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Download the Amazon Music app today. On the night of January 12th, 2003, 85-year-old millionaire Anna Mae Branson heard a knock at the front door of her home in Madisonville, Kentucky, a place residents had dubbed the best town on earth.
So Anna Mae opened the door and smiled at her visitor.
But before Anna Mae knew what was happening, the visitor had entered the house and started shouting at her.
Anna Mae tried to get them to leave, but the visitor just kept shouting and moving forward.
And finally, they chased Anna Mae through the house and down into her basement.
What the police discovered in the basement the next day would erase the reputation of best town on earth.
It would tear apart Anna Mae's family, and it would lead authorities on a wild goose chase from Kentucky to Costa Rica.
But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.
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On Friday, January 10th, 2003, 85-year-old Anna Mae Branson was standing in her bedroom closet on the second floor of her large home in Madisonville, Kentucky.
Madisonville was a peaceful coal mining town that residents had nicknamed the best town on earth.
Anna Mae was trying to pick out the perfect outfit to wear to a dance that she was going to the following night with her new fiancé, and she eyed a long black cape with a leopard print collar hanging in the closet, and she smiled.
Anna Mae loved clothes, and at 85 years old, she still enjoyed getting all dressed up.
So almost every time she left the house, she wore high heels, a huge sparkling diamond ring, and a perfectly styled wig.
In fact, Anna May had built a reputation in town for dressing like a movie star for decades, and she wasn't about to give that up now just because some people saw her as an old lady.
But Anna May had not always worn fancy clothes and expensive diamonds.
She was born in Madisonville in 1917, the oldest of five siblings.
And she had a pretty traditional upbringing that involved going to church regularly and helping her parents look after her younger siblings.
And most people in town had made their living from working in the Kentucky coal mines or from running farms.
But as Anna Mae grew up, she had discovered she was great with numbers and with money.
And so at a time when there weren't a lot of career opportunities for women, she had dreamed of starting her own business someday.
So after she had graduated high school and gotten married, she and her husband worked several different jobs and put away as much money as they could for the future.
And then in 1950, when they'd saved up enough, they bought a Dairy Queen franchise and then opened the first fast food restaurant in Madisonville.
And it turned out Madisonville loved Dairy Queen, and soon Anna Mae and her husband's restaurant was the busiest place in town, and they were bringing in more money than they had ever imagined.
Anna Mae and her husband had run the Dairy Queen successfully for 40 years, and over that long period of time, they had become two of the most well-known and beloved people in all of Madisonville.
But then in 1994, Anna Mae's husband passed away and she didn't want to run the restaurant without him.
So she had sold the Dairy Queen and walked away a millionaire.
At the time, most of her family had assumed Anna Mae would retire, but she loved working and feeling like she was part of the community So she had taken a chunk of the money she'd made from selling the Dairy Queen and invested it in rental homes and other real estate properties in the area.
And so by now, she had been running her own real estate business for almost 10 years and had made a ton more money in the process.
And she had no intention of retiring anytime soon.
Back in the closet, Anna Mae walked over to the shelves that held her large shoe collection.
But before she could decide which pair of high heels she should wear to the following night's dance, she heard the phone ring in the bedroom.
So she stepped out of the closet, walked across her room, and grabbed the phone on the bedside table.
And right away, as she listened to the voice on the other line, a very concerned look came across her face.
There was a man yelling at her on the other line, and Anna Mae could not figure out what he was even saying.
She asked the man to calm down and to please speak lower.
But the man shouted that Anna Mae needed to come to his house as soon as she could.
And Anna Mae finally recognized the voice.
It was Robert Prince, a man who rented a house from her.
So she asked Robert, you know, what's wrong?
What's going on here? How can I help? Then Robert got really quiet, and in almost a whisper, he said there were ghosts in his attic, and that Anna Mae had to come get the ghosts out of there.
Then Robert hung up on the other line, and Anna Mae stood there in her bedroom with a stunned look on her face.
She hung up the phone and sat down on her bed.
Robert had always been a little weird and eccentric since he'd moved in to one of her properties, but saying he saw ghosts in the attic was strange, even for him, and Anna Mae didn't know how to handle it.
