and especially in Huntsville, provided seemingly meaningless details about Betty's affairs with various men and the extent to which she'd publicly shown her animosity toward her husband.
And while many of the salacious aspects of her and Jack's life were made public, the press actually focused more heavily on Betty's primary love interest around the time of the murder, a man named Errol Fitzpatrick.
At the time of Betty's arrest, he was working as a risk management officer for the city of Huntsville.
And with all the negative attention caused by all of this he actually had to resign from his position wow so like that's how bad and like how intense things were getting now while the press picked betty's life apart peggy's friends and family rallied around her to defend her character reverend hl martin told reporters those of us who knew her or who know her have never seen any evidence of any action that would indicate any bad intent peggy is probably one of the strongest ministering people people i've seen she's taken in people who have been thrown out of their homes a little girl in the community
got pregnant and her family threw her out so peggy took her in okay it's like yeah sounds like she's willing to do a lot for those she loves yeah with prices going up on just about everything lately being smart with your money is not just a good idea it's essential but managing subscriptions tracking your spending and cutting costs can definitely feel overwhelming but lucky for you you lucky ducky rocket money takes the guesswork out of it so that you can easily make smart decisions what is rocket money you ask honey rocket money is a personal finance app that helps you find and cancel your unwanted
subscriptions monitors your spending and helps you lower your bills so that you can grow your savings it's a win -win -win you can see all your subscriptions in one place you know exactly where And for the subscriptions that you don't want anymore, Rocket Money can actually help you cancel them, which is a dream because I hate talking on the phone.
You can see your monthly spending trends in each category to know exactly where your money is going, and sure, that could be a humbling experience, it was for me, but you know what?
Knowledge is power.
Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money.
Go to rocketmoney .com slash morbid today.
That's rocketmoney .com slash morbid, rocketmoney .com slash morbid.
peggy's friends took a similarly stunned and disbelieving position her family friend louise mcgraw said even if she told me she was involved in this i wouldn't believe her in order to be involved with this she would have to be a jekyll hyde personality yeah nobody's like that so that's good it's like yeah she would have to be yeah imagine if she was yeah imagine if that existed in the world yeah that'd be crazy nuts so crazy that people don't automatically show you that they're a vicious uh murderer most people murder for hire person yeah now it's worth noting that while many people came to the defense
of peggy lowe um very few people spoke out on betty's behalf shocking i wonder why jury deliberation in betty's case began in early april with the prosecution being led by jimmy fry from the county prosecutor's office and betty's defense being led by bobby lee Cook.
He was an Alabama defense attorney known for his courtroom theatrics and flair for the dramatics.
The best kind. Oh yeah.
Now by that point, the extensive press coverage had obviously affected what was going to be the trial, so it had to be moved from Huntsville to Tuscaloosa, which is so fun to say.
But the defense hoped that they would find a less biased or otherwise influenced jury pool out in Tuscaloosa.
Yeah. The biggest problem Betty Wilson's defense faced was James White's confession implicating her and her sister, but also her lifestyle, you know, like the heavy drinking, the extramarital affairs, and so on.
That too presented a considerable challenge in what was a relatively conservative region.
These people are going to look at her and be like, that's not going to be good.
So after questioning 96 potential jurors on everything from their faith in the testimony of law enforcement officers to their feelings about about drinking and drug use and opinions on Betty's guilt or innocence, the pool was finally narrowed down and the trial was set to begin February 23rd, 1993.
In his opening statement, County District Attorney Jimmy Fry laid out the state's case that Betty Wilson had paid James White $5 ,000 to murder her husband in order to protect what Fry referred to as her world of privilege.
Wow. Which, I mean, it's kind of black and white.
Yeah. If I was sitting there, I'd be like.
It seems pretty straightforward. forward. Makes sense to me.
He described Betty as a vain and selfish woman consumed by material needs.
Explaining to the jury that she feared getting a divorce would mean that she'd be cut off from her lifestyle and she'd grown accustomed to that and didn't want to lose it.
Yeah. He continued telling the jury, though it appeared she had everything, she wanted more.
And not just more, she wanted it all and she wanted it now.
