MURDERED: The Feeney Family

When the family of a beloved high school teacher is brutally killed, investigators race to make sense of a chaotic crime scene that defies simple explanation. They find themselves asking: was the whole thing staged? And if so, who staged it and why?

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

• 0:00Ashley Flowers?

  When you're out in nature, you learn to trust your instincts. You pay attention to the trail, your surroundings, and you stay alert to protect yourself from harm. But what if the biggest threat isn't the environment at all? On Park Predators, host Delia Diambra explores true crime cases that happen in national parks and remote wildernesses, the places we usually think of as safe and peaceful. Each episode reveals what happened and how much more there is beneath the surface. Listen to Park Predators now, wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm Ashley Flowers.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  And I'm Brett.

• 0:34Ashley Flowers?

  And back by popular demand, we have Chuck in the studio today for our YouTube audience, who apparently he's their favorite.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 0:42Ashley Flowers?

  It's a good thing he can't talk, or we'd be out of a job. But the story I have for you today is one that honestly has me twisted up in knots. Because like, one minute, it's like, fetch me a pitchfork and like, rally the troops. This guy needs to be buried under the courthouse. But then like, the very next minute, I'm like, oh my god, maybe he's a victim too. And then I feel bad for ever thinking such a thing. So pitchforks or no pitchforks, that will be for Crime Junkies to decide. This is the story of the Feeny family.

• 1:46Ashley Flowers?

  So when John Feeny gets back to his room at Tamterra Resort around 9:00 a.m. on the morning of Monday, February 27, 1995, he sees that he missed a call from the high school where he teaches science in Springfield, Missouri. Now, he's been up here at this Lake of the Ozarks Resort for a teachers' conference since Saturday.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  Wait, can we, as millennials, just real quick acknowledge that this is a teacher named Mr. Feeny?

• 2:10Ashley Flowers?

  Oh, my like, pointy swirl heart, yeah. Honestly, I didn't think about that the whole time I was working on this story.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  It's all I can think about. I had to say something.

• 2:18Ashley Flowers?

  Mr. Feeny, not that Mr. Feeny.

• 2:20Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 2:21Ashley Flowers?

  Anyways, the school knows where he's at and why, so it's strange that they're calling. So immediate bad vibes that just get worse when he calls them back and finds out that they called because they had gotten a call that morning from a medical center where his wife Cheryl works as an RN. She's the team lead for the gynecological surgical division, which is like an important role, but she just hadn't shown up for work that day. So by the time John's on the phone, people had already called over to the kid's babysitter, but they apparently never got dropped off there. And no matter how many times or who called the Feeny house, no one has picked up there either. John is rattled by this because he hadn't talked to Cheryl since Saturday night.

• 3:04Ashley Flowers?

  Like, he had called a few times on Sunday, even left a couple of messages when he couldn't get through, mostly like chalking that up to the craziness of like taking care of their six-year-old son Tyler, their 18-month-old daughter Jennifer, like she's doing this on her own. But now he's not so sure that something isn't wrong. So he hangs up, calls the Green County Sheriff's Office, asking them to perform a welfare check. What John doesn't know is that he's not the only person raising the alarm. Around the same time that he calls, the Sheriff's Office is also fielding a call from a woman named Teresa, and she's calling from the Feeny's house because she is a coworker of Cheryl's and she had volunteered to like swing by, check things out.

• 3:46Ashley Flowers?

  And she says that when she approached the house, she noticed that, it's so strange, the pane of glass in the door on like the front, like front door, had been painted over from the inside, which is odd because Teresa and Cheryl are friends, like she's been there before.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  And that hasn't been like that.

• 4:03Ashley Flowers?

  No. And even more concerning was the fact that the door was unlocked. So fearing something was wrong, she let herself in, only to find that the house had been totally ransacked. But like in the weirdest way imaginable, so like example, on the first floor where she's at, the Feeny's kitchen has this door that leads into the attached garage. Well, that door was like wide open, so she could see Cheryl's car in the garage. The car hood was popped and there was all this like random stuff piled on top of it, including like a TV. So stuff doesn't just feel taken, like run-of-the-mill burglary. It also feels moved. I mean, it's weird, like full body chills weird.

• 4:46Ashley Flowers?

  So she's not going to snoop around. She knows that police are in route, so she's just going to like wait for them. Now, season two of the podcast Ozark's True Crime is about this case. And Teresa actually tells journalist Anne Rodrick Jones that it takes like 20 minutes for a solo cop to show up. Now FYI, some reporting indicates that John's mom got there around the same time, but it's a little bit confusing because Teresa doesn't mention her at all. But either way, Teresa gives the officer a quick rundown and then follows him in, pointing out all the alarming things that she had noticed before. Items that aren't where they should be or are where they shouldn't be, drawers and cabinets that have been left wide open. I mean Cheryl's purse is on the kitchen table, looking rifled through.

• 5:30Ashley Flowers?

  And then in the living room, I didn't mention this, but there are shoe prints all over the carpet, seemingly like made from some kind of light colored liquid. So this cop, what he does is he pulls out his radio. He knows that he's going to need some backup, like this is as weird as she thinks it is. And Teresa kind of hangs back a little while this officer heads to the primary bedroom. And when he turns on the bedroom light, she asks him a question, but he is just like staring straight forward in stunned shock, doesn't even hear her, so she has to repeat herself. She's dead, isn't she? And the best answer that this guy can muster is look and see.

• 6:14Ashley Flowers?

  Not his finest moment, no question, but part of me feels sorry for the guy because what he sees is horrific. There is a woman, presumably Cheryl, lying face down on the bed and her head and neck are just covered in wounds. Her face is aimed away from the door, kind of like almost hidden by her hair in a way that looks unnatural, maybe intentional, because to Teresa, she looks posed. And then it gets worse because in the next bedroom is a little boy laying in the bed on his back with a pillow covering his face and blood visible around him. And then in the third bedroom, there is a toddler in a crib like curled up tight,

• 6:55Ashley Flowers?

  her face buried in the mattress and a cord wrapped tight around her neck. So within minutes, the house is crawling with officers from the sheriff's office. I mean, considering the magnitude of this crime, a multi-agency task force called the South Central Missouri Major Case Squad steps in. But it's up to the sheriff's office to preserve the crime scene till they can get up to speed. And to do that, the Major Case Squad investigators converge at the Missouri State Highway Patrol outpost. And as they shuffle into the conference room, someone mentions that the victims are the family of a Springfield teacher. And there are well over a thousand teachers in Springfield, okay? So like, no one mentions any names. It could be any of those families.

• 7:38Ashley Flowers?

  But in that instant, an investigator named Rita turns to the person next to her and almost casually says, "Wasn't John Feeney's family, was it?" Which needless to say, the question practically knocks the wind out of the other investigator who's like, "Well, yeah, actually it was."

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, that feels like weird. Like, wouldn't even believe it if it was a movie on the nose weird. Why are they dropping his name immediately?

• 8:08Ashley Flowers?

  Well, so Springfield may be the third largest city in Missouri, but it does have major small-town vibes, like a six-decades-of-Kevin bacon kind of thing. And apparently Rita and John actually have a history. So they went to high school together, and then she took a chemistry night class that he taught at a local university, and that was like just the prior fall. So it's someone she knows when she goes and takes this class. It's not weird that they got to talking, things even non-chemistry related. And somehow, like, the recent high-profile crime became the topic of conversation during one of these classes or after or whatever. And probably because it happened like mid-semester and Rita was working the investigation.

• 8:49Ashley Flowers?

  You see, in September of 94, a 37-year-old woman named Lisa Revelle was killed in her home south of Springfield. Now investigators, Rita included, quickly put Lisa's husband under the microscope as their prime suspect. Like, tale as old as time, right?

