Of Mice & Men & Murder - Sidney, Montana

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And you get a shout out at the end of the regular show, where Jimmy, you'll mess your name all up, don't you worry about that. So that's that, I think it's time everybody, what do you say? Let's all sit back here, clear the lungs, there we go, here we go, arms to the sky, and let's all shout, shout out and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody. Okay. Let's go on a trip, shall we? Yeah. Let's do it. We are going to a place we haven't been in a while. Oh, we're going to Montana this week. Nice. It's been quite a while over a year since we've been in Montana. So, reason is North Dakota, Montana, those states up there, the people just aren't close enough to each other to murder each other very often. It's just the, you're just too far away. Space equals happiness. I'm not going all the way over there to kill Frank. He's a dick, but I mean, he's so far away. Screw it. At least he's way over there. At least I don't have to deal with him. This is Sydney, Montana, S-I-D-N-E-Y, Montana. It's in Northeastern Montana, kind of over by the North Dakota border. This is in the, where the oil boom started in about 2012 here, this area, the western North Dakota, eastern Montana area, like Williston North Dakota becomes a big hub for it. So, things kind of get wild, as we'll talk about. They kind of go from a very small, rural western town to oil people are coming in. The workers are transient. They're wild. They drink. Fascinating folks. Yeah. They're single guys who drink and crouse and it's a lot. Oh, we'll talk about it here. This is about four hours to Billings, Montana, about three and a half hours to Bismarck, North Dakota, so kind of right in the middle of them, and five and a half hours to Geraldine, Montana, our last Montana episode, episode 569. This is, this is episode 694, by the way, so it's been a long time. That was a stalker to die for. This is in Richland County, area code 406. Population of this town, pretty small still, even after a boom, 6420. So, still a small town. Median household income here, lower than the national average. National average is around 70. Here it's $55,611. So, pretty a little bit low. And median, yeah, median home cost is high. It is expensive up there, $397,100 is median. Almost 400 grand. That is pricey. So, it's tough. It's tough to find housing up here, from what I understand. Nickname of this town, Sunrise City. I mean, I suppose. I mean, I think every city has a sunrise. Everybody's got a sunrise, right? Yeah, their rise is in the east. It's probably really beautiful there, because of the mountains and such. Maybe. I bet the sun sets are better, yeah. Like Arizona. But Montana's a lot of planes, too, isn't it? It is. It's my, it's, it's a lot of everything. It's the size of like eight European countries. It's huge up there. It's enormous. A little bit of history of this town, just a little bit. The settlers began coming here in the 1870s, established a post office in 1888. A six-year-old named Sidney Walters, and his parents were staying with Hiram Otis, the local justice of the peace. And Hiram Otis, he must have had, the justice of the peace has sweeping powers, because he can just name the town. And he did. The JP is like, that kid is cute. He decided Sidney's a pretty good name. We should name the town that. Not, I'll name my kid that. I'll name the town that. So that's what they did. And the following year, Montana became a state, and Sidney was incorporated. And for a long time, the main source of everything here is sugar beets. They grow sugar beets here. We've gone over this with some other show about five years ago, I believe, six, seven years ago, about sugar beets. So that's what they were into. Then the oil boom came where they were, you know, the shale and all that stuff. So, and everything changed. We've never been here, so let's find out some reviews of this town. See what other people think. Okay, five stars. Sidney is a very small, tight-knit town where everybody might know your name, but you are very well cared for. I don't know what that means. Yeah, that's not why the but. That's, it's just going to say the, the but is not really necessary and would have been a fine thing to put instead of but. Well, they know your name, but you're well cared for. But I mean, yeah, they, they call you names. They go, hey, Jimmy, you cocksucker, but then they take care of you. Hey, Jerkoff. Yeah. We are a town 45 minutes in the complete middle of two opposite colleges in both Williston, North Dakota and Glendive, Montana. The community is so great that when people leave to attend colleges for years and hundreds of miles away, they always find their way back home to Sidney to raise their families. How about it? And that's what happens with one of our people in a story today is they leave and come back. Yeah. That's what happens. So must, they must love it. Here's five stars. I have loved living in Sidney and I am happy raising my family here. There are many on, well, there may not be very many conveniences, but the friendless friend, friendliness. Wow. They spelled that wrong. The friendlessness. That's what I saw at first is friendlessness. Well, I'm like, that is way wrong. Amazing. But the friendliness and community makes up for that. Okay. Two stars. The cost of living is high due to demand of people needed here, but not everyone makes the oil field money. So for some, it's difficult. Oil field money is big, huh? It pays for in the middle of nowhere. It pays way more than anything else in the middle of nowhere. I mean, it afforded Matthew McConaughey to go get AIDS treatment. Oh, for so much of it. So much of it. He wasn't in the fields, though. Oh, he was. I don't remember that part. Okay. Didn't you see that movie? Yeah, but like years ago, I don't remember. He's out there drilling and getting knocked out and getting punched. That's not a movie that's a great repeat watcher. So, no. I met, yeah. So, one years ago. You seen it once. You're like, all right. That was that. Put it on the shelf and there you go. It's fine. The movie. It's just, you know, I just, I don't want to see Matthew McConaughey look like that for two hours. No, no. Yeah, it's sad. The town is small and not much to do unless you want to go to the bar and then there's like eight to choose from. Oh, that's great. And that's what these towns turn into when all the oil comes in. Bars open and. Roughnecks love to drink. Yeah. Like, I was looking for murders in North Dakota and there was several in Williston and multiple of them were people getting murdered at strip clubs that were right next door to each other. So, it was like, Jesus, this place is crazy. And then finally three stars. This is the lowest rating they have, by the way, is a three star. There's nothing to do here and there's no reason to stay. No. All right. Things to do in this town, the Richland County Fair and Rodeo. Of course. Oh, yeah. What began as a small community street fair has evolved into what is now the Richland County Fair and Rodeo entertaining 30,000 plus people year after year. It became official in 1920 and has continued to be successful ever since they say here. Right. Some attractions. We have the freckle farms, pony rides and petting zoo. Yeah. Got that. You got this is a, this guy'll be wandering around. Scott's crazy magic. It's crazy magic. It's crazy. It's so crazy. There's an off axis stunt show, which is, they say high energy 60 minute action packed spect, spectacle here. Right. You get BMX and dirt bike stunts, slam dunk aerial action that will leave you speechless, Jimmy. It's all anti-gravity shit, James. Pretty much. Teeter board acrobatics with jaw dropping precision. A hilarious comedy parkour chase scene. So like Keystone cop down. Yeah. And then they just fall and another guy comes. I mean, that's the funny part of parkour, right? When you fall, that's the good. Otherwise, yeah, you're just like, look at this idiot. Jesus Christ. And the grand finale, a mega ramp launched by BMX riders, dirt bikes and every additional act they offer. You come up on a moped, you're going