Body in Room 348: How a Locked Room Led to an Impossible Answer

[00:00:00] Adam Cox: Greg Flanagan. was in room 3, 4 8 at his hotel , he emailed his wife Susie, , but it'd be the last thing he ever wrote.

[00:00:09] By the next morning, Greg would be found dead in his hotel room, face down on the carpet, his body showing no signs of a struggle, no wounds anyone could see. But when the autopsy began, what they found inside him was shocking.

[00:00:24] Two broken ribs, a torn stomach and liver portions of Greg's intestines had [00:00:30] been ripped.

[00:00:31] This doesn't seem like natural causes now.

[00:00:33] Kyle Risi: No. If that had happened to you, that is out on the street in some kind of car accident right.

[00:00:38] Adam Cox: And these autopsy results spurred a year long mystery

[00:00:42] And so what's so confusing is in this hotel room, there's no sign of a struggle. How did Greg succumb to this kind of injury?

[00:00:48] Kyle Risi: What I'm getting

[00:00:50] Adam Cox: here

[00:00:50] Kyle Risi: is That nobody knows what's going on,

[00:00:53] Adam Cox: And then Brennan said. I think I know how this guy died. and this time the clue was on the wall, low down, and it had been [00:01:00] very poorly patched up with what looked like

[00:01:04] Kyle Risi: Wow. What a setup.

[00:01:05]

[00:01:29] Adam Cox: [00:01:30] Welcome to the Compendium, an Assembly of fascinating things, a weekly variety podcast that gives you just enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering,

[00:01:38] Kyle Risi: we explore stories from the darker corners of true crime, the hidden gems of history, and the jaw-dropping deeds of extraordinary people.

[00:01:47] Adam Cox: I'm your host for this week, Adam Cox.

[00:01:49] Kyle Risi: And I'm Kyle Reese, the Elephant absence coordinator.

[00:01:52] Adam Cox: For this week, what does that mean?

[00:01:54] Kyle Risi: Well, since the last elephant slipped on some wet sawdust, do you [00:02:00] remember?

[00:02:00] Yes. Back in April. Sue of course had to shoot it. We of course, no longer have any elephants, so my role as the elephant absentee coordinator is to manage the absences of the elephants and it's stressful work. With tight deadlines, and I basically just produced courtly reports confirming the continued absenteeism of the elephants and therefore the continued success of.

[00:02:26] The initiative so far, zero elephants, which means I'm hitting [00:02:30] all my targets.

[00:02:30] Adam Cox: I um, I don't get your jobs anymore. Well, there are necessary jobs, Adam. It's a job. Yes, it is a job. So guys, if you are new to the show and you want to support us, then the absolute best way to support our show and enjoy exclusive perks is to join our Patreon.

[00:02:48] You can sign up for free and get next week's episode seven days early.

[00:02:52] Kyle Risi: For as little as $3 a month, you'll become a fellow freak of the show unlocking our entire backlog, including classic episodes. It's like [00:03:00] 20 of them in there. So you guys will be preoccupied for at least 20 hours?

[00:03:05] Adam Cox: Yeah, probably like a whole day.

[00:03:06] Mm. You can have us on loop in

[00:03:09] Kyle Risi: your

[00:03:09] Adam Cox: ear all day for 24 hours.

[00:03:11] Kyle Risi: Who would not want that? Especially your voice like tones of, I dunno. Adonis

[00:03:19] Adam Cox: and as a special thank you, our Certified Freak Tier members now receive an exclusive compendium key chain. All you need to do is DMS, your address, and we'll send one straight to your door so we can always be [00:03:30] dangling right near.

[00:03:32] Crotch

[00:03:32] Kyle Risi: your crotch. You sk crutch.

[00:03:36] Adam Cox: No. We have some lovely crutches.

[00:03:39] Kyle Risi: God. Yeah. And our freaks as crutches will attest to that on the Patreon. If you get over there, you'll see them all.

[00:03:46] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:03:47] Kyle Risi: And lastly, guys, please follow us wherever you listen to podcasts and leave us a review. Your support really helps us keep these amazing stories coming.

[00:03:56] Adam Cox: And as you know, we've recently started taking story suggestions from our Patreon [00:04:00] members mm-hmm. Via the freaky register where you can drop in your ideas for topics you'd like us to cover. So this week's story comes from a listener who suggests this before we introduce this feature. Oh really? Yeah. And for the live me, I cannot remember or find that message.

[00:04:15] Oh, so it was either on Spotify, it was an email, or maybe it was on Instagram. So I'm so sorry if you are still listening. Then write in, let me know, and I will make sure that you get credited in the show notes.

[00:04:27] Kyle Risi: Oh, no. So this is like one of those rogue kind of [00:04:30] member suggestions that we can't accredit to anyone.

[00:04:32] Adam Cox: Well, we will do when they write in, but then we could have 20 people write in. I'm like, that doesn't sound like you suggested this. Yeah,

[00:04:38] Kyle Risi: yeah. Prove it.

[00:04:40] Adam Cox: Okay. So enough of the housekeeping because today on the compendium, we will be uncovering the mystery behind a locked hotel room, a dead man on the floor.

[00:04:49] And a minty coverup. Minty,

[00:04:52] Kyle Risi: Ooh, minty fresh.

[00:04:54] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:04:55] Kyle Risi: Okay. This, I'm kind of getting like, uh, Jennifer Fairgate vibes. [00:05:00] Apart from it being a man, is it Jonathan Fairgate?

[00:05:03] Adam Cox: Jonathan Fairgate

[00:05:05] Kyle Risi: is always that a John Doe. Oh. 'cause you famously did not know that John Doe referenced. A dead person.

[00:05:11] Adam Cox: Yes. I did not know that.

[00:05:12] Kyle Risi: You thought I was a real person. Thought I

[00:05:14] Adam Cox: was a real person. Why is somebody, John doe's dying? It's the most popular person to die. Don't call your kids John Doe. Um, okay, so you mentioned Jennifer, uh, gate, so you could be along the right lines. Do you know what. Like, like my sort of style. I will [00:05:30] just get into it and we'll see what you think about it as I start to reveal some of the information.

[00:05:35] Kyle Risi: Great. Okay, so no hook, no tees, none of that to keep those early listeners. In fact, 20% of them have already switched off. Hey. A minty coverup. 25% nasa.

[00:05:45] Adam Cox: I'm promising them a minty coverup. Percent. We're losing them. Madam. Where's the hook? Where's the hook? Okay, I'm gonna start. Today we're going to be talking about a guy called Greg Flanagan.

[00:05:55] Mm-hmm. Now, he was a man of routine. He traveled light. Lived, tidy [00:06:00] and never left Ms. Behind. And after years at sea as a marine engineer and later working for the oil and gas industry, Greg was used to rhythm of hotel rooms and solo evenings by himself.

[00:06:12] Kyle Risi: So he is a a travel, a traveling guy.

[00:06:14] Adam Cox: He is, yeah. And he had a very ritualistic way that he would spend his evenings.

[00:06:20] Unzip his suitcase, he would leave it open like a drawer uhhuh with his clean shirts in the closet and dirty clothes on the floor. So he is a, he's a very neat, precise, and [00:06:30] predictable man.

[00:06:30] Kyle Risi: Okay. So we're setting this up. There's gonna be something bizarre that happens and it goes against what people know he normally does.

[00:06:36] Yes. By the sounds of what you're trying to allude to here.

