The Most Dysfunctional Family in America: Part 2

The Sexton family saga continues as Eddie Lee and May are on the run from officials, clinging to their children and claims of innocence. Evidence amasses against them at home as the children who refused to run away, tell their stories. 

Transcript

Sarah 0:13

Hello everyone.

Cole 0:14

Hey guys.

Sarah 0:15

I'm Sarah.

Cole 0:17

And I'm Cole.

Sarah 0:18

You are listening to Borrowed Bones, a podcast about fucked up, interesting, and toxic families. Today we are in part two of the Sexton family.

Cole 0:30

Yes. Episode 10 overall.

Sarah 0:32

Yeah. Yeah. This is episode 10. We're in the

Cole 0:35

double digits.

Sarah 0:36

Yep. Finally in the double digits. I got a little alert from my website that I use to track all of this, and they said that only 1% of podcasts make it to 10 episodes. Really? Yeah. I guess a lot of them try and then they just, yeah. Crash. I mean,

Cole 0:53

everyone's got a podcast today.

Sarah 0:55

Yeah. But not one that they posted last week. Yeah,

Cole 0:58

true. Yeah. Everyone's dabbles, I guess. Yes. Yeah.

Sarah 1:01

We are in the 1%.

Cole 1:03

Yeah. One percenters feels weird

Sarah 1:06

to say

Cole 1:06

outlaw bikers and rich people. Yeah. One, neither those, that's a great combo of those.

Sarah 1:11

Mm-hmm. This will be a three parter I've discovered. There's just too much to keep track of. I do want to give the kids that did speak out, a chance for their story to be heard. Yeah. Because it's mostly about the parents, which of course they're the ones that did all this. Definitely perpetrators, so, yeah. Yeah. But I think kids often get lost in all of this. We focus on what happened to them, but not really how they handled it. Yeah. What, what they went through. They processed it as individuals

Cole 1:40

and Yeah.

Sarah 1:41

Also before we start, a few quick reminders. We shameless

Cole 1:45

plugs.

Sarah 1:46

Do have an Instagram now. Yay. You guys can thank Cole for that. He pushed pretty hard along with some other close friends, you can thank all of them. Our Instagram is Borrowed Bones podcast, straightforward, simple, no numbers or anything weird. So go ahead and give us a follow. Yeah. Prove me wrong. I wanna know that I did need this. We'll

Cole 2:08

post some, uh, thirst traps in the future for us.

Sarah 2:12

Thirst traps.

Cole 2:13

You ever heard that phrase?

Sarah 2:13

Yeah, but like, why would we post one?

Cole 2:16

I dunno, of a skeleton or something. I don't know. There's traps for necrophiles.

Sarah 2:20

See, now you're giving me projects to do. You don't run the social media. I do. I'm not doing that.

Cole 2:25

Yeah,

Sarah 2:26

maybe I will. Who knows? We'll see.

Cole 2:28

I feel like that's an album title. There's traps for Necrophiles.

Sarah 2:31

Ew,

Cole 2:32

cannibal Corps new album.

Sarah 2:33

Stop. That's not what our podcast is. if you don't want to follow us on Instagram, you can please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen. It helps us quite a bit. You got five

Cole 2:47

minutes to kill. Write a few words about us.

Sarah 2:49

I do want to shout out to our first two reviews that we got Oh. The first one we received the username is Teal Paradise and they had a long one, so I snipped it down a little bit to get the gist of it. Yeah,

Cole 3:04

give us the bullet points.

Sarah 3:05

Yeah, they said borrowed bones is an absolute gem for true crime and history Enthusiast. The storytelling is captivating, well researched and delivered in a way that keeps you engaged from start to finish. Sarah, oh, does an incredible job of bringing lesser known stories to light, making each episode feel personal yet informative.

Cole 3:27

That's very kind.

Sarah 3:28

Yeah. And then he signs off, or they, I'm not sure, they sign off with, if you love a mix of true crime history and thought provoking narratives, this podcast is a must listen.

Cole 3:38

It's very nice. Have one of your sisters to write that. It wasn't,

Sarah 3:41

I you, it's not.

Cole 3:43

I have no, you would. Yeah. I'm just with

Sarah 3:44

They don't, don't speak that way. I tried figuring out whose words that, like, whose voice that was. Yeah. It doesn't sound like

Cole 3:50

anyone I know in person.

Sarah 3:51

No. If they did, they used AI or something to mask it, so thanks. Yeah. Teal Paradise, whoever you are. There was another review from Alex J and he said, this podcast is very well produced and easy to listen to. A plus, keep it up.

Cole 4:07

Cool.

Sarah 4:07

Yeah.

Cole 4:07

Short and sweet. Yep. Succinct.

Sarah 4:09

We like Alex. Yeah. We like Teal Paradise too. We like anyone who reviews. Yeah. You, you can say we suck. I don't care. Well, I might, might care a little. Yeah, but not that much.

Cole 4:17

I'm used to people on the internet telling me I suck.

Sarah 4:20

I

Cole 4:20

used to have a hashtag that trended row Wild hashtag Cole Waterman Sucks was a thing.

Sarah 4:24

Oh

Cole 4:25

yeah. One of the criminal defendants I wrote about started that.

Sarah 4:28

I like that. Yeah. Alright, cool. Well we've avoided it long enough. I said everything I needed to say. Did all the plugs

Cole 4:36

done with the preamble? Mm-hmm. Let's get to the meat.

Sarah 4:39

Yep. We should get back into this family and,

Cole 4:43

all right. Where did we leave off?

Sarah 4:44

Well, I just wanted to remind everyone that I'm not related to them.

Cole 4:48

Oh yeah. That you know of.

Sarah 4:51

I, I do know for a fact. Okay. Because I have DNA testing, which I didn't compare to theirs but I have the 23 and me and I have ancestry.com and I looked and my family wasn't where their family was.

Cole 5:02

We're all related in the big human family.

Sarah 5:05

We all just borrow bones from each other, you might say. Yeah.

Cole 5:09

We got a title.

Sarah 5:10

Alright. Enough screwing around. Let's get into it.

Cole 5:13

Yeah.

Sarah 5:15

We left off part one having gone through more of Michelle's storyline. She was the one to crack it all open. If you remember. She's daughter. Remember the daughter? Yes. Okay. Yep. The one that was the first one to speak out and she spoke about how. Everything that's going on. And now she's living with her Uncle Otis. Okay. In and out of different homes. Right. And then we ended with a little tease into Pixie storyline. Oh yeah.

Cole 5:39

Pixie is the oldest, the oldest daughter of the Sexton daughters, and the oldest who's still living

Sarah 5:45

in their house. In the house, yep. Mm-hmm. she's the favorite. She's daddy's girl So we are gonna start following Pixie storyline. Okay. Pixie had a friend in high school. Not much of a friend, more of a classmate because they weren't allowed to hang out outside of school, but yeah. But they

Cole 6:01

have a real friend Exactly. That you only see in school.

Sarah 6:04

Yeah. There was a classmate who took interest in her. Her name is Terry.

Cole 6:07

Mm-hmm.

Sarah 6:08

Terry, liked Pixie, kind of felt bad for her, wanted to hang out.

Cole 6:11

Male or female? Terry?

Sarah 6:12

Female.

Cole 6:13

Okay.

Sarah 6:14

After one summer break, Terry noticed that Pixie returned to school pregnant.

Cole 6:19

Hmm. Yeah. That'll catch your eye.

Sarah 6:20

Yep. Pixie claimed it was a Navy man that knocked her up and he's gone now.

Cole 6:27

So it's the sailors.

Sarah 6:28

Mm-hmm.

Cole 6:28

How convenient.

Sarah 6:29

Pixie was a senior in high school, and she was due to give birth that October. This is the, so this has been early nineties, 89, 90 school year. Okay. At the same high school, a new boy recently enrolled. Mm-hmm. His name is Joel. Good.

Cole 6:45

Oh, is he gonna be a good guy?

Sarah 6:46

Yeah.

Cole 6:47

Okay. He's a good guy. Fitting name?

Sarah 6:48

Yeah, it really is. Joel moved in with his Aunt Theresa after moving out of his grandparents' house because both of his parents passed away.

Cole 6:58

Okay.

Sarah 6:58

Joel became friends with Terry, and Joel had a crush on Terry's twin sister Tracy.

Cole 7:05

Okay.

Sarah 7:06

When Joel asked Tracy to the prom, she politely declined and told him she was already seeing someone. But Tracy and Terry wanted to help Joel and they also liked Pixie. Mm-hmm. So they thought maybe they would go well together. Yeah. Set up a little matchmaking there. Joel was a little bit, he was slower., He was held back a year. And he did have learning disability, develop developmental challenges. Yes. Okay. Yes. And Pixie was also held back a year.

Cole 7:35

Yeah. We know her situation.

Sarah 7:37

Yeah. She was held back a year. Actually. She was held back a year in elementary school because she missed two months of school because she got burned so bad in a cooking accident at home.

Cole 7:47

Oh,

Sarah 7:48

yeah.

Cole 7:49

Sounds legit.

Sarah 7:49

Yep. That wasn't looked into.

Cole 7:52

Why would it be

Sarah 7:52

exactly? Pixie agreed to go to the prom with Joel and Eddie Lee, surprisingly allowed it.

Cole 7:59

Oh. I was waiting for the hammer to come down.

Sarah 8:01

Well, pixie was pregnant.

Cole 8:02

Yeah.

Sarah 8:03

Remember? Oh, yeah. He's fine. They can have boyfriends after he's Yes.

Cole 8:07

Taken the V card.

Sarah 8:08

Yes. Yeah. When Joel picked up Pixie at her house, he had a corsage ready for her. Mm-hmm. He was excited. He was doing

Cole 8:16

the, doing the prom, the thing. Yeah. The gentleman thing he's supposed to do.

Sarah 8:20

When she came out, she was already wearing a corsage from her dad.

Cole 8:26

Creepy.

Sarah 8:27

And she didn't take it off. She never took Joel's corsage. Ugh. Yeah. After prom it just fizzled out. They didn't hang out or anything. That was it. Okay. But then the summer after graduation, Joel decided to shoot his shot again and invited Pixie to a family cookout.

Cole 8:43

Okay. So they're both 18 ish? Yeah. At this point? Yeah.

Sarah 8:46

Mm-hmm. Okay. Um, they went to the family cookout and then for their next date, Joel was allowed to go over to Pix, he's house. Ooh. So soon enough Joel was visiting her house a few times a week back and forth. Yeah. Joel's Aunt Theresa mentioned. When Pixie and Joel would spend time at her house, they would sometimes bring Dixie's brother Willie to hang out with them, and they would all just sit and watch the TV in silence. She said they were the quietest teens ever.

Cole 9:16

Okay.

Sarah 9:17

So Theresa's starting to pick up some odd mannerisms. Yeah. Theresa would also go on to talk about the blank. Far off stare that Oh yeah. The Sexton kids did the

Cole 9:28

thousand yard stare. The

Sarah 9:29

Sexton stare. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of children with trauma have that stare. Mm-hmm. For this family, it was very obvious'cause 12 kids were doing it. Yeah. Theresa was never really too sure about Pixie and her family. She did hear a rumor from a boy in the neighborhood that the Sextons were in a cult. The boys said that they would do weird rituals and sometimes the sexton boys would come to school all beat up and bruised.