She worried if she called the police about this, Robert might get in some kind of trouble, and she didn't want that.
So she decided she would call to check in on him over the weekend and then maybe pay him a visit on Monday if she needed to.
Anna Mae took a deep breath and collected herself, but then a sudden knock at the front door startled her.
And she laughed because she wondered if maybe one of her other renters was also coming to tell her that they had ghosts in their house too.
So Anna Mae got up and headed downstairs, and when she opened the front door, a grin came across her face.
Because it was not a renter scared of ghosts, it was her nephew, Russell Winstead.
Russell smiled and gave his aunt a big hug.
He was 37 years old, 6 foot 1 inches tall, and his brown hair was just starting to turn a little gray.
Anna Mae's younger brothers and sisters all had children, so Anna Mae had a bunch of nieces and nephews.
And all of those nieces and nephews said Anna Mae was like a second mom to them.
And so, as Anna Mae had gotten older, the ones who still lived in Madisonville made it a point to stop by regularly to check on her. and to make sure she wasn't alone too often in her big house.
Anna Mae and Russell walked into the living room and sat down on the couch.
And right away, Russell asked her how the real estate business was going.
And Anna Mae just laughed and then told him about how Robert Prince, one of her renters, had actually just called and said there were ghosts in his attic.
And so that was basically how the real estate business was going.
But while Anna Mae laughed, Russell didn't.
He did not think it was funny at all. He said it sounded like the guy was seriously disturbed, and he told Anna Mae not to go over to the house to see Robert by herself.
He said if she really needed to see him, she should call him, Russell, or his dad, who was Anna Mae's youngest brother, and they would go with her.
Anna Mae thanked Russell, but told him that really everything was fine.
Robert Prince was harmless. And then she quickly changed the subject and asked how things were going with him.
Russell filled her in on what his wife and kids were up to and said they'd all see her at church on Sunday night.
And then he also talked a little bit about how his work as a mining engineer was going.
And then after they talked a little while longer, Russell said he better get home for dinner.
So he stood up, gave his aunt another big hug and walked out.
Once Russell was gone, Anna Mae headed back upstairs into her closet to settle on an outfit for the big dance she was going to the next day.
And then later that night, as she got ready for bed, she thought again about that phone call from Robert, and suddenly it really wasn't funny to her.
Much like Russell, she did think that, you know, maybe something was wrong with Robert.
Maybe he really was disturbed, and that she needed to be really careful with him and not be alone with him.
But by the following night, Saturday night, Anna Mae had put Robert and the ghosts in his attic out of her mind because she was having the best time she'd had in months dancing with her new fiancé in an outfit that made her look like a movie star.
The next day, on Sunday, January 12th, so two days after Anna Mae got that call about ghosts from Robert Prince, she was attending evening services at the church that was right across the street from her house.
And at around 7 p.m., the service ended, and Anna Mae went to the lobby to say hi to some of her friends.
And as she was there, her nephew Russell, who had visited her a couple days earlier, along with his wife and their kids, came over to talk to her for a bit.
A little while later, Anna Mae said goodnight to everyone, stepped outside, and walked across the street to her house.
She was wearing a sweater, her diamond ring, and one of her capes.
When she got home, Anna Mae walked through the living room and back to the kitchen.
She took off her cape and draped it over a kitchen chair.
Then she made herself some soup and sat down to eat.
But at 7.15 p.m., a few minutes after she'd begun eating, there was a loud knock at the front door.
Now, visitors often stopped by to see Anna Mae after church, so she didn't think anything out of the ordinary was going on.
So she walked to the front of the house, she opened the door, smiled, and said hello to the visitor standing there.
Then the visitor stepped inside, but Anna Mae didn't notice that they were hiding something behind their back.
The visitor then took a deep breath and then told Anna Mae that they really needed her help big time.
But after hearing what they wanted, Anna Mae shook her head and said she would not do what the visitor was asking her to do.
And then suddenly the visitor's face turned red and they started shouting at Anna Mae.
A look of fear crossed Anime's face and she took a few steps back, but the visitor moved in closer to her, shouting even louder, and showing her what they had hiding behind their back.