[00:06:40] Adam Cox: Yeah. Very intuitive because each night he'd wind down the same way. He'd put his pajamas on, he would put the air con on so he, he'd like a freezing cold room. He'd lay a white towel across the bed like a place mat and arrange his nightly setup of cigarettes.

[00:06:55] His lighter, an ashtray, his TV remote, his Blackberry phone, and [00:07:00] a Reese's Crispy Crunch bar. All on the bed. All on the bed. Yeah. That's weird. Where's he gonna sleep? That's his bedtime toolkit.

[00:07:07] Kyle Risi: So str strange, especially when you said lay down a towel. That's what people do when they wanna have sex and they don't wanna mess up the bedding.

[00:07:14] That is, but that's, that's not, that's not what he's doing. That's not what

[00:07:16] Adam Cox: Greg's doing. He's different. But on Wednesday, September the 15th, 2010, something changed that evening. Mm-hmm. Greg was in room 3, 4 8 at the MCM Ante Hotel in Beaumont, Texas, and at 7:10 [00:07:30] PM he emailed his wife Susie, who is at home, filing some tax extension, and he just says, oh, you're doing a good job, babe, but it'd be the last thing he ever wrote.

[00:07:40] Because by the next morning, Greg would be found dead in his hotel room, not slumped in a chair, not tucked in bed, but face down on the carpet, his body showing no signs of a struggle, no wounds anyone could see. But when the autopsy began, what they found inside him was shocking. Injuries so severe, so [00:08:00] violent.

[00:08:00] Oh, they were compared to someone crushed in a car crash. And the weirdest part, the hotel room was untouched, not a single thing out of place. So what on earth happened in room 3, 4, 8.

[00:08:12] Kyle Risi: Wow. What a setup.

[00:08:14] Adam Cox: Yeah. So today I'm going to be telling you about Greg Flanagan. Otherwise known as the mystery of the body in room 3, 4, 8.

[00:08:22] Kyle Risi: Ooh, I've never heard this story before. Actually.

[00:08:24] Adam Cox: Never. Mm-hmm. There is a little bit, Jennifer. Fair gaty.

[00:08:28] Kyle Risi: It is very much, I mean, there [00:08:30] is a couple suggestions that I have seen on the freak of register and emails about what? About the body in like room, like 1 0 4 8. I've heard that one before, but this is a different room.

[00:08:41] This is 3, 4,

[00:08:42] Adam Cox: 8. There's a lot of bodies and a lot of room.

[00:08:44] Kyle Risi: Uh, it might be the same one then. So interesting. Mm. Okay.

[00:08:48] Adam Cox: Back to that night in the hotel room. So Greg was doing what he always did. Smoking, snacking, watching a film on the TV doesn't sound very healthy. No, but somewhere near the end of that movie, Greg got up, made a few steps [00:09:00] towards the door and collapsed.

[00:09:01] How did they know it was at the end of that movie? I'm guessing they could see what he was watching. Maybe at the time they could, were watching him. So there this is, there's no mystery then I, I dunno if it's like a pay-per-view or anything, but anyway, let see. They seemed to think it was at the end of the movie, but anyway, he's face down on the carpet.

[00:09:17] And So no one heard a thing? No, there's no kind of struggle or anything. No. Neighbors nearby had heard anything. The next morning, Susie tried calling Greg 'cause they would speak every morning, but this time no answer, no text [00:09:30] back, and Greg never missed a call. So she's worried. So she phones his office and when they said he hadn't shown up for work, then two coworkers head to the hotel to knock on his door.

[00:09:40] They get no answer. So they then go to the hotel manager to let them into Greg's room.

[00:09:44] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:45] Adam Cox: And then they find him face down on the carpet. Cigarette in his left hand.

[00:09:50] Kyle Risi: Oh.

[00:09:50] Adam Cox: Greg was dead.

[00:09:51] Kyle Risi: Okay. I, well, this seems like he's just had a heart attack or a brain aneurysm. That seems pretty obvious.

[00:09:57] Adam Cox: I think that's what people first think, [00:10:00] which will kind of uncover why, because the room looks fine.

[00:10:03] There is one thing that is a bit weird, is the room was hot and unusually warm and stale. Ah, which is not how Greg preferred his room. He liked a cold exactly, but everything else was pretty normal. There was no signs of a struggle. There's no blood on the walls or any kind of blood pooling. There's no visible wounds.

[00:10:19] Greg's wallet is still in his pocket with money untouched. So they don't think it's a robbery or anything?

[00:10:24] Kyle Risi: Hmm.

[00:10:24] Adam Cox: It, it looks normal. Kyle. Yeah. It looks like he's had a

[00:10:27] Kyle Risi: brain aneurysm or he's had a heart attack. [00:10:30] Like you did say he had like a Reese's chocolate bar that he was eating. He was smoking, yeah.

[00:10:36] Adam Cox: Probably drinking. Yeah. Is it just an unfortunate death? And how old is he? Uh, he's 55 years old.

[00:10:41] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Cut

[00:10:42] Adam Cox: and dry. And he's had a brain aneurysm or a heart attack. Or a

[00:10:45] Kyle Risi: heart attack?

[00:10:46] Adam Cox: Yeah, because when they speak to Susie and Greg's brother Michael. They tell the police that Greg wasn't exactly health conscious.

[00:10:52] Sure. He didn't trust doctors. He smoked constantly. He lived on junk food. He didn't exercise, so a heart attack or something [00:11:00] like that. Makes sense.

[00:11:01] Kyle Risi: Great. Cool. So let's wrap this episode up. Guy hotel Room has a heart attack. Dies Mystery solved.

[00:11:07] Adam Cox: So yeah, a heart attack did make sense and so that's what everyone thought had happened.

[00:11:12] A quiet end to a quiet man. Then came the autopsy and suddenly this wasn't just a regular death. And these autopsy results spurred a year long mystery trying to understand what happened to Greg. So a guy called Dr. Tommy Brown, the county medical examiner, had seen [00:11:30] thousands of cases. Nothing about Greg's body looked unusual at first.

[00:11:34] Mm-hmm. There was just a small rug burn on his cheek. Um, which is, what's that from? Well, probably from him falling over. Falling over, yeah. I see.

[00:11:41] Kyle Risi: Okay.

[00:11:42] Adam Cox: There was something that was a bit strange. There is a half inch laceration on his scrotum.

[00:11:47] Kyle Risi: Oh.

[00:11:48] Adam Cox: So it raised some eyebrows. They're like, was he

[00:11:51] Kyle Risi: naked at the time or was he fully dressed?

[00:11:53] Uh, he was in his pajamas. Okay. So it's not like another rug burn or like he's fallen and it's [00:12:00] ripped his scrotum op, I dunno if

[00:12:02] Adam Cox: that, does that happen? I don't think so. The area's swollen and it's a bit discolored. Um, okay. So that

[00:12:07] Kyle Risi: to me suggests that. It happened ages ago.

[00:12:10] Adam Cox: Yeah. It just looks like something a bit odd.

[00:12:13] But that's all. That's the only thing that's kind of raising a bit of a flag when they look at the external part of Greg's body.

[00:12:19] Kyle Risi: Okay. And nip on the scrotum. Mm-hmm.

[00:12:21] Adam Cox: They do suspect that maybe he'd been kicked quite hard and that would have caused any swelling in, or the bruising, but would that have been enough to have [00:12:30] killed a man?

[00:12:30] Kyle Risi: No, it doesn't sound like it. And if it's swollen and there's some bruising, did you say discoloration? Yeah. That would suggest that it had happened before he had died. 'cause otherwise, if he had got it while he was being killed or dying, then it wouldn't have, it would just be an open wound.