Wow. By arranging for Jack's murder, Fry concluded Betty he stood to gain millions of dollars in a life insurance payout as well as Jack's already substantial estate so his estate was valued at three million dollars but then there was also life insurance on top of that that's just so sad that like these kind of things especially when it's like for money or to keep a lifestyle I'm like our species is a wild species like just that this happens like so often and with people that are supposed to love each other not even strangers That it happened so often with people who literally took vows to commit to
one another. You didn't have to do that.
That's just really wild.
It never gets anything less than wild.
I know. It's so true.
So, obviously, that's a strong argument.
And to us, it seems pretty black and white.
Absolutely. But the prosecution's biggest hurdle was that their case against Betty was largely circumstantial.
Yeah, I can see that.
They did have a large amount of physical evidence, including hairs found on the ski mask, cigarette butts with DNA, hairs found in Jack's hand.
but all of that connected James White to the murder, not Betty.
In fact, aside from James White's confession, there was actually almost nothing to directly connect Betty Wilson to the murder of her husband.
I can see that. Instead, Fry relied on his state statute that allowed corroboration to be shown through, evidence of malice, ill will, or threats that the accused has made or demonstrated towards the victim.
Interesting. So Fry called one witness after another who testified to the animosity and open hostility that Betty felt for her husband, the most damning of whom was the couple's housekeeper.
I knew Shirley was coming back.
Shirley came back, baby.
Yeah, I knew Shirley wasn't going to let this go.
Mm -mm. She said, fuck this woman.
Not Shirley. I don't like her.
Nope. And she had heard a lot of terrible shit.
She'd seen stuff. Yeah.
Among other things, Shirley Green testified that when Betty refused to go to Jack's mother's funeral, I'll say that again for you, Betty refused to go to her mother -in -law's funeral.
What? And Jack was like, you know what?
I might as well be dead like that's how defeated he was oh and that prompted Betty to retrieve her handgun from the bedroom then to hand it to Jack and say why don't you do it for me this man is on his way to his mother's funeral and Betty is not gonna go and he's upset about it and is like okay like why don't I just die then and she's like yeah go ahead wow go ahead and do it for me that's fucked up like on another other level sorry if you can do something like that i don't i don't know where your bounds are pure evil yeah according to the testimony from betty and jack's former friend brenda sira i
believe she said wilson meaning betty stated that she wanted to kill her husband and she asked sarah if she would help her or if she knew how to do it well so she was also going around like looking for i was gonna say so we've got another part like you go around and ask my friends you're not gonna find one of them that says i asked them if they could help me kill my husband.
Absolutely not. You're just not going to find one.
Nope. You find one, it means I did.
And it's like that, hello.
Exactly. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.
It's a duck. Quack, quack.
Yeah. Two days into the trial, the state called its most important witness, James White.
Fry was upfront with the jury, saying that even the prosecution found White to be a, quote, wretch, a pitiful human being.
He said, but we're not depending on his his credibility alone.
I mean, he really nailed that description.
A wretch. A wretch. A pitiful human being.
Yeah. The prosecution had produced multiple witnesses and evidence that corroborated James White's claims of having received money from Betty Wilson.
And in addition to that, phone records showed that James White and Betty Wilson had spoken many times in the weeks leading up to the murder.
And if you remember, Betty's library book was found in his possession.
possession that proved that james white had been in betty wilson's company on at least one occasion and again it's like if it smells like it it's it man like and absolutely i can agree that before that it's pretty circumstantial totally but when you add this stuff in it's like there's no coincidence it's like her book is found in his possession and his hair blood fingerprints dna a and he admits that he did this to jack wilson exactly he's admitting that like and then this phone records between them like all that like and she's walking around asking people do you know anyone who will kill my husband i
mean hello that's going from a to b to c to d like we're we're hitting all the points yeah i know my calculus and you plus me equals us here okay look at that i loved that no don't don't deny it don't deny it given the circumstantial quote nature of the case, the defense's strategy was obviously to poke holes in the credibility of the witnesses and to offer alternative explanations for the claims that Betty had repeatedly made vague threats to Jack's life.
The core of their argument was pretty simple.
They said James White had implicated Betty and her sister in the murder because it was the only way he could get a plea deal to avoid the death penalty.
Without his statements and confession, they argued, the state would actually have no case against Betty Wilson.
