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Fighting for Justice: The Unresolved Case of Jimmy Townsend ft. The Uncle of the Unsolved!

• elfaudio • Episode 20

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Speaker 1:

Hey guys, this is episode 20, and normally this is the part where I would do a cold intro, which is where I usually say something spicy or enticing. But this one's gonna be different, because this story is important for more reasons than one, and what we hope to do in this episode is spread awareness, create noise and to be able to have as many people as possible understanding that this is something that needs to be fixed, needs to be solved, and it can be so. Just on that note, I wanted to put it out there at the very beginning of the episode to make sure that everybody heard it, because I know it doesn't always everybody doesn't always make it to the end. So right now we're trying to light a fire, and that fire starts with every single one of you that listen, no matter where you're located, no matter where you live. You can help and in the show notes of whatever podcast platform you're looking at or listening to and even if you can't find it there, you can go to my TikTok, my Twitter or YouTube Any of those will have the link for the petition for this case in the show notes. Okay, so you have plenty of options to be able to find it and to be able to help make a difference, if you feel so moved, and by the end of this episode, we hope that you are.

Speaker 1:

Hey guys, welcome to episode 20. This is going to be Justice for Jimmy Townsend. I'm Kelly and I'm Uncle Sawyer and this is going to be I'm thinking this is going to be one of the more important episodes that we've done. I think definitely probably the most important so far, really important, because we work directly with the family on this one and it feels more personal. So we're going to try to do right by them, right, uncle Sawyer?

Speaker 1:

Yes, it's definitely the first one that we actually contacted people that were relatives or related to the person involved in the crime or case. I guess Right, right, and actually this is an email suggestion Ms Dodie Allen, who is a really good friend of the family. She knew the victim. She contacted me by email and asked us to cover this case and we'll get on the subject of Ms Dodie later, but that's where this came from and they were more than willing to speak with us and answer all of our questions.

Speaker 1:

And in this episode, our listeners get the privilege of actually hearing directly from the family via the interview that we did so. We're really excited for this and we're actually like you heard guys heard in the intro we want this to do something to help, so everybody that listens it literally won't take but a few seconds to go click, click on that petition, go sign and just be a part of helping this family finally get something that has been long overdue to them. So, that being said, justice for Jimmy, justice hashtag. Justice for Jimmy, it's a thing. Hashbrowns, hashtags. Hash browns are delicious.

Speaker 2:

Great Now.

Speaker 1:

I'm hungry. Same Damn you, all right. So first off, I want to introduce you to the family member that you'll be hearing from. Her name is Christy. She is the daughter of our victim.

Speaker 2:

I was born August 24th of 85. And my dad, his name is Jimmy Townsend, he was 13. And my mother was 16.

Speaker 1:

She has been trying for years now to get acknowledgement, to get relief, to get somebody to listen, to get somebody to speak up. So she's dedicated and, as you see, she probably gets that fighting spirit directly from her father, and her father is the victim. His name is Jimmy. He was born in December 20th 1971. And, yes, this is one of the older ones, but is still, to this day, unsolved, although I do believe it has been as of last year. I think it was technically reopened, but he was born 1971.

Speaker 1:

And Christy, his daughter, was born August 24th of 85. Yes, he was only 13. But when we're talking about this case, that is literally the most irrelevant bit of information that any of you can take away from this. So we're going to scoot right past it, because, regardless of how old he was, regardless of any other situation or circumstances, no one deserves what happened. Also, his mother of Christy was 16. Yeah, she was 16 at the time, so it's only three years apart. Right, it was a different world in the 70s. You know what I mean? Yeah, man, so he was an only child and, for all intents and purposes, he was a normal 13 year old, except for the fact that he was known as an exceptional athlete.

Speaker 2:

Just started boxing. For two years he was actually a boxer, a baseball player. He played football. He was really really good in baseball.

Speaker 1:

He was also involved with his community. I mean just an all around all American kid, 13 years old. 13 years old and he was the size of a 16, 17 year old. Well, you guys can look at, see the pictures yourself. It was everything that I've got very athletically built.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, he ate his cornbread and definitely well built, stocky kid. He got some good genes. And speaking of the boxing, he actually won a contest by a local boxing promotion company. What he won was a lunch with smoking, joe Frazier. So do you have any idea who that is or why he's famous?

Speaker 2:

He was a boxer.

