Joel Guy Jr.

Joel Guy Jr murdered his parents just after Thanksgiving in 2016. The crime scene that was discovered was horrific, and like many killers, this guy was sloppy and left behind a wealth of evidence. Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss Joel Guy Jr. He was 28-years-old when he murdered his parents. He had never worked a day in his life, and his parents had financed almost 10 years' worth of his college education. But, they had decided enough was enough, and Joel Jr. just couldn't live without the money. You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetime Visit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation information An Emash Digital production See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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• 1:20Speaker 00

  Hey everyone, it's Fergie here. I'm on vacation. Gibby's on vacation. He's in Greece, probably eating a bunch of good food. I'm heading to Jamaica for my daughter's wedding. So I'm probably there right now, but we didn't want to leave everybody hanging. So we wanted to put out a true crime all the time, an unsolved episode. This true crime all the time is a Patreon episode. I think we did all the way back in 2020, but at least you have something to listen to. And for 99% of you, you've never heard it. Speaking of that, if you're not signed up for Patreon, now is a great time. Enjoy the episode.

• 2:40Speaker 00

  Hello everyone and welcome to our 51st Patreon episode. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you?

• 2:50Speaker 01

  Hey man, I'm doing okay. How about you?

• 2:52Speaker 00

  I'm doing well. You know, it seems strange to announce who we are to our Patreon folks.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  That's right. We just should say what, uh, this is me and that's him.

• 3:00Speaker 00

  And you know who we are, but

• 3:02Speaker 01

  Exactly right.

• 3:03Speaker 00

  You know, I'm like, I have a routine.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  I know.

• 3:06Speaker 00

  If I don't do the routine, I get off track.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  That's why you won't let me do it in reverse. Cause you know, it's gonna throw you off.

• 3:13Speaker 00

  Yes. You've been asking to do that for some reason. I have no idea why, but you told me you can speak backwards, which I thought was strange. Sound like a record.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, kinda like my, for my dyslexia or my

• 3:29Speaker 00

  Dyslexia.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  Dyslexia.

• 3:31Speaker 00

  I should say, oh, okay. All right. Here we go. Right out of the gate. So you and I are taping, uh, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  We are.

• 3:43Speaker 00

  Obviously this episode will come out Saturday night. Um, so we can't, I can't ask you how your Thanksgiving was because I don't know. But I will say I'm excited. My daughter's home from college and so, um, and it's just the four of us. We have a lot of family that's out traveling.

• 4:00Speaker 01

  Gonna make it nice.

• 4:00Speaker 00

  It is. It's, it's gonna be really nice. Just the four of us. Uh, we don't get a lot of that. So whenever we do, I'm, I'm very happy.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Little, little movie trivia night or game or something.

• 4:12Speaker 00

  Something. We don't know.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:13Speaker 00

  We don't know. Maybe some hunter killer.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 4:16Speaker 00

  Cause I got, I got one of those upstairs, but I do want to wish everybody a, a happy Thanksgiving. Those of you who celebrate it.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:24Speaker 00

  Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had Nicole Munoz.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  Munoz.

• 4:29Speaker 00

  Morbid God.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  What's going on, Morbid?

• 4:31Speaker 00

  Ayla.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  Hey, Ayla.

• 4:33Speaker 00

  Karen Nix.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  Well, thank you, Karen.

• 4:34Speaker 00

  Molly Powell.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Well, thank you, Molly.

• 4:37Speaker 00

  Tabitha Churchward.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  What's going on, Tabitha?

• 4:40Speaker 00

  Natalie Pastura.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  Oh, Pastura.

• 4:43Speaker 00

  Ryan Hope.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  What's going on, Hope?

• 4:45Speaker 00

  Lisa Marie Hawkins.

• 4:47Speaker 01

  Hey, Lisa Marie.

• 4:48Speaker 00

  Georgia Penny.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  Hey, appreciate that, Penny.

• 4:50Speaker 00

  Michelle Bennett.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  Well, Bennett.

• 4:52Speaker 00

  Randy Zair.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  Almost like saying Randy Sayers, but Zair, yeah.

• 4:58Speaker 00

  Who's Randy Sayers?

• 4:59Speaker 01

  Isn't that the famous football player? Am I way off?

• 5:01Speaker 00

  It's Gale Sayers.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  Close. It's his, it's his, it's his third cousin from his mom's side.

• 5:07Speaker 00

  Randy, Gale.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:09Speaker 00

  What, what's the difference? Adam Reeves.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  What's going on, Reeves?

• 5:13Speaker 00

  Nicola Furlong.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Hey, Nicola.

• 5:15Speaker 00

  Melanie Hotten.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Hey, Melanie.

• 5:17Speaker 00

  Martins Julie.

• 5:19Speaker 01

  Well, thank you. Appreciate that, Martins.

• 5:21Speaker 00

  I always think like sometimes the names are backwards and it could just be how somebody entered them in.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  Could be.

• 5:29Speaker 00

  To the Patreon system, but I don't know. May not be.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  May just be their first name.

• 5:34Speaker 00

  Could be. Kelly Geis.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  What's going on, Kelly?

• 5:37Speaker 00

  And last but not least, Kimberly DeBean. That's it.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  The Bean?

• 5:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, I thought there was something to come after that, but that's it.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  The Bean.

• 5:45Speaker 00

  The Bean. Then if we go back into the vault. This week, we selected Kate Fleming.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  Thank you, Kate.

• 5:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, we appreciate all the support. We always do. It's amazing. All right, Gibbs, are you ready to get into this Patreon episode?

• 5:58Speaker 01

  I'm ready.

• 5:59Speaker 00

  We're headed to Tennessee to talk about Joel Guy Jr.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:05Speaker 00

  This is a guy who murdered and dismembered his parents at Thanksgiving time in 2016. So, like I said, this episode comes out a couple of days after Thanksgiving. So I feel okay with telling the story. I wouldn't want people listening to it, you know, right before Thanksgiving.

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:24Speaker 00

  You know, hopefully by the time you're hearing this. All the turkeys kind of cleaned up. Your family is gone.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:31Speaker 00

  They've left and, and you can just listen to the story.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  You're just laying on the couch relaxing.

• 6:37Speaker 00

  Yeah. Now I will say it's a pretty brutal one. There's no doubt about that. Joel Guy Jr. Was born on March 13th, 1988 to Joel Senior and Lisa Guy. He had three sisters. I didn't find a whole lot about his childhood. This isn't really a childhood type story.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:56Speaker 00

  But some of the sources said that, you know, he had sisters, some called them half sisters. It was kind of hard to tell. He graduated high school, went on to college. But unlike you Gibbs, you know, he wasn't earning his degrees at in record time.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  It's hard to do that, you know?

• 7:14Speaker 00

  Well, not everybody can be like you.

• 7:16Speaker 01

  Absolutely not.

• 7:17Speaker 00

  Let's, let's just get that out there right now. I was not like you. I was no Doogie Howser. I will admit that.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:24Speaker 00

  So this guy attended a few different colleges and you know, he spent like nine or 10 years in college without really accomplishing what he wanted to do. That's a long time.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  It is, but there's other people that go through that.

• 7:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was gonna say it, it happens to people.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:44Speaker 00

  Especially, um, if you don't know what you want to do.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 7:50Speaker 00

  Right? Going into college, number one, college can be tough for many, many people.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  It can be.

• 7:55Speaker 00

  And sometimes it's really hard to figure out, okay, what do I want to do? And you might try this and you go down a path of maybe a whole year and decide, I don't like this at all.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 8:07Speaker 00

  So you switch and, and I get four, five, six years. Now nine or 10, you know, you should be a plastic surgeon, doctor. At one point I think he was trying to be a plastic surgeon.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  There's some people just like to be a full-time, all the time student, you know?