Cole 9:56

Okay.

Sarah 9:57

Yeah. Even though Theresa was having some doubts Joel was just smitten and he was, he wanted to marry pixie.

Cole 10:06

Mm-hmm. And obviously I'm assuming he's aware that she's pregnant, like it's starting to show Yeah. Or, okay. So he knows that his crush is pregnant with somebody else's. Yeah. Yeah. He's just

Sarah 10:17

happy to be a part of the family. Yeah. You know, in September, Joel tells Theresa that he was going to move to Montana with Pixie and her family.

Cole 10:27

He tells his aunt mm-hmm. And guardian that he's, oh, maybe he's the guardian at 18. But anyway, his closest relative. Mm-hmm. He's moving with his girlfriend and her entire family. To the wilds of Montana?

Sarah 10:40

Yes.

Cole 10:40

All right.

Sarah 10:41

Eddie Lee was going to buy a big ranch on the top of a mountain with hundreds of acres. With his

Cole 10:46

what? Welfare cash?

Sarah 10:48

It's that multimillion dollar deal with Wendy's and Burger King. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He keeps saying that, but we know that's not real. Yeah, but he's saying that it was time for Theresa now to have a chat with the Sextons. She was like, all right, you're taking my boy. Yeah. Like, fuck that. Theresa goes over to the house on Caroline Street when she knocks on the door. Eddie Lee invites Theresa to sit out on the deck with him. Okay. Eddie Lee then starts asking Theresa about Joel's parents. Moves into insurance information, social security questions, normals, normal topics. Yeah.

Cole 11:25

Okay.

Sarah 11:25

Theresa didn't buy it. She found him to be very nosy and didn't like what he was doing.

Cole 11:30

Yeah.

Sarah 11:30

Eddie Lee was very quick to dismiss any of Theresa's concerns about moving to Montana and spoke about it as if it was done. Mm-hmm. Already purchased, ready to go,

Cole 11:40

got a home waiting for us.

Sarah 11:41

This is when he brought up that multimillion dollar deal. Yeah. To Theresa,

Cole 11:45

that two competing fast food chains have somehow decided to mm-hmm. Work together on, because that happens.

Sarah 11:51

Well, I'm glad you asked because what would he be promoting for both of them? What would he be doing? He's promoting the future trons.

Cole 12:01

Is this getting into sci-fi and robots?

Sarah 12:03

He never, I never found an explanation for what it was. It was just like, future beings that have powers and people wanna get us. It's more of a paranoia. Like, all right, we're all powerful. And they even made, I think Michelle had to paint or draw some mockups for them, for him.

Cole 12:21

I'm sure those were elaborate

Sarah 12:22

with like them in these futuristic costumes, kind of jets and vibes.

Cole 12:29

Okay. Like Ironman suits

Sarah 12:30

or like Star Trek.

Cole 12:31

Okay. Like

Sarah 12:31

Trekky. Yeah. All

Cole 12:32

right.

Sarah 12:33

I saw a picture. I'll try to look for it and I can post it. I hope I can find it again. Um, but yes, he was saying they were going to promote the future Trons and he was going to bring his daughter, Lana with him.'cause they were the ones that had that line on the palm of their hand. He's telling Theresa all offense.

Cole 12:50

Oh yeah.

Sarah 12:51

He's saying these words out loud. Okay. Yes. Theresa said, later, after she spoke to officials at the end of all this, Theresa's recalling this and she says his hands looked normal.

Cole 13:04

Yeah.

Sarah 13:04

Like, Theresa's not phased by any of this bullshit.

Cole 13:06

She's a normal person, right.

Sarah 13:07

Talking about

Cole 13:08

Yeah. A crazy huckster.

Sarah 13:10

Exactly. You hear things about, um, oh, Eddie Lee was, smart and cunning and, and I think he was to the, to certain people cu Yeah. But. I think with anyone with an ounce of suspicion. If anyone questioned him on anything, he didn't have like a backup.

Cole 13:27

Yeah.

Sarah 13:27

He would go straight to future trons or like he would just kind of give it up.

Cole 13:32

It's how most con men work. Yeah. He's like, if you just have

Sarah 13:35

a little bit of, if you

Cole 13:36

have the basic common sense Yeah. To ask a follow up question or two. Usually the house of cards collapse.

Sarah 13:42

Right.

Cole 13:43

Collapses. That's just how it works.

Sarah 13:45

Mm-hmm. And I'm not blaming any of his family members. I mean, he has years and years of brainwashing them. They're, but I'm talking people like Theresa, the neighbor. Yeah. You know these people that are like, what the fuck is this guy doing? Like, he wasn't out, like he wasn't that fantastic at everything. So for the police to not be able to track anything down on him, I kind of feel like they were lazy leading up to all of this. Mm-hmm. That's just my opinion. It's not a fact, it's just my opinion.

Cole 14:13

It's an alternative fact.

Sarah 14:14

Yeah. Eddie Lee then went on to say that if any of the satanic cults knew of Lana in her line on the palm of her hand, that they would be after her. They would sacrifice her, and they just, they would go all out.

Cole 14:30

Oh, okay. So he's tapping into the Satanic panic of the era.

Sarah 14:32

Yes. Yes. Theresa told Eddie Lee that Joel would not be moving with them to Montana. Good. And he needed to stay home and help with his younger brother and get his life started.

Cole 14:43

Mm-hmm. Yeah. How did he react?

Sarah 14:47

He accepted that Eddie Lee just said okay. Oh no.

Cole 14:49

What? No. Joel the, the boy did he,

Sarah 14:51

oh, well, a few weeks later, Joel came home from the Sextons mm-hmm. And said that he and Pixie broke up.

Cole 14:57

Oh.

Sarah 14:58

So nothing ever came of it. Okay. Because they broke up.

Cole 15:01

Yeah.

Sarah 15:02

While they were split, Joel got a job and his aunt helped him get a small little one bedroom apartment. He was living on his own.

Cole 15:10

Okay.

Sarah 15:10

Yeah. Then New Year's of 1991, pixie show's backup in Joel's life. Joel's other Aunt Velva, not vulva. I know

Cole 15:25

Malva, I know

Sarah 15:26

Dolores Seinfelds. Reference Seinfeld. Yep. Yep.

Cole 15:29

You know, you know.

Sarah 15:30

Yeah. So Joel's other Aunt Velva

Cole 15:34

Velva

Sarah 15:34

lived near the apartment that he moved into, so she would help check in on him. Okay. Um, it still wasn't too far from Theresa, but she was like right around the corner.

Cole 15:42

All right.

Sarah 15:43

Aunt Velva came home from work one day and saw Joel, pixie and pixie daughter's, Dawn and Shasta on her couch watching tv. November of 1990, Shasta was born. Okay, now this is New Year's of 91. She's a few months old. Okay. And Don is already a, a child. Yeah. She's already in the world, so Surprise. I have another baby. Mm-hmm. Now I wanna be your girlfriend again. Joel.

Cole 16:07

Yeah.

Sarah 16:08

It turns out the Sextons never moved to Montana and Pixie was claiming that Shasta was from the same Navy man that gave her Dawn

Cole 16:15

The same Navy man.

Sarah 16:16

Yep, the same one.

Cole 16:17

Oh, well that's convenient. So he comes to any port in a storm and then for some reason a year later is back in the same port, finds the same girl to knock up a second time.

Sarah 16:27

Yep.

Cole 16:28

All right.

Sarah 16:28

Just a one night stand twice. And that's it. Yeah.

Cole 16:31

Why not just say it's a different Navy man.

Sarah 16:33

It's pixie. She doesn't know. Pixie and Joel. Went right back into dating again. This time it was way more intense. Joel would spend days and nights at the Sextons.

Cole 16:43

Okay. Now they're older a little bit.

Sarah 16:45

Yeah, they're a little bit older. And now Hiney does live on his own. Yeah. So Theresa doesn't have her eyes on him. He can do what he wants. We're gonna fast forward through the year to Christmas Eve of 91. We were at the New Year, now we're at the end. Okay. Joel spent the holiday with his own family, and they noticed how he started to change physically. He was more disheveled, a little more gaunt, un tempt, not taking care of himself. Yeah.

Cole 17:10

Fitting into the, yeah. Sex tent archetype. Mm-hmm.

Sarah 17:14

And then a few weeks go by and Joel's aunts haven't heard from him. They would call the Sexton house asking where Joel was, and they would always be given the same answer of, he's not here.

Cole 17:26

Hmm

Sarah 17:27

mm-hmm. In January of 1992. Mm-hmm. A month later, Joel's little brother Danny got a call from Joel saying that Pixie was pregnant and that he was gonna marry her.

Cole 17:40

You chose your words carefully. Not that I got her pregnant, but that just, she is pregnant. Okay.

Sarah 17:48

Joel did tell his brother Danny, that it's weird'cause he uses condoms, but somehow it must not have worked

Cole 17:57

well. At least he was using condoms.

Sarah 17:58

Yeah, they plan to get married one month later on Valentine's Day

Cole 18:03

romantic.

Sarah 18:04

At this point. Joel's family is putting some pieces together. They're all noticing the Sexton stare. And Theresa just, she said to her sister or her dad, there's something wrong with that family.

Cole 18:19

Yeah.

Sarah 18:19

She's starting to see that. It's the whole group valentine's Day came and went. What? That Joel? The marriage. Oh, okay. Joel's brother, Danny was waiting around. He was the best man. He was actually excited'cause he is happy for his brother. Mm-hmm. And he was, you know, never in a wedding before or anything. He had a tux, all of it.

Cole 18:37

Yeah,

Sarah 18:38

they didn't hear anything. Nothing. The day went by. So a

Cole 18:41

no call, no show wedding from the guests of honor wedding? Yes. Okay.

Sarah 18:44

They heard nothing

Cole 18:46

cute.

Sarah 18:47

A few days later, Joel did go to his Aunt Teresa's house alone. He told her that he and Pixie got married a few days before Valentine's Day.

Cole 18:56

Hmm.

Sarah 18:57

And that the ceremony was at Eddie Lee's sister's house and Eddie Lee officiated the wedding. Theresa asked why they didn't tell anyone and why they couldn't have just waited a few days until Valentine's Day, like, what's up with the secrecy? And he said, this is what they wanted. And they told him that this was the best way to do it.

Cole 19:17

Okay. Well, I mean mm-hmm. Seems like he's easily controlled. Probably takes people out their word.

Sarah 19:23

Yeah. And he's just, he's a sweet Yeah. Everything I read about him, he's just a nice, loving, caring man and he just wants to have a family. Mm-hmm. He wants that simple life. However, pixie did miscarry that February. Okay. So nothing ever came of that child. Now we're caught up with Pixie and Joel. We're gonna jump a little bit to another. There's a lot happening all at once with this family. Yeah. We're in April of 1992 now.

Cole 19:53

All right.

Sarah 19:55

This is when the DHS took the kids away from the family home.

Cole 20:00

All the minors.