It was a two-foot, half-inch metal breaker bar, which is like a large socket wrench used to tighten or loosen rusted bolts.
The visitor held the breaker bar above their head and Anna Mae screamed.
She held up her hands and tried to get the visitor to calm down, but they just kept on shouting.
So Anna Mae finally turned around and moved as fast as she could through the living room, and then she rushed down a long hallway to a door that led into the basement.
Anime reached out, and the doorknob rattled in her shaking hands, but she flung the door open, slammed it behind her, and started down the stairs into the basement away from this person.
But when she reached the bottom, she heard the door to the basement open again, and she turned back, looked up the stairs, and saw standing there was this person, breaker bar in hand over their head, and a second later they were charging down the stairs after her.
At around 11.30 a.m. on the following morning, Anna Mae's new fiance stepped out of his car and walked up to the front door of Anna Mae's house.
He was there to pick her up for a lunch date they had planned.
Anna Mae's fiance was a retired doctor in his late 80s, and he never thought he would get married again so late in life.
But when he had met Anna Mae, he'd fallen in love with her right away.
And so he decided he wanted to spend whatever time he had left with her, and he had proposed, and Anna Mae had said yes.
The fiancé knocked on the door and waited.
But Anna Mae didn't answer, so he knocked again, and then he rang the doorbell.
But still, there was nothing. So he leaned in close to the door to try to hear if there was any movement inside, but the house was quiet.
And when a couple more minutes had passed with still no Anna Mae, he really started to worry.
So he walked away from the house and went across the street to the church.
He walked into the church lobby and stepped into a small office where a woman was sitting behind a desk.
And he said he was worried something was wrong with Anna Mae.
And he asked the woman to call 911 and then to please call Anna Mae's brother, Earl.
The woman knew Anna Mae and her family very well, and she said she would take care of it.
The fiancé thanked her, and then quickly he rushed out of the church and walked back across the street to Anna Mae's house.
And in a matter of minutes, an officer from the Madisonville Police Department and Anna Mae's brother, Earl, pulled up in front of the house.
Earl and the officer stepped out of their cars and headed towards the front door.
Earl was 67 years old, 18 years younger than his sister, and like his son Russell, he had made it a habit to check on Anna Mae whenever he could.
Earl said hello to the officer and the fiancée and then walked right to a small bush by the porch.
He crouched down and grabbed the spare key he knew Anna Mae kept hidden under that bush.
Then with the key, he unlocked the door and let the officer and Anna Mae's fiancée inside.
Once inside, all three men started calling out for Anna Mae, but they got no response, so they split up.
The officer headed upstairs, the fiancé went to the kitchen, and Earl walked through the living room.
They were all concerned Anna Mae had possibly fallen and maybe been knocked unconscious, and Earl was worried that the fall could have taken place sometime the night before, and so she might have been out cold or injured for a long time.
Earl called out for his sister again, but he still didn't get a response.
So he walked down the hall to the basement door.
Then he opened the door, turned on the light, and walked down the stairs.
But when he got halfway down the stairs and looked at the floor below him, he screamed.
Earl shook his head and he hoped that what he was looking at was some kind of nightmare or hallucination, but it was real, and he couldn't believe it.
Anna Mae's body was lying on a rug on the basement floor.
She was covered in blood, and her sweater and the shirt she'd been wearing under it were torn to shreds.
Earl didn't know what had happened, but he knew this was not the result of a fall.
Earl rushed down the rest of the stairs and stood over his sister's broken body.
Tears started running down his cheeks, and he felt like he'd gotten the wind knocked out of him.
Anna Mae had been about 18 when Earl was born, and she had always been protective of her youngest brother.
And even when Earl was an adult with children of his own, Anna Mae had always looked out for Earl's family and helped them in any way she could.
In the basement, Earl heard footsteps on the stairs.
He looked up and saw Anna Mae's fiancé and the police officer.
And when the fiancé saw Anna Mae on the floor, he broke down in tears just like Earl.
But the police officer just stood there in shock.
It had been 20 years since the last major homicide case had happened in Madisonville.
And that was a long time before he, and a lot of people on Madisonville's small police force, had started their careers in law enforcement.