Olsen I always love when they're like allow me to explain away why Betty made vague death threats against her husband I can do that I just want to see all the jury members just lean forward and put just cradle their chin and just say please explain to me go for it go ahead yeah give me that explanation why she made death threats against her husband but didn't actually have have a part in his brutal murder for hire go for it go right ahead please i'm so dying to know yeah in his opening statement betty's defense attorney cook told the jury that james white was a pathological liar with a significant
criminal record that involved everything from drunk driving to kidnapping under cross -examination cook shouted angrily at white saying you're a great big liar before starting to pick apart a story i mean no one's saying this guy is a good good guy.
I mean, look, he's a fucking brutal murderer.
Yeah, obviously not.
He's a piece of shit.
We're actually here to prove like, yeah, he is a piece of shit and he's wrapped up with this other piece of shit.
Exactly. So Cook pointed to the number of times that White had changed key parts of his story.
Remember, I told you that was coming.
Including his original statement that he had been instructed to shoot Jack when later he stated that he was supposed to use the bat.
And then his original claim that he had run from the house to the truck which he later changed to say that betty had driven him back to his truck that's a big inconsistency i will i'll give him that that is that absolutely that's a damaging one it is to like involve her in that part and then take her out of it like that's like oh but also i think his memory may not have been the most consistent oh yeah yeah there's no it's not like this guy has credibility and like to spare here exactly but i'm just saying that's in the defense i mean obviously, they went for it.
They gifted him that.
They sure did. Or he sure did.
Now, a few days into the trial, the defense produced a surprise witness, David Williamson.
He was a salesman who claimed he had gotten into an argument with James White at a Huntsville hotel.
At the time, White claimed to be hiding in the upstairs bedroom at the Wilson house.
According to Williamson, the men got into a confrontation when White confronted him, demanding to know what the hell he was doing there.
When Williamson responded that he didn't know what white was talking about james white supposedly said i'll make that bitch pay for what she's doing to me i'll show her what lonely is all about what the fuck random according to williamson james white had mistaken him for someone else and then quote quickly calmed down apparently realizing he had the wrong person what now when he was asked about the confrontation james white said he had literally never seen that man before and also that he had never been to the ramada inn in huntsville where this confrontation was supposed to have taken place the fuck
so we have this one guy being like at the exact moment that he was supposed to be in this house where his dna was found on cigarette butts his fingerprints was found his hair was found he wasn't there where he admits that he was no no he was at a hotel and we got in a weird argument look at this weird surprise witness we got also like how much money did you get out of this the situation like that's so what a move i don't know about that what a move so on the final day of testimony peggy lowe was called to testify peggy stated that she never wanted to kill jack and as far as she knew neither did
her sister betty yeah it's crazy it's just wild yeah i know she says it all the time but like you know jokes it's crazy that betty's only connection to this man is me his daughter's first grade teacher so wild i don't know on this the day of my daughter's wedding you know now according to her the only money that james white had ever received from either of the women was given in an act of charity intended to help him get through a hard financial time and there you go she's like let me just cover this real quick yeah yep i'm just so charitable so i'm sure there's money that has passed between all
of us but it's total charity charity just out of the goodness of my heart she told the jury we were trying to help him he seemed like a pitiful little man and he was making an honest effort.
Seems like somebody who was.
Yeah. She also explained that the phone calls between the three accused were all related to their attempts to help James White find work and nothing more.
Oh my god, so selfless.
It's weird. How did he end up at your sister's house then?
So weird. On March 3rd, 1993, closing statements were made in the case during which Fry highlighted the evidence and testimony that corroborated James White's claims. He told the jury, it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to solve this case.
Sure doesn't. You can can feel what this woman was about and what she was after yeah the defense on the other hand reminded the jury of the mostly circumstantial nature of the case against betty and that the they said the evidence of poor character was not the same as evidence of murder which i agree we're not saying that it's just poor character that we're saying here yeah somebody can be a blazing cunt and not be a murderer i've met many of those people yeah but it's like we're not there's other There's other stuff.
Exactly. There's other stuff here.
Like, we're not, which I know, it's the defense's, they gotta do what they gotta do.
It's their job to be like, you're just picking on her for being a bitch. And that's not fair.