• 8:22Speaker 00

  And I, I think, okay, that may have been him.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:27Speaker 00

  Bounced around a little, but it's one of the things that caused tension in, in the household because Joel Senior and Lisa, his mom and dad, they paid for his tuition, you know, the entire time.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Oh, well, that's, that could be a problem. I mean, look, I. I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up.

• 8:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, you'll figure it out.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:49Speaker 00

  Someday.

• 8:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:50Speaker 00

  Someday. I think you should be a spokesman, maybe for AARP. That would be a good goal.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  It could be.

• 8:57Speaker 00

  You could be one right now.

• 9:00Speaker 00

  You don't need to wait.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  That's true. I've already hit that. I already.

• 9:04Speaker 00

  I know.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  Went over that threshold.

• 9:05Speaker 00

  But you know, as a guy who has one daughter getting ready to graduate.

• 9:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:11Speaker 00

  From college and another one who's going next year. Okay, I can understand kind of the financial implications of college. I understand the equation.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:24Speaker 00

  You know, it's, it's tough. You want to help your kids out, but dad gone, man. You look at the bills of some of these colleges and you're like, who am I Rockefeller?

• 9:36Speaker 01

  They think you are.

• 9:37Speaker 00

  They think I am.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:39Speaker 00

  But you do what you can, right? I think that's what every parent strives to do. Okay, you can't pay for everything. Not everybody can. I get that. We try to help out as much as we can. Now, they were paying for the whole thing is, is what I understood, everything I read for nine or 10 years. And there'll be more that comes out about.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  They're probably like.

• 10:01Speaker 00

  The financial piece.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  Maybe this is the year. Maybe this is the year that he's gonna.

• 10:06Speaker 00

  I'm sure every year they were thinking that. It, it came out later at trial that, uh, Joel Guy Jr. had gotten into some legal trouble. While he was at LSU, that's one of the colleges he went to. And his parents even took out a mortgage to help him out of this legal trouble. So, I mean, they were behind him 100%. They were, you know, trying to help him succeed, no doubt. But as Thanksgiving 2016 approached, you know, there was a lot going on in the Guy family. Joel Senior was six year, one years old and had recently lost his job at an engineering firm. I think he had a really good job. I think he was making, you know, some good bank.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  We had to if he was, uh, put that university bills.

• 10:52Speaker 00

  Yeah. And because he wasn't the only child, there were other. You know, kids involved, you know, in the mix too. Fifty five year old Lisa worked at another engineering firm. She wasn't an engineer. I don't know the exact title of her job. My understanding was that she stayed home with the kids and then once they got to be a certain age, you know, she went out and she got a job, but she was helping support the family as well. I just know that there was a lot in the research about the fact that she didn't make as much as he did.

• 11:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:27Speaker 00

  She wasn't a full blown engineer and I think he was so. But the pair had been married for like 31 years. They had six grandchildren.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  Wow, big family.

• 11:38Speaker 00

  Well, those are expensive too. Kids are expensive. Grand, I don't have grandchildren yet. Find me some wood, please, but I know they're expensive as well, can be. So what happened was the couple made the decision to sell their family home in West Knox County and try to retire to a home in, I think it was Rogersville, Tennessee.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 12:03Speaker 00

  And this was a home, I think, that was in the family.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 12:06Speaker 00

  Maybe had been left

• 12:07Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 12:08Speaker 00

  to them or something.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Limited mortgage, probably.

• 12:11Speaker 00

  Probably maybe no mortgage.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, that helps out when you lose your job that you don't have to worry about a mortgage.

• 12:16Speaker 00

  Well, especially if you're trying to retire.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:18Speaker 00

  Kind of hard to retire when you got a big ass mortgage payment.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 12:22Speaker 00

  That's for sure.

• 12:25Speaker 00

  So, you know, this family had been in the home for years. So I think Gibbs, from what I read, everything I read and what friends and family said, obviously later on, was that the couple was really looking forward to this 2016 Thanksgiving. I mean, I always look forward to Thanksgiving, but this one, I think they were looking at it as kind of a really big deal.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  The last one in the family house with everybody together.

• 12:55Speaker 00

  Maybe the last time we're all gonna be together. I don't know, but for sure, the last time we're all gonna be together in this house.

• 13:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:02Speaker 00

  And that would be a big deal.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  It would be. It's a lot of memories right there.

• 13:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, you think about the, the house that you raised, you know, all your, your kids in and.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:12Speaker 00

  Man, yeah, I think about at some point selling this home and it's gonna be tough. I've lived here 20 years.

• 13:20Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 13:21Speaker 00

  So essentially both of my kids, it's the only house they really ha- have ever, um, known.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  And I know it's rougher when you think about the six years I've been coming here.

• 13:30Speaker 00

  It is. All those memories.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  Really what holds you back.

• 13:34Speaker 00

  Uh, I would be a trillionaire if I had all the money back that I've spent on your dinners for the last six years.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  I, I would pay. I would. I would.

• 13:43Speaker 00

  You say that after the meal has already been consumed.

• 13:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. I don't, I just don't, I really honestly, I don't know where my wallet is. I, I had it.

• 13:51Speaker 00

  It's never here. It's never with you.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I might've left it on my, uh, kitchen counter.

• 13:55Speaker 00

  I think is, is the thing.

• 13:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:57Speaker 00

  So the other thing is the house was already up for sale and I think it was already sold, actually.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Just needed to close.

• 14:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, I hadn't, I don't think it had closed yet. So like we said, last Thanksgiving, you know, in this house, the kids were already out of the house. They were living on their own. So Joel Guy Jr. was 28 years old at this point, unemployed and living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he had attended Louisiana State University.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:29Speaker 00

  The sources were kinda all over the map. You know, some said that he dropped out in 2015. Later on, sources said that he was a student at LSU. Some referred to him as a non-matriculating student.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  Matriculating.

• 14:48Speaker 00

  And, and I, I don't know, was he enrolled, but he wasn't take, I don't know. Who knows?

• 14:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:54Speaker 00

  He wasn't getting all that far is what it sounds like.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  Maybe he's, maybe he's enjoyed the campus life.

• 15:01Speaker 00

  Well, who do, who wouldn't?

• 15:03Speaker 01

  You know, the campus life.

• 15:04Speaker 00

  If mom and dad are footing the bill and you don't have any financial responsibility.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:11Speaker 00

  Really to, to speak of, who wouldn't wanna stay in college, man? College is awesome.

• 15:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think there's been a few movies made about, uh. About that.

• 15:20Speaker 00

  About college?

• 15:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, about be being in college for longer than the normal.

• 15:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  Three to five years.

• 15:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, maybe, uh, I mean, I'm thinking Animal House.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure.

• 15:30Speaker 00

  I'm also thinking that what's that one where they they don't actually go back to college per se, but they start the fraternity?

• 15:37Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah. What is that?

• 15:38Speaker 00

  With Will Ferrell and and all those guys?

• 15:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:41Speaker 00

  Vince Vaughn.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  Vince Vaughn.

• 15:43Speaker 00

  It's a good movie.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  Old school.

• 15:44Speaker 00

  Old school.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. And Ryan Reynolds is one where he plays a long time.

• 15:49Speaker 00

  Van Wilder?

• 15:50Speaker 01

  Van Wilder.