• 9:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:05Ashley Flowers?

  But Rita says that John was super interested in the investigation as it played out in real time. Maybe too interested. Because Rita tells Anne on her podcast that one particular question stands out in her mind, especially in hindsight. John was obsessed with knowing one thing. What was the husband's big mistake? What fatal misstep did he make that allowed police to zero in on him?

• 9:31Speaker 01

  What got him?

• 9:32Ashley Flowers?

  Right, which like, why do you ask, sir?

• 9:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:35Ashley Flowers?

  But she gave him an answer. She said that he talked to police and he shouldn't have. No potential suspect or person of interest or whatever, she said, should ever talk to the police, because that is how many of them wind up in prison. So, that is what is at the back of her mind when she brings up the Feenies. And it probably stays on her mind after they get briefed and head to the Feeny house and walk this bizarre scene. And truly, I mean bizarre. Like, on the surface, it's strange, but when you drill in close and look at the details of this thing, it gets really, really weird. Like, those shoe prints in the living room. What they find out is the liquid that those are in is beige paint. The

• 10:19Ashley Flowers?

  prints themselves have dried, but they find a still-wet puddle in the garage.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  Wait, like, the same paint used to maybe paint the glass on the front door?

• 10:29Ashley Flowers?

  You know, I'm not sure that they ever, that's ever verified or reported on. I couldn't find anything about that, but I think that's the working assumption. But, again, that's not even like the strange part. These prints that they have, they don't make sense, because they don't fade like you would expect them to. I mean, like, think about it. If you walk through a puddle of paint, like, the first step should leave the clearest prints, right? And then, like, the more steps you take-

• 10:50Speaker 01

  The drier it gets.

• 10:51Ashley Flowers?

  Especially on carpet, right? Like, they're gonna start to fade. But the ones that they're seeing, like, they don't fade. All of them are, like, equally saturated.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Like, someone is painting the bottom of their shoes, like, every step or two?

• 11:06Ashley Flowers?

  Which just like, why?

• 11:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:08Ashley Flowers?

  Like, that doesn't make sense for a crime if it happened this way. And these are the killer's prints.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:14Ashley Flowers?

  But the paint was used for something else, too. So investigators find a cryptic message painted on the wall of Cheryl and John's bedroom. And it's painted in the same beige paint.

• 11:28Ashley Flowers?

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• 12:12Ashley Flowers?

  Visit sofi.com/crimejunkie to see how much you can save. That's sofi.com/crimejunkie and start making smarter money moves with SoFi. SoFi's student loans are originated by SoFi Bank, N.A., member FDIC. Additional terms and conditions apply. NMLS 696891.

• 12:32Speaker 01

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• 13:16Speaker 01

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• 13:31Ashley Flowers?

  The message says in all caps, BIT DIE. Now, everyone seems to agree that two letters are missing from the end of that first word. Like BIT is what it says, and they think that it's missing the CH. So, BIT DIE is what they think.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  But maybe they ran out of paint because they used it all on their freaking shoes?

• 13:53Ashley Flowers?

  Like, my knee jerk reaction is no, because here's the thing. When you actually like see a photo of this, I saw a glimpse of it in like coverage from like the trial, like old, old coverage. BIT is written above the word DIE? So, in my mind-

• 14:08Speaker 01

  It's like the first word.

• 14:09Ashley Flowers?

  Right, so like running out doesn't make sense. Neither does the writer getting spooked mid-message, like because then we shouldn't have the word DIE.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:17Ashley Flowers?

  I mean, it's possible that DIE was written first and then like maybe they had some paint left over and was like, oh, how can I add insult to injury here? Like, oh, I'll like call her names too, but then they only got through the first three letters, and I don't know why you would still write it above the word DIE? So, this doesn't make sense to me. But again, so much of this crime scene defies explanation.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  So, when I hear beige paint, I'm gonna be honest, it's not like the flashiest color around-

• 14:44Ashley Flowers?

  You would expect like red or something, right?

• 14:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, like would this even stand out on their walls? Like what color are their walls?

• 14:50Ashley Flowers?

  Also a shade of beige. Like you can see the words, but they definitely blend in. I don't even know if you can see them, maybe because they're still wet or something. I have a feeling, I don't know this for a fact, but like knowing that they were in the garage, knowing we have that puddle in the garage, that maybe it was like some kind of touch-up paint for the house that was like already there. So, again, potentially not even something that the killer brought with them. We tried to verify all that, by the way, but like our records request was denied by law enforcement.

• 15:16Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 15:16Ashley Flowers?

  Now, I could spend the entire episode discussing the paint because there is this other weird part. So, the prints that are like saturated the whole way through, they follow a pretty clear path. So, the house is one-story but has a basement with its own entrance. The prints start at that puddle in the garage, they go through the living room, lead to the primary bedroom, and then they just stop. Like there's no return path. And again, it's not like they fade away. The ones in the bedroom are just as clear as the ones in the garage.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  So whoever did this like took the shoes off in the bedroom?

• 15:49Ashley Flowers?

  Maybe? So were they wearing them? Were they holding them on their hands and not wearing? Because they're like just making this path. However, they had these shoes. What I do know is that they had to have taken those shoes with them when they left. Because police don't find any shoes in the house that are covered in beige paint or that even match the size and tread patterns of these prints. So I'm guessing that they like took them off or like stopped using them in the bedroom. Because again, we never see the prints fading the way they should have. We never see them going anywhere else. It's like almost like this arrow beacon. Like it feels too simple. Like it's someone trying to say, hey, go from the garage to the bedroom. But it's not a big house. Like people would have made it to the bedroom.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  Well, I was gonna say, maybe they ran out of paint with the wall art. But the print should be there and be faded. Like all the freaking alarm bells are going off in my brain. This is 1,000% staged.

• 16:44Ashley Flowers?

  It is. And like no matter any way you cut it, this is staged. And the rest of the house is starting to give staged as well. So everywhere investigators turn, it is like torn apart, right? Like almost theatrically so. Think less real life robbery and more like over the top Hollywood movie. Even the cabinets under the kitchen are like open, which like.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  Why even open those? There would be nothing there to find but like cleaning supplies?

• 17:11Ashley Flowers?

  100%, especially because there were actually some things to find that seemingly weren't found. Like they weren't taken. So for example, like there was cash in a dresser drawer in the primary bedroom. I mean, not a ton, like 40 bucks. But how are you literally like rifling through dishwashing supplies? But leaving behind cold, hard cash? Robert Keys of the Springfield News Leader speaks to a source who basically says that someone or someones went to great lengths to make it look like this was done by a group of criminals. But it's like they tried so hard that it backfired. Even what at first blush appears to be evidence of forced entry is a little sketch. So the front door is fine.

• 17:54Ashley Flowers?

  I mean, mine is still like painted window and the fact that it was unlocked. But it's not like damaged or anything. It is actually the walkout basement door that looks like it's been kicked in. Reporting at the time describes it as splintered and there is even a visible shoe print. Not in paint, that might have been too obvious, but it's like kicked in. But even this kicked in door is sus because when a door is forced open, normally you find wood pulp on the screws from being forcibly dislodged.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Right, they're being pulled out of the wood.

• 18:26Ashley Flowers?

  Right, but Rita tells Anne that there was no pulp to be found. Not a ton of damage to the door frame either. Instead, it is almost like the door had been ever so carefully unscrewed from the hinges. And to do that, it would have had to have already been open for that to work.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:45Ashley Flowers?

  And are you ready for the actual full body chills moment of this story? So this house is chaos, but there is one thing that makes even the most hardened homicide investigators shiver. A family might have inhabited this home just a day or two earlier, but you would never know it from the cold barren walls. Because every last family photo, every baby picture, every school picture, every wedding photo, has been taken down and turned inward, hiding the smiling faces from sight.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  I'm sorry, what?