Speaker 1:

Okay, yes, moving on. So if you're not a big boxing fan, I'm not really but everybody knows who Muhammad Ali is, right Like it's a whole thing. Smoking Joe Frazier actually beat him. He beat Muhammad Ali at Madison Square Garden and this was known as the fight of the century, and then he held the heavyweight champion for like five years before he gave it up and decided to go help his community back in Philadelphia. He also had a gold medal from the 1964 Olympics in boxing.

Speaker 1:

So I mean pretty big deal, Especially for kids. You know, in bumpkin I was gonna say the other one, Louisiana who don't really have options and opportunities to meet famous people, especially black community, especially at that time they didn't have a lot of role models to look up to. But smoking Joe Frazier, one of those big ones. He was part of the winner package or whatever, and turned out that Jimmy won and so he got to go have lunch and they actually did a whole write up and in the paper about him winning and going to meet and going to hang out with him. So in those pictures will also be available on the website and so this would have been a very big honor for anybody, but apparently it also was a point of contention, jealousy, all of those things. In 1985, Christy was born, and that same year, in September, her dad, Jimmy, went to the Arclamis Fair, which they still have up in Monroe.

Speaker 2:

That had happened. He was with his friends and he was riding rides. Everything was cool. He knew my mom would have to come and pick him up at 12 o'clock, so he and two of his other friends partake. Whenever I say partake, they were all designed and they were smoking it before my mom all came to pick him up so they were behind by the farmers market which is on the back end of the fair, because the fair is at our Monroe Civic Center.

Speaker 1:

They went to the let's call it the shady side of the convention center.

Speaker 2:

The stocks?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, probably Whatever it was. It was on the least lit side where teenagers could go to do things they would probably not rather be seen doing in public. So, yeah, they were lightened up, they had some weed and they were over there smoking it before Jimmy's mom got back to pick him up, because he's 13.

Speaker 2:

He can't drive, so when he, when him and his friend was back there smoking, he was confronted by five guys and how it was described to me, they were in like a half moon shape, my dad being on the end, two friends to his right and then the five guys in front of the end, if you can get that description. The guy on the other end tried to call from my dad was Bo Leggad. They're all black. They were in a gang. The name of it was the Lane Gang around here, and even the cops were scared of them.

Speaker 1:

I couldn't actually find anything on the Lane Gang. It just it doesn't exist. I don't know if that's because they didn't write up about it a lot. Like the only gang that I could find that was associated with that name was based out of Florida. I don't know if they like rolled over and had like a part of it here or tried to start one Like I don't know, I'm not for sure or if it's like an extension of the Florida based one. I really I really don't know. My outside research information was very limited. They had multiple and repeated incidents that were blamed on likely gang activity in the area. Like even this same night that this happened, there was another kid at that same fair who got beat up by a group of guys that actually matched the same description as Jimmy, whose name was Jim, and he got beat up.

Speaker 2:

So when they came up, there were several people walking up behind them, but they were still a good distance behind them.

Speaker 2:

And I know the story from the two guys that was with my dad, his two friends. I have talked to both of them. One of them is now passed away and one of them is they both had like PTSD from this. So when the gang came up to him, the Bo-Legged guy asked them to buy some weed and they were like no, we're good. You see, like he showed them the joint, they started smoking. Well, it pissed them off.

Speaker 1:

And they were already looking for a fight. They were going to fight, no matter what was that insurger said. Like no matter how that conversation went. The group of five that walked up were looking to engage in an altercation.

Speaker 2:

That's just my take the Bo-Legged guy. I'm going to call him Bo-Legged because that's the only thing that I know of him, right?

Speaker 1:

now. So for the rest of the episode, I'm going to refer to one of them as the Bo-Legged guy, because that's all the information we have.

Speaker 2:

He came up and he punched my dad. My dad punched him back.

Speaker 1:

Jimmy has no like. He's a stocky kid and he knows how to fight. He's very athletic and, of course, his reaction when he got punched in the face, he punched him right back and, according to what the witnesses said at the time, he actually broke Old Boy's nose and when that happened, you know, everybody like the guys, all the guys that came with him was coming up to him, and then that's when they split.

Speaker 2:

So the two guys that was with my dad was running, running away and my dad should have been right there behind him, but he wasn't. He ran another way and they followed my dad. They were looking for him because there was a couple fights that night and another guy there that was attacked. His name was Jim and he also had blonde hair and was from the same school that my dad went to.

Speaker 1:

They got around to like the front of the fair and were waiting on Jimmy and realized that he wasn't coming.