• 15:51Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:52Speaker 00

  So I mentioned this financial situation, right? There are a lot of sources that said Joel senior losing his job and really kind of everything they had going on with that was a determining factor in Joel senior and Lisa coming to the conclusion that they they had to cut Joel junior off.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:15Speaker 00

  At a certain point, if you don't have the money, you can't do it.

• 16:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you say, look, son, we're coming up on year 10.

• 16:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  We're gonna have to let you go at this point.

• 16:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, this it's a very important part of the story. There are, there were some reports that there were emails, maybe shown at trial.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:36Speaker 00

  That went back as far as maybe 2012, 2013, where Joel senior was emailing Joel junior and saying, hey, what's going on? We can't keep this situation going.

• 16:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 16:50Speaker 00

  But for whatever reason, they didn't cut it off. It went, you know, maybe three or three or four years after.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  Strange what you do for your kids when you know that you probably should stop doing whatever you're doing.

• 17:01Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  But you continue doing it because.

• 17:04Speaker 00

  They're your kids.

• 17:05Speaker 01

  Your kids.

• 17:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, you you want to help your kids. I I get that. So Joel Jr. Drove up from Louisiana for Thanksgiving in his 2006 Hyundai Sonata, the same exact model that that you drove over here today.

• 17:23Speaker 01

  It's amazing model, man.

• 17:24Speaker 00

  2006.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:26Speaker 00

  Why, why get something new? Uh, his half sisters, I, I'm gonna call him his sisters because I'm really on the fence with that. It was, it was not apparent in the reporting. They drove in for Thanksgiving as well. This is gonna be the whole family together.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  They're all there at the La Casa.

• 17:44Speaker 00

  And from what the sisters would later tell investigators, Thanksgiving went off without a hitch. It went well. A good time was had by all.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  It wasn't like that, uh, movie with, uh, Holly Hunter and, uh, the guy played, uh,

• 18:01Speaker 00

  Did you just go?

• 18:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, he had a little circle on his chest. Robert Downey Jr.

• 18:05Speaker 00

  I have not seen a movie with Robert Downey Jr. And-

• 18:08Speaker 01

  Plays that movie Marvel with the whole-

• 18:09Speaker 00

  Oh, I've seen Iron Man.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  Iron Man, yeah.

• 18:12Speaker 00

  I don't, I've never seen a movie with Robert Downey Jr. And Holly Hunter.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, it's called, uh, it's a Thanksgiving movie.

• 18:19Speaker 00

  It's, it's called, it's a Thanksgiving movie. That's what they named it? It's a Thanksgiving movie.

• 18:25Speaker 01

  Home for the holidays, I think. Maybe I'm wrong.

• 18:28Speaker 00

  Hmm, that sounds like a Christmas movie.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  No, it's a Thanksgiving only movie. It's hilarious. It's hilarious, man.

• 18:33Speaker 00

  I've never seen, I've never even heard of it.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. If you've never seen it, you gotta watch it.

• 18:38Speaker 00

  I will watch it.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:40Speaker 00

  Um, when I watched the Incredible Mr. Limpet.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  Oh, this is, this is, I don't know if it's better.

• 18:48Speaker 00

  Now you're in a, a real conundrum.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  Tough one. No, you're have to catch it out.

• 18:52Speaker 00

  It's a real Sophie's Choice you got, you got going on there. So the big thing, right? They have the, the dinner.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:59Speaker 00

  Everything is fine.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  That's good.

• 19:01Speaker 00

  Good time had by all.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:04Speaker 00

  And even the sisters would later say, everybody was normal.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  Everybody, hey, had their stretchy pants on, they were happy.

• 19:11Speaker 00

  Yep. And, but they all left, right? The sisters, they all left after Thanksgiving. While Joel Jr. Stayed behind for the weekend. The Knoxville News Sentinel reported that according to Knox County Sheriff's Office Major Michael McLean. Sometime between Friday night and midday Saturday. They believe that Joel Jr. Attacked his parents with a knife, possibly tortured them. And dismembered their bodies, leaving remains in various rooms of this 2,300 square foot home. He said that the door was left unlocked and they believed, right at this time,

• 19:55Speaker 00

  as the reporting was coming out, that it was, it was Joel Jr. And he drove back to Louisiana.

• 20:02Speaker 01

  Let me think, how could I stay in college a little bit longer? Oh, I don't know. Let me take this knife and murder my parents? That's gonna let me stay in college longer?

• 20:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, we're gonna have to get into that. And you know, this wasn't really a long drawn out investigation. It didn't take long at all for the authorities to link Joel Guy Jr. To the murders. The Knoxville News Sentinel reported that Knox County Sheriff's Detective Jeremy McCord. Went to the guy home after they received a report from Lisa Guy's employer that said, she didn't show up for work after Thanksgiving, the Monday after Thanksgiving.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  That's a concern.

• 20:42Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I think they got blown off at first. I read in one paper that they weren't happy. The police weren't taking it seriously because she had some kind of big time meeting. That she would have never missed on Monday.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  No doubt she would have been there.

• 20:59Speaker 00

  So they ended up calling or going up the chain.

• 21:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:03Speaker 00

  And getting somebody that would take them seriously.

• 21:08Speaker 00

  And that led to this Jeremy McCord guy.

• 21:13Speaker 00

  Going out to the home and he said the for sale sign was still in the yard when he got there around noon on Monday. So still, you know, everything happening very quickly. Thursday is Thanksgiving. They believe the murders happened Friday, Saturday. Obviously, nobody knows until Monday that anything's wrong because she doesn't show up for work. McCord later testified that he could feel heat emanating from a doorway and he caught a whiff of chemicals in the air.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  Not good, potentially not good.

• 21:47Speaker 00

  But yeah, I would say probably never good.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:52Speaker 00

  I have a real sensitive nose, so I don't, my wife likes to burn a lot of candles.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:00Speaker 00

  Dry and she has these plug in sense things that spray.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  Oh, mist every now and then?

• 22:08Speaker 00

  Oh, my gosh. And if she puts it in a room that's too small, she put one in the laundry room a couple of weeks ago and I thought I was going to have an attack. It was an attack on my senses to walk through the garage.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  Just make this place smell good.

• 22:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  I mean, it does smell good up there, by the way. It's like a cinnamon.

• 22:28Speaker 00

  I get it.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  Field right now.

• 22:30Speaker 00

  I get it. Yeah. My wife's already got the Christmas decorations out.

• 22:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I seen that.

• 22:34Speaker 00

  Sometimes it's too much. Sometimes it's too much. So.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  What I didn't see was my present, but go ahead.

• 22:40Speaker 00

  No, no, you won't see that.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:43Speaker 00

  Especially now, maybe never. This guy also said that he saw groceries spilled on the floor in the foyer. He later said in court that he was afraid something bad had happened to the guys. And so he didn't want to wait for a warrant. And, you know, obviously you can get into that whole thing of probable cause, or, you know, you see something that allows you to not have to get a warrant. When he searched the home, he found what was an unimaginable scene. He said there was blood everywhere. It was on the carpet. It was up all the walls.

• 23:23Speaker 00

  He found Lisa Guy's severed head in a pot of boiling liquid on the stove. He found Joel Guy Senior's severed hands on the floor of the bedroom. And he found both of the couples severed torsos in plastic containers in the bathroom.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  Blood of anger.

• 23:46Speaker 00

  Well, yes, on the part of the person who did it.

• 23:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:50Speaker 00

  Absolutely. I also think it's kind of a tough day to be this police officer.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  Really tough. It's gonna be hard to not recall that again and again and again.