off this mega ramp. They don't give a shit. Roller skates. Let's go. Who cares? Rocket skates. Let's go. Yeah. Let's see what Acme has delivered today. There's also the PRCA rodeo will be in town. Yeah. That's the real one, James. That's the good one. And then their, their big headlining band Midland with special guest, Eli Mosley. I think I've heard of Midland. It sounds, it sounds like every, I thought I did too, but I'm like, all those country bands of the same. It's also the brand of a CB radio. Midland is generic for a country group like young something is generic for a rapper. You know what I mean? It's like, I don't know all the youngs and midlands. I don't know where the hell they're talking about. That said, let's talk about a merger, shall we? Here we go. All right. Let's get into this. Now, okay. Now, Sydney kind of has a pre-2012 post-2012 life. You can put it. A grace period. Yeah. It's, yeah. 2012, it was kind of a quiet place. You know what I mean? They said the, all the social stuff revolved around high school sports. Like a typical Yeah, everything changed. Very rural town. Quote, this is from a writer, quote, respectable folks went to the bar on Saturday nights. Nobody locked their doors. Just the respectable folks. The respect. Yeah. They're really bad people. Really bad people have all been kicked out of all these bars already. So they're not allowed in. Then the oil boom hit. Massive underground deposits stretching across eastern Montana and western North Dakota. And basically this made it, you know, people rush up here for jobs, essentially. Okay. So they're pumping out crude and now all of a sudden the everything is packed. You can't get even a hotel room up there because of the oil workers. Really? There's semi. Well, they're probably staying in those, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Temporary housing. There's semi trucks, you know, flooding these small streets and everything like that. It's a complete fucking mess. The police chief said he needed seven more officers and didn't, couldn't get them yet because that pays less than the oil fields. So is that right? Yeah. So there's shit going on. Drug crimes in eastern Montana more than doubled in only a couple of years. Is that right? Assaults in Dickinson, North Dakota, which is right across the border. I think we've done an episode there. That increased fivefold in two years. That's assault assaults. The mayor said this about the oil workers and the spike in crime, quote, we own the day, they own the night. They've given up. What? It's just, it's bedlam after dark. It's like fucking deadwood after dark. That's what this man says, basically. It's crazy. I've heard the term rough neck. I know that's what they call the oil field guys, but I don't know why. No, either. Not sure. Is their neck just blistered? Is that what it is? They're just hunched over? Probably pretty rough from the sun beating on it. Yeah. Sun blistered though? Sure. Not positive. Let's find out someone about someone who, well, comes in from a walk and probably isn't blood, by a sun blistered because he'd happened in the morning. January 7th, 2012. This is in the afternoon. There's a guy named Gary Arnold. Gary's got some kids and a wife. We'll talk about all that. He had gone for a walk that morning. And when he gets back, his wife, Sherry, isn't home. So he assumed that she had gone for her run because she runs in the morning too. I don't know why they just don't run together, but whatever. Maybe the solitude is important. He gets up early earlier. Not sure. So he waits for, you know, figure she'll be back soon. Time passes and she never comes home. So he goes out and goes looking for her himself, you know, driving around her unusual running routes to find her and can't find anything. So he gets home and reports her as missing to the police department. Wow. The wife's missing. Her running shoes are gone. She clearly went out running and hasn't come back and she's nowhere to be found. Wow. So, and she's a real, these are real kind of staid people. These aren't like, these aren't oil workers. They're both he and his wife, both Gary and Sherry are teachers. Gary and Sherry. And they're teachers and they have, you know, a very kind of calm life. They don't go do crazy things. That is a fascinating phone call to make to the police too of life. Yeah. Because I mean, the term is literally ran away. And so you call the police and you go, my wife, you know what, never mind. My wife ran away. But wait, I mean, there's more. She ran away. I want you to look for her. But as I'm saying the words, it's starting to occur. The problem is running away and tells running back home and she hasn't done that part yet. So she usually runs right the fuck back. She's running somewhere. We're not sure if it's away or towards something or whatever, but you should find her. This is a fun phone call is all. So within hours, everybody is looking for her. Literally a thousand people are searching for her. Wow. By late afternoon, they have organized at the high school, search, like everyone get to the high school search parties, all the firemen, all that kind of shit. Everybody is out looking like they're very aware that this is not normal. And everybody in town is like, wait, she didn't come back. And she's a very popular math teacher at Sydney high school too. So everybody knows her. She's worked there for years. Everybody knows her. And basically about 20% of the town went looking for her. About a thousand and 5,000 people went. The police department, they even sent 40 soldiers from the Montana Army National Guard to look for. They had that canine units, hundreds of volunteers just walking the fields. And you know, this is January in Montana. It's cold and they're still out there doing it. They don't give a shit. Then on Holly street, which is not too far from their house, often a ditch, they find one of her running shoes, a new balance running shoe. That's a problem. Now that's a bad sign. One shoe is missing. Because she's probably not, you know, hopping around somewhere right now. Yeah. If you run away, you're going to need both of those. Yeah. And she's nowhere around the shoe, which is a problem. So they put up a big missing thing for her. It's a newspaper. Sherri Lee Arnold is her name. She's 43 years old. She's white with black hair, brown eyes, 5 foot, 10, 140 pounds. And from what it looks like, a very nice, warm smile. Like the so young. Yeah. So young. She looks like the math teacher you'd want to have because she looks like she would the good one explain it to you and you would get it. You know what I mean? Without calling me stupid. Without calling me stupid. Exactly. That's how I feel. She'd be like, well, I don't even feel that bad about not getting that the first five times she fucking said it. So she says, she has a slender build, numerous scars on her left leg and was last seen wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt with white stripes on the sleeves and red nylon pants with black leggings and black gloves. So they're begging people to call. Now she is Sherri Arnold. She is, she's born February 13th, 1968. She's 43 years old. She grew up on her family's ranch about 25 miles outside of town. Yeah. I mean, she's really, that's a nice life she's come up with here. Sweet way to start. You bet. She's the daughter of Ron and Sharon, uh, white-ed, whitted, W-H-I-T-E-D whitted. She's got a sister named Rhonda and, um, you know, they, they all rode, they rode horses growing up and they showed, uh, horses and, and other livestock and four H shows and that kind of thing. I mean, she came up, no rural ranch girl riding horses, showing animals at the four H thing. I mean, she, that's what she's doing. Um, she was valedictorian of Sydney high school class of 1986. She's a real achiever. This one too. That's, that's the one you want teaching people. She clearly gets this. Yes. She didn't just choose, you know, teaching as a, I don't know what else to do. And they're always hiring because that's why a lot of guaranteed paycheck. I know many people who've gone into teaching just because there was nothing, they didn't know what