[00:12:45] Adam Cox: Yeah. But that wouldn't explain what happened next though.

[00:12:48] 'cause what Dr. Tommy Brown found inside his body would become a bit of a head scratcher because Dr. Brown found massive internal. Bleeding, two broken ribs, a torn [00:13:00] stomach and liver portions of Greg's intestines had been ripped. And lastly, there's a hole in the right atrium of his heart, but there was no heart attack.

[00:13:09] So. This doesn't seem like natural causes now.

[00:13:12] Kyle Risi: No. If that had happened to you, that is out on the street in some kind of car accident or like in some kind of severe trauma or a fight, right. He is tucked away in his hotel room. He is laid out all his Reese's pieces and his fags. He's getting ready for the knife and yeah, he's settled in and this has happened.[00:13:30]

[00:13:30] Adam Cox: So Dr. Brown, the coroner concludes that the scrotal injury likely came from a violent kick, and maybe he's had a blow to the chest, but it just doesn't make sense. 'cause the kick to the scrotum is so severe it couldn't have caused a fatal rupture inside the body. I don't think that is possible.

[00:13:47] Kyle Risi: Sure. Okay.

[00:13:48] So we talked about how he likes the room cooler, right? Mm-hmm. So if it's just him in the room, I get that it's strange that the room was warmer. Mm-hmm. But let's say he had a [00:14:00] guest over and that particular guest was like, can we turn the heating up? And they've turned the heating up and then they were probably maybe doing sexy time and one thing lets another, and he is violently attacked and then ends up being murdered.

[00:14:13] Is that plausible? How do we know that No one entered or left the room?

[00:14:18] Adam Cox: At the moment, I think it's locked from the inside. Mm-hmm. So it doesn't seem plausible that anyone could have got in the room and he couldn't, couldn't have

[00:14:25] Kyle Risi: escaped out the window

[00:14:26] Adam Cox: possible. But I think it's been shut and there's no signs that anyone has made an exit [00:14:30] out the window.

[00:14:30] Kyle Risi: And this is what, 2010? Yeah. Hotel rooms. The windows don't open, right?

[00:14:34] Adam Cox: No. There would be probably CCTV on the external side. At the moment, that is not even an option. All they can see at the moment is that Greg probably bled out internally under 30 seconds with this kind of death.

[00:14:46] Kyle Risi: Okay?

[00:14:46] Adam Cox: But on the official form of his death, what Dr.

[00:14:49] Brown writes is homicide. And so when Detective Apple gets the news, he calls Brown, and there's a distinct similarity of the injuries that Greg suffered that was comparable to a car crash victim, [00:15:00] or some work had been crushed to death by some machinery. So it's an incredible sort of impact and trauma to affect someone.

[00:15:06] And so what's so confusing is in this hotel room, there's no sign of a struggle. There's no broken furniture, there's no blood, there's no commotion, there's no witnesses. How did Greg succumb to this kind of injury?

[00:15:16] Kyle Risi: Yeah. I dunno. But I'm assuming you're gonna tell me, Adam, I am. I need more information. If you want me to get on this case, I'm gonna need facts.

[00:15:26] Adam Cox: Do you know what this feels like? It feels very Jonathan Creek.

[00:15:29] Kyle Risi: Well like, hmm. [00:15:30] I wasn't a massive fan of Jonathan Greek, but it's like British Little Village murder and it needs to be solved

[00:15:39] Adam Cox: type of thing, kinda. Yeah. But to explain it to our, perhaps listeners abroad, it was a British TV show about a magician with stunts and illusions, and it's played by this guy called Alan Davies.

[00:15:50] It was set in the nineties or naughties, and he would solve these mystery cases, which there was no obvious explanation that the police could solve. And so people would suspect like there was [00:16:00] ghosts or supernatural stuff, and he would have a way of using his magician skills of finding a clue that no one else would spot, and that would unravel a whole load of misdirection and illusions and a kind of big ro.

[00:16:12] Murder reveal kind of thing.

[00:16:13] Kyle Risi: Do you know what? I had completely forgot that there was this kind of magician element to it. Completely forgot about it. Mm-hmm. I just thought it was like another morse code, but with a guy with curly hair.

[00:16:24] Adam Cox: But the idea is the fact that he knows how to pull these illusions is how he solved these murder mysteries.

[00:16:29] I see. And [00:16:30] yeah, today we don't need Jonathan Creek 'cause we're gonna solve this mystery today. You've got me? Yeah. Brain aneurysm. So there aren't many murders in Beaumont, Texas. Greg Flanagan was one of just 10 that year. So it's about average for this town.

[00:16:45] Kyle Risi: I mean that's, that's a lot. Really. 10 murders.

[00:16:48] So in one town, can you imagine there were 10 murders in Norwich?

[00:16:51] Adam Cox: There might be a year. There's probably a lot that we don't know about, but apparently this is pretty average. This is not like above normal

[00:16:58] Kyle Risi: for America. Yeah. [00:17:00]

[00:17:00] Adam Cox: Detectives in town usually worked with the obvious cases as someone drunk as abuse, a drug dealer, something like that.

[00:17:06] Yeah. But this was very different. And for someone like Detective Scott Apple, who loved a good, who'd done it, it was both kind of fun, but also exhausting trying to solve this case. But the problem with cases like this is they are pretty hard to solve over the next few weeks and months. Apple chased down every possible angle to explain the death of Greg Flanagan, but six months in, he's had very little clues and [00:17:30] stuff to go off, and so he is stuck at this point.

[00:17:32] Mm-hmm. How does someone sustain these internal injuries that are so severe that they have cracked ribs, ruptured organs, and a punched hole in his heart without leaving any visible trauma? So aside from the cut on his scrotum, Flanagan's outer body was nearly pristine. The physical evidence didn't add up unless Greg had been beaten somewhere else and somehow placed carefully back in the room.

[00:17:55] But nothing about the scene looked staged. Nothing looked like a sort [00:18:00] of deliberate crime. Nothing looked disturbed. There was no overturned furniture. There's no bloody footprints. There's no broken lamp. They couldn't find any additional sort of fingerprints or scuffs on the walls. So no one in the neighboring rooms had a single thing.

[00:18:14] And so the biggest question of all was why? 'cause Greg Flanagan, he didn't have any enemies. Detective Apple spoke at length with Susie, his wife, so they'd met early in their twenties. She adored him and they were married twice. In fact, they broke up and then they basically got back together [00:18:30] again because.

[00:18:30] Yeah, they're just destined to be together. So when they questioned his brother, Michael, about what Greg was like in real life, he said that he was universally liked at work. Everyone respected him. And at the hotel, Greg mostly kept to himself. He didn't hang out at the bar. He didn't drink much. He didn't pick up women, he didn't party with coworkers.

[00:18:48] So he went to the room early that night. He turned on the air conditioning and then stayed there until the morning. So this was not a guy who got into fights, not a guy with shady connections or anything like that. So [00:19:00] that's what everyone can't work out. Why did someone kill him?

[00:19:03] Kyle Risi: I just think that the most obvious explanation is that he has had someone else in that room and he travels quite a lot for work.

[00:19:10] So it could be that he. Might be getting lonely and he's brought someone up and something has happened. That's the thing that makes the most sense to me, especially if he has sustained injuries. Mm-hmm. Do you know what I mean? So I don't know.