The officer quickly called into the police station for backup, and he contacted the county sheriff's department.
But he was pretty sure that even the county officers had not seen anything like this before.
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Hey, it's Mr. Ballin. I'm excited to tell you about something special.
For the first time... My show, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with Redacted, Declassified Mysteries with Luke LaManna, to tell a story so complex it required our combined storytelling styles.
This special episode is called A Redacted Medical Mystery.
In it, unexplained symptoms after a routine surgery quickly unravel into something much darker, leading straight to classified government operations hidden for decades.
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Every week, we dive deep into cases that will leave you questioning everything you know about the human body.
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Hey, it's Mr. Ballin. For the first time, my show, Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with Redacted for a special episode.
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Hey listeners, Mr. Ballin here. What if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories happening right now are all connected to what might be the biggest crime of our generation?
You know I'm always on the hunt for the most chilling and perplexing tales out there.
Well, I've discovered a new podcast that uncovers real-world mysteries unfolding right now. much like how another Ballin' Studios podcast, Redacted Declassified Mysteries, brings hidden government secrets to light, and it's called Lawless Planet.
Host Zach Goldbaum reveals how shocking tales of murder, cover-ups, and mysterious deaths are all part of something bigger.
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A few minutes after the call went out to the police and the sheriff's departments, Officer Kelly Rager of the Madisonville Police parked her cruiser in front of Anna Mae's house.
She stepped outside and right away felt a chill run through her body.
Winter temperatures had dropped below 40 degrees Fahrenheit, but it wasn't the weather Rager was feeling.
She was shaken because she knew the woman who had lived in this large two-story house.
Officer Rager's mom and Anna Mae had been friends for years, and like so many people in Madisonville, Rager had looked up to Anna Mae, and she thought Anna Mae was an inspiration to people, and especially to women who wanted to pursue a career that some others thought women had no business doing.
Officer Rager walked towards the front door and heard a car screech to a stop behind her.
She turned around and saw Detective Scott Troutman from the Hopkins County Sheriff's Department step out of his car and walk towards her.
The two young investigators greeted each other and talked briefly.
They both knew they were coming to the scene of a homicide.
And even though Troutman did not have a personal connection to the victim like Rager did, he knew how well-loved Anna Mae and her family were throughout the area.
So Troutman understood that this case was going to affect the entire community.
The investigators walked into the house together and saw Earl and Anna Mae's fiancé sitting in the living room with the first officer who had arrived on the scene.
All three of them looked like they were still in shock.
Detective Troutman crossed over to Earl and the fiance and told them how sorry he was.
And then he asked if they wouldn't mind walking him through what had happened earlier that morning.
And they both gave him an account of how they got into the house and how they'd found Anna Mae's body in the basement.
Troutman thanked them for their time and told them investigators would follow up with them soon.
Then he and Rager headed to the basement.
Anna Mae had converted the basement almost into a small apartment.
There was a living room with a comfortable couch, a bathroom with a shower in it, a washer and a dryer, and a small refrigerator and freezer.
And when the investigators stepped into that basement, they saw Anna Mae lying face down on a rug in front of the couch.
But something immediately stood out to both of them.
There was a pool of blood around Anna Mae's body, but other than that, the basement looked totally clean.
There was no blood spatter on the walls, the floor, or the stairs.
The investigators knew they would have to do a thorough search of the basement, but at first glance, it looked like whoever had killed Anna Mae had taken the time to wipe down the entire crime scene.
Detective Troutman did a walkthrough of the basement while Officer Rager crouched down on the floor next to Anna Mae's body to look more closely at the wounds.
It was hard for her to concentrate because she couldn't understand how any human being could do something like this to a defenseless 85-year-old woman.
But she took a deep breath and tried to leave her personal feelings aside and focused on finding evidence.
And one of the first things she noticed was that Anna Mae was still wearing her large, expensive diamond ring.
To Rager, this all but ruled out the murder being the result of a robbery.
Because why would a robber leave behind such an obvious, expensive piece of jewelry?
Then Troutman called Rager over to him. He was down on one knee, leaning in close to the small freezer that was pushed up against one of the walls.
So Rager stood up and walked away from the body.
