Kelli Martin's True Crime Past Inspired an Upcoming Novel

0:41 Hey, everybody in Serial killer country. My name is Brittany Ransom, and this is When Killers Get Caught, a podcast devoted to deep dives into the killers we love to learn about. In season three, we're going to be talking one-on-one with people who've experienced crime or been deeply affected by the justice system in the United States. But don't fret. You'll still get your deep dives into who killers were, how they grew up, how they killed, and how they got caught. But today we're talking to Kelly Martin. She was reading her first book about the cases in Granbury, TX that have followed her through her childhood, her career in law enforcement over the last 28 years. Her book is set to come out in the fall of 2023. It is going to be called Homicide in the Hood as it contains cases from Hood County, Texas.

1:23 Thanks so much for coming to the podcast, Kelly. Thank you for having me, Brittany. Now, as I mentioned, you told me that you have a pretty extensive career working in law enforcement. Specifically, we talked before about you worked as a probation officer for a long time. Yes, that's correct. I started my career in 1995, about two weeks after I graduated from college. I had my first real job and I was very nervous, scared. I had applied for a job in the newspaper. Yes, this was before the Internet, so we had to look up jobs in the newspaper and there was an ad in there for an adult probation officer.

2:07 I really didn't think I would get hired, but I gave it a shot anyway. My bachelor's degree is in psychology, so I wanted to try it out because I was always interested in crime. So I started out in actually Hood County in my hometown, which was kind of strange. Seeing people coming to the probation office that I had sold beer to at the grocery store when I was a teenager. Yeah, DWI much. So. Anyway, here I am 28 years later. I, you know, I've changed jobs. I've got a little bit of experience here in my hometown and then went to a neighboring county where they had a tuition reimbursement program.

2:50 So I was working on my master's degree too, as well as working full time. And. Yeah. And during my time as an adult probation officer, I supervised all kinds of, you know, criminals or offenders per se, people that you know, from misdemeanors all the way up to very dangerous felons, you know, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, child sexual molestation, aggravated sexual assault. And later on in my career when I was working in Tarrant County, which is nearby. In Fort Worth, TX, the Fort Worth, Dallas Metroplex area, I supervised sex offenders, and that was pretty interesting. I did that for a while, but all throughout my career in smaller counties, I had sex offenders on my caseload. We didn't have very many specialized caseloads back then, but we also had to go do home visits. You know, we'd have to drive out to these people's houses and like.

3:52 Right. Somebody who's a convicted sex offender on probation and you're going out to his house? Yeah. Alone. Yes, and. Oh my goodness. And you're not a cop before this. Like some people who get into being probation officers or former military retired police officers. You're just fresh phrase 20 something blonde girl. Well, I wasn't blonde back then. I'll just that little secret, yeah. I'm sorry, I only knew what you look like on Instagram. No, that's OK. Yeah. When you get older, you try and kind of cover that up with blonde, you know, if it starts turning Gray. But that's another story.

4:35 They send you off to do home. I don't even know if we do that anymore. Is that something we do in the twenty 20s? Yes. We still do home visits. Wow. Yes, we have to assess a client's, you know, environment, especially if they're a child sex offender. They there's certain stipulations they cannot live near a child safety zone, which could include a school or a daycare or this that a park, so on. Through some of my work that I don't often talk about online, but my real life job. We've come across situations where people can't have computers and that's the thing that somebody who went to my church got put back in prison for because he was accessing Facebook and that was one of the rules of his probation, that while he was on probation he was not allowed to have social media.

5:31 That's correct. So yeah, I get it. Sex offenders have quite a few conditions of probation compared to. The standard case, such as DWI or, you know, theft or something of that nature. They have pages of restrictions including polygraph examinations. At least here in Texas now and other states, I can't speak to that. I'm sure that in some situations they do utilize A polygraph to monitor their ongoing behavior while under supervision. In many cases they may be allowed to have contact with minors, but only in the presence of a chaperone. And I know here in Texas, the probation department conducts, you know, investigation into the person that's applying to be a chaperone. And they have, they have, yes, they have to attend classes to learn about the conditions of supervision, the and the and the offender has to sit right there in front of his loved one who he wants to be a chaperone and tell them exactly what he or she did. Wow.