Speaker 2:

And when they called it to my dad, that's when the fight happened.

Speaker 1:

The last they saw of him was that Jimmy was still fighting back and trying to fight off all the guys that were around him and holding his own for the most part. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough. You get five against one. I mean, those were pretty, pretty shitty odds. So he fought back with everything he had. He would hit one, the other ones would hit him in the back of the head or whatever. Eventually they got him on the ground and were kicking, punching, hitting. He was fighting for his life.

Speaker 2:

That's when he lost his life. He lost that fight. The fight was so bad he literally died. Fighting for his life the definition of fighting for your life was what he did. Can you imagine being in the center of seven guys being hit from every angle? You know, just when you turn around to hit somebody, you're getting hit from behind. You hit everywhere, yeah. And then not only that, that's not enough. When he falls down to the ground, they just put a tough kick in on him. It's just so bad that his organs couldn't be donated. They were in pieces. They dislocated his body from his cranial.

Speaker 2:

That was the final blow, I would believe, after that lady hit him in the car. It was actually a 19-year-old. There were several witnesses there. When the fair workers and the cops got up to him, you know he'd done half-bound movements and all that. You know it was pretty much kind of gone. But they rushed into the hospital and put him on a vent and that was breathing for him. That was enough for his dad. My dad bought to come in town. Unless he got in town, they took him off.

Speaker 1:

I can't imagine, especially when I'm about to tell you his actual extent of injuries. I don't know how he was even breathing well enough for them to put him on a ventilator. So once they actually did the autopsy, his cause of death was actually listed. Now Get this.

Speaker 2:

He had shaken baby syndrome, which is really he was 13. Normally shaken baby syndrome is, you know, when you are an infant and being shook by a parent so hard, your brain is rattling in your skull. That's what happened to him. He's so swollen.

Speaker 1:

And for those of you who may or may not know the specifics of that, shaken baby syndrome is a condition usually only given to children under the age of 5, because your brain does not fuse to your skull completely until after age 5. So what happens is your brain has this little bit of space or this little gap in between your skull and your brain and when you shake a baby, that causes severe hemorrhages on your brain or brain bleeds because it has enough room to bounce around in there and create damage. Normally it's only in. I've never heard of it being assigned to anyone over 5 or 6 years old, and all that tells you about this incident is that the level of violence was ridiculously high.

Speaker 1:

According to what Christy said, she knows because again, we don't have the full autopsy because this is still technically an open case now and I believe she's working on getting a FOIA request or a Freedom of Information Act request to be able to get the case file and whatever information they do have. But as of right now she's just had a couple glimpses at the documents and just goes off of what information that she has been relayed to her. I know for a fact his kidneys could not be weighed because they were pulverized. There wasn't enough left of them inside of his body for them to be weighed on autopsy. So, knowing all of that, the fact that he was still breathing is just a testament to the amount of fight this kid had in him, and I mean it's just absolutely incredible. So while he's in the hospital fighting for his life or waiting for his dad to get there so they can at least have a chance to say goodbye to their 13-year-old only child.

Speaker 2:

The kid that was with him was at the police station doing a lie detector test because the cops thought they were in on it. They thought that they killed him. Instead of listening to him, he listened to him and telling him what happened.

Speaker 1:

And they both passed. But it was crazy to me, like why would they hang around? Why would they just? And the amount of violence that was inflicted on them? They had to have been able to see either their hands or whatever. There would have been blood on their clothes, something, some kind of imagery, some kind of evidence of what they would have done if they would have done it Right. So if they were the one who beat him this severely, they would have had some signs of it. I don't know, I wasn't there. So they passed those lie detectors and then, finally, they started listening to them as witnesses instead of suspects and, from what I understand, they had at least four other witnesses within the first 24 or 48 hours.

Speaker 2:

Tons, I mean hundreds of people, Hundreds of kids. There was just a homeless guy. He witnessed it, but he was so drunk out of his mind they didn't really take a statement into consideration. He didn't really think that he was telling the truth or just bulls-rush.

Speaker 1:

I guess you could say and apparently he said he saw everything and could tell them exactly who it was. But they kind of wrote him off because he was a homeless drunk and they just disregarded the information for whatever reason. And then there was also a Gang members yeah, yeah, a girlfriend of one of the gang members that. Now, this gang, from what we understand, was called the Lang gang and we'll get into the motive here in just a second. But, like, if you do anything about gangs, you know there's usually some type of initiation and that initiation usually involves some sort of violence, and random violence at that. Now, the girlfriend that they got into an interview room. They actually got a name from her and this was the same person that she named. That was later brought in for a photo lineup.