Sarah 20:00

All the minors, yeah. Yes.

Cole 20:02

Because there's still a few older ones that are allowed to live there. Right?

Sarah 20:06

Well, pixie and Sherry had to move because they have kids. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They

Cole 20:09

have kids. So they'd take their kids out. Yes. Yeah. Okay.

Sarah 20:12

Yes. Okay, so there might be, there might be a couple 17 or, yeah. There's no minors there. Yeah. After the kids were taken from the home later that same day, a shelter hearing occurred, and the DHS worker, Wayne Welsh, interviewed the kids again.

Cole 20:27

Mm-hmm.

Sarah 20:29

This time they were talking,

Cole 20:31

they spilled the beans

Sarah 20:33

a lot. So here's your warning, everyone

Cole 20:36

trigger. Yeah,

Sarah 20:38

there's a lot. So turn it off now if you don't wanna hear it. Charles, the 17-year-old son, he began crying. He said that both parents beat him. And one time Eddie Lee made Charles and his brother Matt stand naked in the living room in front of everyone with their arms outstretched, holding encyclopedias.

Cole 20:59

Oh, to see how long they could do it.

Sarah 21:00

Yeah. Yeah.

Cole 21:02

Naked, I mean, yeah, it's clearly a,

Sarah 21:04

yeah.

Cole 21:04

I mean, it's clearly an abusive action.

Sarah 21:07

Charles also said that his mom choked and scratched him after she accused Charles of molesting his little sister, Lana. Charles said he didn't do that, and I don't know, I've, I don't know what the fact is on that. Yeah. Either way. May choked and scratched her child.

Cole 21:23

Mm-hmm.

Sarah 21:25

Charles also said that his dad would beat May and once pointed a shotgun at her head. Another son, Matt, he said that Michelle told him that she saw Pixie and their dad having sex on the couch

Cole 21:43

at tracks.

Sarah 21:44

Yeah.

Cole 21:45

I feel like I know what the spoiler is gonna, or not the spoiler, but the, I know what the identity of the. Children's father is gonna be, and it's not gonna be a sailor.

Sarah 21:54

I think we all know at this point. Yeah. With the identity of this. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not really trying to, there's no

Cole 21:58

phantom sailor who comes back every year to knock up the same girl and leave.

Sarah 22:02

No, we know who the dad is. I just, Ugh. It's so gross. Anyway, James Sexton one of the other sons. He's 16 at this time. He said everyone was beaten and that

Cole 22:16

it's a free for all. Everyone's hitting everyone.

Sarah 22:17

Yeah. And then quote, there's a lot of sex in the family.

Cole 22:22

So it's just like a incestuous pile, like a free for all. Yeah. We'll get more stories.

Sarah 22:28

Yeah. Yeah. James mentioned a game, that they called the Loving Belly.

Cole 22:36

Uh,

Sarah 22:37

yep. Um, The Love and belly game was when James and his younger sister Kim, who's the youngest.

Cole 22:47

Yeah. She's the baby of the family. Like eight

Sarah 22:49

or seven. Yeah. I don't know when this happened, but she's the youngest. Yeah. James and his youngest sister Kim would have to sniff each other's stomachs, armpits, legs and feet. I don't know why. Oh, oh, okay. That that was it. That's the game.

Cole 23:05

Oh

Sarah 23:05

yeah. They did weird stuff like this. I don't know. Like for Eddie.

Cole 23:09

Is Eddie like watching them do it?

Sarah 23:10

I don't know. Like under,

Cole 23:12

yeah.

Sarah 23:12

James. That's how he said it. So these kids again give fragmented pieces. Yeah. It's,

Cole 23:17

and kids speak.

Sarah 23:18

I'm assuming that Eddie Lee watched. To me, this looks like a predator who is making weird things seem normal. Yeah. So when he asks for a weirder thing, just resolve. Yeah. It's incremental. It feels like something like that, that's my only guess. Or James isn't telling us another piece. Yeah. Which could be a mix of both.

Cole 23:38

Yeah. Who knows? Either way. It's bizarre.

Sarah 23:40

Yeah. James also said that Eddie Lee would typically use the belt to whoop them, and when they were 18, they graduated from the belt and went to the fist.

Cole 23:51

Mm-hmm.

Sarah 23:53

I thought I'd be at 18.

Cole 23:54

You don't get to touch me again. Yeah. Because I'm an adult. Right. And if you touch me, I'm gonna touch you back.

Sarah 23:58

Yeah.

Cole 23:59

And we have the same legal standing at that point.

Sarah 24:01

More and more stories would arise. Eddie Lee would promise them a trip to Disney World or the mountaintop ranch in Montana. All these like, good things, but they always came with a price. Mm-hmm.

Cole 24:13

They always,

Sarah 24:14

it was always a stick and carrot thing. And the stick was always worse than that carrot. The carrot never existed. Yeah. it's

Cole 24:20

not a characteristic, it's a stick or a fist.

Sarah 24:22

Yeah, it's a stick or a fist. James said he never wanted to go back home or see his parents again. He said that his dad would shoot him if he went back home.

Cole 24:32

Sounds accurate.

Sarah 24:33

Yeah. Here are some other stories of abuse that I have. I couldn't really organize exactly when all of these things happen, but in the interviews of the kids, and

Cole 24:43

often just from my experience, when kids relate abuse, like their time perspective is off. Yes. We as adults like to think and think when, where, what, but kids, they don't. Dad touched me. When did this happen? Was it last week? Last year? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Which one? Yeah. Like they just, they don't think in the way that an adulthood to remember the date, the time.

Sarah 25:06

Mm-hmm.

Cole 25:07

Yeah.

Sarah 25:08

And these kids weren't allowed to be outside a whole, I mean, they did go to school, so I guess they could know the date. Yeah. But they were, but their day

Cole 25:13

to day seems pretty similar. Like every day is routine. So. Over time. There's a lot differentiation between when things happen.

Sarah 25:21

Yeah. Their memories are blur. It's all

Cole 25:22

one long day. Mm-hmm. A long nightmare.

Sarah 25:25

Yeah. So here are some more stories from them. Michelle said that she got the fist once for talking to a black person.

Cole 25:32

Oh. Just for that. So he's a racist too. Surprise, surprise.

Sarah 25:35

They're racist. Didn't, we didn't touch

Cole 25:37

on that. It never really came up. But yeah, that tracks, I mean, why would they not be?

Sarah 25:40

Yep. Well, you have to be better than someone.

Cole 25:42

Yeah. We might be incestuous, but at least we ain't like them. What? Yeah. That, that aren't our incest.

Sarah 25:48

I know. It doesn't make any sense. The kids also mentioned that whenever they got a beating, they were always naked.

Cole 25:56

Mm-hmm.

Sarah 25:57

One time Eddie Lee paddled the kids just to see who could last the longest. Hmm. And May would sometimes join in on these beatings.

Cole 26:07

Yeah. I figures.

Sarah 26:08

Mm-hmm. Children would be locked in closets for a day or more at a time. Michelle herself was locked in the closet once for buying a deck of cards. Yeah. While she was in there, Eddie Lee sprayed Roach spray through the crack causing Michelle to pass out.

Cole 26:25

Yeah.

Sarah 26:26

Now,

Cole 28:06

yeah,

Sarah 28:07

may at this point was actually feeling bad for Michelle and took her out of the closet. Oh yeah. But when Eddie Lee found out he beat May and put Michelle back in the closet.

Cole 28:17

Hmm. See May. There's no point in being on his side.

Sarah 28:21

No, there's not.

Cole 28:23

Yeah.

Sarah 28:24

He doesn't love you.

Cole 28:25

No.

Sarah 28:26

The kids said that their mom knew what was happening, but that she was too scared to say anything. So the kids are kind of split on, like blaming their mom. They'll tell stories and like, yeah, my mom did this. But then the older ones will say, but she was also a part of, it's,

Cole 28:41

it's the typical good cop, bad cop with parents. Mm-hmm. Of like when there's a, even though they're both abusive, one's always gonna be a little bit worse. Yeah. So the lesser seems good by comparison.

Sarah 28:51

Yeah, that's true. True. You just didn't

Cole 28:52

do as much shit to you. That's it.

Sarah 28:54

Yeah. She allowed all of it though.

Cole 28:56

Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah 28:57

The kids were not allowed to make phone calls. There were only two phones in the house, which is, uh, it's pretty normal. Yeah. It's not unusual. But one was in the hallway and one was in the master bedroom. Eddie Lee would, randomly hit redial on the phone to see if they called anyone. Redial for anyone young who's listening Yeah. Is a button you could push back in the day when you didn't know who called you.'cause you didn't have caller ID or a way to see, and

Cole 29:22

he just call the last number that was placed.

Sarah 29:23

And he, so he's actively cold calling numbers. Yeah. That he doesn't know. Imagine like, what do cringe you say

Cole 29:29

to people on the other end? Like when they just pick up like, hello? Like what's these, hi. Did someone, this is Eddie Lee. Did anyone from my household call you recently?

Sarah 29:37

Yeah.

Cole 29:37

Like

Sarah 29:39

I, you never got phone calls randomly like that. I remember Star

Cole 29:41

69 was the way to look up who had called you.

Sarah 29:46

Ah, yeah.

Cole 29:47

Before caller id. You could star 69. That's right. And it would tell you the last number to have called your phone. I remember. But you didn't know who it was necessarily.

Sarah 29:53

Yeah. Well, when the Redialing randomly was not enough for Eddie, he would buy a device from Radio Shack that would record all of the phone calls.

Cole 30:06

Mm-hmm.

Sarah 30:06

Because these kids got smart and if they did make a phone call, they would just quickly call like the weather service.

Cole 30:12

Yeah.

Sarah 30:13

Just to be like, oh, we checked the weather, dad. That's what we did. Yeah. Throw him off

Cole 30:16

just a generic number. Yeah. Right.

Sarah 30:17

Now here's another thing that Eddie Lee would say, I forgot what child said this, but he would go around and say, I got some butt tonight, or I'll be up tonight getting some butt.

Cole 30:31

Okay.

Sarah 30:32

Yeah. Like his, who

Cole 30:33

would he say this to? Just

Sarah 30:34

around his family. Oh, okay. Around the house. Like, oh, I got some butt tonight. Like, as like a, mm-hmm. Yeah. But like it's about his children. Yeah. Like he's like bragging to his family about abusing them. It's so fucked up. One time he took the boys into the bathroom and he measured all of their penises. Michelle told the. Yeah. Um, Michelle told the story, and in telling the story, Michelle was able to recite all of their sizes,

Cole 31:07

all of her brother's Yes. Penis sizes.

Sarah 31:09

Yes. And then she relayed the story that Charles was the shortest, and Eddie Lee made fun of him for it. So Charles then responded as like a child would, and he said, it's because I wasn't hard like the rest.

Cole 31:26

And then

Sarah 31:27

Eddie Lee offered another try and Charles refused.

Cole 31:33

Yeah. Okay.

