267. The Deadly Friend - The Murder of Lori Ann Slesinski

In this episode, Payton and Garrett dive into the missing person case of Lori Slesinski. When she misses a girls' night, her friends sound the alarm—uncovering a trail that leads straight to her killer. Links: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/murderwithmyhusband NEW MERCH LINK: https://mwmhshop.com Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/themwmh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/murderwithmyhusband/ Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@murderwithmyhusband Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/into-the-dark/id1662304327 Listen on spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/36SDVKB2MEWpFGVs9kRgQ7?si=f5224c9fd99542a7 Case Sources: LawAndCrime.com - https://lawandcrime.com/crime/where-did-you-dump-loris-body-alabama-man-convicted-of-capital-murder-in-death-of-woman-who-went-missing-in-2006/ CBSNews.com - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rick-ennis-murdered-parents-lori-ann-slesinski-disappearance-alabama/ CharleyProject.org - https://charleyproject.org/case/lori-ann-slesinski BasementFortProductions.com - https://www.basementfortproductions.com/crimelines-episodes/loriannslesinski SanHillsExpress.com - https://sandhillsexpress.com/cbs_national/disappearance-of-ala-college-grad-tied-to-man-who-killed-parents-as-a-boy-cbsid33758cbe/ WTVM.com - https://www.wtvm.com/2022/04/15/mother-lori-slesinski-speaks-out-after-sentencing-is-decided/ WHNT.com - https://whnt.com/news/alabama-news/man-convicted-of-murdering-auburn-woman-also-killed-mom-stepfather-as-a-boy-family-says/ WRBL.com - https://www.wrbl.com/news/jury-finds-derrill-ennis-guilty-of-capital-murder-in-2006slaying-of-auburn-grad/ Montcova.com - https://montcova.com/2024/03/01/man-arrested-in-nrv-sentenced-to-life-in-prison/ TheSun.com - https://www.the-sun.com/news/8448485/missing-lori-ann-slesinski-death-rick-ennis-murder/ FindAGrave.com - https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/252058291/lori_ann-slesinski/photo#source WSFA.com - https://www.wsfa.com/story/38832332/arrest-made-in-2006-auburn-cold-case-murder-of-lori-ann-slesinski/ WJTV.com - https://www.wjtv.com/news/regional-news/prosecutors-to-outline-case-against-lori-ann-slesinskis-alleged-killer/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

  Great meeting. Who took notes? Anyone?

• 0:34Speaker 02

  With Monday Note Taker, the meeting ends and the plan already exists. Action items, owners, deadlines. Go to monday.com, the AI workspace platform.

• 0:45Payton Moreland?

  You're listening to an Ono Media Podcast. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder with my husband. I'm Payton Moreland.

• 0:52Garrett Moreland?

  And I am Gero Morland.

• 0:53Payton Moreland?

  And he's the husband.

• 0:54Garrett Moreland?

  And I'm the husband. Happy Monday. Happy May. Happy life. Yeah. I don't know. What's the date? What's the date this Monday? May the 5th? Nothing really going on on the 5th.

• 1:06Payton Moreland?

  Not after the 4th.

• 1:07Garrett Moreland?

  That's what I'm saying. May the 4th be with you. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:10Payton Moreland?

  I hate that.

• 1:13Garrett Moreland?

  Everyone's doing good. My hair is, my hair's coming in. You guys might be sick of me hearing that, but I'm gonna say it. I played pickleball this morning and I am tired. It's sunny outside. It's getting warm. Peyton and I are probably, this is my 10 seconds, by the way. Peyton and I are probably gonna go on a date night tonight. Don't know where we're going. We could end up at Texas Roadhouse. You know? Or we could end up at, I don't know.

• 1:42Garrett Moreland?

  Somewhere else, nicer restaurant. But Texas Roadhouse does hit sometimes.

• 1:46Payton Moreland?

  Yeah, I like the rolls.

• 1:47Garrett Moreland?

  Hope you guys are all doing good. We love you. Thank you for buying our merch. Thank you for supporting us. Thank you for listening. Thank you for downloading, reviewing, commenting, liking, everything. We seriously appreciate it so much. We love that we can do this and be here with you guys every Monday.

• 2:05Payton Moreland?

  That's sweet.

• 2:06Garrett Moreland?

  Thanks. That's what I got to my 10 seconds is.

• 2:10Payton Moreland?

  All right, you guys, we are going to get into the sources for this week. Law and crime.com, CBS news.com, Charlie project.org, basement fort productions.com, San Hills express.com, WTVM.com, WHNT.com, WRBL.com, montcova.com, the sun.com, find a grave.com, WSFA.com and WJTV.com.