6:37 So we're looking at the offense report as we're conducting the chaperone vetting process, and he has to sit right in front of them. He cannot deny it or she cannot deny it because one of the conditions we have here in Texas is you admit to your offense or you go to jail because you're not going to waste 10 years on probation denying that you committed the offense and deny yourself the opportunity. To have sex offender treatment and improve and learn to control these behaviors. That's so interesting. It's one of the things that I well, on one hand you want to know more about it, but on the other hand you're like, maybe I don't want to know anything about this process, but it's such a, I mean, one of the things that I, since I currently work with children, it's child sexual assault training is part of our job now. And it's in my state.

7:33 After what happened with Jerry Sandusky. I don't know if you remember that right? So I live in Pennsylvania. After the situation with Jerry Sandusky happened, they completely overhauled everything. And now if you work with a child in any capacity at all, even volunteering, you have to go through the same trainings I go through. You have to have all the same background checks, the national sex offender registry, the NSOR. Which side note, we didn't have until 20/19, which wildly we should have had a national registry much earlier than we do now, but that's beside the point. We have our national registry now and that's to check because I'm sure as you know people hop states to try and get away from this charge.

8:22 And I mean with the, I think right now the rate for child sexual assault is like one in four, which is the lowest it's been since we started looking at the numbers roughly 70 years ago. So it's not great, but it's. Better 5% of children being molested. Before 18, Yep. Right. Yeah, that is true and accurate statistic, Yeah. But you know, anyway, I, I went and did a lot of other things too, you know? I've taught at universities. I taught at Texas Christian University for two years full time and then most of that time is an adjunct professor and then the local Community College. So I've always had one foot in academia and 1 foot in the practitioner side which I think provides me a unique opportunity and and set of you know knowledge and information and so the last 10 to 13 years I've.

9:20 Worked as a researcher for adult probation departments and but before I was a court officer, I mean, I've done everything you can do in probation. I've written pre sentence investigation reports for the judges conducted, you know. And you did some work in creating guidelines and things, didn't you? Or I think it was like. For policies. Yes. Yes, that's that's part of my current job as a research and policy planner. But I think maybe you might be referring to back in 2005 or 2006 when a lot of the sex offender residency restrictions were coming out and sort of you know, from some of the different pieces of federal legislation that have been passed. The Jacob Wetterling Act, the Megan's Law and things of that nature really kind of got going.

10:17 It took a while for for some counties to catch on, but I have the city of Arlington, TX, where we have the Texas Rangers baseball team and the Dallas Cowboys. Don't Boo people, I know. I'm saying nothing. As a resident Eagles fan, I'm saying nothing. But I helped the City of Arlington provide them some research to help them draft their sex offender residency restriction ordinance. City ordinance. So. That's incredible. It was very I. Mean you're a part of something that's going to go on much further than you. I mean kind of like a book, but I mean this has, I mean books are recreation, you know what I mean?

11:02 But like this is also like something that's going to affect potentially people's safety. For decades to come. I think that's amazing. You know, I've never really thought about that, but yeah. Because, I mean, those lists are things that the schools that I work at keep an eye on, right where people are living, where these people frequent, you know, so we know who gets released just in case we see them walking through the area. Right. And you know, I would like to say just one thing about that I don't want people to misunderstand. I think the media has kind of given us some type of false perception about kids being snatched in the park, you know, all the time. And I'm not saying that doesn't happen, but. You know, that was definitely how I was raised in the nineties, 80% stranger danger, but. Right.

11:57 That's not true. Right. 80% of 8 or higher of victims know their perpetrator in some fashion, whether it's a family member, a neighbor and so on. You know that, so. It's actually one of the things that's the most terrifying about it. Now we've got your work history which shows that you are obviously very distinguished. I mean you got multiple degrees, you've worked in this field. You told me in our pre interview that your family also worked in law enforcement. And So what brings you to the place now it's 2023 where you're like I need to write a book. Well, my daughter has moved out of the house and gone to college.