[00:19:22] Adam Cox: So Detective Apple, he's doing his investigation and um, there's one detail that does emerge from hotel maintenance records.[00:19:30]

[00:19:30] Apparently earlier that evening, while making some microwave popcorn, Greg had blown the room's electrical circuit, and so at first that didn't really seem important, but the power outage had hit room 3, 4, 9 as well. So that was the room right next door.

[00:19:43] Kyle Risi: Sure.

[00:19:44] Adam Cox: So Greg had gone to the front desk to report it.

[00:19:46] He admitted he'd been cooking some popcorn and blew the circuit in his room. At the time, it didn't feel like much a throwaway detail, but that one short circuited fuse would lead apple towards an unexpected clue. Okay. So in room 3, [00:20:00] 4, 8, Greg's room, it shared a wall with room 3, 4, 9, as they do for the next door.

[00:20:05] Yeah. And when the power blew, it basically knocked out the electricity next door as well. So the hotel sent up a maintenance guy, he came in, he sorted it out. Pretty simple and then left. But where it gets interesting is this maintenance guy. So there was a group of union electricians that were staying on the same floor, and some of them were in room 3, 4, 9.

[00:20:25] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:25] Adam Cox: So they were, how many people are in this room? Several. A whole gang of them, two or three [00:20:30] most nights. These guys, they're just drinking together. They're hanging out in each other's rooms. And so Apple asked himself, could the blown power started something? Could these men have gotten annoyed? They knocked on Greg's door, they complained, things got heated, and they'd give him a kick to the groin.

[00:20:44] Kyle Risi: Okay. Yeah, but the thing is though, if there is a power outage or like the electricity trips, you don't know where that's come from. It could have been anyone, right? It could have been any one of the rooms in your vicinity. It could have been a lightning strike. So for them to. Potentially get wind or to [00:21:00] suspect that it was Greg's room that caused a power outage?

[00:21:02] I don't by that.

[00:21:03] Adam Cox: Yeah. Unless they went to reception and they found out it was somehow connected to the guy next door and they went, knocked on his door, there was a fire in the hallway, and then Greg went back inside, injured and then collapsed.

[00:21:14] Kyle Risi: That's kind of what they're thinking. Evident. Well, do we have evidence of the scuffle?

[00:21:17] Adam Cox: Well, no. At the moment, this guy, detective Scott, apple has been looking at this case for six months and he's got nothing. So he is like, he's desperate, scraping the barrel for anything right now. So when Apple had interviewed the men right after the death, they all played [00:21:30] dumb. No one knew Greg. No one had heard anything.

[00:21:32] No one saw anything. But Apple still wasn't quite buying what they were saying. And nine days later, apple went back to the hotel and found the same group of electricians still staying there.

[00:21:42] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:42] Adam Cox: He spoke with them and they were polite, they were friendly, and they were curious. Actually, one of them, a guy called Lance Mueller, asked what happened to that guy.

[00:21:50] Muell had been staying in room 3, 4, 9. The room directly next to Greg's. So Apple is shrugging, not really giving anything away, and he's saying it's like something fell on him, but [00:22:00] then there's nothing in the room that could have caused that injury. Mm-hmm. Anyway, so Lance and Tim just shook their heads and they say that they didn't know, Greg didn't see anything unusual, and the only thing that he remembered.

[00:22:10] Was hearing him cough when they got back from the bar that night. That was it. Well, he is a

[00:22:13] Kyle Risi: smoker.

[00:22:14] Adam Cox: He is a smoker, so it's hardly suspicious. But that's the only thing that they can comment on of what happened that evening.

[00:22:20] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. And I mean, that's a pretty good memory to have. This is what, six months later?

[00:22:25] Adam Cox: Yeah, apple speaks to some more electricians on that floor. One of them was a guy called Trent [00:22:30] Pisano. Again, he's quite helpful. He said that he had been in room 3, 4, 9 that night, drinking with Tim and Lance. Mm-hmm. He said he didn't see anything or hear anything unusual, and that was about it. So that's the only thing Apple's got to go off of.

[00:22:45] Of these men He knows, he thinks something's going on there, but he can't get anything from them. So

[00:22:50] Kyle Risi: what I'm getting

[00:22:51] Adam Cox: here

[00:22:52] Kyle Risi: is that I have a feeling. That nobody knows what's going on,

[00:22:56] Adam Cox: so you've got no idea how he died.

[00:22:58] Kyle Risi: Good. Good.

[00:22:59] Adam Cox: We'll [00:23:00] find out though. Do you know? Yeah. Well, I wrote the story. Is it Alien?

[00:23:04] Did you make this up? It's not aliens. I can, okay, we'll roll out that one as well.

[00:23:08] Kyle Risi: So it's not aliens, it's not a kick to the groin. It's not the boys next door, and it's definitely not an aneurysm.

[00:23:13] Adam Cox: No, it's not an aneurysm. Apple has to also look at Craig's relatives. He talks to Susie, Craig's wife, just to find out obviously what their relationship was like and Greg's brother as well.

[00:23:23] Could it have been personal? Maybe something buried, but there was nothing. There's no signs of infidelity, no financial motive, no [00:23:30] suspicious behavior amongst his sort of family and close friends, and everyone has an alibi as well, so it's not them either.

[00:23:36] Kyle Risi: Okay, you're gonna have to gimme something.

[00:23:39] Adam Cox: I will.

[00:23:39] The clues are gonna be coming, trust me. So, um, in November, the Flanigan family offered a $50,000 reward to try and get some clues about obviously Greg's death, but nothing came of it. And Susie, Greg's wife, she's desperate. It'd been months with no answers, no justice, no peace, and worse than grief, there was just this silence.

[00:23:59] And she was kind of [00:24:00] stuck in this limbo with no updates from police, not able to really get closure and move on. So one day she makes a call, which would change everything she dialed for a man called Ken Brennan. Now he picked up, first thing, she was flustered. She could barely get her words out, and she told him about Greg's death, the bizarre injuries, the clean room, the unanswered questions.

[00:24:20] What

[00:24:20] Kyle Risi: is he like a PI or something?

[00:24:22] Adam Cox: Yeah. Now Ken Brennan was clearly not working. Just sitting by the phone waiting for someone to call. Hello? I think he was on a golf course. Hello. They're, they're always on a golf course, aren't [00:24:30] they when you call them?

[00:24:30] Kyle Risi: That's true. Never working. He is just Miami, I guess it's not that far from Miami.

[00:24:36] Adam Cox: Yeah. He was not your average private investigator. He was a former Long Island policeman, a DE, a special agent, and he now specialized in cold cases working out in Florida. That's why Susie called him basically because she needed his help. She wants closure. I get it. He's quite stereotypical when you hear about him.

[00:24:55] He's tanned. He dresses really sharp. He's nearly 60, he's got a mustache. He's this [00:25:00] big stylish guy. And months earlier, one of Susie's lawyer friends had told her about Ken back when she was thinking of suing the hotel Greg had stayed at just to light a fire under the case. And our friend said, if you really want to get something done, call this guy.

[00:25:14] Susie had remembered the name and she'd read about him in a Vanity Fair article about the case of the Vanishing Blonde. It told the story of how Brennan cracked a cold case in Miami and that every cop had given up on it. And so she was like, if anyone's gonna be able to do it, it's gonna be Ken.

[00:25:29] Kyle Risi: It's gonna be [00:25:30] Ken who was just waiting by the phone for my phone call,

[00:25:33] Adam Cox: just out there playing a round of golf.

[00:25:35] Yeah. Hello? Yes, I am looking for work. He's basically our Jonathan Creek. Oh, is he like

[00:25:40] Kyle Risi: magician?