• 2:31Garrett Moreland?

  Find a grave.com. Can you just find anyone's grave in the world?

• 2:34Payton Moreland?

  Um, if it's uploaded on there. So no, you can't find just anyone's.

• 2:38Garrett Moreland?

  Interesting. I didn't know that.

• 2:40Payton Moreland?

  So most of us have friends from all different chapters in our life, right? We have our childhood friends, our college friends. Then there's the newer adulthood friends, work colleagues, other parents, neighbors. And the whole point of establishing a new friendship is getting to know someone on a more personal level. What interests do they have? What are their personalities like? What happened to them in the past? But there's no way to know it all. And even with those friends that you've had for decades, how can you be so sure that you ever know their full truth?

• 3:18Garrett Moreland?

  That's why I don't have friends.

• 3:20Payton Moreland?

  Exactly. Because while a friendship is built on honesty, trust and loyalty, it doesn't mean that someone has to reveal all of their secrets to you. So today I want you to ask yourself, how well do you really know the friends in your life, even the closest ones? You know what their parents do for a living? Do you know what happened in their home when they were young? And how shocked would you be if you found out that this long-term friend had an entire chapter of their life that they never shared with you? One that ultimately could save your life if you only knew the truth.

• 4:01Garrett Moreland?

  Honestly, this is why you don't trust anyone except yourself.

• 4:07Garrett Moreland?

  I know my, some people might disagree with that, but I love my wife. I love her very much. Do I trust her 100%? 99. That extra 1%, you just never know. You don't, you're not them. You never know.

• 4:23Payton Moreland?

  I don't trust Daisy. She woke me up three times last night.

• 4:26Garrett Moreland?

  Okay.

• 4:27Payton Moreland?

  So today we are gonna dial the clock back to 2006. We are traveling to Auburn, Alabama to meet the 24-year-old Lori Ann Slesinski. Now Lori, who was born on September 21st, 1981, isn't an Alabama native. She, her older brother Paul, and her parents, Arlene and Casey, are all originally from New York. Though by 1994, when Lori was 13, the family moved down south to a rural Alabama farm to start a slower life than the one they lived in New York,

• 5:10Payton Moreland?

  which was amazing for Lori because she loved animals. So Lori was more than thrilled to have an entire horde of new pets she could take care of. And that happiness Lori felt in this move to Alabama also shined through in other areas of her life. Friends said she was always incredibly friendly, outgoing, warm, and nurturing. She excelled in school even though she moved at 13, so much so that she was the valedictorian of her high school class when she graduated. Which was why, when Lori got accepted to Auburn University around 2001, her parents offered to get her something special.

• 5:53Payton Moreland?

  They bought her her own little mobile home to live in right outside of campus.

• 6:00Payton Moreland?

  Now, I'm not sure how far away Lori's parents were living at the time, but I know it was far enough for them to worry about Lori quite a bit. Lori's mom, Arlene, would call and check on her every day just to see how college life was going. But Lori was thriving there, just as much as she was back home. She was getting a degree in psychology and criminology. And after graduating in 2005, she actually had plans to go on and pursue a master's degree. Now, around that time, Lori also adopted a little dog that she named Peanut. It was the love of her life, after probably missing all of her pets back home. And she got a job at the East Alabama Mental Health Center.

• 6:45Payton Moreland?

  Now, for Lori, this was just a stepping stone until she completed her master's. She thought the job was okay. It was a lot of work for the low salary she was being paid, but it still left time for her other hobbies, bike riding, recreational sports, video games, and of course, plenty of time to just be a young 20-something enjoying her day with her friends. Which was exactly what Lori was up to on the Saturday afternoon of June 10th, 2006. Now, that day, Lori was hanging out with her friend, 25-year-old Rick Ennis. But that evening, she had plans to meet up with a few friends for a girls' night,

• 7:29Payton Moreland?

  just some drinks and a movie. It was nothing wild. So around 6:30 PM that night, Lori calls her friend, Lindsay Braun, who was going to be hosting this girls' night. And she tells Lindsay, "Hey, I'm just gonna swing by the store in a few minutes, pick up some drink mixes, and then I'll head over to your house." Lindsay's like, "Great, yeah, we'll see you at girls' night soon." 7:00 PM rolls around, and Lori's a little late, but not by much. Though, that's when Lindsay gets another call from her. It rings once, so Lindsay doesn't even get to the phone in time to answer it, but she does see it was Lori who called, so she calls her back. Only, there's no answer now. In fact, it goes straight to voicemail.

• 8:13Payton Moreland?