• 24:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're gonna have to live with that. He also stated that he saw scissors and clothing that appeared to have been cut from a body as well as a large knife. He saw bottles of peroxide, bleach, acid, and rubbing alcohol. He said he could smell the stench of death mixed with these chemicals.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  If you want to vomit.

• 24:21Speaker 00

  It does, but it's really painting a picture.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Sure, sure is, yeah.

• 24:25Speaker 00

  You know, the smell. You're finding a head boiling on the stove. Severed, you know, hands, torsos. Rough day.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  Extremely.

• 24:38Speaker 00

  For this individual who, you know, was the first on the scene and found everything. Major Michael McLean told the Knoxville New Sentinel that Joel placed pieces of the bodies in an acid-based solution in an attempt to destroy evidence.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 24:56Speaker 00

  He said that the solution that he used was composed of normal household chemicals and didn't require any special knowledge of chemistry. The type of stuff that you could buy straight off the internet.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  Well, can't you get off the internet?

• 25:10Speaker 00

  Well, yes, that's true.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:12Speaker 00

  It's a little scary, I think.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  Really scary.

• 25:14Speaker 00

  And that's not, we're not even talking about the dark web. I don't fully understand the dark web.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 25:21Speaker 00

  But only explained by what I've seen in movies and stuff. But it sounds like you can get just about anything you want.

• 25:28Speaker 01

  You can.

• 25:29Speaker 00

  Off there.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:30Speaker 00

  I don't even think he's talking about that. I just think he's talking about Amazon. You can go on Amazon, buy all these chemicals, put them together and...

• 25:38Speaker 01

  Definitely surprising what you can get off of that site.

• 25:41Speaker 00

  Well, but they're not made for that.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  No, no, no.

• 25:43Speaker 00

  Obviously, they have real intended purposes.

• 25:46Speaker 01

  But if you know how to use certain things or look up...

• 25:49Speaker 00

  On, yeah, you can Google all just about anything, right?

• 25:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:53Speaker 00

  That, that, that's a scary thing. The information is great.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:57Speaker 00

  The ability that we have, right? The information at our fingertips is great. The problem is if you have someone who's intent on doing something bad, they can get that information that they need pretty quickly.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 26:12Speaker 00

  You know, how to make a, a, a pipe bomb. I'm sure it's out there. I've, I've never looked for it.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's out there.

• 26:19Speaker 00

  Okay. I, I will take your word for it, but you know, the, the, what, what was the bombs they used in Columbine? With the, um, the pressure cooker.

• 26:29Speaker 01

  Pressure cookers?

• 26:29Speaker 00

  Pressure cooker bomb.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  Boston Marathon too.

• 26:31Speaker 00

  Yes, that, that type of stuff scares me.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  It's all out there, man.

• 26:34Speaker 00

  That it's all out there, but you know, it's kind of the, the price that you pay for having the information, the good type of information.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:44Speaker 00

  You're gonna have to live with that.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  Freedom of information.

• 26:47Speaker 00

  Being out there as well. The Knoxville News Sentinel reported that Lisa and Joel Guy Senior were last seen alive on Friday when they moved a boat to a relative's house. So this is the day after Thanksgiving. The house is sold. They haven't transferred ownership yet. They're still moving some stuff out. Right? I did talk about the house already being sold.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  You did.

• 27:10Speaker 00

  They're planning on moving. Apparently the new owners, the people that bought the house, they showed up while the forensic team was processing, were moving evidence.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  Can you imagine?

• 27:25Speaker 00

  No.

• 27:25Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 27:26Speaker 00

  You know, I, again, I have no idea who bought this home.

• 27:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:29Speaker 00

  It, it could have been their dream home. Right? They're, they're moving from this or their first home. I don't know. But when you find out that not only were two people, not only did two people die.

• 27:42Speaker 01

  You're right.

• 27:43Speaker 00

  There, cause that to me would be something to process.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 27:48Speaker 00

  We're talking about they were murdered and not only that, they were dismembered.

• 27:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:55Speaker 00

  In a very gruesome fashion.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  And found in different parts of the house.

• 27:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Not one central area, but. Unfortunately scouted about.

• 28:04Speaker 00

  I, I think, I think we gotta figure out how to back out of this sale.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:09Speaker 00

  And we'll find something else.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, cuz I'll never use that oven.

• 28:13Speaker 00

  No.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  Again.

• 28:14Speaker 00

  The stove, the bathtub, we'll find out a, a lot of places were, uh,

• 28:21Speaker 00

  were used.

• 28:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:22Speaker 00

  For things that you would never wanna have to think about again.

• 28:25Speaker 01

  Enough bleach in the world.

• 28:26Speaker 00

  Especially every time you used it.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:28Speaker 00

  Where every time you stepped foot in that house.

• 28:30Speaker 01

  I just, I just wouldn't wanna be in that house anymore.

• 28:32Speaker 00

  No, absolutely. I, I can't imagine anybody would.

• 28:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:36Speaker 00

  So I said it didn't take long, right, to link Junior to the murders. By that Tuesday, the day after his mom didn't show up for work, he was arrested outside of his apartment by Knox County Sheriff's Officers. So they went down to Louisiana. That's where he was living. They were joined by members of the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office, the FBI, Andy Swatting.

• 29:04Speaker 01

  Had full force ready to go.

• 29:05Speaker 00

  Well, they weren't messing around.

• 29:06Speaker 01

  No.

• 29:07Speaker 00

  Um, now, when he was arrested, it was noted that he had, um, wounds to his hands. And we'll talk about those, um, well, let's talk about now. Basically, what prosecutors later said at trial was that these wounds were slices.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:27Speaker 00

  That he suffered to his hands while he was struggling with his dad.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  Cause his dad just wasn't gonna give up.

• 29:33Speaker 00

  No, and there was a lot in the information about the fact that his dad was bigger than him.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:40Speaker 00

  You know, his dad was not a guy that he was just going to overpower.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:45Speaker 00

  You know?

• 29:46Speaker 01

  Obviously, probably had to take him by surprise or some.

• 29:49Speaker 00

  You know, I.

• 29:50Speaker 01

  Type of force.

• 29:50Speaker 00

  I'll tell you what, Gibbs, I don't care, you know, fifty-five, sixty years old, some guys just have strength.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:59Speaker 00

  And maybe a 28 year old poses no shot at overpowering them. Now it can work the other way.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  They can.

• 30:08Speaker 00

  Easily, because we we lose muscle mass as we as we get older and all of that stuff. But I've known some guys in their 50s, even into their 60s, who were, I call it farm strong.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:20Speaker 00

  Because of where I where we live.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  Sure, yeah, yeah.

• 30:22Speaker 00

  A lot of guys that I played basketball with when I was young, 40s, 50s and 60s, they would show up at open gym to play with this.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:31Speaker 00

  And these guys, their hands were like vices. If they got a hold of the ball, there was nothing you could do because they worked in concrete. They worked laying bricks or they worked on the farm, baling hay or whatever it was.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  I can crack a walnut between my middle finger and my index finger.

• 30:51Speaker 00

  Okay, I thought you were gonna go somewhere else with that. I can pick up a cord now. I thought you were gonna go in a completely different direction.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:00Speaker 00

  So how does one find out that they can crack a walnut between two fingers that shouldn't be used to crack a walnut?

• 31:06Speaker 01

  I just did one day. I wanted to see if I could do it.

• 31:07Speaker 00

  All right.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:08Speaker 00

  So you've got some digit strength is what you're telling me?