[00:25:41] Adam Cox: He's not a magician. No, he's just a straight talking New Yorker. I'm not gonna do the accent. Anyway. I'm with you. So Brennan gets a lot of cases and people come to him with murders, disappearances, and stories that no one else will touch.

[00:25:54] But he only takes cases. He believes that he can solve. So he doesn't wanna give people false hope. [00:26:00] And this particular case, he believes that, okay, yeah, I think I can do it. 'cause for him, there were so many threads. Greg's family, the coworkers, the guests at the hotel, the maintenance, the scro man, the scrotum.

[00:26:11] And so for Brennan, these weren't dead ends. It was a fresh pair of eyes that. Is kinda what the case needed. Yeah. So he flew to see Susie, he grilled her about the marriage, about Greg's fidelity, about money, insurance, all that sort of stuff. He needed to be sure that she didn't have a motive. And then before wrapping up, he asked one more question.

[00:26:27] Was there anything about the scene that didn't [00:26:30] sit right with you? Anything that felt off and she paused. Yeah. And then said, yeah. The broom was warm.

[00:26:35] Kyle Risi: Okay. Which we knew already. You already mentioned that. So that's clearly a big, a big clue then.

[00:26:40] Adam Cox: Yeah. So it was, it's a small detail, but it turns out to be key, which is why it keeps coming up.

[00:26:45] Kyle Risi: Sure. And he likes a cold, like a German.

[00:26:47] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:47] Kyle Risi: Germans, they sleep with the windows wide open, as cold as it can possibly be.

[00:26:51] Adam Cox: So Brennan meets Detective Apple, they discuss the case and they go straight to the hotel and to room 3, 4, 8. Apple shows him the crime scene photos, the [00:27:00] autopsy results, and walks him through seven months of work.

[00:27:02] And then Brennan said. I think I know how this guy died. Really. I think I know how it happened, and we're gonna catch the killers. Oh, so there's definitely a killer. He thinks there's a killer.

[00:27:13] Kyle Risi: Wow.

[00:27:14] Adam Cox: Apple's like, what? Just like that. And he, friends just hear me out. But first I've gotta call his wife again.

[00:27:19] So he dials Susie's number and he asks, was Greg right-handed? And she says, yes. And he says, always. And she's, yeah. And when he smoked, he always smoke out of [00:27:30] his right hand as well. And it's just, yeah. Always his right. He's, you're sure she says positive. So Brennan hang up and Apple is still mystified at this point and he gets Brennan's explanation.

[00:27:40] Susie had already told him that Greg liked to keep his room cold, but the room had been warm when the body was found. So that told Brennan something important that the AC had shut off when the breaker blew the same breaker that Greg tripped when the microwave fine. So

[00:27:52] Kyle Risi: it wasn't warm because. The heating was on, it was warm because the AC was off.

[00:27:57] Adam Cox: Yes.

[00:27:58] Kyle Risi: I see. Okay. That's [00:28:00] different.

[00:28:00] Adam Cox: Yeah. So the hotel records show the repairman left about 8:30 PM when Greg was still alive. So the movie resumed, but Greg maybe forgot to flip the air conditioning back on straight away, or didn't know it was off.

[00:28:11] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm. So

[00:28:12] Adam Cox: it kind of solves the mystery of why the room was hot, but it also meant Greg could have been alive much longer, otherwise he would've noticed the room getting hot and he would've turned on the air con.

[00:28:21] So we

[00:28:21] Kyle Risi: have a time now. Yes.

[00:28:22] Adam Cox: Um,

[00:28:23] Kyle Risi: well, but maybe he died as he was getting up to turn the econ on.

[00:28:26] Adam Cox: Absolutely. That's a good point. There's also the cigarette thing. So [00:28:30] if Greg had been attacked in the hallway, then would someone have brought him back to the room and then would someone have placed a lit cigarette between his fingers when he had collapsed?

[00:28:38] Because remember, he was found with a cigarette in his left hand, not his right, his left hand. Yeah, I dunno. Well, it's unlikely basically that someone would ever do that. Brennan tried to put himself in Greg's shoes at the time, pretending to have a cigarette in his right hand. So Greg had probably just stood up from bed, cigarette in his right hand, and he then headed towards the door and at some point he likely shifted the cigarette to [00:29:00] his left hand so he could grab the door knob.

[00:29:02] Then he was struck and then right there, that's when he died.

[00:29:05] Kyle Risi: Okay, so I understand this, there's a knock at the door. Someone's at the door and he's aware of it. He's got up. To go and open the door. He swaps the cigarette over to his left hand, so he's got his right hand to be able to open up the door. He opens up the door, it opens Someone strikes him.

[00:29:23] Adam Cox: Well, yeah. Is what we're saying. That's what could have happened. And that's why you, but the door was locked. The door was locked, and it wasn't open. He [00:29:30] didn't get to the door in time, or he didn't open the door. So what are he saying? What we can assume at the moment is that he died right there in that room suddenly violently and just seconds before opening the door.

[00:29:41] Kyle Risi: How is that possible?

[00:29:42] Adam Cox: This is the mystery 'cause. How could he have sustained those injuries in that room by himself?

[00:29:46] Kyle Risi: Hmm.

[00:29:46] Adam Cox: And so the question is, who was on the other side of the door? Was there anyone at all? And so Apple had already been interviewing the guys from room 3, 4, 9, the electricians. They'd been drinking that night and they'd come back late at that time, and they'd obviously heard Greg's cough.[00:30:00]

[00:30:00] So Apple had considered it before. What if one of them was annoyed, confronted him and had kicked Greg in the groin? And that's the reason why. So Brennan's convinced that someone on that floor knew something that happened that night. So the next stop is he goes to the medical examiner, Dr. Tommy Brown, and Brennan wants to double check Greg's injuries.

[00:30:18] Could that internal trauma and the scrotum laceration really have come from a single kick, and Dr. Brown doesn't hesitate. He says, yes, those things could have happened from a single kick, which is wild, but he's [00:30:30] still adamant that's what killed him.

[00:30:31] Kyle Risi: I think this coroner guy is a quack.

[00:30:34] Adam Cox: Yeah, but then the thing is though, if it was a hard enough kick, maybe someone was wearing steel toe boots that could do it.

[00:30:42] And the electricians that were next door, they would probably wear steel toe boots. And so again, there's a bit of a match with those guys.

[00:30:49] Kyle Risi: Interesting.

[00:30:51] Adam Cox: But the thing is, it's now seven months after Greg's death, the electricians have long moved on. So Apple had already had spoken to a lot of them as well.

[00:30:58] But still, Brennan pushed. He [00:31:00] said like, people will talk, there's gonna be someone that knows something about this. 'cause even if it's like a rumor or secondhand, someone would've said something to someone.

[00:31:08] Kyle Risi: And do you think the fact that. One of the electricians took such an interest in the case after Apple had come back after those months.

[00:31:19] Is suspicious in itself. They may be gauging whether or not Apple potentially suspects them in any way, and that's why one of 'em took an interest.

[00:31:27] Adam Cox: Yeah, they still want to know what's going on about the [00:31:30] case. 'cause maybe one of them is covering up something. They speak to a guy called Aaron Bork. Bork said he remembered something about a gun going off.

[00:31:37] Not at the hotel. It was in a boarding house and Apple corrected him saying, no. That must've been a different case. There was no gun in this particular case, but Bork was like, no, no, no. There was definitely a gun I know from the other guys. So this is the first time anyone has ever said about a gun being involved.