• 19:23Ashley Flowers?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  Between this and all the victims' faces either being covered or turned away, that feels really intentional and like important. Like whoever did this didn't actually want to see.

• 19:35Ashley Flowers?

  Their faces.

• 19:36Speaker 01

  Who they were doing this to.

• 19:38Ashley Flowers?

  Right, it's, it's personal.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:40Ashley Flowers?

  It feels like someone they know.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:41Ashley Flowers?

  Which you can see why investigators are pretty eager to speak with John. Now, when he'd initially phoned that welfare check in, they didn't know yet what they had on their hands. They basically just told him like, hold please. Like not literally, but they had to like send someone out to the house, check things out, whatever. So John was left to his own devices for the next few hours while the deputies made it to the scene. Investigators tried to figure out what they were dealing with. And John later tells investigators that in that time, he was frantically calling and. Fielding calls from his and Cheryl's loved ones. But the bottom really fell out, he says, at noon. Because that's when a friend of his, this fellow science teacher, showed up at his hotel door looking like all kinds of shook. And the guy said that like, listen, I'm not sure,

• 20:26Ashley Flowers?

  but I think I just saw your house on the news. And this guy offered to stay with John while he waited for more information. And before long, the phone rang and it was John's father with the worst news possible. Now, when John heard that his family was gone, he says he just fell to pieces. And he later tells reporters with the Springfield News Leader that he remembers reciting prayers. And the teacher friend tells Ann Rodrick Jones that John kept saying over and over again, like, this can't be, this can't be. And another friend who joined them in the hotel room had to remind him to just like, take deep breaths, like breathe. So, once they find out, the men immediately hit the road for Springfield.

• 21:09Ashley Flowers?

  And when they get to the local highway patrol outpost for John's first interview, his mom meets him outside for this like, tear soaked hug and then walks him in, where investigators question him about his weekend. Now, they know he was out of town, but they only have the broad strokes, they need details. So John says that Saturday, this is the last day he was with his family, it was uneventful. He didn't have to leave for the conference until later that day, so he hung out with the kids in the morning while show, like, ran some errands. They had lunch together when she got home, and then he did yard work before hitting the road in his red Mustang convertible. Now, when he got to town, he says that he and a fellow teacher that he sees at these conferences a lot, named Pam, grabbed dinner together. Just somewhere within like, driving distance of the resort.

• 21:55Ashley Flowers?

  Dinner was dinner, nothing wild. And after, they were going to go to this like, pre-conference party at the resort. But on the way back, he got into a little trouble. As thirty something men who drive red Mustang convertibles are want to do, seems that John had a little bit of a lead foot because he and Pam got pulled over and he got a ticket. Now, because of weird laws that I'd actually never heard of before, the patrol officer actually confiscated his driver's license, like the physical thing, and apparently it's something that they can do with drivers who live more than 50 miles away. So like, point being, you don't get your license back until you've paid your fine. So by the time they're done with this cop, John says he's got a headache. Plus, he's got to deal with this whole ticket thing now, so like, no party for him.

• 22:39Ashley Flowers?

  He parts ways with Pam, he heads back to his hotel room, and when he got there, he called Cheryl, which he says was their routine. He'll call home like the first day he gets anywhere to confirm, you know, he's arrived safely, just like chat, see how the day was. And she even picked up, they spoke, normal conversation, but that would be the last time he gets her on the phone. When they hung up, he left the resort again. He headed to the Osage Beach Police Department to pay for the ticket. And according to the police, he was there around 10:30 PM or so. So he forks over the money, gets his license back, and then he went back for good this time to go to bed at his hotel room. And he says he was in his room all night, slept there, didn't leave until late Sunday morning when he played golf with some colleagues sometime before noon.

• 23:24Ashley Flowers?

  After that, there was a conference session followed by lunch, another session at four, John actually led that one. He called home around five just to check in, no one answered. Again, hadn't worried him too much at the time, Cheryl was solo managing two kids. One of them was sick, by the way, so like, extra handful. And John went to a conference social event Sunday night, and then worked with some colleagues on a presentation that they were giving Monday morning. He tried to reach Cheryl again around 11:00 PM Sunday. Again, no answer, also very late, knew Cheryl had work early the next morning. Everyone was probably in bed. And then Monday rolled around, and before he knew it, he was getting a call from his school. So investigators like know his timeline now and they kind of shift their questioning

• 24:08Ashley Flowers?

  and they ask about his and Cheryl's marriage. How it started? How is it now? Like that kind of thing. So they met in 1978 at a trauma center. Cheryl was in nursing school and worked there as a receptionist and John worked there as an attendant on the weekends. And according to John, they kind of made eyes at each other for a while, but their romance really began when Cheryl asked him to dance at a coworker's party. And for John, this was a big deal. Like the dancing part, because his dad was a preacher in the Church of Christ, which had a strict no dancing policy in those days.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  I mean, I've seen Footloose.

• 24:42Ashley Flowers?

  Right. So, you know, feeling a little rebellious, John said yes, and the rest was history. They married in 1981. They had Tyler in 1988. In 1990, they bought their house. And according to the Springfield News Leader, John was named Missouri's best science teacher of the year. And at the same time, Cheryl was working her way up the ladder at the medical center. And then Jennifer came in 1993. John tells investigators their marriage was strong, there was no infidelity, like on either person's part, and he's adamant about that.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  And that's kind of what they all say, though, right? Like, what about money problems?

• 25:20Ashley Flowers?

  None of those either. Like, they are one of those rare couples that had been financially responsible from the start. I mean, they built themselves a nice little nest egg. They don't have much debt. Like, you know, on paper, they've done everything right. And John can't think of a single person who would want to hurt his family. Like, this just makes no sense. There's no motive. And for what it's worth, John appears to be completely shocked and grief-stricken. Like, if he is putting on an act right now, it is Oscar-worthy. But as the husband, he is still firmly at the top of their list of persons of interest, even as they let him go. I mean, we're still day one here, but a lot can happen in one day. Like the autopsies, for example.

• 26:04Ashley Flowers?

  And the findings are awful. They're also revealing.

• 26:11Ashley Flowers?

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• 26:54Ashley Flowers?

  Visit sofi.com/crimejunkie to see how much you can save. That's sofi.com/crimejunkie and start making smarter money moves with SoFi. SoFi's student loans are originated by SoFi Bank, N.A., member FDIC. Additional terms and conditions apply. NMLS 696891.

• 27:14Ashley Flowers?

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• 27:57Ashley Flowers?

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• 28:28Ashley Flowers?

  While baby Jennifer died from strangulation with a cord from the blinds in her bedroom, Cheryl and Tyler both died as a result of blunt force trauma to their heads.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  Is it just me, or is it odd that the baby's cause of death is different?

• 28:43Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, I don't know, because like in my mind, like I feel like the way she died was worse. Like, the medical examiner notes that the way she was strangled would have taken minutes, and she likely suffered.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, it's like a longer process.

• 28:55Ashley Flowers?

  Like, who picks the worst way for a baby to go? Like, what kind of evil do you have to be? Most people, I mean, how many cases have we seen where like, the youngest one who won't recognize anyone is left alone?

• 29:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:06Ashley Flowers?

  You know what I mean?

• 29:07Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:08Ashley Flowers?

  Now, the medical examiner also confirms that all three were attacked in their sleep, like blitz style.

• 29:15Speaker 01

  Which to me is all the more reason to think that the door wasn't kicked in. I mean, you'd think that Cheryl would have heard that her husband's out of town, you know? Like, she might be feeling super aware, waking at every little sound, let alone the sound of her door being kicked in.