else to do. And whatever they went to school for, wasn't really, you know, working for them. So they end up, you know, going and getting the teaching degree. And that's what they get. Yeah. Those who can't think, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. And then some teachers are just great. Some teachers are awesome and they're engaged and they want to teach and they're into it. And then some people are like, you know, I'm just doing this until my resume gets picked up by somebody else. Yeah. They said no kids left behind. So get the fuck out. Get out. She went to college. She played volleyball at the University of North Dakota in Williston. She earned her teaching degree from Dickinson State University in 1990. And then she started teaching in Tioga, North Dakota. And then she taught at another school in Minot, also North Dakota. And then she ended up coming back to Sydney. How about that? And for the last 18 years, she's been teaching math in Sydney. Loves it. So I mean, back in her hometown and yeah, it's really nice. She got married in 1994 when she had just gotten back into Sydney. She married a guy named Jerome Papinou. Papinou. P-A-P-I-N-E-A-W. Papinou. In 1994, she has two children from that marriage, Jason and Holly. They end up getting divorced some point in the, maybe 97-ish. By 98, she is in a relationship with somebody else, Gary Arnold, her current husband who's looking for her, who's also a teacher at Sydney High School, which seems convenient. You can carpool at least. That's nice. Yeah. I mean, there was, I've seen many couples through my high school that were, they were married and they were teachers at the same school. Yeah. Yeah. And a couple of teachers that were like at different schools, but in the district and they were married, you know. September 12, 1998, they get married. So she brings two kids to the table. I believe Gary brought possibly, I think he had one kid and then I believe they have two kids together, if not, it might be great. She has a daughter named Holly and they live on Holly Street. They live off, that's down the road there. Oh, that's where their shoe was found. That's where her shoe was found. So yeah, she's got, so there's five kids all together here. They're both teachers, you know, they're doing their thing here. She told one of her friends that her description of her life is, quote, I love our rut. So say again. Yeah. She likes, she likes the groove they've made. Oh, got it. Yeah. All right. Um, ruts usually not a positive word. That's why. No, well, yeah, you have to put love in there or else it's bad. Yeah. If you say I'm in a rut, that's not good. If you say, I love this rut, I'm in, then it's like, okay, I guess you're happy. Oh, groove. Yeah. Groove and rut are synonymous, although that's what I took it as. Ruts sounds terrible. Ruts sounds, because that's what you say. I'm in a rut right now. Yeah, you're stuck. When you're stuck. A rut's never not stuck. You don't know what to do. Yeah, you're, you're, you know, in a shit of a mess. You say, I'm in a rut. Yeah. So yeah, she teaches algebra. Her husband teaches algebra and uh, her kids go to school at this high school as well. So, you know, couldn't be better for them. In fall of 2011, she was named KTVQ, which is a local TV station or radio station, one of the two. KTV, I assume TV, KTVQ, teacher of the month. So she made the month. That's great. Yeah. She's teacher of the month. She also had cancer. Jesus. She had beaten cancer as well. Really? Through this time. She had, I don't know what kind, but all I keep finding is that it was a rare cancer, not a common one. And she survived it. She was fighting it for six years of constant going. And she has come out the other side, it looks like here, and she's in remission. So I mean, yeah, it's, you know, maybe, that's gotta be exhausting. Six years of it? Six years. And maybe, maybe there's something to karma here. She's a nice lady and she got through it, you know? So that's good. Yeah. Beating it is the key. If you're like, if you see progress or like something, then you can certainly have a, a desire to keep fighting it. My dad died of it after six years and boy, oh boy, he was on the ropes from month one. I was gonna say, when they, when you were saying, when he first got diagnosed, they didn't, they wouldn't have given him six years. They didn't think he even had that long. Yeah. It was already severely, you know, into it here. But Sherry, she beats it and she runs half marathons now. She coaches softball. She likes to do yard work and go horseback riding and all that kind of shit. So loves sports too. She seems cool as shit. Yeah. Big Cubs fan. Oh, she loves the Cubs and the Minnesota Twins. I'm like, man, she is a glutton for punishment. No kidding. Just a glutton for punishment and all two baseball, both. Yeah. They're American and National League though. Okay. So you can, you can do that. Yeah. And that to me is, it seems like, because she's also in football, her team is the Vikings. So Minnesota is the Plains team. Yeah, it is. It goes over all the way to there and the Cubs. Seattle only gets to halfway through Idaho. Yeah. Well, and the Cubs were on WGN. Yeah. So I bet anything she grew up watching the Cubs on TV and that's probably, wow, she got to be a Cubs fan because that's how I started liking the Cubs was, we first moved Arizona. The White Sox were too. WGN. Yeah, but fuck the White Sox. I don't know. Didn't care about them. I loved Frank Thomas. I did too. I did too. It was so much fun. I did. I liked Frank Thomas too. Bobby Thigpen, was that his name? The pitcher? He was a White Sox. Yeah, White Sox. Yeah. Relievable. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, they had to, I remember those bad 80s teams like Dan Posqua and Ron Hasse and all those guys they would trade back and forth with the Yankees. The White Sox ran shitty right up until the late 90s, I guess. No, it was further than that. They've been bad pretty much since the Titanic went down. Yeah. They won a World Series then went right back to historically sucking. Yeah, to really be in bed. 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You would imagine and January 7th, 2012. She got up before dawn put on her new balance shoes and went out running and she had recently run a half marathon in Deadwood. So she runs all the time. She did that huh. So the scene of the shoe now at the scene of the shoe they also find her hat as well. Okay. Off a little further, you know, like a beanie cap there. Sure. There is evidence of a struggle in the loose gravel and frozen mud. The frozen mud seems to be disturbed. Foot prints and scotch marks. Yeah, you can see that there's no witnesses to anything that happened here. They can't find anything. It's it's the area is in an it's like an industrial area they're in. No, this isn't like, you know, in a in a neighborhood. This is kind of often an industrial area. There's a truck route that runs along the Sydney sugars plant. So that's what it is. It's basically and where she was in January in Montana. It's very dark and very cold and there's nobody there. So just this industrial area by the sugar plant on a truck route she's running on, which they probably run that because there's no cars going down there. The trucks aren't going there yet. There's that so they don't slide off the road and hit you and such. But less traffic means more ice, doesn't it? I'd be afraid to slip and fall on my fans. It can. But I mean, if you're running in Montana in January, you figured out ice. She probably puts you might put those little ice clips. I suppose you could put like little spikes on your shoes. Yeah, I have those little ice spikes for. Oh, do you? Yeah, I have some for like shoveling. If it's really frozen out, you you don't want to do they just like you clip them. They just go in your shoe. Yeah, yeah. Pull them and they like pop on the bottom. Oh, got it. Okay. They're pretty simple just to kind of break it up a little bit. They're not like thicker or longer or anything. But this is a safe place that she's usually running in. This is Sydney. There's no crime. There's no anything going on here. So