[00:31:52] Kyle Risi: Yeah. And also there's no bullets inside of. Greg, so how can we be sure that there's a gun involved?

[00:31:59] Adam Cox: [00:32:00] Exactly. But the first thing they need to do is we need to head back to that hotel room. 'cause we're now looking for a bullet. So maybe it's got lodged somewhere or gone through a scrotum. Yeah. So back they went to room 3, 4, 8.

[00:32:10] They're on their hands and knees. They're looking around, they've got the torches out. They're scanning every inch of the room, the floor of the walls. The furniture, everything, but nothing comes up. So they're just really confused. And just before they're about to give up, they notice an indentation in the wall.

[00:32:28] So right next to the closet [00:32:30] door, the one that is adjacent to the next room, 3, 4, 9. It looks normal at first, but where the door knob might slam into the wall, over time it had been repaired.

[00:32:40] Kyle Risi: So it's a door so the closet can swing open and can smack against the wall. And that over time has caused a divot inside the drywall, which has since been repaired.

[00:32:52] Adam Cox: That's right. It looked like the doorknob might have slammed into that wall over time, and so therefore it's been repaired.

[00:32:58] Kyle Risi: Why is that suspicious? That just sounds [00:33:00] normal.

[00:33:00] Adam Cox: It does, but the thing is that doorknob doesn't exactly line up with the hole in the wall, so he pulls the door to the wall and notices.

[00:33:08] Actually, it's not next to each other.

[00:33:10] Kyle Risi: Oh. So when other people had seen it before, they would've gone, oh, that's just an indent from the doorknob. But actually he's taking a closer look at this and going, actually they don't line up. Something is here. Exactly. So what does he find?

[00:33:24] Adam Cox: Because it doesn't line up.

[00:33:25] They need to check the room next door, the hotel security, let them in. And this time [00:33:30] there it was on the wall, a tiny circular hole, low down, and it had been very poorly patched up with what looked like pink toothpaste.

[00:33:40] Kyle Risi: Oh, well, like a spackle, but it's toothpaste.

[00:33:43] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:33:43] Kyle Risi: And we're talking, this hole is a bullet hole.

[00:33:46] Adam Cox: That was the thing that Brennan was looking for that is a bullet hole once they cleaned out the toothpaste.

[00:33:50] Kyle Risi: So you just gotta just get like a cotton swab out and then just clear it out or I dunno. Don't waste it. It's still toothpaste.

[00:33:57] Adam Cox: Yeah. And so what Brennan then did is he goes back to [00:34:00] room 3, 4, 8 'cause he is now marking the height of the hole in the wall and it matches up to the indent of the wall.

[00:34:05] So a bullet went through that wall and it had been repaired.

[00:34:09] Kyle Risi: Are we saying that. Greg had got up out of bed possibly to turn the aircon back on after the power surge. I dunno where the aircon was, but let's assume it was by the door as he got up. Someone had discharged a firearm and that had gone through the wall, killed Greg, and that's what [00:34:30] caused him to die.

[00:34:31] Adam Cox: That's what they're looking at right now. Yeah. And so a bullet had gone through that wall and crime scene investigators were called in and to shine a, a laser through the hole just to see what the trajectory was. Smart, and it lines up exactly to the spot on the bed where Greg would've been sitting that night.

[00:34:48] Kyle Risi: So Greg was in bed when he was shot, and so the fact that he ended up dying on the floor was possibly running for help,

[00:34:56] Adam Cox: potentially. Yeah. So that bullet went through the wall, [00:35:00] low down, and likely tore through Greg Scrotum, then went up through his liver, his stomach, his intestines, and finally it punched a hole in his heart.

[00:35:10] Oh,

[00:35:11] Kyle Risi: because of course he was laying down on the bed.

[00:35:14] Adam Cox: Yeah, and the thing is, it was a injury that's so precise and so clean that there's no exit wound. So it's likely that the bullet would've still been in Greg.

[00:35:24] Kyle Risi: Amazing. Okay, so go find the bullet.

[00:35:28] Adam Cox: Yeah, [00:35:30] exactly. But Dr. Tommy Brown, the medical examiner, he's not convinced he had examined Greg's body, head to toe, opened him up and they, what does he know?

[00:35:38] Basically said it was blunt force trauma. Mm-hmm. That had killed him. Now Apple and Brennan were telling him he was wrong. He had missed a gunshot wound. And so Brennan explains what they found in the hotel room and how everything kind of lines up with that bullet hole. But they had a problem. They couldn't take this to court.

[00:35:53] Not yet, because the official autopsy report still said Greg died from a beating.

[00:35:57] Kyle Risi: Oh, so they have to convince this doctor to change it? [00:36:00] Exactly. And he is not gonna because otherwise he's gonna look like an idiot.

[00:36:03] Adam Cox: Well, yeah. So they go to him and they try and convince him that. This is a bullet wound or something like that.

[00:36:08] And, uh, Brown's like, well, it's too late to check because he's been cremated and chances are the ovens are so hot that any metal fragments would have

[00:36:16] Kyle Risi: melted it. Oh, but you could still try, I guess, check his ashes.

[00:36:19] Adam Cox: I think they think there's no chance to do that so that all they have to go off is the autopsy reports and all the photos.

[00:36:25] So, Dr. Brown, he agrees, reluctantly to get the photos out, just get some scraping pictures out [00:36:30] and, and they're passing the photos back and forth from bread and points to one. He's What about this? And Dr. Brown's, oh, that's the liver. This, that's the intestines. And Brennan's looking for a bullet.

[00:36:39] Essentially. The thing is the scrotum skin is so soft and pliable. It could have folded delicate. Yeah, it could have folded over the wound concealing the entry point, but it was bruised. Remember that? Yes. And so brennan's like, could all this internal damage have been caused by a bullet? And Brown does reluctantly say.

[00:36:59] Yeah, [00:37:00] it could have done, but he was beaten. And then they get to the photo of the heart and Brennan looks at the photo and straight away he spots it. Look, that's a bullet hole. That's, that's, that's how he died. And. Brown pauses for a moment and takes everything in and he realizes his mistake and quietly says, the media's gonna kill me over this.

[00:37:18] So he admits that he's wrong, and yeah, it was a, and so he was reluctant. Yeah. So Brennan was right. So this must have meant that one of the men in room three and four nine fired a bullet into [00:37:30] Greg's room and killed him. And so those men were Tim Stein Metz, Lance Muela, uh, and Trent Pisano. And they'd all denied, obviously.

[00:37:38] Anything happening, not hearing anything. Right?

[00:37:39] Kyle Risi: Sure. And was Lance who had asked specifically what was going on with their case?

[00:37:44] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:44] Kyle Risi: So I reckon it's Lance.

[00:37:46] Adam Cox: You think it's Lance? Mm-hmm. Okay. Brennan and Apple get the men back for questioning, and first up is 10 Stein Mets, and it had been more than seven months.

[00:37:53] Kyle Risi: And he's like, where's the gun? And he's like, what?

[00:37:56] Adam Cox: Well, it's interesting they interview him and they keep it quite casual, but it doesn't look [00:38:00] like he's being interrogated. It just feels like a bit of a follow up. Nothing to worry about. So Tim reveals everything that happened, or at least their version of events anyway.

[00:38:08] Nothing. And they don't

[00:38:09] Kyle Risi: change their story.