Speaker 2:

She gave a statement and then it led to his friends having a photo on us going. And they picked out the same guy.

Speaker 1:

Both Shane and Anthony both of the other two friends identified the same person as one of the people that were there that beat Jimmy to death and positively identified, took him into an interview room. He was a minor, I don't know exactly what age, but he was under 18. And apparently he gave a full confession. Not only did he give a full confession, but he also named names, at least one, probably more. But the reason I say, or the reason we were even here talking about this, was because you had a confession. So why is this an unsolved case? Because within three to four hours he recanted Apparently someone had hired a hotshot attorney for him and attorney came in and said you guys have nothing, release my client. He recants, he's not talking without me ever again.

Speaker 1:

And because nobody was present when they did the interview, none of it could be used. It was all inadmissible. That was probably one of the arguments. I honestly don't know. I don't know how it was in the 70s. I don't even know if they had those rights. Things were very loosey-goosey back then. But either way, there went that and then I think they had plenty of witnesses. You know what I mean, because this wasn't like. It was something that you know was just off in the middle of the woods somewhere in the desolate no, this was right outside the fair, like it's not, like they didn't have people with an earshot that probably would have heard something. And then come to find out from the friends that were there.

Speaker 1:

Jimmy knew the people that walked up on them. According to the friends, like he knew. Maybe he wasn't like good friends with them, but he knew who they were, the boxing class and stuff that he was in. I believe, or they were all in the same kind of contest, and there were members of the gang that were in that contest as well and they lost to Jimmy.

Speaker 1:

So this is a theory and speculation station, but it could be assumed that not only were they jealous because they didn't get to go to lunch with Frazier, but they got beat by this white boy. And now, because they have a new member to initiate, or what have you, they have an easy target Like, oh well, this guy pissed us off because he beat us. We should have won, let's go, he's the person you should beat up for whatever. And you know, all of those are guesses, all of those are possibilities, but which? The more I think about it the less. I think that's what it actually was, because if it were to be an initiation of some sort, it wouldn't have been all of them, it would have been just one of them Right just the one guy.

Speaker 1:

right, that's what I was thinking. What I'm thinking the more along the lines of it was, the wrong person got crossed inside the group, went back to the group and said, hey, this guy crossed me, we got to go get him. And then they all went and got him, which is more like it. That sounds more Actually. Yeah, because you're right, the initiation thing. They usually make them do it themselves, because if they can't hold their own, then they're not going to be in.

Speaker 1:

They do it by themselves. They didn't think. No audience, they don't go watch, they send them alone. Yeah, I didn't know that part, but I didn't know they had to do it by themselves. Yeah, because it's If you don't do what you're supposed to, if you're not the winner, if you don't prevail, then you're not allowed to be in the gang or whatever Bloody and bled out homie or something like that. That's okay. Look, I know that because of Angela Johnson. Don't come at me, it's not. That's literally where that came from. Yeah, so In my head anyway, we're not affiliated with any gangs or crews.

Speaker 1:

No, not even a little bit, the whitest of white girls.

Speaker 2:

Alright you guys know that You've seen my.

Speaker 1:

TikToks Trying to catch me, white and nerdy.

Speaker 2:

Trying to catch me white and nerdy.

Speaker 1:

So they get the confession, but they recant and they actually and this is where it gets kind of confusing and this is where we don't have a lot of information Remember, this was 38 years ago, literally 39, in September of this year but we have the limited information that we have. I believe the daughter, miss Chrissy. I know she has more information, but from our sitting area and from what she told us, I don't know for sure which one of these people if they're the same people and like Boleg a guy, is really the only one that we have pinpointed. There's another one that and pinpointed the strong word Right. We technically still don't know his name, and Chrissy doesn't even know his name the daughter.

Speaker 1:

So that same night, though, there was another one of the gang, or it may have been Boleg a guy, I'm not sure. He went to the hospital and they found out later and, like I said, I don't know if he was one of the ones that was not the Boleg a guy or if he was a Boleg a guy. I just don't know for sure. I know that he was also interviewed and I actually think they pulled in, oh god, at least 75 to 100 different kids from the area to talk to and, you know, do an interview with. I actually have the news clip that I got from Chrissy. Pretty much all of the documentation and stuff that I'll post along with this case either came from her or Dodie, and you can also check her Facebook page.