the running shoe on the side of the ditch signaled something's wrong mixed with the signs of a struggle and that, you know, you know, she didn't just like kick a shoe off because she was hot or something. So now and she's not usually the type of person no one would think of her as someone who would take off and run away and especially with one shoe and she's probably not gonna run away. So her husband, Gary is obviously the first person they look at to say what the fuck that went on here. But he's he is cleared by law enforcement because for the sole reason that he was fully cooperative from the first moment, which yeah, a lot of people are fully cooperative and also fully guilty. Yeah, they're fully cooperative and fully full of shit. Fully questioning. What do you know? Yeah, yeah. But Gary, they seem to really believe him. And a criminal profiler speaking to the news in the days after this disappearance said about the shoe that shoe in the ditch, not a good sign looks to me like it's an abduction something somebody pulled her into a vehicle. I go with somebody over something. Right. Unless you know, Sasquatch pulled up in his van and yank her in there. I don't think I think it's probably somebody. I'm gonna just yeah, nice job. Well, you went to school for that. Yeah. Yeah. No, he's FBI all the way. This guy. It's this is huge news around here. Yeah, not only because women don't usually disappear, but also she is a popular figure. She's a local teacher. She was just, you know, profiled on the news as a teacher of the month, you know, like two and a half months ago. So and a mom responsible for five children. Yeah, yeah, she's got she's got shit going on. You don't just disappear. Absolutely. I mean, this is national news too. The Washington Post picks it up. Albuquerque stations pick it up, you know, every Albuquerque all the way down there, all the way down there. Yeah. Even the the NOAA weather's website even had look for yeah, the national organization of something. Yeah. Of I can't remember what the hell it is. It's weather. I'm too focused on this now to get into weather. But yeah, that's that's what it is. That's a big one though. That thing's important. It's yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's the that's they they look at all the storm shit, I believe there. And also Sydney High School, they have a basketball game and they have a moment of silence before the game for her, even though she's just missing. Now the profiler who said, you know, she's probably been abducted by something or someone. Something or someone. Fucking idiot. He also noted that when looking around because they clear the husband and there's nobody else. It's not like she's had an affair or anything like that. So they're the kind of a dead end there. So they start looking at are there registered sex offenders around someone that might pull a woman into a car, you know, they're getting like dead serious. Oh, absolutely. They want to find who are bad. And they said Sydney had 41 registered sex offenders who were all male within approximately one mile of the jogging route. So there's 41 perverts in a good lower in a one mile circle of this place. Can you imagine that? What a shit. What a shit. So in circle that is. Yeah, I assume that that there's quite a bit pretty much everywhere. We don't know unless you like really look at. But I mean, if you look at your neighborhood, it looks like it has chicken pox on that website. Absolutely. It's ugly. But this I mean 41 in a mile or mile. That's a lot. That feels like they did that on purpose. Yeah. Well, I mean, how many of these oil workers are registered sex offenders? Probably quite a few. It's kind of a nomadic lifestyle and shit. Probably a lot of unregistered too. Plenty of unregistered. So you put that in there and then they probably all have to stay in one area because there's a school over here. They can't be there. So they I'm sure they're all in there or there's a house that's like designated for it. This is pervert house and we all stay here. That by the way, 41 in that small average is four times the national average per capita. So this is like sex offender. Wow. This is like the sex offender vacation spot or some shit over here. On average, it's 10 per square mile. We got it. We got work to do. I don't even know if it's that. But in the town, they have four times the cap per capita. I don't know how they're doing the math. Jesus Christ. 10 of them were non-compliant with registry requirements and had potentially unreported addresses too. One was a level three offender, which is the highest risk for repeat sexual offense and the highest threat to public safety. Out of 41, only one was a level three. That's pretty interesting. So that's what they have. So they got to go on a pervert roundup now and go talk to all these perverts and find out who did what here. Hey, knock, knock, knock. Hi, is there a... Yes, we're looking for the local sex pervert. Hi, oh, it's you. Okay. Yeah. Pervert. Can we search your house for one new balance, Jew, please? Yeah. Have you got a left of this? Then January 11th. So four days after she disappears, an anonymous tip comes in. Okay. Okay. Sydney police receive it. And it is an anonymous tip saying that a 22-year-old man that this person knows named Michael Spell, S-P-E-L-L, has been overheard talking to family members about a woman that he and another man kidnapped and killed. So overheard. This is a very... Yeah. You know, this is a real family members heard that? There's a real nebulous anonymous tip here. He was overheard saying this and that. Doesn't really register a lot, but they do also give a description of a vehicle that he might be traveling in. That's good. So it's a 1993 Green Ford Explorer. So that's what they're saying. Now, the guy that they're talking about is Michael Keith Spell. He's 22 years old. He's from Parachute, Colorado. He has an IQ of 70. Okay. Is illiterate as fuck and described later as having the mental age of about an 11-year-old and the education his dad says of a kindergartner. Yeah. That's what we got here. That's what was absorbed all the way up until then. Or a first grader. I apologize. That's his functioning level, they say. Yeah. Oh boy. How long did... When did he drop out? Do we know when he finished school? Oh yeah. Yeah. He didn't finish school at all. Yeah. No. He dropped out pretty early here. He had... He's had some criminal problems in the past few years, which is why they want to look at him even more. He had been declared incompetent to proceed on two prior legal matters in Colorado, because of his stupidity. He's already gotten off on two charges because of it. Oh yeah. One of him was a Colorado case in 2007 involving drug possession contributing to the delinquency of a minor and sexual contact without consent. Oh, that's called rape. What are we talking about? Well, it's not rape if it's not penetrative. Penetration of some sort. Yeah. It's not technically. If you grab somebody's ass, they can't say rape. That's not rape. Okay. That's like saying it's raining out when it's not raining out. Yeah, I guess that is sexual contact. Yeah. That's sexual contact without consent. Now, I don't know if maybe that law needs to be updated for whatever, but it doesn't seem like it's rape. No. But it's gross, whatever it is. It's certainly not good. No one should be touching anybody, but... And if it was all on the same account too with the alcohol and such, that's not good. Yeah, I think so. He gave whatever drugs to this person and then had contact with them. Sexual contact with consent is just sexual contact. It's not against the law. So without consent is implied if you've been arrested for it. Also in 2009, that was dismissed due to his dumbness. Then in 2009, he was arrested after asking a student at what was then St. John Middle School to text a fellow students and ask any of them if they wanted to buy some weed. Oh. Well, at least he wasn't slinging dick, but still. Yeah. The arrest affidavit said the student who was 14 said Spell provided him with weed and the two had smoked and he said, hey, text all your friends and see if any of them need