• 29:29Ashley Flowers?

  Right, and like, again, I said this before, but this isn't a big house. You just have the main story in the basement.

• 29:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:35Ashley Flowers?

  So, I mean, the thing I don't know is like how hard of a sleeper she was. I like, I've got my like, earplugs in, my eye mask on. I don't know that I would wake up, but to your point, like, maybe she was more alert because she was alone. I don't know. But it does seem like she was asleep when someone came at her. Cheryl was struck in the head 10 times with what Ron Davis describes as some kind of metal pipe or a rod that would have been like a half inch in diameter. And Tyler was struck seven times with the same object, including three blows to the head. Whatever they had been bludgeoned with, there was no sign of that at the scene. But according to Rita, that doesn't mean that there weren't any weapons found there, because I guess Cheryl had superficial puncture wounds to her face,

• 30:20Ashley Flowers?

  and a knife was found near her body. Now, the medical examiner determines that the murders took place in the overnight hours from Saturday into Sunday, although there are signs that the killer maybe tried to confuse things because I guess Cheryl and John, you know, there is nothing more 90s than a waterbed and they had a waterbed that where the heat had been turned all the way up to the highest possible temperature, which caused her body to decompose even faster than it would have otherwise.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  And I realized this was, like you said, the 90s, basic forensics were probably a little less common knowledge back then, but this guy's a science teacher. Like, he might have had like a little deeper knowledge on all that stuff than a normal layperson. But what's confusing is the kids weren't messed with. So like, why try to throw things off with the waterbed with her?

• 31:10Ashley Flowers?

  That's what I'm saying. Like, everyone talks about this waterbed as being something that like, oh, the killer was trying to like, like, speed up decomp. And I'm like, yeah, but just for Cheryl. Like, it wouldn't-

• 31:19Speaker 01

  It doesn't change anything about like, the, the decomp for the kids, which is the timeline.

• 31:24Ashley Flowers?

  If you're trying to confuse the scene, which everything in this, this house feels confusing, if you are trying to make it appear as though she died before the kids, I don't know what that would mean. Or, again, I, I'm just spiraling.

• 31:37Speaker 01

  Or you just have the other option that it just got turned on. It means nothing and it's just this additional weird thing in the crime scene. Yeah.

• 31:49Ashley Flowers?

  There are some other, like, small things that they find. So when they process the crime scene, they actually take samples of what looks like semen on the comforter of the couple's waterbed, although reporting never mentions evidence that Cheryl was sexually assaulted. And we know that she was found in her nightgown. They also collect a hair from Cheryl's nightgown that they can tell was recently dyed reddish brown, as well as a couple of gray hairs from the garage, one of which was on the paintbrush used by the killer. And for what it's worth, John and Cheryl both have brown hair. Tyler was more of like a dark blonde. I haven't seen any pictures that showed Jennifer's hair color.

• 32:31Ashley Flowers?

  Whatever it was, none of the family matched these hairs that are found. And as far as I can tell, there's never any mention of other biologics or hairs or anything being found in any of the kids' bedrooms. But that's not to say that there aren't other clues. One clue they find is just disguised a little. You see, A. Scharnhorst reports for the Kansas City Star that during Tyler's autopsy, the medical examiner finds that he had liver damage, which doesn't make sense in a healthy six-year-old kid. Like, the ME doesn't know what it means yet, won't know what it means for a while because he has to order some additional tests that are gonna take time. But it's just like this thing that everyone's like, we've gotta figure this out.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  Another weird thing.

• 33:14Ashley Flowers?

  Right. And while they wait, over the next few days, investigators interview John's friends, family, coworkers, and basically the consensus is like, there is no way that John did this. He would just never do something so heinous. John and Cheryl were happy, John's a good guy. Friends and colleagues from the conference say that he was his usual self all weekend long. Like, heck, the guy teed up for a casual round of golf within hours of the murders, and not a hint of stress, or distress, or distraction, or even a bad mood was anywhere to be found on him. Though, to investigators, that doesn't mean a whole lot. I mean, I've told you about the scene. You gotta be a special kind of inhumane monster

• 33:57Ashley Flowers?

  to do what this killer did. Whoever did this would probably act fine after. So if they're gonna rule John out, it's gotta be using cold, hard facts, not feelings about how he acted. Osage Beach Police Department confirms for investigators that John was there, paying the ticket, getting his license back at 10:30 Saturday night. So that part of his story checks out. But when they processed John's car, they discovered the first crack in his story. No incriminating forensics or anything like that. Like, in his car, they don't find any traces of blood, there's no weapons, there's no bloody clothing.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  Any beige paint.

• 34:35Ashley Flowers?

  There is no beige paint to be found. No shoes matching the prints from the scene either. Which, actually, speaking of the shoes, investigators had determined that those were men's size 11, but at least one source reports that John wears a men's size 12, for what it's worth.

• 34:49Speaker 01

  And depending on the store in the cut, I'm like, seven different pant sizes. I feel like he could probably have squeezed his feet into size 11 shoes.

• 34:56Ashley Flowers?

  He also could have, like, not even been wearing shoes. Right? We keep going back to this, made the prince. Anyways, back to the car. So nothing tying him to the crime scene physically. But what they find is something interesting. So there is a receipt from a McDonald's near the resort, time stamped at 6:59 a.m. on Sunday.

• 35:17Speaker 01

  But John's story was that he didn't even leave the hotel until late that morning to go golfing.

• 35:23Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, and McDonald's never played a leading role in his story. So when they bring him back in and question him about this, all he can say is like, "Oh, my God, I totally forgot that I left to get breakfast that morning. Like, just slipped my mind."

• 35:38Speaker 01

  If this was like months, even weeks ago, I'd be like, okay, little mix up. But we're not asking about a month ago, John. We're literally talking like 24 hours ago.

• 35:48Ashley Flowers?

  I know. I think about Serial when like the way Serial season one starts where it's like, where was the teenager six weeks ago? Like, it's John. Like, where were you this, like, yesterday morning?

• 35:55Speaker 01

  Yesterday, yeah.

• 35:56Ashley Flowers?

  I know. So we've got this timeline now, and in this timeline, he is unaccounted for for eight, maybe eight and a half hours. Although unaccounted for maybe isn't the right phrase because, I mean, per his story, he's sleeping in his hotel room by himself like he should have been. But we know that the round trip home and back would have taken right around three hours, give or take. Like, it's 90 minutes each way.

• 36:20Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 36:21Ashley Flowers?

  Which would leave him a minimum of five to five and a half hours to theoretically wipe out his family, do some careful staging, and then get breakfast.

• 36:31Speaker 01

  Was it all truly staging, though? I mean, the photos being turned around feel like a very real part of all.

• 36:39Ashley Flowers?

  Right? Like, and it would take time to do, but it more makes me think it was someone, like you said, who knew the family,

• 36:45Speaker 01

  who couldn't bear to look at all these photos. Like, it's the only real thing here.

• 36:50Ashley Flowers?

  That feels super personal. And maybe it is the only real thing. Like, and especially when you think about the fact that Cheryl and Tyler's faces were covered and like Jennifer is like curled up in a ball face down. All of this to me says that it's someone who was familiar with them, someone who felt some sort of way after they did what they did. During. Yeah, and like couldn't bear to look at the faces of the people that they killed. But the question is, was that someone John? Because even though the McDonald's receipt is definitely sketch, like the fact that he left it out and it looks really bad for him, there was something else in the car that actually plays in his favor. John was known to keep a written travel log in his car,

• 37:34Ashley Flowers?

  where he records all of his mileage. I don't know why, I don't know if the school district reimburses for travel or what, or like I truly also, my friend's dad does this for like no reason other than his own records. Just for fun, cool. So he's got this like detailed log, and when investigators compare the mileage on the car to the travel log, it matches perfectly for him not making the extra drive home and back. Like, there's no unaccounted for miles for an extra trip home to kill your family. Per the log, there were just enough miles for him to have gone on the trip, but not to have made another trip home and back. Listen, I am admittedly not a math girlie, but how hard would that be to fake though?