Then she crouched down too, next to Troutman, and he pointed out two streaks of blood on the freezer.
The only blood he'd found in the basement, other than the blood right around Anna Mae.
And Troutman told Rager that he thought there was something interesting about these streaks of blood.
The streaks looked entirely different from each other.
Troutman was not a blood spatter expert, but his first thought was that the two patterns had been made by two different weapons.
And the idea that the killer took the time to use two separate weapons made him think they must have really wanted to inflict as much pain as possible, or that they had had a mental break and had gone into some kind of frenzied attack.
And then, not long after the discovery of these unique blood streaks on the freezer, forensics experts from the county arrived, and they confirmed Troutman's hunch.
They said two weapons had been used in the attack on Anna Mae, and they also confirmed that someone had cleaned the crime scene, but must have just missed the marks on the freezer.
And so while the forensics team did a thorough investigation of the basement and the body, Troutman and Rager went outside and interviewed neighbors to find out if anybody had seen anything out of the ordinary that morning or the night before.
But the only information they got was that one neighbor thought she might have seen a truck parked in front of Anna Mae's house on Sunday night, but she couldn't remember the make and model of the truck, so by the time the investigators left the scene later that day, they really did not have much to go on.
They considered the possibility that Anna Mae's fiancé might have committed the murder because the violence of the attack could indicate a crime of passion.
But her fiancé was an old man who was not in the best health and they had a hard time believing he had the strength to carry out the kind of attack that had taken place in the basement.
So they knew they had to start looking for other potential suspects.
So later that evening, several hours after the 911 call, investigators met with different members of Anna Mae's family, and several family members said they knew who police needed to talk to.
Robert Prince, the man who rented a house from Anna Mae, and recently claimed there were ghosts in his attic that Anna Mae was responsible for.
With information about Robert Prince coming from Anime's family, investigators focused their attention on him.
And as they dug into his past, he quickly became their primary suspect.
Police discovered that multiple people had filed assault charges against Robert, and some people who knew him said he had violent tendencies.
It also turned out that Robert drove a truck that could fit the description of the truck Anime's neighbor had claimed to have seen outside of her house on the night of the murder.
And then investigators got a piece of bizarre news that made Robert look even more guilty.
One of Anna Mae's nieces told police that on the afternoon of January 12th, just a few hours before Anna Mae was believed to have been murdered, Robert Prince had come to the niece's house.
And when she had opened the door, he was holding a DVD player and he said he had to sell the DVD player because he needed some fast cash so he could get out of town.
The niece was not interested in buying this DVD player and so she had sent Robert away and she hadn't really thought much about it.
But when she learned he was a suspect in her aunt's murder case, she wished she had said something to the police right after Robert had showed up at her door.
So at this point, investigators believed they had more than enough to bring Robert in for questioning and to get a search warrant for his house.
Now, the initial search of Robert's house did not turn up any evidence linking him to the murderer, but investigators still saw him as their primary suspect.
And so a couple of days after the murder, Robert arrived at the police station for questioning.
And from the moment he walked inside, he was on edge.
He talked almost nonstop as he followed an officer into a small interrogation room where Detective Troutman was waiting.
In the interrogation room, Robert sat down at a wooden table across from Troutman, and right away, Robert's eyes began darting left and right, left and right.
Robert had long brown hair and a large, thick beard.
But what stood out to Troutman immediately was that Robert's right arm was in a sling.
Troutman sat quietly for a minute and watched Robert shifting in his chair and looking over his shoulder.
Then Troutman asked Robert if he was right or left-handed, and Robert said he was right-handed.
Troutman did not let his face give anything away, but he wondered if maybe Robert had injured his right arm while attacking Anna Mae, and that was why it was in a sling.
Then Troutman leaned in and asked Robert about his past assault charges.
But Robert got really angry and said he would not talk about any of them.
So, in a calm voice, Troutman said that was fine and he did his best to get Robert to relax.
And then he asked Robert to talk about where he had been on the day Anna Mae had been killed.
Robert shifted some more in his chair and then started tapping his left hand on the table.
Troutman just kept looking at him, patiently waiting for him to respond.