Sarah 31:34

Right. Yep. We're gonna move on. Yeah. Um, so daughter Lana, she's 12. She confirmed a lot of these stories. Finally after 13 years,'cause all this shit started in 1979. Granted in the early, in the late seventies, early eighties, they were more mischievous kids doing mm-hmm. Mischievous things. But I mean, I would say there's enough from 1979 to 1992 that they can, the authorities can do something at this point. Yeah.

Cole 32:05

And also maybe I'm getting a little off, but if the powers that be want to get any one of us for something, it can be done.

Sarah 32:13

Yes.

Cole 32:14

So, no, we can't bring a case against him. I'm like, find something.

Sarah 32:17

Yes, you can.

Cole 32:18

You can. They brought down Al Capone with tax evasion.

Sarah 32:21

Yeah.

Cole 32:21

He wasn't convicted of any of his actual real crimes. They could find any, they could find tax evasion for anyone if they wanted to,

Sarah 32:27

um, you know, beating and kidnapping essentially. Yeah. His nephew, yeah, his adult nephew from the first episode that he did get legal guardian for somehow, but then was holding hostage. Yeah. And the police came, uh, right there.

Cole 32:42

Yeah,

Sarah 32:42

right there. Do something, fucking do something. Anyway, after all of this time, 13 god damn years, finally, DHS wrote something substantial in their fucking file. Sorry, I have worked with this for so long. No, I get it. I get it. It pisses me off.

Cole 33:01

Yeah, I see it all the time.

Sarah 33:02

So in the sex and file, finally they were able to write, abuse and emotional maltreatment are both substantiated.

Cole 33:11

Cool.

Sarah 33:12

So that's something like solid. Yeah. Here we go. And then enter Detective Glen. Go GOE.

Cole 33:19

Okay. So he's a police detective?

Sarah 33:21

Yes.

Cole 33:21

Okay.

Sarah 33:22

So we have Wayne Welsh from DHS Glen Go. Detective.

Cole 33:26

Do you know what department he's from?

Sarah 33:28

Um, Ohio. Canton. Oh, summer. Ohio Star, stark County, Ohio. Okay. Sorry. Cool.

Cole 33:33

Gotcha.

Sarah 33:33

Yes. Otis Sexton is where we're starting with Detective Glen Gogh. Do we remember Otis?

Cole 33:40

Yes. He's not at, he's the older brother of Eddie. Of Eddie? Yes. Uh, but he's not like in the family. No, he's not in the household. He's his own dude's. No, he's fine. Yeah. Yeah. He's just his own. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Can't pick your brothers kind of thing.

Sarah 33:53

Right. So Uncle Otis and Michelle, they go to the police station to talk. They want Eddie Lee arrested.

Cole 34:01

Okay. So his own brother is turned against him. Yes. Like Grand Brother's fucked. He's

Sarah 34:04

taking care of Michelle now. Like Michelle goes back and forth with Uncle Otis a lot or another foster family. Yeah. She's just all over the place. Okay. She's trying her best. Yeah. So they go to the police station, they want to have Eddie Lee arrested. Detective Go is the one that interviews them. He wasn't too fond of putting a case together on Michelle's word alone because of. Her fragmented stories. Yeah. Yeah. Her, her sex and stare. All the things that show that someone's been through shit, apparently work against you. If you're bubbly and nice then you can prove that you've been abused. But if you act abused you anyway. Yeah. There's a lot of issues, but he, detective Gogh did not feel like Michelle's word alone would be enough. Yeah. You

Cole 34:49

gotta have unfor, I mean

Sarah 34:50

mm-hmm. You

Cole 34:51

gotta have corroborating evidence. Yeah. If you're, she was also, I mean,

Sarah 34:54

she was forgetful too. Yeah. She would kind of change stories if your stories were saying do change, you know? Not, not, not

Cole 34:59

cause it's deliberately like lying or trying to mislead. It's just,

Sarah 35:02

I think they, she was trying Yeah. To tell the truth, but things got messy. Yeah. Your brain protects you and tries to block a lot of things.

Cole 35:09

Yeah. And your brain, your memory is not a recording device.

Sarah 35:12

Mm-hmm. Wayne Welsh was also at the police station for this interview too. Okay. Um, he was more concerned about who the father of Pixie kids were.

Cole 35:24

It's about fucking time. Someone started asking this goddamn questions. Yes.

Sarah 35:28

Oh, Wayne Welsh is in the background. Okay. I think Welsh was waiting for it to be a real case. Yeah. He was frustrated too, that he couldn't like, get anything together. Yeah. I'm sure. And d Hs. Not a lot of DHS workers are law

Cole 35:40

enforcement. They don't have the power to make an arrest or Right. Charge anyone. Yeah. And just investigate.

Sarah 35:45

Yes. I think Welsh was very eager to be like, let's go. Yeah. And so he's like, all right. What about pixie kids? Yeah. Because that's been weighing on his mind. Michelle said that one night, her and a few of her siblings were also wondering who's the, who's the father of Pixie kids? So one night, um, pixie was sleeping in the living room because they had to sleep in extra rooms. Mm-hmm. Because they couldn't all fit in the bedrooms. There were so many people in that house. Michelle pretended to be sleepwalking and she walked over in the area and she saw her dad and Pixie naked together and told Welsh they were doing what a husband and wife do.

Cole 36:29

How biblical.

Sarah 36:30

Yeah. So there's that. Now it was Otis's turn to be interviewed.

Cole 36:37

Mm-hmm.

Sarah 36:38

So Otis, I'm conflicted about him. He does, I think he's good, but also he could have been better.

Cole 36:45

Okay.

Sarah 36:45

Right. Otis said that he has been aware of the abuse for 10 to 15 years. Okay. Ever since, you know, 1979.

Cole 36:55

So why didn't he speak up?

Sarah 36:56

Right?

Cole 36:57

Not my problem.

Sarah 36:58

He said that his daughters were babysitting for Eddie Lee in May one time, and when they were over at their house, Otis's daughters called him and they said that the kids that were home were tied up.

Cole 37:11

So when they get to the house to be babysitting, they find they're tied up. Already. Tied up.

Sarah 37:15

They're tied. Yes. And this occurred. At least three times with Otis's daughters babysitting Eddie Lee. So the daughters thought it

Cole 37:24

was weird enough to call their dad and be like, Hey, this is kind of weird. We came to babysit our cousins. Yeah. And they're all fucking tied up.

Sarah 37:29

Yeah.

Cole 37:30

And Otis was just like, well, different strokes.

Sarah 37:33

I mean, Otis is upset about it, but he doesn't in in in the future. He does say that he did report at least like nine times to dhs. Oh, okay. However, there's literally no record of it.

Cole 37:44

Mm-hmm. That's convenient. If I came to babysit some kids and I found them tied up, I would probably call the police. Exactly. Not DHSI would be like, Hey, I just walked in and there's a bunch of kids bound and ged.

Sarah 37:54

Yeah. Now Otis did tell his sister, Eddie Lee's sister, their sister, and she was the one that made the anonymous referral in 1979. Mm-hmm. There was a few anonymous ones, but still no one called the police. Yeah. Otis also suspected incest. There was one time he was on a painting job with Eddie Lee and Sherry, one of the daughters of Eddie Lee. Yeah. One

Cole 38:19

of the daughter. Yeah.

Sarah 38:19

Sherry was 15 at the time, and Otis saw Eddie Lee and Sherry kiss a few times in a weird way,

Cole 38:27

non father to daughter away.

Sarah 38:30

Yeah.

Cole 38:31

Well, that's odd. Anyway, keep painting, keep painting. Do do, do.

Sarah 38:35

Now, when Sherry became pregnant, because remember she's got a son.

Cole 38:40

Mm-hmm.

Sarah 38:41

Uncle Otis asked her about the father knowing that the daughters were not allowed to date. He was like, who's the dad?

Cole 38:48

Yeah,

Sarah 38:48

Sherry said it was a boy that she worked with at a restaurant that they had sex in the walk and cooler. Okay. Otis though was suspicious of the timeline seeing that Sherry hasn't worked at that restaurant for 15 months.

Cole 39:02

Ah, okay. I also, this popped in my head, but I know she's, what Pixie claimed that the father of her two kids was the same Navy man. Mm-hmm. But they're in Ohio.

Sarah 39:13

Yeah. I thought that too. But I don't know about the military that much. I mean, there could

Cole 39:16

be a, I maybe there could be a naval base. I don't know. Um, the Great Lake that Ohio borders, but I mean, is it

Sarah 39:23

Erie?

Cole 39:24

Is that Erie? Is that Yeah.'cause Superior.

Sarah 39:29

We're getting the hands out.

Cole 39:30

Yeah. Okay. Michigan Superior, Huron. Yeah.'cause Ontario is the one that does not touch Michigan. Okay. Ontario's the furthest one. Yeah. So yeah, lake Erie. So there could be a naval base. I doubt. I mean Coast Guard for sure. But anyway, she

Sarah 39:44

was saying Navy,

Cole 39:45

regardless. Yeah. Not a lot of Navy ports in the landlocked state.

Sarah 39:48

No, I don't think so. But yeah, so Otis, he knew more and he just wasn't reporting stuff, yeah. He, he should have done more earlier, I think. But he does show up. He does show up at the end. I don't know if he just mm-hmm. Was trying to hide from all of it, kind of that Denial. Denial. And then when it came to light, he was like, yeah, I can't, like, I can't. Yeah. So ultimately a good man, but struggled in the beginning. Detective go, went on to interview Otis's daughters, they're now adults, Mm-hmm. And they confirmed that the kids were tied to their beds by their wrists and ankles. Mm. Their hands were purple and they were sitting in their own waist.

Cole 40:30

All right.

Sarah 40:31

Other times when they would babysit, would find the kids naked in a dark room with no furniture and there would be urine and feces on the floor.

Cole 40:40

It's amazing that this happened repeatedly. Yeah. That they would babysit, go home, come back, babysit again, come like, mm-hmm. What?

Sarah 40:48

At a certain point, why would Otis trust his kids? Yeah. To be at that house. Yeah. Even if you're not, not calling authorities. Yeah. You're sending your kids talk

Cole 40:55

into a household where other kids are tied up and shitting themselves and left to Yeah.

Sarah 41:01

God. When James was a toddler, he was found in a playpen, in a dark room with a blanket drape over the window, and he must have been like this a lot when he was younger because he got so sensitive to the light that he would cry from the light burning his eyes.

Cole 41:19

Oh yeah. That's, have you seen something like that? Yeah. Not. Firsthand in my cases, but I've, you know, written about'em, read several of, you know, these cases where, you know, a person, a child usually to be going with is kept isolated in a room locked up by parent or, caregiver for years, and their eyes become so sensitive. Too light that it's, yeah, it's, it's painful.

Sarah 41:44

Oh my God. Yeah.

Cole 41:45

Yeah.

Sarah 41:47

One of Otis's daughters said that whenever it would rain, the kids would go outside and look up into the rain and wait for Jesus to come. That's just a weird, yeah. Yep. Mm-hmm. Now, after hearing all of this detective go, wanted Michelle to do a polygraph test, he's kind of annoying. I mean, he, he pursues, he does push through, but in the beginning, I feel like he doesn't wanna deal with it. Honestly, I don't understand

Cole 42:16

why the polygraph is ever used by anyone ever. This is the nineties when they still felt it was, it's, yeah. But it is still used by people. They still use it all the time. And I'm like, what the fuck for it's pseudoscience? Mm-hmm. It's gibberish. It's nonsensical. Mm-hmm. It's not used in court. I would fail. Fail. So what is the point of it?