• 38:19Ashley Flowers?

  Especially if this was like planned well in advance, just pad your mileage log here and there for days, weeks? So when it all comes down to it, those extra miles in your murder of your family road trip are already quote unquote accounted for. Totally possible. But, I mean, when you look at everything as a whole, we have no physical evidence. You have a matching mileage log, no matter how you got there. So police don't have a lot to work with if they think that John's their guy. Now, for the first week following the murders, John and Cheryl's family present a really united front. They even go to the funeral home to pick out caskets together for the funeral, which is held the following Friday. But then the united front becomes a little less so.

• 39:01Ashley Flowers?

  And it's because of what happens when John sits for another interview, which will turn out to be his last interview. This is on Saturday, the day after the funeral and almost a week after the murders. By now, his family has caught on that investigators are looking at him closely, which like, yes, duh, we said he's the husband. So they hire him, this hotshot local defense lawyer, to represent him like mid-interview, quite literally.

• 39:25Speaker 01

  Which, life rule number nine, always get a lawyer.

• 39:28Ashley Flowers?

  For sure. So this attorney high-tails it to the station and is like, knock, knock, knock, you're talking to my client there, like, I need to speak with him. But investigators are like, sorry, sir, I can't let you in on account of John hasn't personally invoked his rights. So the lawyer asks them to pass along a message to his client.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  Which I can truly only imagine is just, do not talk, shut the hell up.

• 39:50Ashley Flowers?

  Shut up, yeah. Whatever it is, the investigators decline that request too. So the interview continues. At some point, they ask him to take a polygraph, but he says, no, thank you. And they don't have anything to hold him on. So after a couple of hours, John skedaddles, and from that point forward, he declines further interview requests at the advice of his new lawyer.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  So is the hiring a lawyer or not taking a polygraph what causes a rift between the families?

• 40:16Ashley Flowers?

  The polygraph is what plants the first seeds of doubt with Cheryl's family. And, I mean, investigators don't like it either. They tell the press that it'll be really hard to rule him out until he agrees to sit for one. John's lawyer points out that like, listen, he's been super cooperative. He has turned over whatever financial documents they've asked for. He's given them samples of his blood, his hair. He let them hold on to his car. And he points out that, duh, polygraphs are b-yes.

• 40:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:43Ashley Flowers?

  Also, investigators wanted him to take the test with their polygrapher, like, not even like a third party or someone they picked, so like, double no.

• 40:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:51Ashley Flowers?

  But in the end, like, there's nothing investigators can do to like, make him take it, right? And so the show, or the investigation, must go on. Consistent with what John told them about Saturday night, which the Osage Beach PD mostly already confirmed anyway, investigators are able to get footage from John's traffic stop.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  And this is what year exactly?

• 41:14Ashley Flowers?

  95. I was surprised.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. And if we have footage of this traffic stop, do we have, like, other footage? Hotels, businesses?

• 41:22Ashley Flowers?

  I guess none that makes a difference. None that John ends up being on. Like, there's footage from a few gas stations where they, like, there may or may not have been sightings of him, although like, none that really pan out. To me, it's like the hotel footage that I spiral on. I'm like, in this entire resort, there's nothing showing, like, was his car there? Did he leave?

• 41:44Speaker 01

  I would say even like an entrance/exit camera showing like if he did or did not leave.

• 41:50Ashley Flowers?

  But like, nobody talks about that. The police said they looked for footage, got footage, but like, I'm like dying to know specifically about the hotel and I've never seen anything about that. So the only relevant footage is from the traffic stop, which doesn't clear John by any means, but it puts him by the resort, just like he said. So maybe they've got this all wrong? Maybe Rita was reading too much into his interest in the other case and like, it never crossed his mind since, so he's just a grieving husband. Except, there's something in the one piece of footage they have that catches her eye. Rita swears that she has seen the belt that John is wearing in that footage before. Specifically, she thinks she's seen that belt at the crime scene.

• 42:34Ashley Flowers?

  See, when the scene was processed, investigators had found a belt, just like the one in the video, rolled up on the counter in the house. Which is like weird, not a place for a belt, whatever. But again, what about the scene isn't weird?

• 42:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:48Ashley Flowers?

  And at the time, they didn't know like what to make of that without context also. Like, I leave like my shoes on the counter, so like, whatever. But now, seeing this, Rita starts to think, what if John came in, undressed completely, so that you wouldn't get blood on you, rolled up his belt for like some unknown reason, whatever, took out his family, and then like when he got redressed, left the belt behind?

• 43:13Speaker 01

  Which, like you said, might explain why there wasn't any blood on John's clothes or in his car or anywhere on him.

• 43:19Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, it might. And like, what's extra interesting is that, as far as like anything that's been reported, we've seen like, no belt was found in John's room at the resort.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  But it's on the footage of his traffic stop.

• 43:32Ashley Flowers?

  Where'd the belt go?

• 43:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:34Ashley Flowers?

  So Rita can't shake this feeling, right? Like, just when you're about to say, like, was it wrong? Like, am I reading into things? Like, you get these, like, little things. And what really seals the deal for her is this next thing. So John is posted up in a hotel room near Springfield while his house is sealed off as a crime scene. And there's this time or this point in time when investigators, Rita included, show up with a search warrant. And she talks about this on the Ozarks podcast, that, you know, when they show up, John's a good sport about this. Like, not that he has a choice. And while investigators are doing their thing, one of them is like, man, John, like, I really wish that you would talk to us some more. And Rita says at this point, this, like, smug smile takes over John's face.

• 44:18Ashley Flowers?

  And he looks her dead in the eye and says, quote, "Well, you know, I once had a very wise person tell me that the best way to stay out of prison is to never talk to the police."

• 44:30Speaker 01

  I can't say he's wrong again, always get a lawyer.

• 44:35Ashley Flowers?

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  But woof.

• 44:38Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, in that moment, Rita says any doubt that she had about his guilt just evaporates. And she is hit with the realization that John Maywell had been plotting to kill his family even back when she was in his night class. And he had all those questions about the case that she was investigating. But you don't have to be a crime junkie to know that you can't arrest a guy based on a snarky comment. And whatever they were looking for when they issued that search warrant, it doesn't seem like they find it because John is still a free man. Who does something that, again, turns a lot of heads when they finally do end up releasing his house back to him. John just, like, moves back in.

• 45:18Speaker 01

  What?

• 45:18Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, and like, so many people have issue with this because they're like, this is where your entire family, in all three bedrooms, like, your family was taken out. There's signs of this everywhere, and sure, it gets cleaned up or whatever. But like, you know, he said that that's just where he had the memories of his family. It's like where he remembers the good times and that's what he's choosing to remember.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  I don't think I could.

• 45:38Ashley Flowers?

  I don't, I couldn't. I couldn't do it, yeah. I couldn't sleep at night there. But like, also, could you sleep at night if you were the one who did it? I mean, again, you have to be a true monster to have to, I don't know. It's just like, it's something that everyone takes issue with. But he says like, the other thing I'll say is like, again, they weren't like in debt or anything, but like, I don't know their financial situation. I don't know if he could afford to. If he could have moved, yeah. Yeah, like just getting another house or like living in a hotel. Like, that's not a financial option for like most of the world. Right. So, there's that. But while he moves back in and everyone's looking at him, like investigators are losing it because they feel like the truth is right in front of them. They just can't prove it. Again, they still don't even have a motive.