  And then, an hour goes by. Lori never shows up. Another hour, another hour. Lori does not come to girls' night at all, despite calling and saying, "I'm picking up drinks now and on the way." So the whole thing is weird and definitely out of character for Lori, which is why the following day, June 11th, Lindsay, her friend, starts calling her and leaving her a bunch of voicemails on her home answering machine. Now, the day after that, Monday, June 12th, Lori doesn't make it to work for her shift at the mental health center. She's a no-call, no-show. Same thing the following afternoon, Tuesday, June 13th.

• 8:54Payton Moreland?

  Now, from what I can tell, Lindsay also used to work at this mental health center with Lori. So when she hears from one of her former coworkers that, "Hey, Lori literally just like, didn't show up to work and didn't even call." Lindsay's like, "Oh, my gosh. She never came to my house. She's not answering my phone. She knows something is up. Something is not right." So Lindsay drives over to Lori's trailer home that day. And when she gets there, she finds that her friend Lori's car is gone. So she doesn't expect her to be home, but her door to her trailer is unlocked.

• 9:33Payton Moreland?

  So Lindsay lets herself in. She walks around hesitantly, not knowing what she's gonna find. Feels a little weird. And while she doesn't see Lori in the trailer home, she does find Lori's dog Peanut there. He's locked away in his crate, but he's wagging his tail. He seems to have been fed. His crate isn't soiled, which to her says someone has been letting him out and taking care of him. Maybe that's a good sign. Like, maybe Lori actually has been around. But there's a few other things that definitely make Lindsay question the situation. For example, Lori usually has three little rugs on the floor of her kitchen because Peanut would slip on the tile, so she put it down to make it easier.

• 10:16Payton Moreland?

  But now they're gone, as was Lori's trash bin outside her home and a bin Lindsay knew Lori kept all of her gardening tools in. And then even stranger, Lindsay had left Lori a lot of messages that weekend. Like first she just skips girls night, never says why she's not answering the phone. But when she goes to the answering machine, Lindsay notices that the machine has been unplugged. So none of her messages have been saved. So as Lindsay is doing her own little investigation in Lori's trailer, Lori's mother, Arlene, is also getting a call from Lori's boss at work saying, hey, we're a bit worried. We haven't seen or heard from your daughter in two

• 11:01Payton Moreland?

  days. So Arlene hops in her car and races to Auburn to Lori's house. And when she gets there and finds Lindsay there, Arlene also finds something else that's a bit unsettling. The phone in her bedroom and Lori's bedroom is missing its cord. So this is definitely scary enough for Arlene to call the police that day after learning everything Lindsay knows as well.

• 11:26Garrett Moreland?

  You know, it's kind of funny, but there's people, I mean, I don't know, maybe not, that are younger that are listening that probably have no idea.

• 11:35Payton Moreland?

  Like, why is it a big deal to what's

• 11:36Garrett Moreland?

  That a phone even had a cord?

• 11:38Payton Moreland?

  Or like the charging?

• 11:39Garrett Moreland?

  What?

• 11:40Payton Moreland?

  And that like that is a big deal that the cord's unplugged and the answering machine's unplugged?

• 11:45Garrett Moreland?

  Home phones, it's kind of crazy that.

• 11:47Payton Moreland?

  I miss it.

• 11:48Garrett Moreland?

  Anymore.

• 11:48Payton Moreland?

  Bring it back.

• 11:49Garrett Moreland?

  I know.

• 11:50Payton Moreland?

  It was so fun. I loved just going in my dad's office, picking that phone up, calling my bestie.

• 11:57Payton Moreland?

  Can you play? So, um, Arlene calls the police, her mother, and when they arrive at the scene, the police noticed a few other things that Lindsay and Arlene had actually missed. For one, they point out that Lori's front door looks a little splintered and broken. And they find a small amount of blood on Lori's front door as well. So police bag a bunch of other evidence while they're there, including Lori's bed sheets. And in the meantime, they learn from Lindsay that Lori was actually with someone before she failed to come over that night, a few nights ago on girls night. Remember, it was her old friend, Rick Ennis.

• 12:39Payton Moreland?

  Now Lindsay knew Rick was the last person to see Lori that night, but to her, that wasn't at all alarming when Lori went missing because Lori and Rick had a good friendship. They met back when she was still a student at Auburn University, but not through school. Lori actually went to the bowling alley where Rick worked and the two got to know each other that way and became friends. Now, the friendship was always just platonic between the two of them, though, even in December of 2005, when Lori asked her mother, "Hey, can I invite my friend Rick over for Christmas dinner? He doesn't have any family." And Arlene told her, "Yeah, of course." So even her mother had met Rick. Arlene said Rick was polite and friendly, that she also had

• 13:21Payton Moreland?

  no reason to question him or his intentions. But when Rick is called in by police for questioning, he tells police about another side of his missing friend Lori, one that seemingly her mother and her best friend Lindsay were not aware of. Rick tells police, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand what you're saying. Lori's missing. And we were actually growing marijuana together." And that on the night of June 10th, Lori left him to go to Lindsay's, but first, she had to make a drop. And it was to a few shady characters that definitely might have had something to do with her disappearance. Now-

• 13:59Garrett Moreland?