No, it's just the fact that her husband died in this really mysterious, strange way.
Looking from an outside perspective, you're like, I don't care if it's your job, I'm mad.
Exactly. But he got real theatrical, of course.
Of course. And he said, Cook told the jury, this is not a case of maids, Mercedes, clothes, and jewelry.
No. She's not being tried for adultery.
She is being tried for murder.
For murder. It's like...
We know. It's like, no, we know.
We're here. We know.
There's a whole man that was killed.
And we got instructions.
A whole human being that was killed here.
And it's like, we know it's not about Mercedes clothes and jewelry.
Thank you. That's not what we're here for.
Yep. We're here because a guy got murdered.
Exactly. For no fucking reason.
Exactly. The jury's like, I wouldn't be here if it was about clothes, Mercedes, and all that.
Yeah, that's not how that works.
i'm actually here to do something legit yeah so that jury deliberated for less than a day before delivering a verdict of guilty on both charges against betty wilson by betty per an agreement made between the family and the prosecutor's office betty was spared the death penalty and instead received a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole damn jack's sister jane said afterwards i don't think i would want to be the person to send anybody to the electric chair she was guilty and i don't think 30 years in prison is a piece of cake either honestly jane perfectly said perfectly
said she's like and i feel you i don't want that on my hands yeah she's like i'm not a murderer i don't want that on my head she did what she did and she can she can pay for it wow the way that they saw fit what a what a like that was a refreshing take on the whole thing i know good for you jane now after the verdict was read bobby lee cook her her, Betty's defense attorney, expressed his outrage to the reporters who had gathered around him in the hall.
He told them anyone that would believe that Mrs. Lowe would be engaged in a sexual liaison with Mr. White would have to take leave of their senses.
I think she would have chosen someone more appealing.
Considered my senses left. Also, that's not even the main point of this case.
No one cares what they were doing.
I literally don't give a shit.
They might have just known each other.
Maybe they barely knew each other.
Who knows? Exactly.
I don't care. They knew each other enough that money was exchanged, acquaintances were made, and a man ended up dead.
Exactly. That's what everybody cares about.
I don't give a shit what she's doing.
Exactly. Years later, Charles Hooper, another member of Betty Wilson's defense team, speculated, I think Miss Wilson was convicted on her personal conduct.
She couldn't have been convicted on the evidence.
The physical evidence was not there to support it.
Yes, it was. Sometimes it's not physical evidence either, and there is physical evidence here.
It's not all circumstantial.
Like, a large portion of it is.
Absolutely. But sometimes cases are made on circumstantial evidence.
Yeah, sometimes. There's not even a body.
Like, often, you know, you don't need just physical evidence.
There is some in this case.
But, like, the circumstantial evidence doesn't lie.
No. It's evidence. Like, that's why it has the word evidence in it.
Evidence in it. And not circumstantial bullshit.
Right. That's, like, that would change things.
Exactly. Now, the members of the jury never said why they did vote the way they did.
but there may have been a little bit of truth to Hooper's belief that Betty's conviction was due to her moral character.
Just a few months later, Peggy Lowe was tried for the same crimes, using the same evidence, and more or less the same testimony, but this time the defense argued that, among other things, Jack wasn't killed in the house, and even that a bat wasn't the murder weapon.
Now, recalling the trial, prosecutor Donald Valeska said, it didn't make a damned how dr wilson got killed what matters was who did it and james white admitted to doing it whether he stomped him beat him with a bat beat him with a stick but that's the type of bull that experts try and sell to juries wow i said he's kind of said the quiet part aloud pretty much now how the evidence was framed in peggy's case wasn't the only difference the outcome was also different after hearing the evidence and testimony a jury found peggy not guilty on all charges wow and And considering how the same evidence and essentially the same
testimony could produce two very different outcomes, it's definitely worth considering the accused themselves.
Yeah, absolutely. Betty just came across as pretty much a greedy social climber.
She had a long history of, you know, extramarital affairs, abandoning her children, prioritizing drugs and alcohol.
Well, and like Peggy, it's like Betty had the motive.
Yes, exactly. you know?
Like the very clear, very direct motive.