• 31:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:12Speaker 00

  So Joel Guy Jr. was charged with two counts of first degree murder. This happened in 2016, but his trial didn't begin until late 2020. And this delay in large part seemed to center around a bunch of challenges by his public defenders on evidence searches. We'll get into a little bit of of what the those were, but they challenged everything, right? The search of his stuff at the house where the murders occurred. He said, well, he wasn't a resident, so they didn't have any right to do it. They challenged the searches

• 31:52Speaker 00

  in Louisiana at his apartment. It was a battle that dragged on for years. And then obviously, once it finally got settled, they could move forward with the trial. But you know, even before that prosecution came out and said that they would not seek the death penalty, even though a lot of outlets reported that Guy wanted it. He asked for it.

• 32:16Speaker 01

  He did.

• 32:17Speaker 00

  We've heard that before.

• 32:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 32:19Speaker 00

  You know, I don't understand it other than I think there are people who just say, I don't want to spend the rest of my life in prison.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  He was 28 years old. So,

• 32:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:31Speaker 01

  you know, it's a long time to spend in prison, the rest of your life.

• 32:35Speaker 00

  It is.

• 32:36Speaker 01

  At that age.

• 32:37Speaker 00

  It is. So a jury of five men and seven women would decide his fate. It was reported by the Knoxville Sentinel that this was one of the first trials and definitely one of the most serious ones to be held in Tennessee since the pandemic started in earlier in March.

• 32:56Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 32:57Speaker 00

  So, you know, we're in that timeframe, right? 2020. How many cases have we talked about where trials got pushed back, got pushed back? Apparently, you know, he had tried to delay the trial, citing his concerns about the pandemic. Sure, he was really worried about COVID.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  Especially since he wanted to

• 33:20Speaker 00

  Die.

• 33:20Speaker 01

  Die. So why would you care? But okay.

• 33:23Speaker 00

  We know.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:24Speaker 00

  We know what he was trying to do. And I'm not making light of COVID at all, or the pandemic, but we know what this guy was trying to do. So one of his sisters came out against the delay. And according to the Tennessean, she appeared by video link in court from her classroom. She was a teacher.

• 33:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:44Speaker 00

  And she told the judge, Judge Sword, that she was back to work. Her children were attending school despite the pandemic. She said, the world is continuing. Why shouldn't the trial continue?

• 33:59Speaker 01

  Good point.

• 33:59Speaker 00

  Y'all are affecting the lives of other people. Yeah. I mean, it is a good point. I understand there were definitely precautions put in place, but the judge ultimately denied his request for a delay. So authorities laid out their theory before the trial even started. And basically it was simple, right? They said that Lisa and Guy senior told Joel junior that they were going to cut him off financially. And so he decided to kill them and try to get money from their deaths.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  Cause he really thought that one through and that was going to work out in his favor.

• 34:36Speaker 00

  It was pure greed, right?

• 34:37Speaker 01

  Right. I mean, we know he's not the, I was gonna start to say, you know, he's really not the smartest guy. I was gonna say that because he's hasn't, he doesn't really ever finish anything.

• 34:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, it, it was said that he was competent. I saw one word used that academically, he was competent. He wasn't the head of his class. He wasn't an overachiever or anything like that. But obviously he graduated high school and went to college and, and did that stuff.

• 35:09Speaker 01

  I call them floaters.

• 35:10Speaker 00

  Floater? He was a floater?

• 35:12Speaker 01

  He was just gonna float through life as long as he could.

• 35:14Speaker 00

  Oh, I definitely think it by the end of this, it, that will become apparent.

• 35:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, there, there's no doubt about that. So just before the trial was set to start, he essentially fired his attorneys and he made a motion to represent himself.

• 35:29Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 35:30Speaker 00

  Which I know you always love.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:31Speaker 00

  You get a kick out of that.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  That goes so well.

• 35:34Speaker 00

  And so they, they went back and forth on that, but it came out in the end that he really only wanted to represent himself on one issue. And it was this motion to force the state to execute him if he was found guilty.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 35:50Speaker 00

  He really wanted to die if he was found guilty.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, please don't make me stay in jail, prison for a lifetime.

• 35:57Speaker 00

  For, for a lifetime. So he, from what I understood is the public defenders wouldn't file it. And so that's what he had the, the beef with.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:06Speaker 00

  But once the judge kind of talked to him about it and they came to this understanding that that was really the only thing he was worried about. The judge said, okay. When it gets to that point, you can represent yourself and file your own motion. And so he allowed the public defenders to defend him.

• 36:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:25Speaker 00

  And his trial, um, and his defense attorneys didn't make a bunch of motions. Basically to try to keep, um, people from testifying, his, some of his sisters.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm sure it wasn't going to be good for him.

• 36:41Speaker 00

  No, no, because, and we'll talk about it maybe when we get to trial, but you know, they're, they're going to say some of the things that we've already said, their parents were, were going to cut him off.

• 36:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:54Speaker 00

  And, and some things like that. He also tried to keep out of evidence, a recording of a, a jail phone call between himself and a guy named Michael McCracken. I don't really know who Michael McCracken is. The papers didn't say, you know, what relationship the two had, but on this, he, uh, supposedly admitted to the murders.

• 37:17Speaker 01

  Cause I guess he can't see that sign above the phones that says, this call is being recorded.

• 37:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, never. People never see it. They never think about it. So I, I said that authorities originally came out and said that he decided to murder his parents after they said that they were going to cut him off. When they got time for, to, for trial though, prosecutors presented evidence that Joel Guy Jr. had a notebook in his backpack, which kind of detailed out, um, how to commit the murders. And he had it at the time that they all ate Thanksgiving dinner.

• 37:55Speaker 01

  Oh, so like they're eating dinner. He's over there just like taking little notes and they're like, oh, look, he's studying for his test.

• 38:02Speaker 00

  I don't think he was writing in the journal. I just think he had it with him. But, but what that means, right? Once that revelation comes out, it means that he had already made the decision to kill. Now maybe he knew.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  Premeditated.

• 38:16Speaker 00

  Yeah. Oh, we're going to talk about premeditation a lot.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:19Speaker 00

  But maybe he already knew that his parents were thinking about cutting him off. His, his dad for sure had brought it up before. But later at trial, prosecutors told jurors that Joel Guy Jr. began to plan the murders as early as November 7.

• 38:35Speaker 01

  Oh, weeks.

• 38:36Speaker 00

  Weeks.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  That time. Yeah.

• 38:38Speaker 00

  Weeks before Thanksgiving. But I want to talk about this notebook, right? It was introduced at trial. It was a huge piece of evidence. And I want to read just some of the entries from just one page of it. It's a little lengthy, but it sheds so much light. And, you know, all the papers mentioned that the prosecutors, they just kept bringing this notebook up. They called it a book of premeditation is basically what they called it in court. So these are just bullet points that he had written down.

• 39:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 39:11Speaker 00

  Minimize things I touch throughout visit. Wear gloves and socks to prevent fingerprints and footprints. Drop something down the garbage disposal to break it. Get him on the ground. Kill him with the knife. Clean up the mess from him before she gets home. Kill her with knife. Take dog with you. Place her in the shower. Turn on hot water to get rid of forensics. Remove her clothes and take with me. Place him in plastic bin and use it to get him into the upstairs bathroom. Cut off his arm and plant his flesh under her fingernails.

• 39:54Speaker 00

  Place her hand with his DNA so that his DNA is not washed away by the shower. Wipe down kill room. Set her phone to send me a text message on Sunday to prove that I was in Baton Rouge when she was still alive. So again, these are just some of the ones.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:15Speaker 00

  I just cherry picked out some of the entries that he had in, that he had in there.

• 40:20Speaker 01

  Disturbing.