  That's crazy. I don't-

• 14:01Payton Moreland?

  Police, like Garrett, are a little hesitant to believe the story, but only because they find zero evidence that Lori's been growing or dealing weed out of her trailer. But before they can even fully look into Rick's claim, there is a major break in the case the following afternoon on Wednesday, June 14th.

• 14:19Garrett Moreland?

  Okay.

• 14:20Payton Moreland?

  Now, that day, around 4:41 in the morning, police get a call that a car has just exploded in a cul-de-sac outside of a construction site. And when they ask about, "Okay, what's the make and the model?" They hear it's a 2005 Mazda Tribute. Now, police know, hmm.

• 14:42Payton Moreland?

  Lori, who's missing, drives a 2005 Mazda Tribute. So they rush over to the scene terrified of what they're gonna find inside of the vehicle. And they are somewhat relieved to discover that Lori is not inside of it. But it is 100% her car. So now the question is, who would do this? Did Lori blow up her own vehicle and flee the scene? Likely not, but police find a few clues near the car as well. First, they find a hand-rolled cigarette, which they collect as evidence. And second, an empty gas tank in the woods close by. Now remember, just a few hours before this explosion,

• 15:26Payton Moreland?

  police were questioning her good friend, Rick Ennis. Now, all of a sudden, they are standing in front of Lori's torched car. To them, they're like, we pull them in, we put on the pressure, and now her car comes up burnt? They don't feel like it's a coincidence.

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• 16:08Payton Moreland?

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• 17:08Payton Moreland?

  Which is why that day they actually decide to get Rick back in for another interrogation. Especially because Lori's parents tell police when they report back to them what Rick had said. There's no way their daughter was growing and selling weed. She's never even been into drugs. She was valedictorian. She's going on to get her masters. To them, Rick's gotta be lying. And police are starting to suspect that too, because this time they noticed something they didn't before. Rick has some scratches on his arms and hands. And when they ask him about him, like, hey, what happened? He doesn't really give them an answer. He also changes some of his stories from what he had told the police the day before.

• 17:51Garrett Moreland?

  I think that if he is lying, telling the police that they grow marijuana together is farfetched.

• 17:59Payton Moreland?

  Yeah, it's kind of crazy.

• 18:00Garrett Moreland?

  That's not a great lie.

• 18:01Payton Moreland?

  But if you're trying to make it seem like she was around dangerous people, you would have to tell a lie that shady.

• 18:08Garrett Moreland?

  And so they're doing like, oh, like.

• 18:10Payton Moreland?

  We deal it.

• 18:10Garrett Moreland?

  We deal it, or I don't know, we smoke a lot. I don't know. You know what I'm saying?

• 18:14Payton Moreland?

  I think he, if it's fake, in his mind, he just needed to get her around shady people.

• 18:21Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it.

• 18:23Payton Moreland?

  So at this point, police are like, we're not sure about this Rick guy. We're gonna get a warrant to search his car. And this is where things in the case really take a turn. Inside of Rick and Sis car, the last person that they know of to see Lori alive. They find a knife, a pair of fuzzy handcuffs, tiki torches, flare bottles, air fresheners, a scrub brush, and a giant box of cleaning supplies. Now, when Rick is asked about some of this stuff in his car, he says, I can explain the brush and cleaning supplies because his dog has her period once a month since she isn't fixed, so. You know, he's she, he's like, she's always in my car. I gotta clean it up.

• 19:08Garrett Moreland?

  Anyone knows animals, dogs do not have their periods once a month.

• 19:12Payton Moreland?

  Yeah, they go into heat.

• 19:14Garrett Moreland?

  Twice a year.

• 19:15Payton Moreland?

  Twice a year.

• 19:15Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 19:16Payton Moreland?

  So police are like, bro, this is definitely lie. That does not add up. But the more Rick talks, the more he just keeps digging himself into a hole. And the more police begin to talk to other people who know Rick, the worse he looks. So remember that empty gas can police found close to the burnt car?

• 19:37Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 19:38Payton Moreland?