weed. That's just trying to make money. Okay. Yeah. So he faced charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, attempted distribution of marijuana and solicitation to commit distribution of marijuana. Yeah. He was represented by a public defender who twice successfully requested psychological evaluations for him and the case was dismissed and sealed. So, yeah. So. Imagine getting off being, he's too dumb to understand that that isn't okay. Yeah. He's too stupid. Like they looked at it and they were like the 14-year-old who he asked is way more mature than him. Wow. So what do we do here basically? And what do you do with a guy like this? I don't know. He's a big guy too. Like he's a, he's a Lenny. Like he's a big, big Lenny. Like what do you do with a guy like this? Honestly, it's, this is a very. Go to a weed legal state first of all. That would be one thing. It's a very of mice and men situation with him and his friend here. That's what we'll talk about. So he was initially free on a personal reconnaissance bond, co-signed by his father with whom he was living. And then in 2010, he was arrested on a failure to appear warrant in that case as well. The bond carried a $5,000 penalty in case of default and his father was issued a notice of forfeiture. But it all ended up being just dismissed after a while. Didn't matter because it's too dumb anyway. He's too dumb. He has a girlfriend named Angel Cruz. Everybody again, we've said this. If we've said it once, we've said it a thousand times. I don't want to hear that you can't find somebody. This man has an IQ of 70 and a criminal record that includes words like sex, sexual and without consent. And he's got a girlfriend. You can do it fellas. I'm sorry. He's had charges dismissed because he's too dumb. Too dumb to even deal with it. That's sorry. They have a son together. This woman lets him impregnate her somehow. She gave him consent. Oh God. He had consent at one point here. So he's got about a one-year-old kid at this time that they're looking into him. And he's got a one-year-old son, a girlfriend named Angel Cruz. He's got a father named Harry who sounds like he's exhausted by them completely. He still loves him and he's, you know, there for him. They say his family said he left Colorado on January 4th to pursue oil jobs in the eastern Montana, western North Dakota area in this area. Spells father Harry said that his son had traveled with a friend of his up to the oil fields after his friend, meaning, you know, Michael's friend, had guaranteed work that pays up to $2,000 a week. Damn good money. If you can go up there, make a hundred grand a year and you're in her shoot Colorado. A grand a month. Yeah. That's to make that in a rural area without owning a ranch or your own business is impossible. It just doesn't work like that. So that's great money. Yeah. That's why a lot of them like just drag a trailer and go from field to field because you can make two grand a week and not have any fees to pay. That's amazing. And that's why these states do this also because places like Oklahoma, they went from having zero earthquakes to having like 800 earthquakes a year because they're doing this crazy shit, but people want the jobs. Yeah. It's like putting a it's like putting a fucking prison somewhere. It's the same thing. Well, there's jobs there. Yeah, but it's also full of felons also. So what are we doing? Anyway, his father Harry said that his son was anxious to prove himself to his parents and his girlfriend and even his son who doesn't know anything yet, but will someday. Not as much as he knows. They're pretty similar. Michael found work in the past in oil fields near parachute and on a fire damage cleanup crew, but was unable to keep the jobs because and I quote, this is his father, he didn't quite understand what to do. He's too dumb to work on a fire damage cleanup crew. He doesn't know rake putting bag. See that shit that's burnt? Yeah. Clean it. Get rid of it. Can't process that. That's, I mean, this guy is getting out of here. Scary dumb. His dad said he might be 22 years old, but he has an education less than a kindergartner. Wow. So the man he drove to Montana with is Lester Van Waters Jr. Van is his middle name. He's 47 years old. So 25 years older than Michael Spell. He's a Florida native. Move to parachute Colorado. He's originally from Indian River County, Florida, which is on the east coast of the state there. He grew up with an alcoholic father who more than once apparently fired shots at him. Oh boy. Like bucking shots toward your kid. He also has four sisters. He worked construction and roofing, which is the, that's maybe the rapiest of all the construction workers. It's a tough one. It's a tough one. It's certainly some of the hardest work. It's the shittiest work. It's the work that you are doing. You'd be moving somewhere else on the crew unless you had a long criminal record that makes you do whatever the hell you can, you'll take whatever you can get basically. Go up there. Roofers are tired of you down here. Yeah. Roofers are scumbags. Sorry if any roofers are listening. Look around. You're probably not a scumbag if you listen into this show, but look around you right now. How many scumbags do you see? A bunch, right? Would you trust any of them around your daughters? Put it that way. Probably not. So he's a construction worker. They're here because they can't work indoors. No one will allow them indoors. That's why they're here. No one will even allow them to on ground level. They have to be up closest to the sun. Go up top and outside. Mop that tar, buddy. Also, he has seven felonies that we'll talk about. His lucky number is seven, by the way. He's got seven felonies and seven children. Wow. With five different women. Okay. I was hoping for seven. I was hoping for triple sevens, but five. He's done three stints in state prison, so his numbers are seven, seven, five, and three at this point. He should really play that in the lottery. If there's one of those quick picks or something, he should do that. He did three prison stints between 2002 and 2010. His criminal history in Indian County dates back to the late 80s and includes weapons possessions, narcotics possessions, theft, trespassing, leaving the scene of a crime, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, sale of cocaine, burglary. He's fucked up a lot. Contempt of court, resisting an officer, multiple counts of driving with a suspended license, and then of course, failure to pay child support because at this current time, he's $84,000 in arrears on child support. $84,000. Jimmy. You're never clearing that up. That's like what we hear from like, you know, some NFL player who is getting sued or something. He owes 112,000 because, you know, he has to pay like 8,000 a month or whatever. Yeah. He's only six months behind. Yeah. This guy's probably 12 years behind. He's never paid anything. He also uses about a dozen aliases as well. And he's also been charged with giving police a false name as it makes sense as well. Because he's got aliases. His former Florida co-worker and roommate remembered him thusly and wow. Quote, he worked hard and partied hard. We made money and he partied real hard. That was his main goal and girls. I know that he was wild and I know that we partied a hell of a lot in our years, but there was never any violence in it. Just party, babe. He said the word party three times in two sentences and girls also, which is funny. And he has one asset and that is a green 1993 Ford Explorer. Oh, okay. August of 2010 is when he moved to Colorado after he was released from prison in Florida. That's when he met Michael Spell. So pretty recently and he told Spell, there's money in them, our hills and then oil fields. Let's go get it. So January 12th, the day after the anonymous tip, the FBI interviews Angel Cruz, Michael Spell's baby mama and girlfriend. And she tells them what Michael Spell told her. And that was that quote. He and a man named Lester had abducted a woman. Why would you tell your girlfriend that? I mean, what do you've been up to? Well, sometimes you're just honest to a fault. You know what I mean? To a