And finally, Robert did. He said he had been traveling to Tennessee that day, so he'd been out of the state.
Troutman nodded and then asked if Robert had any proof of this trip.
Robert tapped on the table even louder and looked around the room some more.
Then he faced Troutman and he said he'd stopped at a convenience store in a small town in Tennessee and that someone from that store might remember him.
Troutman knew Robert was acting very strange and suspicious, but the detective was not ready to totally condemn the man just because of odd behavior in an interrogation room, a place where lots of people, guilty and innocent, can act very strange.
Troutman knew it would take some time, but he was confident he could track down that convenience store Robert had mentioned in Tennessee and find out if anyone had seen Robert there on the day of Anna Mae's murder.
And so for the time, police would keep Robert at the top of their suspect list, but they didn't have enough evidence to actually hold him.
So they told him not to leave town, but he was allowed to go.
And over the next few days, while they looked into Robert's alibi, investigators tried to expand their suspect list.
But even though the investigation was really just getting started, Anna Mae's family was already worried that law enforcement was not moving fast enough.
On Friday, January 17th, four days after Anime's body had been discovered, friends and family attended Anime's wake.
And the wake gave them all a chance to share stories about how much Anime had meant to all of them.
And after the wake, Anime's brothers and sisters and their kids went to Earl's house.
They sat together in the living room and talked about some of their favorite memories of Anime.
None of them could believe what had happened.
And even though she had been 85 years old, they talked about how they'd always thought she would just live forever.
And she had been so full of life and energy that they couldn't imagine what their family and what the town would be like without her.
But as much as they wanted to focus on Anime's life, they couldn't help but start to talk about the murder investigation.
Many of them believed Robert Prince was the most logical suspect.
But talking about Robert led to a discussion of all the other people who rented homes and properties from Anna Mae, and they started to wonder if the killer could just be anyone who might have gotten behind on rental payments.
And if the list of suspects really was that long, the family worried that the local police and sheriff's department were not up to the task in front of them.
And over the course of the week, no new information came in, and police still didn't have any evidence that would actually link Robert to the murder, so Anime's family started to fear that maybe they had been right about the police, and they hated the idea that Anime's killer was still walking free.
And so some members of Anna Mae's family started to voice their opinions publicly.
And soon the rest of the town joined them in putting pressure on investigators to solve this case.
After all, a place that called itself the best town on earth, like Madisonville, couldn't have the brutal murder of one of its most prominent citizens just hanging over it.
And things only got worse for investigators when wild rumors started to spread that there was a serial killer roaming the streets of Madisonville and that anyone could be their next victim. and anyone could be the killer.
Detective Troutman, Officer Rager, and the rest of the investigative team felt the tension growing in town.
They'd only been working the case for about a week, but they were already getting loads of calls from residents day in and day out.
Some of the calls were from people who thought they might have information that could help, but a lot of the other calls were just people demanding to know what police were doing to solve the murder and to make their town safe again.
And so, as they tried to push the investigation forward and keep the town residents calm, Detective Troutman and Officer Rager both began to have a thought that they couldn't shake.
They believed the extreme violence of this crime suggested the attack on Anna Mae had to have been personal.
And they were almost certain that there had to be some piece of evidence connecting Anna Mae to her killer somewhere in her house.
They just needed to find it. In late January, so over a week after the murder, Officer Rager returned to Anna Mae's house.
The investigative team and forensics experts had searched the entire house and had combed the basement for evidence multiple times, but Rager believed there was a chance they had overlooked something in the large house.
So she stepped inside, walked through the living room, and headed upstairs.
And even though the house was still filled with all of Anna Mae's belongings, it felt cold and empty.
On the second floor of the house, she walked down a hall towards Anna Mae's bedroom, and as she moved, the hardwood floors creaked under her feet.
Then she stepped into the bedroom and went into the closet.
She smiled when she saw all of Anna Mae's eccentric and luxurious clothes and shoes, but nothing else inside the closet stood out to her, so she stepped back into the bedroom and walked over to a small wooden desk in the corner.
The desk had stationery, pens, and a few papers on it, but nothing that looked like it could help.
Then, Rager opened a desk drawer, and it was filled with loose papers and a book that looked like a journal.