Sarah 42:31

You can ask me my name and my birthday. Yeah. And I will fail because if I'm hooked up to something to my heart, immediately my heart starts pounding. That's all it.

Cole 42:39

It's stupid.

Sarah 42:41

Michelle agreed to the polygraph test. And she passed.

Cole 42:46

Okay.

Sarah 42:47

So maybe this would be enough for a detective. Go.

Cole 42:49

It's weird. They would have the, the complainant take a polygraph. To me. To me, this is weird. Mm-hmm. Because even if you know she passes, great, but that itself is not admissible evidence that anything happened. So what is the point? Typically cops will polygraph the suspect. Again, they can't use that, but it's more mostly just a fuck with their head.

Sarah 43:10

Yeah.

Cole 43:11

But I

Sarah 43:12

think, um, again, during, I mentioned this in the first episode, the culture of the nineties was kids lie.

Cole 43:18

Oh yeah.

Sarah 43:19

Satanic, panic, all of that. No one believed in anything. I mean, what was the, those kids down south? Um. Five or something, Where was that? Oh,

Cole 43:27

oh. Um, the west, uh, west Memphis, three in Arkansas. The

Sarah 43:30

three Oh, I get them mixed up with the Central Park. Five.

Cole 43:33

Yeah. Central Park five was the, I get the numbers. The rapist of the jogger. Yes.

Sarah 43:36

Um, all, all of that is what's going on right now. So I think that these detectives, the police station, all of them didn't believe these kids.

Cole 43:46

Yeah.

Sarah 43:46

And it's easier to not believe them.

Cole 43:50

Yeah. And kids are fanciful, they make up stories. Yeah. They're imaginative. They have, yeah. You know,

Sarah 43:54

but do they make up stories like the love and belly game?

Cole 43:57

Yeah. No.

Sarah 43:58

Do they make up that kinda shit? They don don't. I've covered

Cole 44:00

numerous. Sexual assault trials involving children, witnesses, and, you know, very, very young. And, you know, the defense is often that, they're just making it up, but, and they'll give details in kid terminology. Yeah. That they're just like, well, where would they, where would this 4-year-old know these

Sarah 44:17

things?

Cole 44:18

Things?

Sarah 44:19

Yeah. If

Cole 44:19

not from experience. Mm-hmm. Like, it doesn't make any sense that a 4-year-old would speak in these terms about things that they should have no knowledge of.

Sarah 44:28

Yes. While the kids were split up in different homes, some of them had siblings with them, others were on their own. Yeah. Depending on, how they got along and age and all that relationship. Yeah.

Cole 44:40

Yeah.

Sarah 44:40

Eddie Lee in May. Would sneak to see the kids, even though there was a no contact order in place. Mm-hmm. They would be on the school grounds during recess or, before or after school. Yeah. They'd kind of sneak up onto the school grounds again. The nineties. This

Cole 44:55

Is the pre Columbine.

Sarah 44:57

Yes.

Cole 44:58

Before there was a mass shooting every other day.

Sarah 45:00

Yep, yep. They would go into school grounds, try to talk to them, they would, sneak to the churches. They would go to, They would sneak phone calls, whatever they could do to contact them. They would,

Cole 45:09

yeah.

Sarah 45:10

James Sexton, one of the sons. He called his Uncle Otis one time and told him that his dad said that he was gonna pick them up that night.'cause James was staying with some other brothers. Yeah. At a foster home. James hates his parents. He, when he got out, he didn't turn back. Okay, good. So when his dad said he is gonna pick them up, James did the right thing and called Otis? Yeah. And he said, Hey, dad said this. Yeah. What do we do? Dad

Cole 45:35

said he is gonna violated court or mm-hmm. That should violate his bond and line him in jail. Yes.

Sarah 45:39

So Otis called DHS and upon interviewing the boys, they admitted that Eddie Lee had arranged secret walks with them.

Cole 45:49

Okay.

Sarah 45:50

So he's having walks with them, making plans, all this. So you just mentioned violating the no contact order. Yeah. What would that do legally?

Cole 45:59

That should revoke his bond and he winds up in jail. At least that's how it happens Now. What do do you mean

Sarah 46:04

bond? He's didn't, he's never been arrested yet. He's, he's not been charged

Cole 46:06

with a crime though, so, yeah.

Sarah 46:08

It is only a no contact order. So he's not out on bonds, but it's a

Cole 46:12

court no contact order issued by a judge, I'm assuming of Yes. Probate court. So he is, he still could be finding contempt of court and then lodged in jail for a term that the judge could, determine, a week, a month, whatever, for something contempt. Okay.'cause just to like, Hey, I put this order in line, you're breaking it. Okay. This is the consequence. Okay. Can't hold indefinitely. But there's, there's ways to like, alright, oh shit, you're gonna spend a week in jail until you learn your lesson.

Sarah 46:36

That pisses me off even more than,'cause I didn't know,'cause I knew there was nothing legal, legal, legal, really. Like he wasn't arrested yet. There were no charges on him. So I just thought the no contact order was just like, ugh, whatever.

Cole 46:47

Yeah.

Sarah 46:48

But I didn't realize they could take action mm-hmm. On him violent because he violates it the whole time. He never stops. Yeah. And there's evidence of him, the kids say things. Mm-hmm. And the police did nothing.

Cole 47:00

Yeah.

Sarah 47:02

Well, moving on to Charles, who's 17. Mm-hmm. He was in a foster home. He was still in secret contact with his dad as well. Only a few days after their removal from the house on Caroline Street, Charles and Matt, brothers mm-hmm. Went to the skate park and called their mom to let them know where they were. Eddie Lee in May then came and picked them up and took them back to their house and they offered the boys pizza and cigarettes winning them over. Eddie Lee made a deal with his son, Charles, that Charles would tell him everything, let him know where he was, where he goes, and what he does. Charles does say today that he regrets. Yeah. Letting him know. You think, well, Charles was 17. He's an adult now. And you know James was

Cole 48:54

younger, right?

Sarah 48:55

Yes.

Cole 48:55

Okay. Well, James Younger already knew what the fuck was going on.

Sarah 48:58

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Cole 48:59

So

Sarah 49:00

when it was discovered that Charles had given up where he was staying, they moved him to a juvenile detention facility.

Cole 49:08

Hmm.

Sarah 49:08

So they,

Cole 49:08

so they jailed the victim for violating the no contact order? Not honestly. That's how I felt too. not the assailant Rev violating the no contact order. Cute.

Sarah 49:15

That's what I thought. And I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt of like, maybe it's a nice juvenile facility or something, but I don't think so. I don't know any stories, nothing that happened there, but I, I thought the same thing. Why are they punishing him?

Cole 49:28

Yeah. And

Sarah 49:29

not going after the parents.

Cole 49:31

Yep.

Sarah 49:31

That brought them into their house and created this plan with them. Yeah.

Cole 49:36

And you said gave him cigarettes, so Yeah, there you go. Some them are minor, so they're that, that is a crime right there. It's enough to arrest him. Jail. I on right there.

Sarah 49:43

So you're right. If they really wanted him Yeah. They could have had him time and time and time again. We don't need three parts to this story. Yeah, sorry. Yelling. Even

Cole 49:52

if nothing, even if nothing sticks long term for a conviction, just make his life miserable by bringing him in every week to charge him with some petty offense.

Sarah 49:59

Yeah.

Cole 49:59

Just to be like, we're watching you. Stop it. Keep him away from the

Sarah 50:01

kids. Keep him busy with his own shit away from his family. My God. He's not like an upstanding person in the community either. Like there's nothing, there's no reason. Yeah. It's not, not like he's

Cole 50:12

the fucking mayor or city commissioner. That's bribing. He's not money. He, he's just a piece of shit. He's not doing shit.

Sarah 50:18

Alright, I gotta shake that one off a little bit.

Cole 50:21

Here's the, here's the thing the cop could have done. Go up to him during the interview and just slowly step, like as you're talking, just walk a step closer to him. Close the distance between you two, and eventually he's likely, he'll probably back up as is natural until he hits a wall or whatever he can't any further. Then he'll likely put his hand out to stop the cop, his fingers graze the cop boom. That's assault on an officer. It's enough to be arrested for.

Sarah 50:46

Nice

Cole 50:46

cops do that shit all the time.

Sarah 50:47

Yeah, they do. Yeah. To can when they know that someone's doing more. Yeah. Yeah.

Cole 50:51

They'll go to a domestic violence situation. Yeah. The girl calls. Then when they get there, she's backed up on her story. So the cop, just wants to get the assailant out of the house. Yeah. But she's gone back on her story. What can I do? Yeah. Oh, I, I'll get him to assault me. All he has to do is touch me. Yeah. Not swing on me. Not spit me. Just, just lay his hand on me. Boom. That's enough.

Sarah 51:08

Yep. And they do, a lot of them do use these little techniques in benefit for the victims. Like Yeah. They're like you mentioned not

Cole 51:16

to

Sarah 51:16

Yeah. They, a lot of them are domestic violence. Yes. They're, they're talking to the husband, wife, the boyfriend, girlfriend, and they know that this girl is terrified of this man. Yeah. And she saying

Cole 51:27

she's not gonna say it an earshot of her abuser. Yes.

Sarah 51:28

But if they can get that man to touch them Yeah. Then they can put charges on that man. Yeah. And at least get him out of that house for a little bit. They don't her testify.

Cole 51:37

They can just, we responded to a call and he touched me. Boom. It's me

Sarah 51:40

against him. Yeah. Not her, against him. It's, yeah. So there are

Cole 51:43

creative ways mm-hmm. To prosecute people

Sarah 51:45

I wonder if it's just the Sextons were just a family that no one wanted to deal with. You know? Just please go away. Which is not good. No. But

Cole 51:54

but we did like, I mean, yeah, they were isolationist a little bit. Like they kept their kids kids locked up in the house, but they They had neighbors. They did have neighbors. They went to school. Mm-hmm. They were on the record. This wasn't like some family like Sony Bean living out in the sticks, that they were born without birth certificates and no one knew how many they were or where they're at. Like they're on paper. They have a residence, they're going to school. There's documentation. Yeah. There's outside officials around their children at least all the time. Mm-hmm. Fuck

Sarah 52:22

yeah. These kids were failed.

Cole 52:24

Yeah.

Sarah 52:25

Everyone around them failed them.

Cole 52:27

Yeah.

Sarah 52:28

That's, that's just it.

Cole 52:30

Yeah.

Sarah 52:31

Sorry that was a big sidetrack, but Charles is now in the juvenile detention facility.

Cole 52:37

Mm-hmm.