  Well, they speak to a friend and coworker of Rick's who also worked at the bowling alley named Jeremy. And Jeremy tells police this. On June 9th, the day before Lori went missing, Rick called Jeremy at his house to ask him for a favor. He says, Hey, my car ran out of gas. Could you possibly run some over to me? I am parked at a local church in Auburn. So Jeremy, being a good friend, was like, yeah, sure. He grabs an empty gas can. He sees lying around behind the bowling alley, gets it filled, brings it to Rick. Rick says, Hey, um, can I keep the empty gas can? And Jeremy tells him, no, he's like, I borrowed it from the bowling alley. I don't, it doesn't belong to me. But that's not even the strangest part. Jeremy watches Rick start his car with zero troubles after this.

• 20:24Payton Moreland?

  And Jeremy knows cars. So he knows that when they completely run out of gas and then get a boost like this, it kind of usually takes a few revs of the engine to get it back going again. Jeremy doesn't really think too much of it. He brings the can back to where it goes about his day. But a day or two later, he realizes, oh, that gas can that he had dropped off to Jeremy and brought back is now missing. Which makes him really suspicious of Rick when he hears about missing Lori's car exploding on June 14th. Especially because he knew something about Rick that not a lot of other people knew. And what was it?

• 21:03Garrett Moreland?

  I don't know.

• 21:04Payton Moreland?

  Rick was in love with Lori.

• 21:09Garrett Moreland?

  Okay.

• 21:10Payton Moreland?

  He'd written her a letter and had given it to her just a few days before Lori vanished. And when Jeremy asked Rick, hey, how did it go? He didn't offer up much, but Jeremy could tell it didn't seem to go the way Rick wanted. It seemed like Rick had finally confessed the secret love to his friend and Lori didn't return his affections. This is a statement, which was also validated by Lindsay Braun, remember Lori's best friend? She said Lori had told her about the letter, but wasn't at all interested in being romantic with Rick. That she really just wanted to keep it platonic. And seemingly Rick had accepted that since the two were still hanging out on the night she vanished. Or maybe Rick wasn't accepting it. Here's what's interesting though.

• 21:55Payton Moreland?

  If you recall, Lori told Lindsay she was going to pick up some mixers and then head over to Lindsay's house right before she went missing. And Lori is found on security camera footage at Walmart shopping shortly after making that call to her friend. And even more interesting, she appears to be alone. So she was with Rick when she made that call, but then she's alone in the Walmart after telling her friend she'll be right over. Almost like, yeah, I said goodbye to one friend, went to Walmart, but then she disappears. So police have to consider the possibility that maybe Rick wasn't with her when she vanished. And while Rick does appear to have a motive and definitely some shady circumstantial evidence. The scratches, the things in his car, the gas can story.

• 22:40Payton Moreland?

  Police think they just don't have enough to build a case against him for trial. So what happens? Rick is not arrested. Instead, Rick begins trying to sell off a bunch of his things, his motorcycle. And then less than a week after Lori's car is found, he moves. He moves out of Auburn, Alabama.

• 23:00Garrett Moreland?

  That's so annoying.

• 23:01Payton Moreland?

  To South Carolina.

• 23:02Garrett Moreland?

  Come on, guys.

• 23:03Payton Moreland?

  But the following year, so the case has grown cold. They think they know who did it. They have no evidence. Rick's former roommate from Auburn decides to randomly go into the police station one day. I don't know what took him so long, but he has some pretty interesting evidence. He says, hey. Like this whole thing happened a year ago, all this drama, Rick gets up and leaves, sells everything, but he left behind three rugs when he moved out. And I think they might be of interest to you. Lo and behold, those three rugs were the ones Lindsay and Arlene noticed was missing

• 23:44Payton Moreland?

  from Lori's kitchen floor at her house, the ones she had so Peanut could walk on the tile floor.

• 23:50Garrett Moreland?

  Why would he leave them behind? That's insane.

• 23:53Payton Moreland?

  Well, the former roommate says Rick told him they were a gift from Lori. But this is really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Rick Ennis, because the more police keep digging, the more they realize Lori clearly had no idea who she was friends with. So I'm going to jump back into Rick's past now. It's 1993 in Montgomery, Alabama. On March 5th, a police dispatcher gets a call from a random driver saying a car appears to have driven off the highway. It struck a fence, so they should send someone out to make sure everyone's okay. And then a state trooper named John Clark is sent to this scene.

• 24:33Payton Moreland?

  And as he gets there, his headlights shine on what appears to be a boy, like not much more than 12 years old. So the state trooper Clark gets out and asks the 12 year old if he's okay. And the boy says he's fine, but then tells the state trooper, I've actually stolen my parents' car. So Clark searches the kid's backpack, which the kid is cooperative about. And that's when Clark finds a kitchen knife and some loose ammunition in the kid's backpack. Now Clark's like, all right, kid, you're going to have to come down to the station with me so we can call your parents. Like you drove the car off the highway.