• 40:21Speaker 00

  Oh, very disturbing. I mean, according to the USA Today, there were five pages of this stuff in this notebook. The entries were very detailed and covered every little precise detail on how to commit the murders, how to dismember the bodies, how to dissolve them, and even how much he would profit from his parents' life insurance policies.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  Well, of course, he did his homework.

• 40:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, he did.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:54Speaker 00

  It's a scary thing. There were even balance sheets that kind of showed his parents' assets and life insurance policies. The Knoxville New Sentinel reported that Lisa's insurance policy was structured so that her son and her husband would split the proceeds if she died first. If her husband died first, then he would get it all.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 41:18Speaker 00

  So, you know, when I read that, it does kind of make more sense that maybe these three sisters were half-sisters belonging to his dad.

• 41:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 41:29Speaker 00

  And that he was his mother's only biological child.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 41:35Speaker 00

  When you read the structure of the life insurance policy, that does make, that does make some sense. But I just read, you know, these things, right? It's kind of a to-do list. You and I talked last week about people who make to-do lists and like to check them off.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:52Speaker 00

  But I think there's a couple of things that you definitely see here. One is premeditation. I think that that's a no-brainer. If you're a killer and you want to leave evidence of premeditation, just do what this guy did. Just write down in a notebook every single thing that you plan to do.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  And save it.

• 42:13Speaker 00

  And save it. The other thing you see is, is just how callous that this guy was.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  Extremely.

• 42:19Speaker 00

  I mean, as I was kind of reading those, you know, I'm, I'm, we always talk about the question, how could someone do something like this, like what we just talked about to their apparent, their parents? How could you even sit down and write this stuff out?

• 42:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, three weeks ahead of time.

• 42:40Speaker 00

  Thinking that I'm going to carry these acts out against my parents.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:46Speaker 00

  It's just, it's just so callous. And the way, the way that he wrote it was, you know, kill her.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:52Speaker 00

  Do this to him.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  Very cold.

• 42:54Speaker 00

  Very, very cold. And, you know, one thing that I really found interesting is that it came out in court that investigators found this backpack at his parents' house after the murders in the room where he was sleeping. So here's the part that, well, besides murdering your, his parents, I just could not understand. When you think about this notebook.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 43:20Speaker 00

  Five detailed pages.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:23Speaker 00

  This guy went through all of the trouble in planning to write down all of these entries to follow in a notebook. And you said, okay, write it all down.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:35Speaker 00

  Save it. Then after he commits the murders, he leaves the backpack with the notebook inside.

• 43:43Speaker 01

  Why?

• 43:44Speaker 00

  Doesn't make any sense.

• 43:45Speaker 01

  Does not.

• 43:46Speaker 00

  Right? There were even entries about burning down the house to get rid of evidence, which we know he didn't do.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:53Speaker 00

  Now prosecutors would later assert that the only reason he didn't follow his own entries was because of the injuries to his hand.

• 44:03Speaker 01

  From his dad.

• 44:04Speaker 00

  Right. He somehow got sliced in this tussle with his dad and they thought that that was the reason why he couldn't follow through on, you know, all of the things that he had in his, his notebook. It was also reported during the trial that while he was in jail, you know, he's a, he's awaiting trial, he tried to collect on the life insurance.

• 44:28Speaker 01

  Really?

• 44:29Speaker 00

  Yeah. He wrote to the life insurance company, I hereby assert the continuing validity of my claims to the insurance proceeds totaling $696,666.68 plus applicable interest.

• 44:48Speaker 01

  So not only is he trying to get the money, he wants interest on top of that?

• 44:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:52Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 44:53Speaker 00

  Yeah. While he's

• 44:55Speaker 01

  On trial.

• 44:56Speaker 00

  Waiting to go on trial for the murders. And, you know, I guess he spent a lot of time corresponding with this life insurance and it actually turned in, I didn't go into it in detail, but it actually turned into kind of a courtroom battle as well with the insurance company saying, well, we know we got to pay someone.

• 45:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 45:18Speaker 00

  But we don't want to pay him. And what he would say is that until I'm a convicted murderer, that rule doesn't kick in, so you should pay me.

• 45:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:30Speaker 00

  And it was a back and forth and, I mean, they never did, but he kept pressing it and pressing it.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, scary.

• 45:39Speaker 00

  So, you know, when you, you know, we're not going to get real in depth with the trial, but suffice to say, it was pretty hard for him to get out from under this notebook, right? It was very detailed.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:53Speaker 00

  Not only gave the reasons for the murder, but also how it was to be committed. And, um, most of the, the paper said that his defense team, they didn't ask a lot of questions, they didn't really present evidence.

• 46:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:13Speaker 00

  I don't know what they could have done.

• 46:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, it didn't look good for him from the get go. So what are you going to do to?

• 46:17Speaker 00

  Right.

• 46:18Speaker 01

  I don't think you want to give them anything more than they already have, and you could risk that by going too far with your.

• 46:26Speaker 00

  Well, my, my kind of thought was you're probably not going to ask too many questions of these witnesses because you don't want to hear what they have to say.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 46:35Speaker 00

  None of the questions or none of the answers, I should say, are probably going to paint your defendant in a good light. Now, you can be crafty in the questions, but you also, you have some people who can be real crafty with their answers.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 46:50Speaker 00

  So I kind of get it. I think they were, they were in a tough spot.

• 46:53Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure.

• 46:54Speaker 00

  No doubt about it. Prosecutors told the jury that Joel Guy Senior sustained 42 wounds. Lisa sustained 31, and we talked about it, right? This was a very gruesome scene that jurors had to hear about. And you know that the prosecution had to lay it all out there, every single nasty detail.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  For his family to hear.

• 47:20Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, I mean, but I think also you want to paint this guy truly as the monster he is.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely. This is the time to do it.

• 47:32Speaker 00

  So as much as you would really hate for these jurors to have to kind of see all these pictures and hear all the details, you kind of got to do it.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  This is your one opportunity to put the cases forward as best as you can.

• 47:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, and you want them to see him as the absolute monster that he was. His sisters testified against him, as did some other people. Like I said, we're not going to go into a lot of detail about the trial. I wanted this episode to be a little bit shorter just because it's Thanksgiving week.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:06Speaker 00

  I got four things to, to edit.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 48:09Speaker 00

  But I also thought this was a very fascinating case.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  It is.

• 48:13Speaker 00

  But again, I want to go back to the, the notebook, right? Such a huge piece of evidence. Basically what the prosecutors did with it is they would read entries out of the notebook and then they would tie evidence that they had to the entry.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 48:32Speaker 00

  So one would be like, um, get sledgehammer, crush bones. Well, they found a sledgehammer at the scene.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:41Speaker 00

  So pretty easy to tie those two together. Another red get killing knives. They found the knives at the scene.

• 48:48Speaker 01

  Everything was lining up.

• 48:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, and, and, you know, just like leaving the notebook. It seems to me as though he followed some of the instructions that he had written down, but he didn't really follow any of the instructions regarding cleaning up, disposing of clothes.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  Get rid of the notebook.

• 49:08Speaker 00

  Get rid of the notebook, disposing of the bodies, you know? And, and you kind of have to think about, okay, why was that? Was it as the prosecutors asserted that, okay, he got his hands cut up? And he just couldn't do certain things? Or was it that he got to a certain point in this whole nastiness? And just was like, I can't do this anymore.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 49:35Speaker 00

  I don't know. I don't know that he, he's ever said anything about it. He didn't take the stand, so.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  It's a possibility, though.