• 46:21Ashley Flowers?

  They can't go to a jury with no what and how and no why. But sometime in March, investigators received a bombshell report involving those additional tests that the medical examiner ordered on Tyler. And they think that this is the thing that is finally gonna give them a why.

• 46:44Ashley Flowers?

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• 47:27Ashley Flowers?

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• 47:47Ashley Flowers?

  Do me a favor. Put all five fingers up. Now, put one down if you have workouts saved on Instagram that you haven't gone back to. Put one down if you were gonna go to a workout class this week, but there's just none that the times worked out for. Put one down if you don't like working out at home, because you don't know what to do and you need someone to push you. Put two fingers down if you want to stop this game. Babe, we are the same. I don't have a lot of time and honestly, I'm not even someone who likes working out. But Ladder actually changed that. I literally had to waddle into the studio to record this because my butt is so sore. Ladder is quick. I'm not wasting time wandering around or doing reps of something that won't matter. I'm in, I'm out. I have a coach along the way who can help me make 30 minutes with weights feel better than two hours of whatever I was doing before. And it's $1 a day.

• 48:32Ashley Flowers?

  So if price was ever stopping you before, you're officially out of excuses. Remove the guesswork with Ladder and get a real coach in your ear telling you exactly what to do for every workout. No thinking, everything planned for you. If you have an iPhone, head to ladder.fit/crimejunkie and take a quick quiz to find your perfect ladder plan. Use my link and get a free seven-day trial with no credit card and $10 off your first month if you join.

• 49:01Ashley Flowers?

  The cause of Tyler's liver damage was hepatitis B.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  What? That is not at all what I was expecting.

• 49:10Ashley Flowers?

  I know.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  Isn't Hep B usually transmitted through like sexual activity or IV drug use? Like, it's kind of rare to see it in a kid, right?

• 49:19Ashley Flowers?

  It's very unusual to see in a kid, but it's not unheard of. So there are other ways for children to contract it. Like, it can be passed from mother to child. It's also spread through bodily fluids, which means in theory, he could have picked it up at school or something like that. But it is unlikely. So, this is when investigators start to form a theory. What if John had been sexually abusing his son and Cheryl found out and threatened to turn him in? Maybe this would be enough to make him do something desperate. So, the next step, obviously, is to test both John and Cheryl for the disease. And they're like fully expecting John's results to come back positive.

• 50:03Ashley Flowers?

  But they don't, and neither do Cheryl's. Neither of them has ever had hepatitis B.

• 50:10Speaker 01

  Okay, so what does that even mean? Like, was someone else abusing Tyler?

• 50:17Ashley Flowers?

  Maybe, probably. I mean, they don't know. All they do know is that Tyler's infection didn't come from either of his parents. And listen, police were right. This would be a strong motive to kill the family, but it's a motive that now points to it being someone other than John.

• 50:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:34Ashley Flowers?

  And as they get more test results from other stuff back, more and more continues to point away from John. So while the hairs found on Cheryl's nightgown and the garage and paintbrush don't yield a full DNA profile, the lab is able to confirm that they are not consistent with John or Cheryl's hair, more than just like color, like genetically.

• 50:56Speaker 01

  And when you say hair, like, what are we talking about? Like strands, a clump? Like, what are we dealing with here?

• 51:02Ashley Flowers?

  You can count, you can count them on one hand. Like, the reddish brown hair, there was like, I think there's one of them on the nightgown. There was like a few of the gray ones, so barely any.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 51:12Ashley Flowers?

  Now, they do end up getting a hit with the semen on the bedspread. That belongs to John, but like-

• 51:18Speaker 01

  It's his bed.

• 51:19Ashley Flowers?

  His semen, his bed. Yeah, it certainly doesn't prove anything. Investigators, though, would tell you context is everything because investigators say that they end up learning Cheryl had a habit of washing the comforter on Saturdays. So if she was killed Saturday night, they allege that this puts him in the house when he says he wasn't.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  Does it, though? If he was home Saturday, and all of this could have happened after she washed the comforter, but before he left, like, that doesn't, it doesn't feel definitive to me.

• 51:49Ashley Flowers?

  It's, well, them being like intimate or anything, like, that's never part of his story.

• 51:55Speaker 01

  And do we know for sure she even washed the comforter that week, though? Like, she's running errands, she has a sick kid, her husband's going out of town for a conference. Like, I could see that being something that doesn't happen this week.

• 52:05Ashley Flowers?

  No, I agree. We don't know. There's nobody that I've seen that's been able to confirm, like, she for sure washed it that day. No.

• 52:13Speaker 01

  And like another thing I'm having trouble wrapping my head around is the motive. Like, does one actually exist?

• 52:21Ashley Flowers?

  I know.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  Murdering your wife and kids, like, doesn't feel like a sexually motivated crime? So like, where does that play into like

• 52:28Ashley Flowers?

  Right.

• 52:29Speaker 01

  this theory?

• 52:30Ashley Flowers?

  And it's strange, I mean, again, they, they've never said that she was sexually assaulted. I don't think she was. So it's more that like, they're just saying like, his semen is there. It shouldn't be there based on his story, so it puts him there, case closed. Even though like, again, if they want to say context is everything, like, okay, what's the context of it being there? Like, it does not make sense. But I think the details matter less because they think they've got their guy. And, you know, this gets, like, I think this feeling gets bolstered a little bit when investigators start realizing that John Feeney, the teacher, dad, husband, may be more of a mask than an identity. Because he is a man with a lot of needs surrounding sex and female attention.

• 53:15Ashley Flowers?

  Almost like to a compulsive degree and not always within his marriage, it turns out.

• 53:20Speaker 01

  Here we go.

• 53:22Ashley Flowers?

  Yes.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  Okay, I thought it was weird that he was driving around going dinner with another woman solo while he's out of town and his wife and kids are back at home.

• 53:29Ashley Flowers?

  Dude, I like-

• 53:29Speaker 01

  But I was like, I don't know, maybe it's me.

• 53:31Ashley Flowers?

  I know.

• 53:32Speaker 01

  No, that's kind of weird, right?

• 53:33Ashley Flowers?

  I thought so too. And I was like, yes, yeah, I thought so too. Actually, believe it or not, though, Pam tells investigators, like, that dinner thing wasn't a date. And like, again, remember this whole time, John has been adamant to investigators that he was faithful to Cheryl. Which of course is a big fat lie. Because date or no date, this time, like this night, it turns out Pam and John definitely had an affair. Like, she eventually admits to that, but she said it was very brief, happened like three or four times. They ended things the prior November and- When they were doing this, like their rendezvous were always at, you guessed it, teachers' conferences. And interestingly, Pam makes sure to clarify that it hadn't even

• 54:16Ashley Flowers?

  involved sex sex, just what she calls like intimate relations, which like, I don't know, it sounds the same to me. Like, it sounds like when like, super conservative people are like, "Well, it didn't go in there." And I'm like, my friends, like, a hole is a hole. Like, Jesus made our bodies, a hole is a hole. That's how I feel.

• 54:34Speaker 01

  Truly, truly.

• 54:35Ashley Flowers?

  Anyways, so it's not just Pam that they find. Another one of the affairs that they find out about was with this woman who claims that John used quote unquote, "mind control" on her, which is like, what? Your guess is as good as mine. I don't know if she means literally, figuratively, or what. Like, there's no one else who's saying that John, like, does witchcraft or anything wild like that. Like, so, I don't know. But she goes into detail about some of their encounters, including an especially racy one that took place on a boat involving John and her and two other men.

• 55:08Speaker 01

  And this was also at a teachers' conference?

• 55:11Ashley Flowers?