• 25:13Payton Moreland?

  That's when the 12 year old looks Clark dead in the eyes and says, you can't call my parents. I killed them both.

• 25:24Payton Moreland?

  And something about the way this kid, this young kid says it, like something about the way he says it, tells Clark that he's not joking, he's not messing around. So they immediately send police over to the boy's home address and sure enough, they find the dead bodies of his mother, Dolly Flowers, who had been shot and beaten to death with a baseball bat.

• 25:48Garrett Moreland?

  Oh my gosh.

• 25:49Payton Moreland?

  As well as the body of the boy's stepfather.

• 25:52Garrett Moreland?

  What is happening?

• 25:52Payton Moreland?

  Eddie Flowers, who had also been shot in the face.

• 25:54Garrett Moreland?

  And he's not in prison for the rest of his life?

• 25:57Payton Moreland?

  Well, apparently the bodies at the house had been dead for at least two days by that point, which according to witnesses, didn't stop that little boy from going to school in the meantime. So he shot and killed his parents, kept going to school, and then two days later stole the car and ended up driving it off the highway. Who's this little boy?

• 26:19Garrett Moreland?

  Rick.

• 26:20Payton Moreland?

  Twelve-year-old Rick Ennis. Rick told police he did it because his parents had been wanting to move and he didn't want to switch schools. But the police find something else chilling inside of this house. It's a hit list and on it were the names of Rick's three stepsisters as well. Luckily, Rick did not get to in time to kill. Now, under Alabama law, Rick was only sentenced to nine years in a juvenile detention center for this crime.

• 26:48Garrett Moreland?

  That is absolutely insane.

• 26:51Payton Moreland?

  It actually happens a bit.

• 26:52Garrett Moreland?

  I don't understand. I know some people might disagree and their children and yeah, that child's a demon. Needs to go back to where he came from.

• 27:02Payton Moreland?

  So when Rick turns 21.

• 27:04Garrett Moreland?

  That's insane.

• 27:05Payton Moreland?

  2002, he is released. It was around this time that he moved to Auburn with this huge secret that he had served a prison sentence for murdering his parents.

• 27:16Garrett Moreland?

  I just, I'm sorry. I just don't understand how the system thinks that this 12-year-old boy brutally killed two people.

• 27:26Payton Moreland?

  And had a hit list for more.

• 27:27Garrett Moreland?

  And they think, okay, if we put him in prison for nine years and we let him out, he probably won't do it anymore, right? Like, I think we'll be okay. Blows my mind. Blows my mind.

• 27:37Payton Moreland?

  He moves to Auburn. He starts a new life. He gets a job at a bowling alley and happens to meet Lori and

• 27:45Garrett Moreland?

  Oh, what a nightmare.

• 27:47Payton Moreland?

  So here's what's wild, though. As police are investigating Lori's case, they know this about Rick and they still don't think they have enough evidence to prosecute him. And a big part of that is the fact that they don't even know if they have a murder case. There is no body. Lori's body is still missing. And I hate this so much, but this department is really operating on a no body, no crime mentality here. This is despite the fact that the tips against Rick Ennis keep coming into the Auburn Police Department, including one from a new coworker Rick made living in South Carolina. The witness actually called the police and says they asked Rick,

• 28:29Payton Moreland?

  "Oh, what made you move out of Auburn?" And Rick flat out told them, "I got into trouble there. I needed to get the heck out of Dodge." But there's more. Rick also told this coworker that he'd been talking to a woman in Auburn, but she only wanted to be friends, so he strangled her.

• 28:47Garrett Moreland?

  He told someone this?

• 28:48Payton Moreland?

  He tells his coworker this. He described this woman as a piece of, quote, "trailer park trash",

• 28:57Payton Moreland?

  which, might I add, her parents had bought her that home to live in while she goes to college. And also, just rude. Now, once this witness does this research, they see there's a missing girl in Auburn and an open investigation into her death, which is why they called the Auburn Police with this information. This girl lived in a trailer park and the coworker's like, "This guy's weird. He just like confessed to murdering someone. I don't know if he's true," looks into it and is like, "Oh, my gosh, I have to tell the police." And still, it goes nowhere. 10 years after Lori's disappearance, the case is in the same spot as it was before. It's not until 2016, when the Alabama

• 29:38Payton Moreland?