fault. That's the problem. The guy's just too honest. Yeah. But I mean, we got such a great relationship. I tell her everything. Just tell her everything. Including when I abduct women. Yeah. And also Michael had told her that they strangled the woman and shoved her face in muddy water until she was dead. That's what Angel tells the FBI. Yeah, I didn't hear a single why. None of that. If I'm her, I'm not getting that far in the conversation. No. Past you abducted a woman. What? You did what? That would be the end of it. And then you came home? She got all the way down to this shit where he did all of this. He told her that Lester forced him to bury the body and that Michael said he was just wracked with guilt and he was terrified of what Lester would do to him if he said anything. So she also gave a vehicle description of a 1993 Green Ford Explorer. So they locate the Green Ford Explorer. Lester Waters Jr. is taken into custody because he's the one inside the vehicle. Michael's not in the vehicle. They don't find him in there. They're not together anymore. Inside the vehicle, they find a Walmart receipt dated January 7th, 2012, the same day Sherry disappeared for items, including a shovel. Oh boy. Yeah. This is way to hear about the shovel. Now Michael had stolen Lester Waters Jr.'s phone after the murder, apparently, and began hitchhiking towards South Dakota. Wow. So he's just on the side of the road with a thumb out with a stolen phone. Somebody else's phone. A bad man's phone. Yeah. The SWAT team pulls up and gets him off the side of the road. So that's where he is. He's taken into custody and transported to Williams County Correctional Center in Williston, North Dakota, because he was in North Dakota at the time. Now, Michael's spell when he's booked into the jail, the only things he has in his possession are a stolen phone and $11. $11. $11. That's what he's got to his name. It's a good thing y'all got me. I'm out of money. I'm about out of money. Yeah. I had about one extra value meal left in me and that's about it. One extra value meal or about two hours at a moat. Yeah. What are the... Yeah, totally. So the FBI brings him in for formal questioning because he was in another state and he's from another state and it's all very confusing and the FBI was doing a profile anyway. Now, he is going to spill it. He confesses, but the problem is he tells them what happened, but with certain tweaks on it and changes to it that make himself a little bit less guilty here and kind of shield himself a little bit here from guilt, one of those things. But he is the first to talk here. His dad talks to the media and says he's got less education in the kindergartner and my son has all messed up and he left with some criminal asshole who told there was all sorts of money in the oil fields. Now, what Michael tells them is, first of all, they ask him if he understands his Miranda rights. They go through it all. They go, do you understand your rights as we've told you? And he said a little bit, which I've never heard that response to, do you understand your rights? A little bit. Who you do? This is like Brendan Dassy up there. Yeah. This is... It's worse. It's worse. This is a guy that's been fired because he didn't understand his job. He didn't understand cleaning up burn things. So the FBI agents give him a second opportunity to decline to speak without speaking to attorney and attorney and he said, but I'll just talk to you, I guess, but he understands his rights a little bit. A little bit. He insulted him a little bit. He gave him his rights a little bit. So he says, January 4th, we left to get oil jobs. Our destination was Williston, North Dakota, and this oil boom. You know what I mean? And so they said that the trip was basically a marathon of crack smoking the entire time. Nice. That's how they started. They loaded into the Ford Explorer. Day one. Day one. All the crack. As soon as they got in the car, he said Lester Waters was already high on crack when they got in the car for the trip. And basically the drive is 800 miles and they basically just quote, consumed crack cocaine for three straight days. God, just three days of crack smoking and driving. Okay. He said that Lester Waters smoked crack continuously and Michael told the police that Lester forced him to smoke crack too. Forced me. Forced me to smoke. I had to do it. Yeah. So he says somewhere on the drive, this is January 7th is when this happened, Lester Waters told Michael Spell that the crack cocaine quote brought the devil out in him. It's been known to do that by the way. It really has. It'll bring the devil out in quite a few people crack. You chase the dragon with heroin, but bring the devil out with crack. You bring the devil. Yeah. You chasing the dragon. Nah, man, bringing the devil. That's what I'm doing right now. So that shit is evil though. Crack is fucking evil. I mean, not that that's a hot take, but if you've ever known anyone who is severely addicted to crack, it is a fucking mess. It's a mess. Yeah. I mean, thankfully I've only seen close up a lot through documentaries and obviously that is boy, oh boy. I've no dudes to smoke crack, but I had friends that were absolutely addicted to like they'd bring home whole pay phones. Yeah. The whole to try to crack them. They bring in cigarette machines. Jimmy and Tire cigarette machines. They bring in the fucking house. You're like, what's going on? Like you want to buy a cigarette? It's two bucks and then is so buried. It's so bad, but they're going to get it. They got it. They made a key. They poured, they smelt it. Jimmy, they smelt it a key to make a master key. Like nickels or something. They, I don't know. The one guy was an older crackhead. So he had tricks, but he, that's satanic bill and he, they made a key out of metal and they made it and poured it into a lock and all this shit. And so they could unlock, they had like a master key to phone boxes. So they, I mean, you've been a prey to fuck that that works because if it doesn't, now the keyhole is full of molten metal. That's full of that shit. Only crackheads would think to do that. That's what I mean. I was like, you guys are nuts. So it's a lot. So anyway, he apparently began talking about kidnapping and killing a woman. Lester does. Now Michael Spells said, I thought he was kidding at first, but then I realized he kind of wasn't kidding. It's a shit joke. Yeah. So it's a real weird joke. It doesn't come up very often. So they're driving through Sydney that morning. The streets are quiet. It's still dark. They initially can stay found a woman. They were going to kidnap. She was at a laundromat, but she got in her car and left before they could do it. Like they were planning it like, okay, you're going to do this. And then she got went and took off. So there's no way to get her. Then they went down Holly street, which is known as the truck route that runs past the Sydney sugars refinery. Right. And as we know, also running on that street is Sherry, Sherry Arnold. Apparently they drove up behind her. It's about 6 30 a.m. They drove up behind her. And according to Michael Spells confession here, Lester told him to get out of the vehicle. So he got out and he jogged slightly ahead of Sherry. Look like acting like he was jogging. There's a lot of people super high on three days worth of crack cocaine jogging at 6 30 in the morning. It's very normal. So he's got all of the jogging apparatus, all the accoutre mind. Yeah. Clothes, shoes, all of it. He's good. But it was a 2012. He's got like the iPod on his arm. And some people used to have back then all of that. Strap to it with the, with that low rubber sleeve. Yeah. He's got all that shit. He said hello to her as she passed. She smiled at him and he smiled back then because she's faster. She's running. He ran up behind her and tackled her from behind. Oh, God. He called it a rugby tackle, which how much rugby this guy's a tackle, I think is a football tackle. He said he forced her face into the muddy ground and he choked her. And then they dragged her into the car, into the explorer. Good Lord. Into the back seat. Now he's going to give a couple conflicting