  No, no, no, no. So it seems like teachers' conferences are his, like, hunting grounds, but what happens at teachers' conferences does not always stay at teachers' conferences. So he takes that stuff right on home with him and, like, continues to act in some pretty objectionable ways. See, it turns out that John, who was put on administrative leave after the murders, has always tried really, really hard to seem cool to his students.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  No, nope, no way. No, no, no, no, no.

• 55:39Ashley Flowers?

  Some of it was in the category of like, gross but seemingly innocuous. Chris Bentley and Robert Keyes report in the Springfield News Leader that, I guess he had a thing for Cindy Crawford, and he like, made a point to joke around about it in class, especially with like, the other male students. Which like, I know he said seemingly innocuous, but like, this is not good. Red flag to anyone whose teachers is like, having conversations with them like this. Like, a teacher should never be talking about who they have a thing for. Like, it is completely and totally inappropriate type of conversation for an adult and a minor to have, especially for an adult teacher and their minor students. Like, these are the little things that you do have to watch out for, like the boundary testers. Like,

• 56:21Ashley Flowers?

  if you write off the little ones, it makes room for more and more. Like, "Oh, you're not just like, teacher and student, you're friends." Like, he gets you. So maybe it wasn't weird. It was just cool to the kids when there's this time when he buys them alcohol, which is a tip that does come in about him. Like, I guess he was at a bar and some students were there, like, who he would clearly know were underage. Like, duh, they're his students. Yeah, and he bought them some drinks. And when this came out, John actually tried to sue the investigators to get them to stop sharing further information to the press, but like, all of it ends up getting dropped. And then there are other former students who had weird experiences with John that they,

• 57:02Ashley Flowers?

  with the benefit of hindsight, feel like were John's attempts to put them in inappropriate situations, like to hang out socially, maybe even one-on-one, that kind of thing. Which takes me back to my point about, like, boundary testing, what you'd call grooming. John was for sure testing his boundaries there. But there are no reports of him coming on to or doing anything physical with a student, technically. So there is one super disturbing story from a former student, and she actually tells Ann Rodrick Jones about this in the podcast. So apparently, there was this post-graduation camping trip that John went on with some recent grads. Like, ostensibly, I would assume he's there as a chaperone. I, otherwise, I don't know why he would be there.

• 57:47Ashley Flowers?

  But he apparently saw this as a prime opportunity to cozy up to one of the girls. And according to the former student, they eventually slept together. Now, to be clear, everyone involved was 18 at the time. Like, this is after graduation, but she was a former student.

• 58:03Speaker 01

  Barely former.

• 58:04Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, and it is wildly inappropriate and manipulative and abusive power dynamics, like, all the things.

• 58:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:10Ashley Flowers?

  So, all of that to say, if there is a motive, please believe it's John's philandering. Did Cheryl know, not know? We don't know, but whether she did or not, they think John just wanted to wipe the slate clean. Start over, minus the wife and kids, and plus, a cool quarter of a million. Because guess what? They find out that John took out an additional life insurance policy on Cheryl for $250,000.

• 58:40Ashley Flowers?

  Just months before the murders, which like, well, of course he did.

• 58:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 58:45Ashley Flowers?

  They always do. And though handwriting experts believe Cheryl filled out one part of the application, they're pretty sure that the final signature is not hers. They can't prove it's John's either, but probably not Cheryl's. So like.

• 59:01Speaker 01

  That's not, that's confusing.

• 59:04Ashley Flowers?

  Like everything. Now, it's important to note, um, there was some sort of promotion thing going on that the insurance company was doing for teachers in the area at the time when Cheryl's life insurance was up. And we know this because the podcaster, Ann Rodrick Jones, she says her own aunt was a teacher in the area around this time and she remembers it. So maybe that's the reason that the coverage got up at that time. Like a lot of teachers were doing the same thing.

• 59:31Speaker 01

  But all of this just has me even more upside down on what to think about this one. There is like a lot of not great stuff here, but like nothing is flashing lights guilty to me.

• 59:44Ashley Flowers?

  Mm hmm.

• 59:44Speaker 01

  On the other hand, nothing is like totally innocent.

• 59:48Ashley Flowers?

  I know.

• 59:48Speaker 01

  Either. I truly don't know where I stand.

• 59:51Ashley Flowers?

  It's all circumstantial, right? Which is.

• 59:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:53Ashley Flowers?

  Why it is a huge deal when months into the investigation, investigators find a witness or maybe settle on a witness. It's this gas station worker from near Springfield who says that he remembers John stopping to get gas in the wee hours of that Sunday morning after the murders. And this guy's actually been on investigators radar for a while, but his original stories to police weren't super helpful timing wise, because they placed John in Springfield at a time that he couldn't have been there, which investigators knew because of the McDonald's receipt that they found in his car. But then the worker's time changed by like a good three or four hours and like presto

• 1:00:35Ashley Flowers?

  changeo, we've got ourselves an eyewitness who's going to be like the star of the show.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  Cool, cool, cool. So he's kind of useless. A halfway decent defense attorney will rip his story to shreds.

• 1:00:46Ashley Flowers?

  They're willing to take the chance because in January of 1996, they put this case before a grand jury, which John pleaded the fifth before FYI. And by April, the grand jury has returned three indictments for first degree murder. So while there might be some holes to fill in their story and their theory and their case, clearly, these grand jurors see what the police see. And the police are thinking that they're gonna have time to like shore things up before the trial. They'll like, you know, just take their time, push it out, maybe even years. Problem is, we have this little thing called a right to a speedy trial. And John's lawyers take full advantage. You wanna charge him? Let's go and let's go now.

• 1:01:28Ashley Flowers?

  So all of a sudden, the prosecution finds itself scrambling. And it sure doesn't help that the one eyewitness they have doesn't just have a questionable story that's gonna leave the jury wondering, you know, was it right the first time or the second time? The defense is not playing those games. They get their hands on the gas station attendants' time cards. And guess who wasn't even working the night that this went down?

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  So his story is completely useless.

• 1:01:56Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, it's not real. They cannot use him. So when they go to trial in September of 1996, it is without their key witness.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  Cause they don't have one.

• 1:02:05Ashley Flowers?

  Nope. And that's just the beginning of the unraveling. Over time, they had found a few friends of Cheryl's who were prepared to testify that she had confided in them about wanting a divorce. Even said maybe she was scared of John. But they end up being prohibited from testifying based on case law that, get this, actually stemmed from that case that Rita was investigating while she was in like John's night class? So the husband in that case was convicted. But actually, like, big twist, not long before John's trial, his conviction was vacated based on hearsay violations. He later got retried and acquitted, by the way. But the judge in John's case decides that this decision, the one about the hearsay violations,

• 1:02:48Ashley Flowers?

  prevents him from allowing Cheryl's friends from testifying to things that she said about their marriage. And Cheryl possibly wanting a divorce is a big deal. Remember, John's dad is a minister in the ultra-conservative Church of Christ, which at the time is like... Oh, the shame about divorce. So if Cheryl divorced him, the thinking goes it could have been super embarrassing to his family. And like, it sounds wild, but we have seen this play out before. Like, oh, divorce is awful. So let me just like go with the lesser crime of murder in the eyes of God.

• 1:03:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:03:24Ashley Flowers?

  Like, obviously sarcasm. But like, that's their argument. He wanted out, he wanted to be free, but like divorce was not an option. The thing is, this is what the defense argues, is like, John was already free. He was out sowing his wild oats. He was living his best life. But this thing actually still goes to trial. And this did he, didn't he thing plays out in court. Now, up to a point, I could see jurors leaning in either direction. But where the prosecution starts to lose them, I suspect, is when they bring up vampires.

• 1:03:58Speaker 01

  I'm sorry, Ashley, you have not brought up vampires.

• 1:04:00Ashley Flowers?

  I know.