12:44 That's, and that's my only child. So I'm like, what am I supposed to do with my life now? I'm, you know, I'm working. I'm still working full time. And I'm not retiring anytime soon. I've always wanted to write a book, you know, And this year is a 35th anniversary of the murder of a young lady here in my hometown, Holly Palmer. And it really affected a lot of people. And you know, there there's been a lot of murders in this town that affected me, especially growing up from like say 1980 forward, especially the 1988 when Holly was murdered and those.

13:25 Let's talk a little. Impact on me so you know I need. To know I just. Want to write a book to honor the victims and their families? So I guess let's talk about Holly Palmer then. I, like you said this was something that affected you pretty greatly when Holly died. How old would you have been? I was a junior in high school. And she was. So she was only a couple years older than you at 23, right? Well, let's tell the listeners what actually happened to Holly. OK, so on November 27th and the wee hours of the morning around 1:32 AM somewhere around there.

14:07 Holly was working at the Greyhound Trailways bus station. She had actually just purchased that franchise, so she was very excited and she was spending a lot of her free time up at the bus station late at night working. She also was planning on opening a tshirt shop inside of the bus station. And it's a small bus station. It's inside of a. A house, it doesn't look like a normal bus station you would see in a large city. You know, it's just it's in a little wood frame house on the main Pearl Street that runs through town and it's about two doors down from our drivein movie theater.

14:47 We have the oldest operating drivein. It's been continually in operation since 1952. That's awesome. Little little factoid there, historical factoid. But so she was up there working and this is, you know, close to Thanksgiving. And her sister had talked to her that day and said everybody's excited or maybe it was the day after, but she no, it wasn't. I'm getting the timeline mixed up just a tad. But her sister had talked to her maybe earlier that morning before the murder happened. Yes, that's right. And so she said, everybody's so excited. We're waiting on you to get here.

15:29 We want to play Monopoly. And Holly just kind of giggled, You know, they played board games when they got together as a family. And she told her sister that she had to go take care of something. And her sister asked her, well, are you breaking up with your boyfriend? And she said, yeah, I need to take care of that. He's, you know, there were some issues going on there. And so she did that and later on, I mean her sister would never see her at Thanksgiving. So at 13140, we, you know, the, the police have been investigating this and checking leads and they did back then they ran, chased down a lot of leads, talked to witnesses.

16:14 Over the years they've gotten more. They've gotten witnesses to come forward with just a little bit more information, but people were afraid of, you know, the the primary suspect. But he beat her in the head with a hammer so severely and then that if that wasn't enough, drug her by her ankles to another part of the bus station and bludgeoned her. Continue to bludgeon her. With a huge concrete cinder block. And I mean as you can imagine there was blood spatter all over the walls. It was everywhere. I mean, you know it was horrible.

16:55 And the police and this is 2 doors down from the Sheriff's Department. Gosh, right next door. Ozzy. Yeah. So you know, when people were scared to death, if this, if this can happen right next door to the Sheriff's Department, nobody's safe. I mean, my gosh, right. Of course this was back before there were video surveillance and cameras everywhere and and you know, that sort of thing and you know, the guy just snuck in there. In the middle of the night cuz he knew she would, she was actually going to live there. She was making some living quarters for herself and oh. Okay. I was thinking about that. I was like, was this a robbery gone wrong or this was specifically somebody went after her. Yeah, this was personal.

17:39 I mean, there, there might have been 50 bucks missing, but you know, there were other things in there that weren't disturbed. They weren't taken. And so this, this was this. Had to be somebody that knew Hollywood, be in there that late, you know? I knew where she was and now here's the thing, they did interviews and things and like you said, people were afraid of the person who we're not mentioning because it's alleged so. Right, but the police? Do they think he knew? Her. Yeah, they know you. How? Just based on the job or did he have some other connection? Well, they interviewed witnesses and statements and confirm some things, some of their theories and suspicions. But you know, like I said this, there were reports that this was the most brutal thing that the police had ever seen in our little Granberry, Texas.

18:44 That that one of the police officers just vomited outside. You know it it was terrible. And they made one of the rookie cops spend the night in the bus station just in case the killer returned to the crime scene. Because that happens sometimes. It sure does. So what an eerie thing for this guy. Right. Yeah, that's got to be a creepy aspect of your job. Right. So. Staying at a crime scene overnight. And that, you know, he was a rookie that stayed with him forever and he's 62 years old now. And you interviewed you. You've been interviewing everybody. I've been talking to lots of people around town. If they'll talk to me, they get all, you know, paranoid. But I'm like, it's Kelly Okay.