Sarah 52:38

He's still, now I don't understand this. Can a no contact order still allow, Visitation with, a case worker or a social worker there? Yeah. There,

Cole 52:47

there can be, the judge can set parameters and say no, no contact except with, a licensed professional DHS worker, CPS worker or whatever. Like a chaperone. A chaperone, yeah. Like limited contact in a controlled setting kind of thing with a supervisor or a chaperone. Okay. Yeah,

Sarah 53:02

because Eddie Lee did visit Charles at the facility, like appropriately. Yeah, yeah. During the visitation, obviously he

Cole 53:09

can't sneak into a juvenile facility, like go to school or whatever, but yeah.

Sarah 53:12

However, though the caseworker that was supposed to be overseeing it stepped away for a second. Mm-hmm. But that was enough time for Eddie Lee and Charles to plan and escape. Eddie Lee told Charles to meet him back behind the church to be picked up a church that was nearby. Yeah. And later that night, Charles went back behind the church and was picked up by his dad and his brother Eddie Jr. Mm. They then drove Charles to Indiana and dropped him off with an aunt and uncle on May's side. Mm.

Cole 53:43

So kidnapping cross state lines that just went federal.

Sarah 53:45

Right. The nothing comes of this

Cole 53:49

that's federal. They, it's,

Sarah 53:51

this is just swept under the rug.

Cole 53:53

That's one of the principle main crimes that are federal is kidnapping because it crosses state lines when it, I should say, when it crosses state lines.

Sarah 54:01

Yep. Now, by this time, three months had passed and in the first episode I mentioned how they only had 30 days. Mm-hmm. They've been getting extensions'cause more evidence is coming out. Yeah. So now it's been three months and the kids are still spread out yeah.

Cole 54:15

All right.

Sarah 54:16

Alright, now we're gonna jump back to Michelle. She was getting her stomach pumped at the hospital in Oh yeah. April of 1992. Yeah. From trying to overdose on pills. Right. Overdose on pills, yeah. Yes. After her stay at the hospital, she went to her Uncle Otis's house and eventually she ran away from there. There was a fight between Michelle and her uncle Otis and her aunt. Michelle called her aunt a bitch, and Otis hit Michelle across the face because of that. Okay.

Cole 54:45

They're having a family squabble. She calls her aunt a bitch and he just reflexively like, yeah, don't clear her aunt. That and just,

Sarah 54:50

right. Yeah. Not

Cole 54:51

justifying it, but no, I see that that's different than prolonged systemic abuse. Yes. He's not like

Sarah 54:55

an abuser. He felt bad for doing that. Like he, he regretted it. He was like, shit, I, I shouldn't have done that. Ugh. But it did happen. Yeah. And it caused her to leave the house.

Cole 55:04

Okay.

Sarah 55:04

She walked out and she found a local liquor store where she called her mom, may, told Michelle everything she wanted to hear. May said repeatedly that she loved her, which Michelle was not used to hearing. She said that she left Eddie Lee and that he was gone and that she could come home and blah, blah, blah, blah. Michelle agreed. Mm-hmm. Said yes. I'll come home and may called DHS. She calls the social worker Mel Fletcher. Okay. He agrees to pick up Michelle and take her home

Cole 55:37

wait a minute, the abusing mom calls dhs. Mm-hmm. And DHS is like, we'll bring him back to the bigger abuser.

Sarah 55:43

Mm-hmm. I mean, Eddie Lee supposedly is out of the house.

Cole 55:47

Yeah.

Sarah 55:48

But,

Cole 55:48

but we know he is not. Exactly. That's why would he be?

Sarah 55:51

Well, he's already been showing signs that's already on record that he's sneaking to see his kids Why do we believe them? Why do we believe them? Yeah. And Mel Fletcher does catch some shit for this. Good. Um, the DHS people were like, what the fuck? Like, what are you doing? Yeah. And he was like, well, she's over 18. Like I. What am I supposed to do?

Cole 56:10

Well, she's over 18. Why are you involved at all?

Sarah 56:13

Exactly. That was my thought. Why are you even part of it? She's not a child. So why are

Cole 56:16

you, this is an adult woman calling with her adult mom having an issue.

Sarah 56:19

Mm-hmm.

Cole 56:20

Not my jurisdiction. You're an adult. You're not part of it. Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah 56:22

Stay away. Why are you handing her over? Why? Yeah. So on the way Mel is driving and Michelle starts to have a really severe panic attack, but she doesn't know what it is. Mm-hmm. If anyone's ever dealt with anxiety, panic, she thinks she's having

Cole 56:37

a heart attack or dying. She thinks

Sarah 56:38

she's dying. Yeah. And she's acting like she's, yeah. I mean, and if you, you've seen me have panic attacks. Mm-hmm. It looks like I'm dying. It feels like I'm dying. Yeah. You have to just get through it, but if you don't know how to get through it, it'll get worse. And this was happening to Michelle in the back of Mel's car, and when they arrived, Mel Fletcher was like, we need to call an ambulance. And may is calm, barely even gives it a look. Yeah.'cause

Cole 57:03

uh, I'm gonna, gonna limb here that she doesn't give a shit.

Sarah 57:06

I actually wrote that her mom don't give a shit.

Cole 57:08

Yeah.

Sarah 57:09

Yeah. Um, but yeah, so Fletcher, Mel Fletcher was the one that called the ambulance and had them come over and Mel's story, he said that he told the paramedics don't release her to her mom, send her to a group home.

Cole 57:25

Mm-hmm.

Sarah 57:26

There's no record of that. So either the paramedics just didn't listen to him, or Mel never said that. Yeah. I'm thinking Mel never said it. Yeah. He seems to be poor judgment guy

Cole 57:34

here. Yeah. And he probably said that after they got in trouble pulled probably, I yelled to the paramedics to do that.

Sarah 57:39

Yeah.

Cole 57:40

Well, okay,

Sarah 57:42

When Michelle was released, her mom was there to take her home

Cole 57:46

and that was it. Her mom is the quintessential, uh, what we would call a procurer for her husband. Oh yeah. To molest kids. She just produces them literally in house. Yeah. And they're just a bevy, a conveyor belt of kids for him to molest that is the perfect procurer for a pedophile.

Sarah 58:03

Yeah. So a Fletcher's outta the picture now, that's his only thing he does is this, which is not good. He

Cole 58:09

showed up to felch it up.

Sarah 58:10

He did. He did on September 1st, 1992, a handwritten affidavit was sent to the Jackson Police and the DHS attorneys. Shelly recanted her statements. Michelle?

Cole 58:25

Yeah.

Sarah 58:27

She was living back home for about a month, and then she moved in with Pixie and Joel in their apartment. Then when she was of no more use to Eddie Lee, Eddie told Pixie to kick Michelle out and Pixie did as her father told her to. Mm-hmm. Michelle then moved in with a friend from the women's shelter, may clearly lied, of course, about Eddie Lee being gone. He was there every night

Cole 58:53

deep down, he loves me. Mm-hmm.

Sarah 58:56

Michelle said that Eddie Lee was the one that wrote the statement and she just copied it in her handwriting.

Cole 59:02

Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah 59:03

Turns out that Eddie Lee, he technically wasn't staying in the house anymore. He was in an RV camper on the property 10 minutes away from the house. Okay. And he would come over every night? Yeah. Though he was over every day. He just had a place to show them like, oh, I'm here. You know? But he, yeah. I thought I gonna

Cole 59:18

say he wasn't in the house. He was in the shed in the backyard. I

Sarah 59:21

mean, he was like 10 minutes away, but still right around the corner when Otis found out about, Eddie Lee being in the camper, because Mae told them that he's gone, because she wants the kids back in the house. So she's playing the story of Eddie Lee's just gone.

Cole 59:35

Yeah. He disappeared one day.

Sarah 59:36

Yeah. And Otis is like, uh uh, he's right here up. Yeah, there's his little Tobago

Cole 59:40

right there.

Sarah 59:41

Hold, yeah. So Otis calls DHS and they began checking in on the house on Caroline Street a little bit more. They never found anything though.

Cole 59:49

Oder should have just propped a chair up against the outside of that Winnebago door and firebombed it.

Sarah 59:52

Yeah.

Cole 59:53

Would've solved a lot of problems. Yeah. He probably wouldn't have gotten charged either.'cause it's fucking Ohio.

Sarah 59:57

Yeah. And

Cole 59:58

apparently no one in this case gets charged. So It's weird. Should've just killed the guy.

Sarah 1:00:01

Yeah. Yeah. Why not? Like,

Cole 1:00:03

yeah.

Sarah 1:00:03

Well, September 28th, there was yet again another hearing about custody that May was there for and May said that she was going to therapy and that her therapist advised that some of her children come back. The therapist was not at this hearing, may said, the therapist said.

Cole 1:00:22

Mm-hmm.

Sarah 1:00:22

Mm-hmm. And we trust these people. Well, the judge did. The judge, Julie Edwards, made poor choices as well. So let me say that again. Julie Edwards.

Cole 1:00:33

So this judge allowed hearsay as evidence?

Sarah 1:00:35

Yes. So Julie Edwards, the judge, allowed Chris and Kimberly to move back home. Kimberly was eight at the time, and Chris was like 12, 13. So some of the two youngest ones. Yeah. Now they haven't said anything. They're, they're the two that haven't told any stories. Mm-hmm. They're also the younger ones. And Chris and Kimberly were constantly visited by their dad in secret. They were terrified. Yeah. They couldn't say anything. He had them. The judge also awarded custody of Charles Toay. Charles, who's 17, and in Indiana,

Cole 1:01:12

the one who escaped from the juvenile facility. Was kidnapped essentially across state lines.

Sarah 1:01:18

Yes. And during no ones, no

Cole 1:01:19

ones has a problem with the fact that, hey, you were supposed to be in essentially kid jail, but now you're in a different state. We can't account for that. No one's like,

Sarah 1:01:26

yeah, I don't understand this. I don't get it. Maybe there's pieces I'm missing. And honestly, there's so much information. If anyone out there wants to let me know if I'm missing something, I will correct myself. Like I would love to know that they did something here. But everything I looked at, this just went right under the rug. Charles is in Indiana and the judge goes, yeah, you can have Charles back. And then we are, Charles just appears at the house eventually like anyway, four days after the ruling, the DHS staff who did not like this ruling, they approached the judge with new information. They actually spoke with Mace's therapist and he never recommended that her kids be returned. He actually said she hasn't been to enough sessions for that. Yeah, he's against it. So the staff tell the judge this and the judge is like, it's fine. We're not gonna change what I decided. It's too by decision stands and she felt like Eddie Lee's gone. So it's fine. Yeah.

Cole 1:02:27

But

Sarah 1:02:28

when presented with new information, it is okay to change your mind. Americans, all of you Americans, if there is new information presented to you, it is okay to change your mind.

Cole 1:02:42

But I'm dug in and I'll never change, no matter what facts are presented or the evidence that's laid out before me. Yeah. It's my right as a dumb American.

Sarah 1:02:50

Hmm. Is your name Julie Edwards? Fucking judge sorry. There's so many people. Mel Fletcher. Yeah. Julie Edwards. Fucking a, I mean, Glen Gogh doesn't seem to really believe Michelle at first, but he still did his job. Yeah. He was like, well, I still have to do a due process here. And then eventually he does. Yeah. So he, I think fine. Otis fine, but like, come on.

Cole 1:03:12

Yeah.