Speaker 1:

Oh, it's a group, but it is a private group. A group you can ask to be a part of it or you can Google it. There's multiple articles about it. Yeah, those ones a couple that she sent me were hard to find. So either check out the website or All you have to do is type in Jimmy Townsend, 1985. Yeah, and it.

Speaker 2:

There's a couple, but most of them are Joe.

Speaker 1:

Frazier. Yeah, First, three things pop up. Yeah, so with that, like I said, I'll put that out there so you all can see that in the Joe Frazier articles and a couple others that I have but I'm not for sure on who was, who was what but they did interview hundreds of kids, hundreds of people, but nobody else outside of the one who confessed. They didn't get anything else because, like I said, it was a lot of I don't know. I don't remember, I couldn't really tell, I don't know anything about them and it was just very hush-hush, Very Just super suspicious, super sus, and from Chrissy's perspective, she doesn't think it was just because it had to do with the gang.

Speaker 2:

And then, whenever I went to the detective, I'm like hey, I have names of these killers, why ain't something being done?

Speaker 1:

She actually believes that the entire and forgive me for the present Munro Police Department, wachita Paris investigative unit, she believes that they were highly corrupt and that there were my brother, sister, cousin, nephew kind of thing where they didn't want to be a part of it. They didn't want to get anybody you know any of their own quote unquote in trouble and that it was kind of one of those things where, well, I don't really want to touch it, I just want to get my hands off of it and that's, you know, that kind of deep-seated corruption, if you will, because I don't want to upset my cousin or my auntie or whoever calls any waves and they're really a good kid and all of those things. All of those things that we've heard in true crime, always, you know, just trying to protect your own and by doing so you're allowing extremely violent adolescent men to continue rampaging. Anyway, so the Sheriff at the time his name was actually Willie Buffington and again, this is one of those things where, like you go on newspaperscom, you can find out anything about anybody. You type my name in there, first and last name, you can see, you can still see my, the articles that wrote about me when I played basketball in Oklahoma, and even if in the 70s we didn't have the internet, we still have the ability to look at the newspapers from then. You should be able to locate more than just you know little bits here and there and I found plenty with Sheriff Buffington's name in it.

Speaker 1:

But when it comes to Jimmy's case, there's very limited information. Almost nothing turns up when you search for it. It's a little bit unsettling, honestly, because it's almost like they were purposely not talking about it and that's that, to me, is odd. It sits very weird with me like I don't. It does not sit well, that's a better way to say that. I should have said it, because typically there'd be like press releases. They'd tell the people what's going on, what happened, they'd address the issue publicly.

Speaker 1:

None of that happened, not that I could find I go back. I even went back to August of 85 to forward and there's just there wasn't anything. I mean it's like it's just gone Now, in fairness, I know that the Monroe PD and Washington, paris and I'm not sure exactly which one, but they've had a couple of fires over the years and we've had hurricanes and we've had things, and I understand that that shit happens. There are natural disasters. But then there's also a thing that too many coincidences means it's not a coincidence, it just it's not. You know, you can only have so many things that happen before it turns into obviously intentional and that's why I had to move away Right. So right now, the way that it stands, they literally just last year, when Chrissy went and got, she did a TV interview, which I'll also have a link for in the show notes, with KTVE. Is that what that is? Let me see Whichever local news station you've been in Well it was my arclamess and I think they

Speaker 1:

had actually two different code. I think it's KTVE and then K-A-R-D. But either way, I'll have a link in the show notes and you can watch that as well. When she did that and they released it at two different time periods, which I thought was really great because they really made an effort and they actually made an effort to get in touch with the police department and everything or the DA, anybody to get them to talk to them, and they got nothing back, they got no bites. But when they, when she did that interview with them and they actually ran the coverage, they and the police department this is that. Would this piss me off.