Exactly. And, you know, in general, one might say that she was of low moral character, which honestly probably made it easier for a jury to believe that not only did she want out of her marriage, but that she was willing to do anything she could have to hold onto the lifestyle that she had grown accustomed to.
On the other hand, though, Peggy Lowe, like we said, by all accounts, she was an upstanding member of her community.
She had a long history of community involvement, charity.
She was a fucking first grade teacher and she also wasn't just a regular attendee at church like i said earlier she was even married to the minister of music so you put all those things together and it's like i mean it doesn't mean food to me but you can see why it would have influence on a jury yeah and i think and again i don't even think it was i think they're looking at it too um kind of in a shallow way here where they're like oh they just did it based on moral character and look like this this is why and it's like no no betty has the more direct motive for this exactly obviously it seems
like peggy peggy knows at the very least that something was going on who knows you know allegedly allegedly i have no idea yeah but either but all i know is that betty was married to this man and walked around saying how much she hated him had a ton of affairs and actually asked people if they knew people that could kill her husband exactly so it's like i think that was was more the thing like the actual her walking around telling people she wanted to kill her husband definitely and the fact that she was like clearly unhappy and but saying i don't want to divorce him because i don't want to lose
my money i feel like that is probably more unless that's definitely like shallow moral character kind of thing exactly and i think i think the shallow moral character did play a role in both trials and i think like it makes sense in a way that that Peggy got away with it because they didn't really have anything bad to say about her.
Well, that's the thing.
There's nothing to rely on there.
Which is obviously not to suggest that the jury's verdict was based entirely on morality of these two women, but it's unreasonable to assume that it didn't play at least some part in the trials themselves.
Which I'm sure it plays a part in a lot of these trials.
Exactly. Now, following Peggy's acquittal, James White actually recanted his confession.
In a sworn affidavit, he wrote, I was never propositioned by Mrs. But then a short time after submitting his sworn affidavit, he claimed that he had been coerced into signing that statement and now maintained that his original statement was and is the true version of events.
So nothing makes sense and you can't trust what's going on.
Exactly. at all. Despite his being eligible for parole after just seven years, he remains in prison, and his latest bid for parole, which was made in March of 2021, was denied by the parole board. Following her trial, Betty Wilson began serving her sentence at the Julia Tutwiler Prison in Wutumpka, Alabama.
She has always maintained her innocence and has filed several appeals with the state courts, all of which have been denied.
In May of 2006, she got remarried to Bill Campbell, an Army contractor who who actually saw her when a story about her appeared on the CBS show 48 Hours in 2002.
Oh. And after learning the details of her story and her sentence, he felt outraged about the injustice.
And that's how they started corresponding.
And I guess they fell in love.
Wow. Yeah. In 2022, independent filmmaker Gene Adam Jr. announced his new project, Finding Betty, in which he takes a closer look at the case in order to prove that Betty was innocent and was wrongfully convicted.
He told reporters, I've made this film my life's mission because it calls into question the integrity of the justice system itself.
I won't give up until justice is done.
As of today, though, Betty Wilson remains in prison.
Wow. I think the biggest thing is that it's hard for people to understand how one was sentenced and the other was not based on all of the same evidence, essentially.
Interesting case. Very interesting case, very tragic case Poor Jack Wilson He didn't deserve to die I mean, nobody deserves to die He just got caught in the middle of this crap Exactly Ugh, what an awful, awful, awful thing Yeah And with that being said, we hope you keep listening And we hope you keep it weird But not so weird as any of this No Thank you.
Thank you. like Morbid, you can listen early and ad -free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
Prime members can listen ad -free on Amazon Music.
Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery .com slash survey.
Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery's podcast, American Scandal.
We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in U .S. history, events that have shaped who we are as a country and that continue to define the American experience.
American Scandal tells marquee stories about American politics like the break -in at the Watergate Hotel, an event that led to the downfall of a president and raised questions about the future of American democracy.
We go behind the scenes looking at devastating financial crimes like the fraud committed at Enron and Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme.
And we tell stories of complicated public figures like Edward Snowden and Monica Lewinsky, people who found themselves thrust into the spotlight light and who spur debates about the future of the country.
Follow American Scandal wherever you get your podcasts.
You can listen ad -free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app.