accounts to different people of exactly what happened inside the vehicle. Yeah. In some versions he killed her and in other versions Lester Waters choked her in the back seat. Okay. But we do know that he said that she was choked and to death basically. She was strangled. Then she's dead back there. So they covered her up in the back of the explorer under a blanket. That's it? That's it. They didn't realize that they left a hat and a sneaker at the scene either. They didn't realize that. You know, when you're high on crack for three days, shit slips by. Certain things fall in the cracks. You know what I mean? Yeah. You don't pay attention to details. Certain things get lost in the ether, you know. That's how it works. Lost in the crack smoke. So the explorer, they drive east across the Montana line into North Dakota. They reach the area around Williston, which is kind of the epicenter of the whole oil boom here. And the streets are jammed and there's all sorts of, a lot of chaos going on in this town. They stop at Walmart, buy a shovel, keep the receipt smartly enough, wait until you hear why, because this is amazing. They then drive to a rural area outside Williston. Lester tells Michael to dig. You know, he's younger. If you're 47, you're with someone that's 22. They're digging. Sorry. Hey, if you're digging a hole and there's someone 22 next to you, who's digging? Who's taking first shift? You're not going to feel this in the morning. So you start. I'm going to feel this for five days if I do this. So I'm going to take Advil for the next three. Yeah. Yeah. It's got to be amazing. I'd love to remember, and because I've always been sore, so but I'd love to remember what it would be like to do something like that without taking Advil first. Like I preemptively take Advil now when I do things. I'm like, well, that's going to hurt. I better do things. Yeah. We're not even that old. This is scary. And they had the parents participate. Oh, no. That was Tuesday, James. I still hurt. Still limping around. I went bowling Tuesday and I'm still sore too. My leg is sore. It's fucking horrible. Okay. So he's digging. Spells digging. He says they dig about a three-foot grave. They place Sherry's body inside the grave and they cover it up with some dirt. Boy, what a stupid thing to do. Insanely stupid. This is so stupid. Nothing to gain. She had nothing. Jogging. So she's not, you're not robbing her. She's not wearing her jewelry or carrying her fucking purse with her credit cards. And it's stupid. It's just pointless. So then they drove from there. You know, they drove, Jimmy? Home? Back to Walmart. Can you imagine why you go back to Walmart? They are not going to return this shovel. They absolutely returned their grave digging shovel for a refund. How crackhead is that? Yeah. Yeah. That is buying a circular saw to fix up your house and then taking it back. And then returning it. You asshole. You fucking jerk. At least you didn't buy a circular saw to dismember a person and then bring it back. Is that, this is even crazier. This is crazy. Yep. Then he got his money. He got his money back and he walked out. 11 bucks. He says that, he says that Lester ordered him to grab her and that he didn't know what else to do. So he says he's afraid of Lester Waters. He's older. You know, he's scary. The next day he's in jail talking to a fellow inmate, Michael Spell is, and he tells the inmate the story he told his girlfriend, the version where he's the one who grabbed her and he pushed her face into the muddy water and all that. So that's corroboration from all sides. So he's told that to multiple people. So they charge both men with deliberate homicide and attempted or aggravated kidnapping. They initially faced the death penalty here as well. Yeah. They both bleed not guilty. Wow. Okay. March 21st, 2012. This is almost two months later. Yeah. Finally, Lester Van Waters Jr. agrees to lead the authorities to the location of the body. They still haven't found her. They haven't. Yeah. They have. Oh my god. Nope. They haven't recovered her. So she is found in a rural area outside of Williston in about a three foot hastily dug grave. The autopsy finds black gritty, unidentified material in her stomach and trachea consistent with her having had her face forced into the muddy ground. Unbelievable. Horrible. Fucking horrible. I've aspirated it. She didn't do a fucking thing to anybody for no reason. She beat cancer and teaches kids fucking algebra. She's an angel. That's crazy. Wow. This is ridiculous. I can't believe these people exist on this planet. I don't even know what to say about it. I mean, the other guy, Lester, you look at this is exactly what you'd expect from him. You know what I mean? It seems like this is what this is. I just can't believe. I can't believe anybody does this. Yeah. I can't believe I expect that from someone. Yeah. Now, the fact that they brought this body across a state line triggers federal jurisdiction for kidnapping, giving the FBI Salt Lake City Division a role in the investigation as well. So now you got the federal government up your ass. They have a funeral for her. 2000 people attend this funeral. This is in a town of 5000. Yeah. A town. 2000 people attend the funeral. They have it at Sydney High School's gymnasium. They put a Chicago Cubs hat and flowers on her casket. Her husband Gary said he'd like to thank the police, the FBI and the people of Sydney and the people who have turned out to help and the role they played in bringing Sherry back home. It wasn't how we wanted her to come home, but she came home to us. Jesus, even he's a nice guy. Yeah. I mean, at least he's got her. And that's the, I mean, there's a lot of, a lot of the don't and that's fucked up. That sucks so much. There's a lot of tributes to her and there's a lot of be careful out there shit. There's a shut up and run.net, which, hey, we have shut up and give me murder. So that's pretty good. They have a bunch of posts about the whole thing keeping everybody updated. So the defense for Michael Spell wants to suppress his confession. Really? His defense attorney said basically he's a fucking moron. He had no idea what his rights were. Yeah, he didn't know what his rights were. They asked him if he understood, he said a little bit. A little bit? That's not enough. He wrote. Ask if you want ketchup. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. They said Mr. Spell believed the FBI agents were his friends and he was simply helping them solve the disappearance and murder of Mrs. Arnold. And when he gets, Well, he happens to know all of the answers. That's the problem. That's the problem. They say they tricked them and that with dumb people, that's what they do a lot. They need your help. We're all, you know, we're all in this together. You're practically an FBI agent. You know, that's how they would treat him and then do their batch deputized. Yeah. And the prosecution counter law enforcement did nothing wrong. It's not their fault. He's a moron. You know, he's a moron, but he's still out murdering people. So what do you want? They said they'd, he'd been, they'd been patient, deliberate and that his, that disability quote, while relevant, must be assessed in the totality of the circumstances. The judge is going to allow the, allow the confession into the trial. Is he competent? Cause he's been said, he's not competent. He didn't get, he didn't get charged for weed possession. Yeah. This is a big deal. Murder. Defense psychologist, but in the eyes of the law, it's not, doesn't matter whether it's J walking or murder, you're either competent or you're not. Yeah. My point is just that he wasn't competent enough to sell weed. Exactly. Now we're going to try him for murder. What are we talking about? Oh, you're saying, yes, that's what I was saying too. We were agreeing on that one. Okay. So I misunderstood. So yeah, the, the, this is defense psychologist testified that spell has a child's mentality and a subservient personality that makes him easily manipulated, especially by older people. He's gullible. He's gullible. His intellectual disability has been documented all the way back to age five as