Speaker 2:

When she told me Chrissy, and I'll let her tell you and when they made the case, when he told me that the case became active, I had to find out from the lady that did my news interview, because I did a news interview. Yes, ma'am, I saw that. Yes, ma'am, she, she's the one who texted me. I was actually out of town when she did and when she pissed me off I was like he didn't even call me. Whenever I got back into town, I immediately went up there and he knew why I was there. He was like I have some good news for you. I'm like yeah, I know you do. Why haven't you called me? Like you know, it's been like it's been. It was been a whole day because I didn't hear from the news lady until the day after, because she called the DA's office one enough day.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So instead of telling her that they were going to reopen the case, they called the news station but in the okay and that's what she had been fighting to do for the longest time was to get it opened and to get it, get attention back on it and for them to file charges with the names that she knows they have. So, speaking from an evidence side of things, from what Chrissy said, from the time that she got to kind of glance at the evidence and from the information that her most recent investigator was telling her, they do have evidence that they can use for DNA testing. It would take a lot in processing and getting everything submitted properly and yada, yada, yada, but they do have it. Otherwise I don't even think you would have engaged in the conversation talking about how to do it.

Speaker 1:

And I mean there had to have been On Jimmy, if nothing else because that brutal of a beating, that amount of force he broke the one guy's nose, so there would have been blood. There would have been and apparently and I have the that night the original investigation report it actually says on the report that they gathered evidence and they took pictures and that was the night of and it's signed by what was that guy's name? Dambi, which I thought was an interesting name? He was one of the original investigators at the scene, but there's proof in and of itself that they got evidence. So what do they do with it?

Speaker 1:

I understand in the 70s they weren't DNAing, but they should be able to DNA now, if for no other reason than just to kind of put the family at ease and let them know that they're doing everything that they can. Yeah, but you also have to look at it like this they're going to try to get warrants to get DNA from who knows the amount of people that they need to get it from, and I know no, no, no, no. Even if you just to put it in a code, even if it was just to put it into code as to see if they got a hit, well, that would still need to be signed off and done right, which is why you have to have a DA sign off and say yes.

Speaker 1:

I'm reopening this cold case and the assistant, da, holly chambers Jones, but they can't do anything with that, about that, because they can't get any Solid leads to put anybody at the place of the crime.

Speaker 1:

They don't.

Speaker 1:

All they have is speculation or very Testy eyewitnesses that recanted what they said, or they may not be alive anymore or their memories may not be Self-serve that they may not be as clear as they were back then, if they are still alive.

Speaker 1:

But my whole thing with that is if you're opening a cold case, then you should Be.

Speaker 1:

Any avenue that was not available to you in 70 or 85 Now is available should be used to the fullest extent that you can. Because in the investigation that you did initially you wouldn't have waited. You would not have waited till you had a suspect to take that DNA and send it off. You would have sent it off and see if you got a hidden code is. And then, because you already had the DNA available and you had something, if you eventually got a suspect to test it against, then you would send a suspect it's a sample in to be able to test it against what you have. You wouldn't just sit on it. And because they didn't have it, then as soon as you have the capability to test it, you should, which means they're not putting in any effort to get any of that done or they know who it is and they don't want to put the DNA in because they know how it's gonna come back and Somebody's either watching or somebody is scared.

Speaker 1:

And For that to have lasted the 38 years is really hard for me to accept. But at the same time I know how it works down here in the South. Those roots go deep, those soda graves, favors go far, and I hate to say it like that, because I like to believe that you know, and then I'm gonna put it out there that you're a fool.

Speaker 1:

Not all law enforcement is bad, not all investigators or crops or crooked, but they are. They have, they have proven to be Individuals that are shitty people, regardless of what batch they have or don't have. Shitty people are everywhere. So just because there was one Crooked cop or one corrupt official doesn't mean the entirety of all of them ever are corrupt or crooked. So just saying that as a point, Just because one of them are bad as I make all of them bad One of them could be covering up and none of the other ones would know exactly. They are standing behind who they believe to be good, good cops and good people, and you know they'll be just as Wrong as the rest of anybody. So, anyway, they're standing behind what they believe in, how they are, not how you know the other person turned out to be.

Speaker 1:

So all of this is to hey, we still are sitting. Or Jimmy Townsend's family and daughter. They're now sitting in the same exact spot that they were sitting in back in 85, with nothing getting done and and seemingly no one trying or even attempting to put in the maximum effort. And in my mind, this case seems Absolutely solvable. Of all the cold cases and things that you come across. This one seems like it would be the most readily solved if it would just. It just takes someone, that one person that's willing to step up and say something. Luckily for miss Christie, she does not have to do this fight alone, even though she got me.

Speaker 1:

Well, from the get she's had, miss Dodie miss Dodie Allen, who sent me the email initially who is the reason for us doing this episode? It just at the basic level. She's, she's. I want to call her a silent partner, but that's not right because she is relentlessly Yelling in everybody's ears and all of the emails and all of the people that may or may not be able to do something and say something. So she's like a conscience. Basically she's not. She's the nagger and I please don't take that.