• 49:43Speaker 00

  There's, I thought, maybe, maybe it was. Because he would have sustained those cuts before he did some of the, the nasty things that, that he did. So he was able to, to use his hands at that point. So I wasn't sure about that. The Knoxville News Sentinel reported that Prosecutor Sanchez and Nacios told jurors in their closing arguments that the guys were planning to retire. And they were planning to quit paying their son's bills. Joel Guy Jr. Was then 28 years old, had never held the job, and had been taking college courses for a decade.

• 50:23Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 50:24Speaker 00

  By that point.

• 50:25Speaker 01

  Sure, yeah.

• 50:26Speaker 00

  You know, so they're, they're trying to hammer home the reason why him being cut off would be devastating to him. The guys wanted to retire and they deserved to retire. The motive is pretty apparent in this case. It's money, half a million dollars in life insurance proceeds. That's what this case is about. They brought up that date, November 7th, as the date when he decided to kill his parents. And they backed it up by, you know, telling and showing the jury that's when he started going out to, um, different stores and buying knives, chemicals.

• 51:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:07Speaker 00

  Plastic sheeting, all the stuff that Dexter.

• 51:10Speaker 01

  Would have bought.

• 51:11Speaker 00

  Would have bought, would have had on him all the things that this guy would have needed to carry out his plan. And they obviously had done all the research and investigation. By this point, they had the receipts. They, they could tie him to all of this stuff. And that's really how they came up with the November 7th date. You don't go out to buy all the stuff that you eventually use in a murder, if you're not already planning on, you know, doing something pretty bad.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  That was definitely true.

• 51:42Speaker 00

  Now, speaking of Dexter, I think anybody who has watched that show kind of knows that Dexter went out of his way, right? He might buy plastic sheeting here.

• 51:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:53Speaker 00

  He's gonna buy something else in a much different place at a different time.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's why Dexter was Dexter.

• 52:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, part of the reason why maybe he got away with it as long as he did.

• 52:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:07Speaker 00

  I also think about Breaking Bad. You know, Walt kind of did the same thing.

• 52:12Speaker 01

  He did.

• 52:13Speaker 00

  He wouldn't buy all of his supplies at one store. So he didn't have a big shopping cart full of everything that he needed to make the meth. He'd buy a little, you know, he'd buy one thing here and one thing over here.

• 52:25Speaker 01

  Not to set off any radars.

• 52:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Guy Jr.'s public defenders. Like I said, they, they really presented no evidence on his behalf. Joel Jr. Didn't take the stand, already said that. Really, all his defense team tried to do was to call into question any forensic testing and tell the jury that this wasn't a man set on committing two murders. And they, they tried to back that up by saying, you know, he was happy at Thanksgiving. Even his sisters said he was happy at Thanksgiving.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, but they don't know, what was he thinking before he got there, right?

• 53:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:05Speaker 01

  Those weeks that added up to Thanksgiving.

• 53:07Speaker 00

  Well, also, if your plan is to wait for everybody, you know, a lot of the family to leave.

• 53:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:15Speaker 00

  And you're planning on doing this the next day, the day after, are you gonna sit there and be sullen and nasty?

• 53:21Speaker 01

  No.

• 53:21Speaker 00

  No, you're gonna put on your happy face, which is actually what the prosecutors came back and said.

• 53:27Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 53:27Speaker 00

  You know, he put on an act because that's what he wanted his sisters to think. Hey, he's doing good. He's happy. He's in a good place.

• 53:36Speaker 01

  They got his sisters to leave.

• 53:37Speaker 00

  I think they were gonna leave anyway, but they got them not to think or, you know, question what's going on with Joel Jr.

• 53:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:47Speaker 00

  No, he seemed, he seemed fine.

• 53:48Speaker 01

  Even normal.

• 53:49Speaker 00

  We're not worried about him. But really, you know, when it comes back to the defense, kids, what could they do with this kind of mountain of evidence against them? Attack the science, the testing, which the defense attorneys always try to do, and then use the old, the old, use his own sister's testimony kind of against him.

• 54:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:12Speaker 00

  In saying that he seemed fine at Thanksgiving. Oh, well, then he, he couldn't be a murderer.

• 54:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:21Speaker 00

  But we know that's not true.

• 54:22Speaker 01

  That's not true. Exactly right.

• 54:23Speaker 00

  His trial only lasted four days. Pretty short.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  It is short.

• 54:27Speaker 00

  After three hours of deliberation on Friday, October 2nd, 2020, the jury found him guilty of two counts of first degree murder, three counts of felony murder, and two counts of abuse of a corpse. Judge Sword imposed an automatic life sentence with the possibility of parole after 51 years for each of the murder convictions.

• 54:52Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 54:53Speaker 00

  We already knew he wasn't going to get the death penalty.

• 54:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 54:55Speaker 00

  They weren't even going after that, but they didn't rule at the time, or the judge didn't rule at the time whether these sentences were going to be consecutive or concurrent. That's a big deal.

• 55:09Speaker 01

  It is a big deal.

• 55:10Speaker 00

  Right. Concurrent, still a life sentence. You're still not coming up for parole for 51 years.

• 55:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:17Speaker 00

  He's gonna be, what, 79 years old?

• 55:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 55:21Speaker 00

  No, no, I'm sorry. Because by, no, well, it goes back.

• 55:25Speaker 01

  It goes back.

• 55:25Speaker 00

  It goes back. So 79 years.

• 55:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:27Speaker 00

  Old, 80 years, whatever, give or take. So basically, what the judge said was that he was gonna have a hearing later on to determine it. That hearing, as reported by the Knoxville News Sentinel, was held on November 19th. And at the hearing, the judge ruled that the life sentence, sentences were to be served one after another.

• 55:50Speaker 01

  Okay, so two life sentences?

• 55:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, but to me, the parole.

• 55:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 55:56Speaker 00

  Is the big deal.

• 55:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:57Speaker 00

  Right? Because now, does that mean you're not eligible for 102 years?

• 56:02Speaker 01

  That's how I look at it.

• 56:03Speaker 00

  Because it's not concurrent, it's consecutive.

• 56:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 56:07Speaker 00

  Either way, it doesn't seem as though this guy will probably barring some type of appeal or something happening, I just don't think he'll ever get out.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  No, I don't think so either.

• 56:18Speaker 00

  And I don't think he should get out, you know? I would have been okay if they would have gone after him for the death penalty, if he would have, you know, ultimately been executed, I would have been okay with that. I'm totally fine with a life sentence. What I would not want is for this individual to really ever re-enter society, ever.

• 56:43Speaker 01

  No, you shouldn't.

• 56:45Speaker 00

  You know, the judge also tacked on an additional four years for abusing a corpse, but he, he really chastised this guy. He called the crime pure evil overkill. That sounds like something you would say.

• 56:59Speaker 01

  I would.

• 56:59Speaker 00

  Because you do like to talk about overkill.

• 57:02Speaker 01

  I say it a lot.

• 57:04Speaker 00

  The judge said, "This is the most extreme abuse of a corpse case I've seen in 25 years, and I hope it's the most serious that I'll see in my career." It was bad. I don't know how many judges have seen that type of stuff.

• 57:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wouldn't want to see those photos, those videos of the crime scene, none of that.

• 57:23Speaker 00

  I mean, judges see a lot of really bad stuff.

• 57:26Speaker 01

  They do.

• 57:27Speaker 00

  We always talk about juries. We don't really talk about judges that much because it's kind of their job. But I think it's got to be rough on them to see so much carnage and, and death and just bad people doing bad things. He also said, "I don't see potential for rehabilitation of Mr. Guy. I was watching him during the trial. He showed absolutely no remorse or despair over seeing what he had done. Quite frankly, Mr. Guy, you look like you're kind of proud of what you've accomplished." And I thought that was a very interesting statement by the judge.