Sarah 1:03:13

So one month after Charles was returned home from Indiana, Lana, who's 12 and still in foster care,'cause she is telling her stories, she said that her brother Charles raped her after Lana realizes that Charles moved back in. Mm-hmm. To the home with her little sister Kimberly.

Cole 1:03:32

So maybe he should have stayed in the JU juvenile facility.

Sarah 1:03:35

Yeah. So Lana didn't want the same thing that happened to her to happen to her youngest sister

Cole 1:03:42

maybe we can get one outta the 12 outta there without being raped.

Sarah 1:03:45

Yeah. Lana said that Charles raped her in the bathroom one time at their family home. Charles liked to play a game called the Statue of Liberty, where Charles would stand like the Statue of Liberty really still, and then make his sisters perform oral on him.

Cole 1:04:06

All right.

Sarah 1:04:08

Yeah. I don't know how many sisters Lana said sisters. Yeah. I don't know if, I don't know. Lana for sure experienced this, she says. Mm-hmm. Which I believe mm-hmm. When Lana was asked about abuse from her father, she told them about satanic rituals and voodoo dolls. She mentioned an upside down cross and how her dad would wear a hooded robe, then upside down

Cole 1:04:33

cross. Maybe he was just a fan of St. Peter.

Sarah 1:04:35

Yeah. Doubt it. Then she would just drift off into that sexton stare. Yeah.

Cole 1:04:43

Disassociate.

Sarah 1:04:43

Yeah. So she would start telling a story and then kind of float away.

Cole 1:04:48

This is the kind of case that is begging not to advocate vigilantism, but this is the kind of case that just begs for some citizen just to have enough of this guy.

Sarah 1:04:55

Yeah.

Cole 1:04:56

And just take care of it.

Sarah 1:04:57

Yeah. Well, when DHS brought in, brother James, who's 16, brought him in to take his statement. James said that Lana told him that Charles put his penis up her butt. Mm-hmm. When they asked James if Charles had ever done that to him, he replied with, yes. James said about two months before they went into foster care, Charles asked him to come upstairs. Charles then offered James a watch if he would lie down on the bed and let Charles do something to him. When James laid down, he was told to take off his pants, and Charles then got on top of his brother and raped him. James said that Charles then did the same thing to the other brother Chris, later that night.

Cole 1:05:53

Okay.

Sarah 1:05:55

Now finally, with this new information, the judge does change her decision.

Cole 1:06:02

Oh, how, how stunning and brave of her.

Sarah 1:06:03

Yeah. She gives control of Charles back to DHS, allowing Charles to go to his aunt's house in Ohio. Not a detention facility or anything like that. We

Cole 1:06:14

know you escaped jail. Yeah. And jumped state lines for that. But, uh, come back, please. Yeah. And we'll just give you somewhere nice to stay.

Sarah 1:06:23

The aunt in Ohio is Mae's sister, so he stayed with Mae's family in Indiana and is now staying with Mae's sister in Ohio. Why would the judge think that's okay?, Because you know what? He does end up back in Indiana.

Cole 1:06:38

Mm-hmm.

Sarah 1:06:38

And yeah, so he ends up back in Indiana with his aunt and uncle that he was there with before. When Detective Glen Gogh reaches out to me to interview Charles,'cause Charles is on his list of interviews, she at first said yes and then he was a no-show. Detective calls May saying like, what's up? You said yes to this May. Says, well, we hired an attorney and the attorney told us that Charles should not do the interview. And she also tells Detective go that she sent Charles to his aunt and uncles in Indiana and that it just didn't work out with her sister in Ohio. And that's, that's okay. Yeah, that's fine. November 17th, eight days later, I know what other

Cole 1:07:20

cases are going on that these guys at the time are. Prosecuting and investigating like what other cases are happening in Canton, Ohio that are so noteworthy that all their resources are tied up investigating those and not this massive one.

Sarah 1:07:34

Yeah, I know,

Cole 1:07:35

right?

Sarah 1:07:36

What's happening in Canton, Ohio right now? Oh, we're

Cole 1:07:38

really busy doing this thing. Star County, Ohio. Yeah.

Sarah 1:07:41

Listeners, if you're from Stark County, Ohio, let us know because what the fuck is going on that this what big case for

Cole 1:07:47

the seventies, eighties, and nineties took away attention. Yeah. From this case, it must have been bigger, is all I can think of. It's

Sarah 1:07:53

gotta be way more better. The

Cole 1:07:54

doubt it had to be worse. Maybe a family of 24 kids instead.

Sarah 1:07:58

Now, November 17th, eight days later, after Detective Glen go talks to Maye and is like, where's Charles? All that? It's eight days later and DHS cannot locate Maye or her kids crazy. Who could have seen that coming?

Cole 1:08:13

Yeah. Uh, everyone.

Sarah 1:08:13

Yep. And then the middle school calls DHS and says that Chris has been absent all week and most of last week. So almost two weeks. The school and they finally noticed is just now calling. Like it's not just police. It's not, it's everyone. It's everyone. It's everyone. A few days later, the Cleveland Channel five newsroom receives a call from Eddie Lee. He said he's tired of being harassed. He said that the DHS had bogus allegations. I'm getting these calls and he has barricaded himself with his wife and kids in their house on Caroline Street. This is only a few months after the Ruby Ridge stuff. Oh

Cole 1:08:52

yeah.

Sarah 1:08:53

It's like literally a few months later I checked, I double checked on it. Mm-hmm. Because I was like, why is he so amped up here? Yeah. In this moment he's really amped up. And I'm like, ah,

Cole 1:09:00

Ruby Ridge.

Sarah 1:09:01

He wants a Ruby Ridge.

Cole 1:09:02

Yeah.

Sarah 1:09:03

That's what he wants. And it's stupid, but it's what he wants. So he said he has everything boarded up. He has his wife and kids inside and he told,, channel five, he said that he has weapons and would kill any DHS worker or police officer that pulled up into his drive.

Cole 1:09:18

Call me back. It's a threat back. Yeah. Call me back when they show up and you start firing, click.

Sarah 1:09:21

Yeah.

Cole 1:09:23

cause you're a liar and I don't think you're gonna do any of this. Mm-hmm.

Sarah 1:09:25

And they also got Charles from Indiana too. Oh

Cole 1:09:28

good.

Sarah 1:09:28

Yeah. So he's, and again, nothing ever comes of this whole Charles over the state lines. It just is nothing. I don't get it. So they begin getting ready for this big standoff. Eddie Lee and his kids, not the police. Yeah, I mean the police are kind of getting ready, but like a week leading up to, this is like a, the week leading up to this phone call. Eddie Lee is getting ready. He's collecting weapons, gear, chicken wire, tons of food, propane, all of it. He's really expensive

Cole 1:09:56

things that a guy who's never been employed anywhere. Yeah. Somehow is able to acquire.

Sarah 1:10:00

Yeah.

Cole 1:10:00

Oh, it's, it's the oyster system that seemed to work in this whole thing is the welfare system kept paying him his fucking checks.

Sarah 1:10:05

Yeah.

Cole 1:10:05

But no one else in the government did anything.

Sarah 1:10:07

Yeah. He was, collecting money from his daughters as well. Oh, yeah. Like Sherry and Pixie were getting money for their kids and he was getting all the, he was just getting everyone's money.

Cole 1:10:17

Yeah.

Sarah 1:10:18

I think at one point Sherry and Pixie alone were bringing in 50 grand if only not each, but like together 50 grand from their benefits from the government.

Cole 1:10:26

Yeah. The people signing those checks were his slip shot and their duties as the judge and everybody else was Maybe, yeah. Something would've happened sooner.

Sarah 1:10:33

Yeah. Yeah. If he's not funded, how can he do, do all this suddenly there's no money

Cole 1:10:36

coming into the house. Yeah.

Sarah 1:10:37

He's just getting money without working too. Yeah. Like he can do all these other things like no one checked on this. Yeah. It is a lot harder now. Yeah. Things are checked on more now. It's not this laissez fair. So no one can get all up in arms. Government should help their people. Oh yeah. Yeah. I'm not, I'm by no means anti

Cole 1:10:52

welfare at all. I'm not, let me be clear on that. But I'm anti obviously this egregious pieces of shit, just taking advantage of it and no one, yeah. There should No way to see this. Yeah. Looking at it,

Sarah 1:11:01

yeah. Anyway, the house was prepped for basically a zombie apocalypse. Everything was boarded up. They had shooting positions and they were ready for a big standoff. Now the police knew that Eddie Lee wanted a big show, given what had just recently happened in our country. The police were like, ah, we know what you want here, and we're not gonna fight. Yeah.

Cole 1:11:21

Don't even, like, he's not even wanted done anything. Really, really not. There's only charges. So like, I'm having a stand up with cops. Why we're not coming for you.

Sarah 1:11:28

Yeah.

Cole 1:11:28

Like, no.

Sarah 1:11:29

So the police officers, detectives, whoever called, one of them called from his own office and another, and others went to a nearby dairy mart, um, dairy market, and they hung out there. There were a few on the scene, but most of them were nearby. They didn't wanna show Eddie that he's getting all this. So they were calling him from this dairy mart and also from an office talking to him on the phone. Yeah. After three hours of talking, Eddie Lee just willingly came out of his home and he was arrested.

Cole 1:11:59

No shots fired on his part.

Sarah 1:12:01

Nope. No shots fired on anyone's parts.

Cole 1:12:03

So he was a big pussy.

Sarah 1:12:05

He was clearly, he's all a

Cole 1:12:06

chest beating bitch. I mean, you wanted your fucking last stand, Alamo no one stopped you.

Sarah 1:12:13

Yeah, he willingly came out. I don't know what the conversations were. Three hours of talking, they wore'em down. I guess

Cole 1:12:20

three hours isn't even long. I've been to standoffs that have fucking taken days.

Sarah 1:12:23

Oh, that's right. Yeah. Three

Cole 1:12:24

hours

Sarah 1:12:25

for me. It seems long. That's a coffee

Cole 1:12:27

break of a standoff. Shut the fuck up.

Sarah 1:12:30

Eddie Lee was only charged for two misdemeanors. Child endangering and inducing panic.

Cole 1:12:37

Okay.

Sarah 1:12:38

What's inducing panic?

Cole 1:12:39

It's like exciting, a disturbance. Disturbing of the piece. Oh. Just kind of a, I don't think Michigan has that exact phrase, but every state kind of phrases is just one of those things. Causing a you just being a, yeah. Okay. Causing a disturbance. Interrupting the flow of the day.

Sarah 1:12:53

There was a felony abduction charge that was on him as well. Oh,

Cole 1:12:58

how novel.

Sarah 1:12:58

But that was dismissed because they couldn't find May or the kids to testify. Mm-hmm. So they're disappeared at this point.

Cole 1:13:05

Okay. Creatively, they

Sarah 1:13:07

are gone. Yeah. Yeah. So they can't

Cole 1:13:09

get witness testimony.

Sarah 1:13:10

Mm-hmm. Eddie Lee was in jail for three days before posting the$7,500 bond. Okay. Which is$16,871 today.

Cole 1:13:22

Hmm.