well. There's plenty of school thing. They said he played Sonic the hedgehog with his toddler. He played Kingdom Hearts. His, his aunt in law, or that one very long aunt in law described him watching, described watching him play. She said, he's like a kid playing those games. You saw the light on his face. Well, I got news for you, James. You're a dumb dumb too. Yeah. You don't sound real smart either aunt, aunt in law, Tina. You seen me play those games. I look like a moron. Oh yeah. I look like an idiot myself. So meanwhile, August of 2013, Lester waters, Jr. Pleads. He's going to plead guilty. He's got to to deliberate homicide by accountability, meaning he was held responsible for the killing, even if he did not personally perform the fatal act or leaving that in the wind. Under the plea agreement, prosecutors dropped the death penalty and kidnapping charge. He has to agree to testify against spell if it goes to trial. Okay. So he's going to plead to that. Now there's a three year battle for Michael, whether there's going to be a trial over his confidence. Could they basically, they're talking about his intellectual disability. They're saying, could he be sentenced to prison or a treatment facility? Can the death penalty legally apply here? Cause he's not bright enough in the Supreme court. It said you can't execute people that are this stupid. One guy, also a clinical professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, interviewed spell twice and testified, quote, he's not smart. We got that. I observed him being really confused most of the time about the questions he was asked and not being able to provide adequate answers to show he could understand the conversation. They said that he's prone to distort past events and he's basically just a mess. They said during his two month evaluation, he'd been observed playing video games, doing laundry, playing cards and manipulating other patients. That's what a state psychiatrist said. They said he earned video game privileges by behaving well and he had shown a rarely seen perseverance in reaching level three of whatever game he was playing. He can't get to level three. No, but also he could be good at video games and still be a moron. That doesn't, you know, you could have little, you know, it could be an idiot savant like that. He complained of depression, anxiety, paranoia, voices, poor memory and his behavior was not consistent with those complaints they said though. He enjoyed child friendly video games. They also, this doctor from the state said his cognitive limitations were unusual. Patients with intellectual disabilities that are genuine about it pretend they understand, they try to fit in, they don't like an emphasis on their impairments. But we know he's not faking being a moron. We know that. It's documented. He's been a moron since jump. So, and he probably doesn't like the pointing out of his disability because in the past it's probably been a subject of fodder. We're bullying and such. Absolutely. But the judge rules in May 2014 that he is competent to stand trial. Okay. The defense appeals. The Montana Supreme Court denies the petition. They moved the trial out of this area anyway. But October of 2014, he's going to plead guilty as well. Okay. To deliberate homicide, the attempted kidnapping charge was dropped under the plea agreement. It also removed the death penalty and he admitted his role in the abduction and killing. Sentencing for Lester Waters, he is sentenced. The state recommends 100 years in prison. 100 years. 100 years. They said that there's a defense investigator that testified this is a guy that had some potential. He has major life problem or his major life problem was cocaine addiction. Okay. He also spoke and said, I'm very sorry for your loss. I truly am. That's what Lee Waters said. Less water said. Gary Arnold, Sherri's husband here said, time doesn't make it easier, but it does change things. My life is different now. It's too late and it's after the fact. Your apology. It doesn't change a thing. Right. The judge said, Mr. Waters, you're losing your freedom. Sherri Arnold lost her life. The victims aren't limited to Sherri's family. They include friends and residents of Eastern Montana and Western North Dakota. You said in motion those events that led to her death. You, sir, may fuck off 80 years in prison with 20 suspended. So he got 60. He got 60 and he's not eligible for parole for 20 years, which is coming up pretty soon. Yeah. And he's ordered to pay $21,448 in restitution to Gary Arnold. They take his Ford Explorer to be sold a 15 year old Ford Explorer. I don't know what that's worth, but that goes toward restitution. Ford Grant. Michael sentencing. He tells the court, I know I've heard a lot of people, I'm just hoping that someday they'll be able to forgive me. And the judge explained that, you know, basically at Walmart, while her body was in the vehicle, you didn't ask for help or attempt to leave. I don't want to hear you're afraid of that guy. You bought a fucking shovel. Yeah. They said that we don't want to hear any of that shit. You, sir, may fuck off 100 years in prison. No suspended, no suspended years. Oh, shit. But he's eligible for parole in 2037. So I don't know if you only have to serve like a third of it, it seems like. Yeah. They should, they should have both gotten the same thing, right? Because the other guy clearly manipulated him. And he was the first one to come forward and admit it. So I feel like if anything, the dumber, younger first one to admit it should have probably got the deal. Right. But I think they gave waters the deal because they took him, he took him to the body and he could remember where it was probably. I don't know. He took the plea first. That's also it. Also, 2018, more trouble for Michael. He faces a separate charge in prison of trying to kill a fellow inmate. Oh my. Yeah. He and another inmate beat a man with a lock and fractured bones in his face and ribs. There's a running trail dedicated to Sherry Arnold's honor in Sydney in the same area she ran. June 2024, Michael Spell in prison, he allegedly forced, he and another inmate forced a female corrections officer in a prison cell where Spell allegedly held the cell door closed and the other guy tried to remove his belt so he could start raping the guard. Other corrections officers responded, opened the door, subdued Spell while the female corrections officer was able to overpower the other guy and handcuff him. Wow. They were checking cell doors and this happened. Spell is accused of distracting the female officer, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her into the cell. Oh my. Holy shit. He's dangerous. He is fucking dangerous. He is a dangerous idiot, basically. Yeah. So he's going to be charged with felony aggravated assault or felony charge of aggravated kidnapping and attempted rape as well. Final reactions here. Wow. The lifetime Sydney resident said, the things we've always taken for granted, we can't take for granted anymore, like Sherry. Sherry's family, her sister said about, she said she wanted justice and the death penalty in the early days. She said, I wanted to drive over them, but we don't do that. Death is not the ultimate goal. Just don't let them out. That's all I'm worried about, whether it's in prison or an institution or whatever. A very kind, reasonable person is what she is, intelligent, reasonable. I just don't want her out. I don't want these people out on the street. That's it. Her father, her father, Sherry's father, Ron, said it turned this little town upside down. There's evil in the world and it just happened to touch down in Sydney, Montana on January 7th. That is Sydney, Montana, everybody in a fucked up ass story, right? Jesus Christ. Two terrible people. Terrible, terrible assholes. Yeah, just awful fucking people. For nothing. He might be, he might be dumb, but he's a nasty dumb, scumbag. Scumbag, yeah. So very quickly at the end of the show here, if you like the show, first of all, give it five stars on whatever app you're listening to, tell Netflix you'll like it, do all that stuff. 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