Speaker 2:

What did you say? Don't take that wrong.

Speaker 1:

What you call it is the best kind. She's a white of relentless, that nagging voice in the back of your head. That's what miss Dodie is to every person out there that is Not even trying to pay attention.

Speaker 2:

My mom's a pretty bad nagger?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, she has la you. You know, sent out the countless emails. She has spent what I could. I can only assume that she spends the majority of her waking hours listening to podcasts and then Relentlessly trying to get Jimmy's story heard. You don't know how she lives her life, I don't but that's, that's what I would assume just from our conversations, because I guess, so she doesn't eat sleep doesn't go to the bathroom. Not even a little bit.

Speaker 2:

You are a terrible imaginer.

Speaker 1:

But she has reached out to date line, got them on a list to do an episode for date line. She said they told her they were weighed down the list, but at least she's got them on the list. She reached out to real-time real crime. You remember the guy that did the Courtney Coco case? Hey, I was on that case. Go listen to it.

Speaker 2:

I'm amazing to listen to apparently.

Speaker 1:

Apparently. But when they reached out to him he said get the foya and come back to me. So once you get the criminal with the record or whatever the police have, bring it back to me and we'll we'll go from there. So Christy's already working on that. We're gonna see how that turns out. We're gonna cross our fingers and hope. Both Christy and Dodie are wonderfully delightful women who just want justice. And and 35 years guys over 35 years Most cold cases that you have that are over 35 years old don't have a snowball's chance. This one seems so simple and I don't mean simple in like, oh well, we just go arrest the guy. No, I mean like a little bit of effort, the most minimal effort and gumption, that willingness to actually follow the information instead of just letting it sit and not have to be that person. It's your job to be that person first and foremost. And that police department, that district attorney's office, they owe this family the consideration to at least follow through and give it an actual try and effort to get it solved and get it finished, because that's all they're asking for Now.

Speaker 1:

When I was talking earlier about Jimmy's parents, mr James and Miss Gale her first name was Rita, but she went by Gale. He was their only child and Miss Gale never recovered. She never bounced back, she had. I mean, I can only imagine losing your only child and losing them in such a brutal way and then having that defeated. You know, overwhelming, suffocating feeling that nobody wants to help you, that you hear all of the rumors in this town that everybody knows who did it but they're just not gonna arrest him because they're related to this one or that one and that has to be defeating. That has to feel hopeless and, yeah, I'm kind of sad. I'm never gonna have parents as awesome as I did. Say that again.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, confused now, aren't you?

Speaker 1:

A little bit.

Speaker 2:

That's a thinker. She's not gonna get it because it's a thinker yeah, I'm just not gonna try.

Speaker 1:

But See, this is exactly what's happening with the case, exactly.

Speaker 2:

Roasted.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but according to Miss Chrissy, that she had never recovered. She was. She was literally going into the hood, according to Chrissy, and putting herself in a position of well, I may not come back out of here, but somebody's gonna talk to me, putting herself in the most dangerous position just to try to find out who it was and to get somebody to say and tell her who killed her baby and Chrissy after her dad died, because she was only about a month I think she was a month and a couple days old when he passed away or when he was murdered brutally, and her mother, who was 16. Like we said, she wasn't prepared, as most 16 year-olds aren't, and at 11 months she was actually adopted by a wonderful family. But you know, as she got older she was curious and wanted to know about her dad and she actually got back in contact with her grandma Gail, who she called Mama and the only Mama only wanted her to know the good things. She didn't often talk to her about the case, if at all, although she had all of the newspaper articles or whatever she had in her or, you know, she kept track of everything. But after a certain point she just kind of gave up and, according to Chrissy, they did eventually file like civil suits against the Monro PD, wachar Parish and the Civic Center like the Monro Civic Center where they held the fair grant, where they had the fair at and eventually I think they ended up settling, but it was only after they took the Sheriff's Department off of the suit and then they settled and, according to Chrissy and the digging that she's done, she's not even able to find that record, even though she knows it was a thing, because she had a trust that was in her name, because her biological mother actually filed a suit on her behalf as well for damages for the loss of her father and there's she can't find any record of it.