Sarah 1:13:23

Yeah.

Cole 1:13:23

No one questioned how he got$7,500.

Sarah 1:13:26

Are you allowed to question it? I mean, you can question it, but can you even do anything as a No, I mean, if it's, you know, like if they have it, what can you do? You know? Yeah. Eddie Lee was eventually sentenced to 180 days in jail. But also there was something with like a probation thrown in there. And he paid some, like a hundred dollars in court fees. This, this felt, I didn't understand it. Some

Cole 1:13:49

oftentimes, especially probably back in the nineties for misdemeanors especially, you know, you get sentenced to six months in jail, they might replace that with. Six months of probation if your offense is low and there's, you know, jail overcrowding and let's say you have good behavior for a month or two, whatever. So that could be what happened. It could have been a combination of he served a little bit of jail and then he did the rest of it on probation.

Sarah 1:14:14

Yeah. There was another hearing set up for May Sexton, for the custody of those two remaining children, Chris and Kimberly.

Cole 1:14:23

But she's in the wind, right?

Sarah 1:14:24

She's, yeah, but she never showed, none of them showed. And, um, turns out Eddie Lee told them to flee the area. Mm-hmm. And

Cole 1:14:32

there's a charge of witness intimidation right there.

Sarah 1:14:34

Yep. While May was missing during this time, she was really staying with her oldest son. Well, her second oldest son, Eddie, Jr. At his house and then she ended up staying with their neighbor, a Augusta Townsend who is a black woman.

Cole 1:14:51

Mm-hmm.

Sarah 1:14:52

Why would Eddie Lee and his family want help from a black woman? Because like races when they're openly racist. Well, you know, like, I mean she was, even the reasons you hate,

Cole 1:15:00

they can, you know, they can have a use for you. Yeah. Inti in certain times.

Sarah 1:15:03

Yeah. I found that interesting. They found shelter, hey, with their black neighbor. Yeah.

Cole 1:15:08

Every slave owner was a racist, but yet they still use the slaves.

Sarah 1:15:11

Yeah. Anyway, just found that interesting. So then May and the kids were staying with Augusta Townsend and Eddie Lee eventually caught up with them and they all were staying with this neighbor. They stayed with her for about two weeks now. I don't think she really knew what was going on. Yeah. She was just trying to help out. But she did say that she noticed some, oddities of the Sexton family when they were staying with her. She said that she had, the boys, Chris, Charles and Willie sleep in the living room at night. And one time Augusta came out of her room to get a drink of water and she saw May performing oral on her son Chris, while Charles watched. Then Augusta said she didn't really know what to do, so she went back into her bedroom and then she began dropping major hints that she knew that they were weird and she needed them to leave.

Cole 1:16:04

How major? Like, hey, I saw mom blowing the sun. Well, I mean, that's a pretty major hint. She's

Sarah 1:16:09

outnumbered by them quite a bit and they have teenage sons and

Cole 1:16:13

Yeah, true.

Sarah 1:16:14

Willie, the son, Willie is described as like, he's also, um, slower mentally. Mm-hmm. But he is strong and big. Who is it? Like Lenny? Yeah, from the book of mice and men of Mice and Men. Yeah, like that.

Cole 1:16:28

Okay. So

Sarah 1:16:29

he's an intimidating, just him alone. And then you have Eddie Lee, and then you have Charles. I don't blame her, but she did very much passive, aggressively push them out. Eddie Lee, left to go get the RV camper and then he came back with it and before leaving, he left Augusta a little. I don't know, memento, he left behind a bullet standing on her kitchen counter. Hmm. As a warning, a threat. Yeah. Alright, so now we're gonna jump back to Pixie and Joel real quick. Joel's Aunt Theresa couldn't find Joel again and eventually she did go to the house on Caroline Street to, to just bang on that door and be like, where is my nephew? Pixie and Joel both answered the door and they tell her that Eddie Lee left Pixie the house and that the rest of the family moved away they did not tell Aunt Teresa that Pixie was pregnant again. Joel and Pixie had their baby in January of 1993.

Cole 1:17:27

Is this Joel's baby?

Sarah 1:17:29

I don't think so.

Cole 1:17:30

Okay.

Sarah 1:17:32

They named their son Charles, nicknamed Skipper Lee Sexton. So after her brother and her dad. Yes.

Cole 1:17:41

Well, he's probably his own cousin, isn't he? Yeah. I dunno. It's his own something.

Sarah 1:17:45

Yeah. I don't know. Joel and Pixie visited his Aunt Theresa and said that they were moving out of their house on Caroline Street. They were looking to move back into that same apartment they had before, joel gave his Aunt Theresa a hug goodbye and said, I love you. And then a quick visit to his grandparents to show off the new baby. Looking back on it, Theresa was kind of like, I think he was saying goodbye to us.

Cole 1:18:09

Mm.

Sarah 1:18:10

By February of 1993. So this was January where he visits his aunts. Yeah. Next

Cole 1:18:15

month.

Sarah 1:18:15

Next month, Joel and Pixie were reunited with the rest of the sextons, and they also brought their three kids. So there are family of five joining in on this RV adventure. The Sextons would start out in Indiana with their life on the run. They, would travel from Oklahoma to Indiana because Eddie Lee was determined to prove that he's Native American.'cause he thought he would have a better standing in the courts or something. Oh. But

Cole 1:18:42

he's racist.

Sarah 1:18:42

He's he's not Native American either. Yeah. And he's racist. Of course. Yeah. So he is not, he just keeps claiming that in the background as well. He wants this fantasy that he doesn't have. Mm-hmm. Yeah, eddie Lee had the boys training military style. They were gathering weapons constantly going to the army surplus store for supplies. Mm-hmm. He's getting them all paranoid and riled up. When Pixie and Joel arrived in February, things got crowded pretty quickly and tensions were rising. The boys in the RV were getting increasingly grossed out by their father and their sisters' relationships. Charles said that Eddie would play this game with all the girls, where he would put a piece of chocolate in between his lips and they would transfer the chocolate lip to lip. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Also, once Pixie arrived, tensions rose between May and Eddie Lee. Eddie Lee became meaner to May and may always acted jealous of Pixie,

Cole 1:19:38

fuck me.

Sarah 1:19:39

Yeah. Yeah.

Cole 1:19:42

I don't give a shit if she like, fuck her.

Sarah 1:19:44

Yeah. Joel's time with the sextons, was the worst. They never treated him very well, and during this time it was even worse. He was constantly the butt of the jokes. He was the literal punching bag for the family, and Eddie Lee viewed him as one of the women always tending to the kids as if that was a bad thing. Joel was a good dad and he loved all of pixie kids like his own. He said that was his family and those were his kids. Mm-hmm. He endured a lot of beatings. Whenever Eddie Lee wasn't around, the siblings would strike. As the sex Sexton family is prepping and getting ready in Indiana, there's another detective that comes onto the scene. Steve Rey. He's trying to locate them, but. He doesn't really know where to go and at this point, the excuse for Steve Reedy is there's not much legal going on because they can't prove that Eddie Lee and May are together. Yeah. So they don't know what to do here on a legal standpoint. May did have custody of all the kids that were with her, so she wasn't doing anything wrong technically. Charles turned 18 by now, so he can do whatever he wants, I guess, even though there's accusations of rape against him, sounds like he was

Cole 1:20:57

doing whatever he wanted for his entire life. Yeah.

Sarah 1:20:58

I don't know why no one's looking for him. He did bad things too.

Cole 1:21:01

Let's learned behavior. Yeah. I don't

Sarah 1:21:03

blame him, but they should take him, you know? Yeah. It's, it's a reason to, to start removing at least. Yeah. And start the healing process if there's ever a healing process after this. Yeah. There's probably not. Yeah. Um. So the only thing that could be done was for DHS to put out a protective services alert. It goes out to police departments in nearby states, but those just really aren't taken as priority normally. In the month of May, the DHS legal team tried getting permanent custody of all of the sexton minors. They were like, listen, if we have custody of them, we can say they're missing. Yeah. Let's look for them

Cole 1:21:43

filing an race against the clock to get a minor out before they've aged out of it. Yeah. Finally. Yeah. We gotta get these miners out before they stop being miners. We've only had a decade and a half to fucking work on this.

Sarah 1:21:53

Yep.

Cole 1:21:53

We started this. There's only six kids now. There's a fucking, they've multiplied like amoebas.

Sarah 1:21:58

Yep. They decide to put the notice of the custody hearing in the paper hoping that this would make the sexton surface.

Cole 1:22:06

Yeah.'cause they can read it.

Sarah 1:22:08

It worked. They surfaced but they didn't get them.

Cole 1:22:10

Yeah.

Sarah 1:22:11

Four days after the notice was in the paper, Matt Sexton went missing from his foster home. So it did the exact opposite.

Cole 1:22:18

Mm-hmm.

Sarah 1:22:18

Why? If they're gonna put this up as like a trap, why wouldn't they have more observation on the kids that they still have custody over? Yeah. Like how did Matt just get taken?

Cole 1:22:27

Probably just short of manpower.

Sarah 1:22:28

Yeah. The Sexton family they did try to get Lana from her foster home when they got Matt as well, but it didn't work. Charles visited her at the school and told her to stay there for Eddie Lee to come pick her up. And she told her foster parents, she was like, fuck this. Lana was having a really hard time. She was one of Eddie Lee's favorites. Mm-hmm. And that comes with a price. Um, yeah. Lana's got a big story, so we're gonna end there. Okay. The family, they're starting their life on the run now. They're currently in Indiana, but after this it gets even more convoluted and difficult to keep track of.

Cole 1:23:11

Oh, good.

Sarah 1:23:11

They do end up in Florida, hopping around. Of course, they end up in Florida. Every,

Cole 1:23:15

all trash floats downstream.

Sarah 1:23:18

Yes. So things do get more intense from here. We heard most of the stories, but there are more stories and there's one in particular that is worse and in my opinion, than what I've heard. Uh, actually, shit, there's a few. Oh God,

Cole 1:23:33

here's how I want this to end. I want all the kids to tear apart their parents by the limbs and like as you raise the point, you raise, we outnumber them. We are physically bigger and able to handle ourselves. Now why don't we kill them and be the new kings of this king and queen of this cult?

Sarah 1:23:48

It's that culty side of it. That's the culty side of it. Yeah. Is like, why didn't they do more? Yeah, they're raised in this. Yeah. And they are. It's, it's one of the, I think, I think it was Wayne Welsh, um, one of the DHS workers commented on the side of like, I've worked with like cult people before. And this feels very similar to that. Yeah. So, yeah. Um, we will have our third part up. I'm gonna be done after three. I can't do more than three parts. I am dying here, so. Yeah. While you're waiting for the third part of this awful sext and saga, you can follow us on Instagram mm-hmm. At borrowed Bones podcast. If you want, you can still follow us on Blue Sky.

Cole 1:24:28

Yeah, that's still a thing.

Sarah 1:24:29

I'm still gonna keep it, but I know it's a little rough right now, but we're gonna try and make it better. But yes, borrowed Bones podcast on Blue Sky and on Instagram. Thank you. Also, remember to rate and review helps a lot. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. See you next time. Bye.