She pulled out the book, flipped it open, and immediately, a look came across her face like she had just discovered buried treasure.
This journal was a business ledger, and inside it, Anna Mae had kept detailed records of everyone who owed her money, from how much they owed and how much they had paid towards their debt.
Rager knew something like this could change the course of the investigation, so she slipped the ledger into an evidence bag and then headed back downstairs and out to her car.
And soon after, she met up with Detective Troutman and the rest of the investigative team, and they looked at this ledger, and they were all stunned by how many people had owed Anna Mae money.
But as they looked further into the ledger, they would discover something that would bring the investigation into focus, and that discovery would soon make it clear to them who had killed Anna Mae.
Based on information inside of that ledger, evidence at the crime scene, and interviews conducted during the investigation, here is a reconstruction of what police believe happened to Anna Mae Branson in her home on Sunday, January 12, 2003.
At about 7.15 PM, Anna Mae's killer parked their pickup truck in Anna Mae's driveway, and then they sat there for a minute with the engine running.
They stared out the windshield at the front door of the house and tried to tell themselves they were just there to get help, and that if Anna Mae agreed to help them, nothing bad would happen.
The killer turned off the engine, reached over to the passenger seat floorboard, and grabbed the two-foot metal braking bar that was propped up against the seat.
Then they got out of the truck, hid the braking bar behind their back, and stepped onto the raised porch in front of the house.
Then the killer glanced down at a large bone-handled knife tucked into a sheath on their belt, then they took a breath and knocked on the door.
Soon after, the door opened and the killer saw Anna Mae smiling back at them.
The killer smiled, stepped inside, and tried to make sure Anna Mae could not see they were hiding something behind their back.
Then the killer looked Anna Mae right in the eye and said they were in trouble and that she was the only one who could help them.
But Anna Mae did not want to hear it and she said she did not want to help.
So the killer started yelling at her and said she had to do what they were asking, but Anna Mae started backing away and told the killer to leave.
So the killer screamed that they just needed help, but Anime kept shouting right back that they just needed to leave.
And the killer's head started pounding and Anime's voice was making the pain worse.
So the killer finally pulled out the breaker bar from behind their back and held it over their head in a threatening manner.
Anime saw it and screamed and turned and started rushing across the living room.
The killer tried to catch their breath and stop their head from pounding.
Then they grabbed the breaking bar tighter and chased after Anime.
The killer saw her go down the hall, fling open the basement door and close it behind her.
So the killer rushed down the hall, opened up the door again and saw Anna Mae at the bottom of the basement stairs.
But the killer moved fast and caught Anna Mae as she stepped onto the rug in front of the basement couch.
And once they caught her, they slammed the breaking bar into the back of Anna Mae's head and Anna Mae's body crumpled onto the rug and blood began to run down the back of her head.
Then the killer tossed the breaking bar to the floor and stood over Anna Mae.
The killer couldn't believe Anna Mae had not been willing to just do what they had asked.
The killer's whole body started shaking, and they clenched their teeth.
Then, almost unconsciously, they reached down and unsheathed the bone-handled knife on their belt, and then they crouched down above Anna Mae.
The killer grabbed her by the hair and slashed the knife across her throat.
Then the killer raised the knife up and began screaming and driving the knife over and over and over again into Anime's back.
Even though Anime wasn't moving, the killer didn't stop, over and over and over.
Finally, the killer stood back up, and they looked down and saw blood all over their clothes and hands and arms.
In their rage, they had stabbed Anime 97 times.
The killer walked slowly away from Anime's body over to the washer and dryer.
There they stripped off their clothes, put them in the washer, and did a load of laundry.
Then they walked into the basement bathroom, started the shower, stepped in, and washed all the blood off.
And after the shower, the killer put their clothes into the dryer, then they searched the basement until they found cleaning supplies and wiped off any drops of blood they had left behind in the bathroom and on the basement floor, walls, and staircase.
The killer took their time and remained calm.
And when they thought they had wiped the basement clean, they walked back over to the dryer, took their clothes out, and got dressed.
But for some reason, once their clothes were back on, the reality of the situation hit them.