[00:38:10] Adam Cox: They don't change their story, they just say it was quiet night at the hotel. Throughout this Apple is taking notes and he drafts a formal statement, and then he asks him to read out loud, make any corrections if anything is off. And he adjusts a few things like his job title, stuff like that.

[00:38:24] And then he signs it and Tim goes, is that it? And they go, yep, that's it. Tim stands [00:38:30] up. And then Brennan stops him and he's like, hang on a second. Mm-hmm. And his tone just shifts. It was until you signed that statement. And he says, now we've got a problem. And then Brennan's asked Tim to sit back down, tell us what really happened.

[00:38:44] 'cause we know what happened. We want you to tell us again.

[00:38:48] Kyle Risi: Interesting. Okay. So is he, does he shit himself? Does his tone change? Is he like, oh no.

[00:38:53] Adam Cox: Yeah, Brennan something like, while it's noble covering up for your friend, you'll go to jail if you are found out that you [00:39:00] are covering up his story. Tim's like, well, why would I go to jail with Lance?

[00:39:04] And Brennan's like, well, you've just given a false statement. This is going to ruin your life, and it's not worth it. Just tell us the truth. And with that, Tim Cracks, essentially everything comes out. He sings like a canary. And so later that day, Trent Pisano, the third man in the room, confirms the exact same story of what happened.

[00:39:21] Kyle Risi: Ooh. Okay. So you have two corroborating stories that actually go against the written. Statements. Uh, statements. [00:39:30]

[00:39:30] Adam Cox: Yes. And so this is what really happened. It started with them just hanging out, drinking a beer in the room, and then Lance asked Trent to go grab a bottle of whiskey from his car and to bring his pistol.

[00:39:41] Trent came back with it and handed over both to Lance, and then Lance started messing around with the gun, pointing it around the room. He aimed it at Tim, who dropped to the floor and like swore at him because he is like, why would you do that? That's being a dick. Then Lance points it towards Trent down at the foot of the bed, and that's when it went [00:40:00] off by accident.

[00:40:01] The bullet tore through the wall behind Trent for a split second. He thought he had actually been hit, but then he looked around and he saw the hole in the wall. Sure, Lance panicked. He wrapped up the gun and rushed it back to his car. Trent was furious. He stormed out and didn't want anything more to do with Lance that evening.

[00:40:18] And so Tim and Lance, they're still a bit shaken and they went down to the hotel bar just to kind of settle their nerves.

[00:40:23] Kyle Risi: And at this point, do they know that they've struck Greg?

[00:40:27] Adam Cox: No. They say to the detectives that they didn't [00:40:30] really know if someone was in the room next door until they got back later that night and they heard someone coughing through the wall.

[00:40:36] That moment actually haunted them. If that cough was real, Greg hadn't died instantly. He might have been a lie and injured and alone for quite a while, dying slowly on the floor.

[00:40:46] Kyle Risi: Well, how could he have not

[00:40:47] Adam Cox: gotten any help then? Exactly. 'cause all they could have done was just knocked on the door, just out of like precaution to go, Harry, is everything all right?

[00:40:55] Because they knew that they shot a bullet into that room.

[00:40:57] Kyle Risi: Yeah. And is it correct to say that he. [00:41:00] Got to where he died straight away. Maybe that was him slowly making his way, like the girl from the ring slowly try and drag himself to the door where he'd then eventually died hours later.

[00:41:13] Adam Cox: Yeah. But I guess the thing is he's probably been in shock.

[00:41:16] He's just been shot through the balls.

[00:41:18] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:18] Adam Cox: He. Probably an agony and doesn't know what's actually hit

[00:41:22] Kyle Risi: him. To be fair. He's been shot in the heart. Really? Yes. Yeah, he is Been shot through the balls. Through the balls, but that's just the entry wound.

[00:41:28] Adam Cox: Yeah. So he's probably in [00:41:30] pain. So I suspect he was getting outta bed to maybe get help or feeling like, what's wrong with me?

[00:41:35] And that's when he collapses on the floor.

[00:41:37] Kyle Risi: Yeah. Would you even know if you'd been shot by that? I, I don't know. I don't think so. Not in that context, in that situation, all of a sudden you're laying on the bed. The next thing, you just feel there's probably an explosion in your heart and down to your groin.

[00:41:50] Right? They say heart attacks can sometimes start in your groin. You

[00:41:54] Adam Cox: can feel it. He might have thought he was having a heart attack. Mm-hmm. I wouldn't be surprised. And so the thing is, Greg [00:42:00] could have survived for a few minutes. It could have been hours. It's unlikely though being shot in the heart, and especially he bled out internally quite quickly.

[00:42:08] So it's unlikely that they actually heard him cough later on. Maybe they got their version of events mixed up with another time of the day. Fine, they'd been drinking, but. Yeah, still they didn't decide to knock on that room either before they went to the bar or when they came back. So they have no idea that he's even dead at the time of that night, then?

[00:42:26] Yes, but then the next day they obviously find out that there's a [00:42:30] body of course, in that room, and they don't say anything.

[00:42:33] Kyle Risi: Oh, you would be shitting yourself, right? So they quickly grab the toothpaste out and cover up the hole.

[00:42:38] Adam Cox: Lance definitely does. Do they do

[00:42:40] Kyle Risi: that from the other side of the room as well?

[00:42:41] How do they get in there to cover that up?

[00:42:43] Adam Cox: I think just a repairman would've covered that up, thinking it was just a hole in the wall. But Lance or Tim cover the hole in their room up with toothpaste.

[00:42:52] Kyle Risi: You know when it's a bullet hole,

[00:42:54] Adam Cox: I guess. I dunno if I would know,

[00:42:55] Kyle Risi: a maintenance man came in and gone, oh, there's a damn bullet hole in there.

[00:42:58] I know what I'll do. [00:43:00] It's Texas. Yeah. And actually it doesn't seem to go all the way through, but it does smell minty in there. Oh, and so why you said the clue was minty? Yes. Yeah. I, I'm getting it. I am,

[00:43:12] Adam Cox: I'm dropping little nuggets throughout the show. I see. So now that Brennan and Apple had Tim and Trent's confessions, all they needed to do was to get Lance to confess.

[00:43:21] What happened? So they set up a call and they get Tim to ring him whilst Brennan and Apple are secretly recording their conversation, Tim told him [00:43:30] what's just happened. He's, he's come back from questioning and glances like, how did it go? And Tim keeps it vague. At first he says. I just told them the truth.

[00:43:37] I told them what really happened and then there was silence and then quietly Lance brings up about the gun going off. So Lance just admits it himself. He doesn't even need to be questioned. Sure. So

[00:43:47] Kyle Risi: that was an easy sting operation basically.

[00:43:49] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:43:50] Kyle Risi: Interesting.

[00:43:51] Adam Cox: Then Tim said something that Lance didn't know that the guy in the next room died from a bullet, so obviously in the press, and what they had heard from the police at the [00:44:00] time was that Greg died of either natural causes or it was some kind of murder case.

[00:44:06] Lance then reveals that he spoke to his lawyer and his lawyer had gotten hold of the autopsy report. It said nothing about a gunshot wound. So this shows that Lance was poking around to try and find out what really happened to the man next door. And it didn't make sense. Lance said if the guy was shot, if it was a firearm, they would've said something.

[00:44:23] It would've been all over the news. And so he had convinced himself that the gunshot that he fired was an isolated incident to have the man [00:44:30] died. Just a coincidence. Just a strange, tragic accident. And the autopsy report backed that up.

[00:44:36] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:44:36] Adam Cox: Lance had worked hard to believe it was unrelated. He patched the bullet hole with toothpaste.