19:29 You've known me my my whole life. You knew my dad. You knew my Mama. You went to church with some of my family members, you know? So I'm just trying and I, you know, I think the hesitation is with the being, I guess labeled as a journalist, but I'm like it's just Kelly Okay we're talking. I'm not going to put anything in the book that you do not want in there, but I'm just trying to get a a clearer picture of what's going on. But the interesting thing is I've been contacted by the granddaughter of one of another victim in the book. She found out through Facebook that I was writing this book, and she sent me a message and asked if her grandmother would be covered.

20:13 She said, I'm her granddaughter and I was just taken aback, you know, And she was, she seemed happy that her grandmother's story would be in there. So that was great. And I've since talked to her. She sent me some photos of her grandmother and she's given me some stories, you know, about. She was 12 years old when she found out her grandmother had been murdered and her parents were out on a little trip out of town for their anniversary and. What a horrible thing to come back to. No, right. It was awful. I cannot imagine what they were going through. But yeah, it's it's been very interesting. I've also been able to hang out with the cold case squad in a neighboring jurisdiction.

20:56 That was interesting. I got to ask questions and. There were a couple of retired former Texas Ranger law enforcement agents, a retired game warden, two retired IRS investigators. So you know, they bring different perspectives. But there were, there was literally over 300, three, 150 years worth of law enforcement experience in that room. So they. Were so that's interesting. I didn't think about that before. So the Colt case unit is comprised of a lot of people who are retired. In our area, because a lot of smaller counties do not have the funding and and we just don't have, you know, this isn't Dallas, Houston, New York City. You know, we we don't really have the need for a fulltime cold case squad 24/7, you know?

21:47 Right. And plus, we don't have the funding. You know, the officers are working active cases, so. You know, we've gotten retired guys that have years and years of experience and they, you know, work with younger, younger guys, younger law enforcement officers to have a fresh set of eyes to look at things too. And and maybe some of them are up on technology a little bit more as well. But yeah, it's very interesting that they're just still continuing. They can't let it go. I was just about. I was thinking that too. 75 or whatever, and they're still working. They want. I mean, they just, they won't let it go. They have to keep doing it. For the I've come across that and a lot of my research too that people it it's not just you a lot of people who they get close to these cases actually right before we were talking we were talking about I've of course I forget her name but the woman who was a part of the.

22:48 Team that helped with the Golden State killer cases. I was a part of that documentary recently. And her, I mean, she was following that case for decades. She never let that go. So I after talking to dozens of victims and collecting all that evidence, that's got to eat at you somehow. Yeah, it really does it. It's. Because if we don't think about this, but officers and law enforcement and you know, first responders and people of that nature, they suffer PTSD. They suffer from, you know, secondary trauma from dealing with these types of even if they'll, you know, even though they may not admit it or recognize it initially, I think more so nowadays we understand about post traumatic stress.

23:41 You know but. We definitely didn't 30-40 years ago. We weren't even as well versus we are now. Right. So, you know, yeah, it affects them. They carry it with them. They, they wake up talking about it, thinking about it, going to sleep, thinking about it, you know, And they have to keep that separated from their family. You can't go home and tell your wife every horrible thing that you saw all day out at work or have your children over here, that kind of stuff. But. Yeah, I mean, like some of the officers that I've talked to, I asked them about a case. Yep. Remember that one? They just, wow. It's etched in their mind. So we definitely have Dolly's case and how many total cases? Palmer.

24:25 Yeah, Holly. Wanna call her Dolly? Holly is her sister. Holly is the victim, right. So we have Holly's case, but how many total cases are you researching for the book? Well, I'm researching really six cases. There's a chapter for each of these six cases, and they're not through my research. At first I was thinking, OK, these are all unsolved cases. But then I'll lo and behold, not too long ago, and I thought I was done writing a particular chapter. I kept digging and digging and well, it's been solved. It was solved in 2010, a 1987 case, all these years later, and they never, ever would have known about it unless they got, I mean, the guy confessed. He just, he got caught for doing something else. And was in jail.