They saw Anime's body lying on the floor, and all of a sudden they panicked.
So the killer grabbed their weapons, stumbled up the stairs, and made their way through the house.
Then they opened the front door, squinted to try to see in the dark to make sure nobody was there, and then they ran outside.
The killer climbed in their truck, started the engine, threw it in reverse, and peeled out into the street.
And then they put the truck in drive and floored it across town until they got home.
And at 9.15pm, two hours after the killer had gone to Anna Mae's house, the killer walked back into their own home and tried to act like nothing had happened and just sat down casually on the couch.
Then the killer's wife walked into the room and told him that she and the kids had really enjoyed catching up with his aunt, Anna Mae, that night at church.
And the killer said, me too. Russell Winstead, Anna Mae's nephew, the one who had come by and been so concerned about Robert Prince and his ghosts, had been the one who murdered his aunt, the woman he said was like a second mom to him.
It would turn out the ledger that investigators found in Anna Mae's house showed that over the course of the past year, Russell had borrowed tens of thousands of dollars from Anna Mae, and that information had led police to investigate Russell's finances, but they didn't just discover that Russell was in significant debt to his aunt.
They discovered he was leading a full-blown double life.
Unknown to any of Russell's family, including his wife, he had a severe gambling addiction and was having an affair with a casino waitress.
And from Russell's financial records and interviews with that waitress, investigators found out that Russell had visited casinos in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois 236 times in the past year, and that he had been known to lose over $30,000 on some of those visits.
And when Russell's gambling losses started to affect his family and his everyday life, he had turned to his rich aunt, Anna Mae, for help.
But he had told her the money he needed to borrow from her was for mining equipment.
But as Russell kept coming back for more and more money, Anna Mae figured out he was lying and she confronted him.
And he admitted to her that he had lost all the money she gave him gambling.
But he begged Anna Mae to please just lend him a little bit more so he could cover his mortgage payment so he and his family wouldn't lose their house.
And he promised Anna Mae that he would pay her back.
And then on that Friday before the murder, when Russell came over to talk to Anna Mae and they began talking about Robert Prince and the ghosts, Russell had given Anna Mae a check for $12,000 to prove that he was on his way to paying her back in full.
But it turned out that Russell didn't actually have the money to cover the check he had written her.
Instead, he went to a casino that night to try to win that money, but he ended up losing thousands of dollars instead.
And so on the night of January 12th, Russell drove to church separately from his wife and kids.
And after the service, they all said hello to Anna Mae and caught up with her.
And then Russell's wife drove home with the kids and Russell got into his own truck and began driving around town, wondering what he was going to do.
He had his breaking bar that he used in the mines in the truck with him, along with his knife on his belt.
And so he came up with this plan where he would ask Anna Mae to give him back the $12,000 check he'd written so she couldn't deposit it.
And if she didn't give the check to him, he would threaten her with the weapons to make her do it.
But things had not gone according to that plan.
And when Russell arrived at his aunt's house with his breaker behind his back and his knife on his hip and demanded his aunt give him back the check that he had written her, Anna Mae said no and she told him she was going to tell Russell's wife about his gambling problem and about all the money she had loaned him that he had lost gambling.
And when Russell heard that, he flew into a blind rage and he chased Anna Mae down into the basement and attacked her so violently that the majority of the wounds she suffered were inflicted after she was already dead.
It would take months for the investigation to compile all of their evidence against Russell.
But in June of 2003, over four months after the murder, they were ready to arrest him.
But when authorities moved in on Russell's house, they discovered he had fled the country to Costa Rica and they learned that Russell's father, Earl, was sending money he had inherited from his sister, Anna Mae, the woman Russell had murdered, to financially support Russell in Costa Rica.
But with the assistance of Costa Rican authorities, U.S. federal agents were able to track Russell down and he was arrested in Costa Rica walking out of a casino.
Russell was extradited to the United States, convicted of murder, and given two sentences of 25 years to life with a chance for parole in 2049.
Earl would plead guilty to hindering apprehension and he was given two years of probation.
Anna Mae Branson is buried in Kentucky, and her family and members of the community still visit her grave often over 20 years after her death.
Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast.
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