  State Bureau of Investigations creates their cold case unit, that Lori's disappearance gets the attention it deserves. Special Agent Mark Whitaker is the one to take the lead on Lori's case in 2016. And immediately, he's baffled by how much evidence there is against Rick Ennis. He's like, we don't even have, like, we have the guy. And he's still out here living life like nothing happened. He and a partner are spending their days digging through old files, trying to build a case against Rick. When one night, around 1:00 in the morning, Mark's partner calls him, says, "Hey, I just found an old box of evidence and files." Literally collecting dust.

• 30:19Payton Moreland?

  And inside was an envelope that had never even been opened or read by the authorities. It was in regards to the evidence that had been collected from Lori's trailer. And this unopened report said that Rick's DNA was found, his semen was found on Lori's bed sheets and in the blood on the front door of her mobile home.

• 30:45Garrett Moreland?

  Got it.

• 30:46Payton Moreland?

  Which means if Lori wasn't interested in Rick romantically, like she told her friend, Rick had likely assaulted Lori and had clearly gotten into a violent scuffle with her inside her house for the blood to be on the door. This was a report from 2007, nine years earlier. And because someone didn't open it, nobody knew that Rick Ennis had DNA at her house.

• 31:12Garrett Moreland?

  This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Peyton and I are both big advocates for therapy. We love therapy. We think everyone should do therapy. If you want, it's good to talk to somebody. I think sometimes we have thoughts and experiences that we want to, you know, remove or delete from our brain. And sometimes that's just not how it works. I think therapy is a great place to help process those thoughts. So yeah, if you're interested in therapy, you really should give BetterHelp a try.

• 31:44Payton Moreland?

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• 32:10Garrett Moreland?

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• 32:30Payton Moreland?

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• 33:14Payton Moreland?

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• 33:23Garrett Moreland?

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• 33:52Payton Moreland?

  By the way, Mark also finds the three rugs that Rick's roommate handed over to police when he moved. And once he sends those through DNA analysis, they find Rick's blood on one of those as well. But it doesn't stop there. Lori's car was too destroyed in the blaze to gather any evidence off of it. But remember that there was some stuff collected near the explosion? One of them was a rolled cigarette butt. This was something they never sent out for DNA testing back at the time, but now Mark and his team made sure to get it analyzed. Rick's DNA is all over that cigarette butt that is found near her burnt car. Which means he's now also tied to blowing up Lori's car.

• 34:31Garrett Moreland?

  Holy crap.

• 34:32Payton Moreland?

  He's tied via blood and semen to her house and the last person to see her alive and now tied to a completely different location where her car is blown up.

• 34:41Garrett Moreland?

  I mean, duh.

• 34:42Payton Moreland?

  So on August 6, 2018, Rick is celebrating his 37th birthday in his new home in rural Virginia. He's there getting ready to cut a cake with his new fiance, the local school librarian.

• 34:55Garrett Moreland?

  How's he have a fiance now?

• 34:56Payton Moreland?

  When their house is surrounded by SWAT teams. That day, Rick Ennis is finally arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder, burglary, and kidnapping. 12 years after Lori disappeared.

• 35:09Garrett Moreland?

  Glad he's caught 12 years later. Absolutely unacceptable, but I mean, better than never. Question. You found out like now, like right now, all of a sudden, that I had killed my parents?

• 35:20Payton Moreland?

  I would leave.

• 35:21Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 35:22Payton Moreland?

  I, listen, I'm not one to give up on marriage. I'm really, really not. To me, murder is a whole new level. And like, you're, you might murder me. You're already a danger to me.

• 35:34Garrett Moreland?

  What I'm saying.

• 35:35Payton Moreland?

  You're already a danger to me. And if I found out that you had murdered someone in your family before, I don't know what, how I could live with you and not have one eye open all the time.

• 35:44Garrett Moreland?

  No, I agree. I think that's.

• 35:45Payton Moreland?

  You know what I mean?

• 35:46Garrett Moreland?

  I think it's crazy.

• 35:47Payton Moreland?

  It would just be hard.

• 35:48Garrett Moreland?

  Kill someone. Okay, like first degree murder, second degree murder. I'm not going to count like manslaughter, like the DUIs. I'm going to leave those out. First degree, second degree murder. I don't know. I don't.

• 36:04Garrett Moreland?

  I don't know.

• 36:05Payton Moreland?

  I guess maybe it's just something we don't know until we're in that situation.

• 36:09Garrett Moreland?

  I hope I'm never in that.

• 36:10Payton Moreland?

  But I'm, I mean, like, I don't even know if I can speak on it.

• 36:13Garrett Moreland?

  Like, I don't think I could be friends with someone that killed someone.

• 36:16Payton Moreland?

  I don't know.

• 36:17Garrett Moreland?