• 1:04:01Speaker 01

  Why would the prosecutors?

• 1:04:04Ashley Flowers?

  What? So, okay. Investigators had apparently learned that John maybe sometimes plays a role playing game called Vampires of the Masquerade. And I say maybe sometimes, by the way, because some of the reporting just says he knows about the game through his students. So it's like not even 100% that he plays this game at all. Either way, think like, we talked about Dungeons and Dragons before, right? Like, it's that with vampires.

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:04:29Ashley Flowers?

  Per the prosecution, when John, a man with no history of violence, set out with the unenviable task of decimating his entire family, he just pretended he was a vampire and was killing them in his game. And I would love to say that I'm oversimplifying this, but I'm really not. Like, that's what they put forward.

• 1:04:49Speaker 01

  And I'm thinking, all of this is happening while the US is still like, peak satanic panic era.

• 1:04:55Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah. So they're like, I mean, I don't know, I don't know what they thought that they were gonna gain by this or whatever. But like, I think that they're, it's why we've seen the Dungeons and Dragons thing play out before, right? Where it's just like a game that's like a little weird, like.

• 1:05:07Speaker 01

  And like, if people don't understand it, they're afraid of it.

• 1:05:10Ashley Flowers?

  Sure. Yeah. So, again, he's acting as a vampire. This is the prosecution's story.

• 1:05:15Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 1:05:16Ashley Flowers?

  Meanwhile, the defense argues a much more believable theory than that one. That someone had been abusing Tyler, had suddenly decided that they didn't want to risk anyone finding out. And in support of this theory, they point to the hairs that don't belong to Cheryl or John, found on Cheryl.

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  And on a paintbrush used by presumably the killer.

• 1:05:39Ashley Flowers?

  Yeah, and it's very freaking possible that there might have been more physical evidence pointing to an outside intruder that just wasn't collected. So come to find out, some super important crime scenes surfaces. Like, I mean, we're talking Tyler's headboard, Jennifer's crib, for instance. Like, those were never dusted for prints. So like, the lowest of the low-hanging fruit that investigators just totally dismissed, like, botched. And again, let's go to, how did he contract Hep B? Ann-Rodrick Jones notes in her podcast that the official who tracks infectious disease cases for the county was given, like, a list of 155 names of people who had potential contact with Tyler.

• 1:06:23Ashley Flowers?

  And when they compared that to the people being tracked, like, none of those names were on the list.

• 1:06:28Speaker 01

  But does that mean it's someone they didn't know had contact with him? Or someone who wasn't being tracked? Like, there's still, like, a whole potentially in that.

• 1:06:37Ashley Flowers?

  Either. I, it's very likely that it's the second, because Hep B isn't something routinely tested for without a specific reason. But this is what's wild to me, like, they do this, like, comparison with the list, and as far as I can tell, that's about where the efforts to figure out how he got Hep B, like, stopped. So it's not like they went back and started testing people who had contact with Tyler. It's like, the second they found out it wasn't John, they're just like, oh, well, that doesn't fit our theory.

• 1:07:07Speaker 01

  So let's not investigate.

• 1:07:08Ashley Flowers?

  We don't need to find out how he got it. Like, no longer relevant. So when the jury goes to deliberate on October 5th, 1996, they are sent to do so with no forensics, no witnesses, no murder weapon, no, nothing, other than vampires and a bad husband with an arguably predatory past? And like this bad investigation to look at. So everyone is on pins and needles until the jurors come back less than five hours later with their verdict. Not guilty, not guilty, not guilty. Which, to be clear, is not a vote of confidence in the innocence of John Feeney. Right. Most of the town, jurors included, very much think he is guilty AF.

• 1:07:53Ashley Flowers?

  No one is more disappointed in the verdict than Rita, who told Ann Rodrick Jones that there was evidence that the prosecution just didn't introduce. Like, example would be the belt thing. So it's like doubly frustrating when jurors explain in interviews that they just weren't given the evidence to prove the case. Like, there was reasonable doubt. And when Ann interviews the judge who presided over the case, even he says that he wasn't surprised by the verdict. In the weeks following John's acquittal, Cheryl's family sues to prevent him from collecting on her insurance policies, although the suit doesn't really go anywhere and it is eventually dropped. John gets the proceeds, but he pledges to dedicate $50,000

• 1:08:37Ashley Flowers?

  to funding a private investigation into who really did kill his family. If he did, though, I couldn't find any evidence for it. Now, he sticks around in Springfield for a while, but at some point, he moves away, eventually landing in Ecuador, where he resumes his career. He even remarries and builds a new family. And that's pretty much the end of the story, until Ann released that season of her podcast on this case in 2022. Which, by the way, I'm gonna plug it again, Ozark's True Crime. It is a really great podcast by a team of like really great folks. I'll link to it in the show notes. Anyway, after it comes out, Ann hears from a kid who was a neighbor of John's at the time of the murders.

• 1:09:20Ashley Flowers?

  And it turns out that this kid could have been the witness that the prosecution needed, was just overlooked.

• 1:09:30Ashley Flowers?

  Someone who placed John at his house in the wee hours of the morning the night of the murders. So this neighbor, I think she said she was like nine or 10 at the time, tells Anne that she was up that night with a stomach ache. She woke up her parents sometime between 2:00 and 4:00 a.m. and they told her just like, "Go take some Pepto." And on her way back to bed, she looked out her window and saw John's bright red Mustang sitting in the frickin driveway. She even thought to herself like, "Oh, weird. Mr. Feeney never parks his bright red Mustang in his driveway." And then she went back to bed. Now, as soon as she heard about the murders, a few days later, she told her dad what she'd seen. And her dad, who could corroborate that she'd been awake that night at that time, made sure

• 1:10:15Ashley Flowers?

  she repeated the whole story to investigators. But somehow, her sighting got misplaced, or overlooked, or whatever, because when Anne interviews the prosecutor, he says that that's the first time he's hearing anything of this. Same goes for Rita.

• 1:10:31Speaker 01

  And because of double jeopardy laws, John can't be tried again with this information or not.

• 1:10:37Ashley Flowers?

  No. And I mean, like, this is the part of the episode where I would normally say, like, "If you have any tips or know anything, please call X, Y, and Z agency at whatever number." But like, this, officially at least, is a closed case. But in my opinion, it's a closed case with way too many unanswered questions. Like, have those hairs from the crime scene ever been analyzed with more advanced technology? Like, how did Tyler contract have to be? If I were law enforcement in Springfield, I don't know, I'd want to be sure. No, you can't try John Feeney again, but what if? What if it wasn't him? Police might not be listening anymore, but I don't know, I guess I am. So if you're in Springfield and you know anything, the line's open. Send me an email.

• 1:11:34Ashley Flowers?

  You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com.

• 1:11:39Speaker 01

  And you can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast.

• 1:11:42Ashley Flowers?

  We'll be back next week with a brand new episode.

• 1:12:20Ashley Flowers?

  Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. So what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?

• 1:12:30Speaker 02

  When the nights grow longer, the shadows start to stir, and that can only mean one thing. Full Body Chills is back. This season, step inside original tales where every doorway leads somewhere darker, every stranger carries a secret, and nothing is ever quite what it seems. Each story takes you somewhere new, but be careful. You never know what might follow you home. So gather round, listen close, and stream Full Body Chills wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:13:01Speaker 01

  Growing up in a small town, I know how deeply a crime can shake a local community. And I know that what makes the headlines is rarely the full story. That's what Kylie Lowe explores on her show, Dark Down East. She digs into cases from Maine and New England using original reporting, archival records, and conversations with the people who knew them best. Each episode takes you inside the communities these stories shaped and the families who never stop searching for answers. Listen to Dark Down East wherever you get your podcasts.