• 58:09Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 58:10Speaker 00

  You know, if you think about it, the judge is kind of watching the defendant.

• 58:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, observing for sure.

• 58:17Speaker 00

  Observing everything that's going on throughout the trial. And at the end of it, he's basically saying, you know, hey, sit, we sat here for four days. I've watched you, and not just the four days, because they had a lot of other hearings and things.

• 58:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:34Speaker 00

  He's saying, you're a POS, you've been a POS, you'll always be a POS.

• 58:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:39Speaker 00

  There's, you know, whatever rehabilitation efforts there might be in prison, they're not going to work for you.

• 58:46Speaker 01

  No.

• 58:47Speaker 00

  Is essentially what the judge is saying.

• 58:49Speaker 01

  You're a.

• 58:50Speaker 00

  Or he doesn't believe they were.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  Helpless cause.

• 58:52Speaker 00

  Incorrigible.

• 58:54Speaker 01

  Incorrigible?

• 58:56Speaker 00

  What is?

• 58:57Speaker 01

  Incorrigible?

• 58:58Speaker 00

  In what?

• 58:59Speaker 01

  That's what it sounded like to me.

• 59:01Speaker 00

  Who said what?

• 59:01Speaker 01

  I don't know. Where what? Who was on first?

• 59:04Speaker 00

  Incorrigible. Um, yeah, he just basically came out and said it.

• 59:08Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 59:08Speaker 00

  But, you know, we've heard that as well. The no remorse thing we hear all the time.

• 59:13Speaker 01

  Sure we do.

• 59:14Speaker 00

  Especially with serial killers, because I don't think there is any remorse. Most likely in a lot of them, there's no empathy.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  No.

• 59:20Speaker 00

  Um, speaking of empathy, I'm watching the patient.

• 59:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:26Speaker 00

  With my wife.

• 59:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:28Speaker 00

  And we're almost done. We're like, I think we just finished episode eight. There's 10 episodes. And he talks a lot about empathy.

• 59:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:36Speaker 00

  And that, you know, that young guy, he is really good actor. He does a really good job of kind of portraying what I think kind of a serial killer or a lot of serial killers are like.

• 59:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 59:51Speaker 00

  You know, it's like he doesn't understand what someone else is going through or and doesn't care.

• 59:57Speaker 01

  Care, does not care.

• 59:58Speaker 00

  And you can see it, this actor does a pretty good job.

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:02Speaker 00

  Um, I recommend it if, you know, I haven't seen the whole thing, so I don't know how it's going to end.

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  It is good.

• 1:00:07Speaker 00

  But don't give it away.

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  Well, that doesn't give it away. Ends good. It's a good ending. Doesn't mean it's.

• 1:00:12Speaker 00

  Now you're giving more away. Now it's a good ending?

• 1:00:14Speaker 01

  It's a bad ending. I don't know. It's an ending.

• 1:00:16Speaker 00

  Don't give anything. No, but I do. I really, I think he does a pretty good job of kind of putting it out there of what at least I think.

• 1:00:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:27Speaker 00

  A lot of killers would be like in real life. He's, he's a little obsessive compulsive.

• 1:00:33Speaker 01

  He is.

• 1:00:34Speaker 00

  You see him every now and then like straightening things up and I'm not giving anything away, but, um, yeah. Yeah, I got it. But that's it, man. That's it for our episode on Joel Guy Jr. I just found it to be such a, such a waste.

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure.

• 1:00:53Speaker 00

  You know, on all fronts. It sounds like this guy kind of just wasted his life. He was aimless. You called him a floater.

• 1:01:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:02Speaker 00

  His parents gave him so much.

• 1:01:04Speaker 01

  Well, the opportunity.

• 1:01:05Speaker 00

  They were paying for him to try to make something out of his life. And for whatever reason, he never seemed to quite get there. And then at the first inkling that, okay, they're not going to help me anymore. Instead of, you know, putting on his big boy pants and saying, all right, I gotta get a job. If I want to go to school, I gotta get a job, pay for myself, maybe take out some loans, do whatever I gotta do. No, he went as some people do, this route of what's the easiest way?

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, let me take a shortcut.

• 1:01:46Speaker 00

  Yeah. Where's, where's, what's the shortcut? So that I can get my hands on, on a bunch of money. The sad thing is the shortcut involves killing your parents? These people that have been behind you your whole life?

• 1:01:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:01:59Speaker 00

  And that's your first thought. It's unbelievable to me.

• 1:02:02Speaker 01

  It is. But like you said, all this stuff happens. It's, it's a, to me, it's just a nightmare that it happened the way it happened.

• 1:02:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  You know, just.

• 1:02:16Speaker 00

  And it was like the, the judge said, going on about how's one of the worst cases he's ever seen. I mean, dismembering your mom.

• 1:02:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:24Speaker 00

  And dad and.

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

  Dad on the pot on the oven.

• 1:02:26Speaker 00

  Oh, just, just nasty stuff.

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

  Happy Thanksgiving.

• 1:02:30Speaker 00

  Happy Thanksgiving, but that's why I, I wanted to do it once Thanksgiving was over.

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:34Speaker 00

  You notice I didn't put it out last Saturday.

• 1:02:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:02:37Speaker 00

  You know, I didn't want people thinking about that as they were, you know, kind of going in for the turkey. Now you and I have to because we're taping the day before Thanksgiving, but that's just on us.

• 1:02:49Speaker 01

  Just watch out when you reheat your leftovers.

• 1:02:51Speaker 00

  Exactly. But that's it. We love you.

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  We do.

• 1:02:54Speaker 00

  We appreciate everything you do for us. We'll be back next Saturday with um with our normal weekly sneak previews.

• 1:03:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:03Speaker 00

  And then I think the Patreon episode next month is probably gonna come out early.

• 1:03:09Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:03:10Speaker 00

  I think because we're trying to take a vacation.

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:14Speaker 00

  Trying to take a week off, so may try to get it done early.

• 1:03:17Speaker 01

  I get to go with you now?

• 1:03:17Speaker 00

  No, you do not.

• 1:03:18Speaker 01

  You just said we.

• 1:03:19Speaker 00

  We, as in separately, we are taking a week off and uh.

• 1:03:25Speaker 01

  You keep, you know, changing it up.

• 1:03:27Speaker 00

  I can barely afford this vacation as it is, man. I definitely cannot afford to fly your ass all the way to Orlando and and pay for your park tickets and all that.

• 1:03:38Speaker 01

  You take care of all that. I'll get my own breakfast.

• 1:03:41Speaker 00

  Actually, that's that's saying something because I don't know when the last time you were at Disney.

• 1:03:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:48Speaker 00

  But the food is outrageously expensive.

• 1:03:50Speaker 01

  The hotel we're at, is it gonna be free continental? Oh, well, I mean, maybe rethink that.

• 1:03:55Speaker 00

  No, this is not the Holiday Inn Express or the the Clarion that you stay at all the time.

• 1:04:00Speaker 01

  Get a little box of cereal with some milk.

• 1:04:02Speaker 00

  On uh on business. It's not one of those business hotels.

• 1:04:07Speaker 01

  That's a problem.

• 1:04:08Speaker 00

  Now, every meal is gonna be eight million dollars.

• 1:04:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, that's because the pancakes have to look like a certain, you know, personality at the park.

• 1:04:16Speaker 00

  That we can't name for trademarking for.

• 1:04:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:19Speaker 00

  All right, we will talk to you next week.

• 1:04:22Speaker 01

  See ya. Bye.