  Like first degree murder.

• 36:18Payton Moreland?

  Yeah, but what if you didn't know? That's why I started out this case.

• 36:21Garrett Moreland?

  Well, they told me.

• 36:21Payton Moreland?

  Do you actually even know people?

• 36:23Garrett Moreland?

  I wouldn't talk to them because what if they kill me?

• 36:26Payton Moreland?

  It's just scary.

• 36:28Garrett Moreland?

  Can't trust nobody.

• 36:30Payton Moreland?

  Now, obviously, it's a COVID case. Trial was delayed for years until 2022.

• 36:34Garrett Moreland?

  It shouldn't have been a COVID case.

• 36:36Payton Moreland?

  But on April 1st of that year, Rick Ennis was paraded into the courtroom and shockingly, they let him testify in his own defense. And the entire time, he swears he didn't kill Lori. In fact, he says, no, no, no, we just had consensual sex in her house the night she went missing. Despite the fact that all of Lori's friends were like, no, she literally told us she wasn't interested in him. He said, oh, the scratches on my arm came from my dog. And he retained his story he told 16 years ago. We sold marijuana. She went out to meet with someone and never came home. What's even more outlandish, Rick claimed someone deliberately planted his DNA at the scene of the blown up car to pin the crime on him. Which doesn't really make sense because they never even tested that DNA. So if back

• 37:19Payton Moreland?

  then, officers or investigators planted his DNA, they then just took it and never even tested it, which defeats the purpose of planting DNA.

• 37:31Garrett Moreland?

  Dude, this guy's insane.

• 37:34Payton Moreland?

  And, you know, obviously, because he testifies, he's confronted with like, well, you told a coworker, you strangled a girl, you killed your parents. Unfortunately, he didn't have an answer at all. And he doesn't say what he did with Lori's body. But the jury was not going to make the same mistake the police did. For them, no body, no crime, was not an option. After deliberating for two days, the jury found Rick Ennis guilty of all charges.

• 37:58Garrett Moreland?

  Thank goodness.

• 37:59Payton Moreland?

  So finally, after 16 years without justice, the Slesinski family had a piece of it. After the verdict was announced, one of Rick's stepsisters, who was on his hit list, came forward and released her own public statement. Because Rick's previous convictions could not be included in the court hearing of Lori's case, she wanted the world to know, guys, this guy that just got convicted also murdered my father and stepmother.

• 38:27Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 38:28Payton Moreland?

  Initially, the prosecution was hoping to pursue the death penalty, but Lori's mother, Arlene, actually said, can you not? The reason being that it would cost them years of appeals, more legal hurdles, like, he's just gonna appeal, we're gonna have to come to more things and we just don't want to. So Arlene agreed, we'll just go on.

• 38:45Garrett Moreland?

  Life in prison.

• 38:45Payton Moreland?

  Yeah, give him life in prison. And that's exactly what Rick got when he was sentenced. The man who had killed her daughter was finally going to be put behind bars. A man who's been in her house, by the way. However, Rick continues to maintain his innocence and because of that, he is trying to appeal his conviction.

• 39:03Garrett Moreland?

  Rick, you, Rick, you're a loser.

• 39:06Payton Moreland?

  But the only thing anyone really wants to hear from Rick is where is Lori's body? To this day, what happened in the final hours of Lori's life, from the time she called her friend and was heading to girls' night and then went missing, is still a mystery.

• 39:22Garrett Moreland?

  That's horrible.

• 39:23Payton Moreland?

  As is her final resting place. All we can hope for is that one day Rick Ennis has a change of heart and ounce of morality and finally shares what he did to the woman that he calls his friend. And that is the story of Lori and Slesinski.

• 39:41Garrett Moreland?

  It's sad when the parents can't have, because you have closure, right? But I think, I mean, I'm not the parents, I've never been in this situation, I would assume having closure from the person who did it saying, okay, yeah, I did do it, is just a different, I don't know, feeling?

• 39:57Payton Moreland?

  It's like, you never even get full closure, but you can get levels of closure and they really only have like the bottom tier level.

• 40:04Garrett Moreland?

  At least know you're not being lied to.

• 40:06Payton Moreland?

  Yes, it's like someone being convicted, someone saying, I did it, someone telling the details, letting you know what happened, where is the body? Like, it just, you can keep adding and honestly, he's given the bare minimum.

• 40:19Garrett Moreland?

  I'm a loser.

• 40:20Payton Moreland?

  All right, you guys, that was our case this week and we will see you next time with another one. I love it.

• 40:25Garrett Moreland?

  I hate it.

• 40:26Payton Moreland?

  Goodbye.

• 40:35Speaker 01

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