[00:44:41] He'd hidden the gun in his car. He then passed it to a friend, and then eventually to his lawyer. And that's not what innocent men do. Yeah. You give the gun to your lawyer. Yeah. That's crazy for safekeeping. And the thing is, if he had come forward at any point, he probably would've had a more lenient sentence because he would've shown remorse and owned up for sure.

[00:44:59] [00:45:00] 100%. Even then the DA's office wasn't eager to prosecute. Accidental shootings in Texas aren't rare, and Texas law is kind of, they're not

[00:45:08] Kyle Risi: rare.

[00:45:09] Adam Cox: Well, apparently, yeah. I'm not going to Texas, and apparently it's a bit of a gray zone when it comes to charges like this. And so Brennan was getting this idea that they weren't gonna prosecute, or at least gonna.

[00:45:22] Give him a lesser sentence. Mm-hmm. He also hears that a plea deal might be offered to Lance Sure. For owning up, which Brennan is furious [00:45:30] about. So Brenda gets on a plane to visit the DA's office with Susie Flanagan and Detective Apple, and he speaks his mind, and I'm gonna read this quote for quote, there is a lot of effing and jing, but I think it's brilliant.

[00:45:41] And this belongs in a Tarantino movie. So he says this, we're not going to let this thing be brushed under the rug. Let somebody take a plea on this. This is not a fucking accident. An accident is when somebody comes in, has taken off their gun and their gun discharges, and God forbid somebody is hit.

[00:45:58] That's one thing. [00:46:00] It's completely different. When somebody fucking brings a gun, they shouldn't have into another fucking state shit face drunk, fucking around with a gun. The people with him realize something bad could have happened. He discharges around, almost kills the guy he's with. And then he does kill somebody on the other side of the wall.

[00:46:19] He knows that's something that could happen in an occupied hotel. He doesn't even bother to knock next door to make sure that nobody's hurt. And after that, his answer to the whole [00:46:30] thing is to go get drunk some more in the fucking bar of the hotel. And then when he sees a body being taken out the next day, and he's a hundred percent certain he killed somebody, he decides not to say anything about it, but runs to his lawyer, leaves the fucking weapon in a safe, and the fucking attorney doesn't say anything about it either.

[00:46:47] You know what that is? That's fucking murder. So if you think we're gonna forget about this fucking thing, think again. 'cause that ain't fucking happening. I suggest you go down there with a search warrant and a fucking blow torch and go get the fucking weapon. [00:47:00]

[00:47:00] Kyle Risi: He likes to have Jeff, doesn't he? But yeah, that is good.

[00:47:04] I did feel like you're my dad telling me off. Um, but yeah, totally right when you lay it out like that. Yeah. He is really, really negligent. And the fact that like Texas state laws protect accidental shootings in some cases, that is wild. So hopefully he does not get this plea deal.

[00:47:22] Adam Cox: Yeah, I just think they don't want the extra paperwork or whatever.

[00:47:25] No. So the DA looks at Brennan and it's just a bit like. Okay, I'll pick up the phone. [00:47:30] And he makes the call at Lance's sentencing. The judge hands down a 10 year sentence, half of what the law allowed and Lance's apology. Well, it was just too late. This wasn't an accident. It was a chain of selfish, dangerous, criminal choices that left one man dead and another in prison and in court.

[00:47:49] Susie faced him directly and she says, I've waited over two years to look you in the face, eye to eye, and simply have the chance to speak directly to you. You would've never come forward with the truth. [00:48:00] You didn't intentionally seek out to murder my husband, but you did murder him. And with every lie you've told, with every intentional, selfish deception, and with every coverup over and over again, you saw his body taken out of the room in a body bag, the next day you knew you killed him.

[00:48:16] Kyle Risi: Damn, two people, the F of Jeffer guy. And like the words from his wife, she's 100% correct. I was like, before you started saying that, I was like, I do feel guilty for him because yeah, he's obviously done it and he's not taking [00:48:30] accountability, but man, the second you were like. You saw the body coming out, you knew you had shot something, you, you knew that you'd done something wrong.

[00:48:37] Mm-hmm. And you just continued to lie.

[00:48:39] Adam Cox: Yeah. And I, I appreciate, like the autopsy report made him believe that everything was fine and I did mislead him a little bit.

[00:48:46] Kyle Risi: True.

[00:48:47] Adam Cox: But come on.

[00:48:48] Kyle Risi: Yeah. It's too much of a coincidence, right. For you to ignore and just go, oh, he is just, I don't know. Is that a car question on the inside?

[00:48:56] Adam Cox: Yeah. He just keeled over and died. Oh, it's fine. Don't worry about that. So yeah, [00:49:00] after the sentence is read, she told the reporters, he looked shocked, but not shocked as her husband was when the bullet struck him outta nowhere.

[00:49:06] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:49:06] Adam Cox: That night in room 3, 4, 8, Gren Flanagan was smoking, relaxing, watching a film.

[00:49:11] He never knew what hit him, but Lance Mueller did.

[00:49:14] Kyle Risi: Wow. So like, oh, this bit on the nose. He literally did not know what hit him.

[00:49:19] Adam Cox: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and that is the story of the body in room 3, 4, 8. Yeah, that's a bit of a mystery, that one. But it all did get sold by. Ken Brennan.

[00:49:29] Kyle Risi: Yeah. And [00:49:30] so simple. Yeah. The thing is though, simple as explanation is always the right one.

[00:49:34] Right, exactly. And, and, but you need the information to really know, and that was the bullet hole, right? Yeah. Without the bullet hole, none of this makes sense.

[00:49:41] Adam Cox: But the thing is, it only came from that guy, the foreman, who said something about a gun going off. Brennan just had these little bits of clues and is able to piece things together.

[00:49:49] Kyle Risi: This is the good lessons learned. It's like never discount any bit of information as irrelevant in any case. Because had a normal person would've gone up. I dunno what you [00:50:00] mean by a gunshot going off. Yeah. Uh, because it doesn't seem relevant to this situation.

[00:50:05] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:50:06] Kyle Risi: Do you know what I mean? But actually things can be really relevant.

[00:50:09] And it was in this case.

[00:50:10] Adam Cox: Exactly. It led them back to the room and them to find that toothpaste. 'cause they weren't looking in the room next door for a bullet hole.

[00:50:16] Kyle Risi: Mm-hmm.

[00:50:17] Adam Cox: Right. Shall we run the outro?

[00:50:19] Kyle Risi: Yes. Let's do that.

[00:50:21] Adam Cox: And that brings us to the end of another fascinating phay into the compendium and assembly of fascinating things.

[00:50:27] Kyle Risi: If today's episode sparks your curiosity, [00:50:30] then do us a favor and please follow us on your favorite podcast app and also tell a friend your support truly makes the world a difference and really helps other people discover the show.

[00:50:39] Adam Cox: For our dedicated freaks out there. Don't forget, next week's episode is already waiting for you on our Patreon.

[00:50:44] Completely free to access.

[00:50:46] Kyle Risi: And of course, if you want even more, please consider joining our certified Freaks Tier to unlock our entire archive and get access to exclusive content. You'll also get a sneak peek of what's coming next. We'd love you guys to be [00:51:00] part of our growing community.

[00:51:01] Adam Cox: We drop new episodes every Tuesday, so until then, remember some mysteries go cold.

[00:51:06] Others just wait for the right person to see what everyone else missed. We'll see you next week. See ya. [00:51:30]