Speaker 1:

So just one of those things that make you scratch your head and wonder, like what is actually happening, right? So when it comes down to what everyone what I'm hoping everyone can take away from this and what we're trying to get accomplished and what Chrissy is trying to get accomplished, she wants someone to listen, hear this and do something about it, because she knows the bow-legged guy is still alive, he is still in the area. So are everyone else that is still involved that hasn't already passed away? I believe Shane has passed away, anthony, the only surviving member of the side that wasn't in the gang between Jimmy, shane and Anthony. Anthony is the only one who's still alive and, according to the information that I received, he's not quick to speak about the incident and you know anybody who at that age, that young of an age, witnesses something like that, even if he didn't witness the entirety of the attack. Just finding your friend in that state can be traumatic. So they all have a shared post-traumatic stress and, from what I understand, I believe Shane took his own life.

Speaker 1:

So this affected more than just the immediate family, more than just Chrissy growing up without her biological father and more than just her growing up without ever really getting to meet him. You know this affected way more families, way more people than just Jimmy and his family. So when you're talking about getting justice, you're talking about righting wrongs that have happened for the last 39 years, because nobody wanted to do their job in 85, and that's that's. What is really aggravating about this is because this could have been over and done with. It could have been brought to a conclusion and saved the heartache and saved the trauma for the family members and the next generation and the next generation. It's just there. There could have been an ending, there could have been. You know it's never gonna bring him back, but at least it's going to keep this from becoming the next generation's trauma. And you know, chrissy has grown up in a world where she was well loved and had a great family from everything that she's told me and she's got a beautiful family now. But this still is an everyday thought, that is a prevalent thought and is a fight that she fights every single day, that more than one person can step up and become a part of giving her the win that she deserves, giving her the finality that her family and she absolutely deserves.

Speaker 1:

And the problem with cold cases is usually that most of the people involved whether it be the witnesses or the law enforcement officers, etc.

Speaker 1:

They've either died or they're too old to remember, or you know it's been such a long time that time has faded those memories and made it nearly impossible to, you know, actually pinpoint a person.

Speaker 1:

But that's not entirely the case here. There are people who remember, there are people who know and, like I was talking about the bowlegged guy last year he walked in to Chrissy's job and really all you have to do is go look at any of the comments on any of her public posts about her, her dad's murder and getting justice and asking for help doing that from the DA and everybody else that they're. All you to do is look at the comments. People remember, people know who it was. Even some of the members of law enforcement have, or that have retired or no longer on the force, like have weighed in, like yeah, they know who they are, they have names and it's just. It's. It's baffling to me that that much information can still be out there almost 40 years later and nobody's doing anything about it. So that's why we have to make this view, make everybody aware of this whole case and what's going on, just to get a little stir the pot right and for what.

Speaker 1:

What Chrissy is asking and and doing this episode and getting the information out there. Literally, all she wants is to be heard. She wants this to make enough noise that it triggers action. So what we can do and what all of you can do, no matter where you are, like I said, the easiest thing. It's so simple share this story, share it, share this episode on my podcast. She's got another like share. Share the link to the news article, share the petition. I'll have it on my Twitter. I'll have it on my YouTube. I'll have it on my take talk. Share those.

Speaker 1:

Just tell people share you chicken especially if you're in Louisiana, especially here, if you're in the Munro up there, in that area, people, you, your voice and all of everybody else's voices, they can make a difference, even if we don't actually solve anything or put the cuffs on anybody. If we make enough noise, or if enough noise is made, maybe Chrissy and her family will finally get the justice they deserve and to be able to put this whole thing in a little nice box and say we got you and they get the justice that was that should have been given to them. Closure almost 40, you know.

Speaker 1:

You know I hate the word closure, especially in this kind of stuff, because there's never really a closure, it's more of a sink, a succinct ending, just to kind of know that you did everything that you could do, that the bright people were held responsible and accountable for what happened, and then that's all you can do. So maybe if we get loud enough, the wash it all. Parish DA's office has no choice but to listen. So if you have any information regarding the case, you can contact crime stoppers at 318-88-CASH. Chrissy has an award for a thousand dollars for information that leads to an arrest, and I'm gonna leave you with one last word from Chrissy, and as you listen to what she has to say and what you need to take away from this, I hope you guys can kind of try to put yourself in the same situation and just take that couple extra minutes that they would take to help her out and to try to get justice for this family. And with that we'll see you guys next time. Doses. Here's Christy.

Speaker 2:

I'm not trying to keep anything or hide anything. I want, I like, I'm, I need this, just much, you know. And I just want justice. I want them to do it's right. It's time, it's way past time you.

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