25:19 And thought he could leverage. He he Well, that didn't work. He got two life sentences. They sometimes think because it's happened in the past, but I think you just have to have an incredible lawyer because people, sometimes, I mean Bundy, tried. I didn't have a lawyer. He just, he just told the people. He just told the Texas Ranger that he murdered somebody. And you know what? He said people are like why did this guy confess? He never would have gotten caught for this murder. It's because of the rapport that the officer built with him the way and I talked to that officer, I talked to that Texas Ranger and he said I just treat people the way I would want to be treated. I was raised a certain way. You treat people with empathy, with kindness, even though it's a killer, you have to try and show this. And he was talking to him, you know, about spirituality and so forth.

26:11 And the guy just felt guilty. He couldn't he. Had a guilty conscience. Yes, he did. But he had tried to kidnap a lady in the Walmart parking lot here in Granbury. Jesus. Yeah, and she. But see, he had already sexually assaulted. He had, he had been out of prison three months and three months later the guy's already trying to kidnap somebody and rape him. He was in prison for he got a 20 year sentence for rape. So he three months when he got out of prison, he tried to kidnap somebody else. So he was out on bail for kidnapping in our county. Then he skipped bail and while he was not under the, you know, watchful eyes of the authority, he murdered somebody in another county up by the Texas, Arkansas border then. I wish I could say that's not common, but I've come across a bunch of cases.

27:08 Where somebody's out on parole or waiting for a trial and boom, they get they do something else even worse. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, so he we didn't even know that he had murdered the lady in the other county. We just got in for bail jumping, right? So they go in to talk to him. He confesses to two murders, the coach case murder in in Hood County from 1987. And then the murder that he had just committed in Cass County, Texas, which is close to the Texas, Arkansas border, yeah. Now I want your, I guess, opinion on this because right now I'm actually researching Otis tool and the the ridiculousness that went on with that case with the of course they admitted to hundreds. Of murders which we later on learned they couldn't have possibly committed all of those.

28:11 But you know, with Henry Lee Lucas and Otis Tool, I mean, how do you feel about that when you have someone who shows up and just says, hey, I did this? I mean, are we believing these people? What's the process of trying to figure out if they're just attention grabbing, feel genuine remorse or trying to get attention? Like how do how do we avoid Henry Lee Lucas a notice now. Well, this guy gave details that only the killer would know. Gotcha. The killer would know. Yeah. He he took this lady. He kidnapped her from a convenience store gas station, took her to and robbed the. You know, he only got $57.

28:58 But this was in 1987, and he took her. To a abandoned mobile home in the subdivision here raped her and then took her to the boat ramp and drowned her. Wow. Yeah, and you don't see a lot of, you don't see as many, you know, homicides by drowning. I was just thinking that I was like, usually people want to, they want to feel it. He did. They want to. Hit under the water, yeah. As horrible as that is to say they they want to feel the life drain out of the person. Is this like a drowning by homicide? More of like a just getting rid of her because you can't let the victim live after you did all that? Right, that's exactly what it was. He he stuck her head under the water and held her down there until she was deceased and.

29:56 It just so happens there was a fishing tournament that morning on our lake and he had just left her there floating in the water. And a fisherman who came who had launched his boat from that boat ramp about 5:00 AM, five twenty that morning. He didn't see anything then but when he gets back around 7, she's there. So yeah, he called authorities and of course they they came and and investigated, but. It went cold. I mean, they they had several suspects in the beginning and they polygraphed quite a few people. They, you know, interviewed people from different counties. They had one at one point, the sheriff, who at that time was my cousin, Edwin Tomlinson.

30:41 He was elected in 1980. He thought maybe this person, a mental patient that had just been recently released from psychiatric facility in a neighboring county. Had been in the store that morning and so they chased that lead down, but you know, everything just kind of went cold because they didn't have the right person and they never would have caught this guy unless he had just spontaneously confessed. So you said before that all of these cases really meant something to you? Yes, I they they really had a tremendous impact on me and in 1980 I was in 4th grade, so I was probably about 9 or 10 years old. And that was the first time I really learned what murder was. It.

31:29 Granbury was such a small town back then we only had 2500 people within the city limits and six, maybe 6000 people in the entire county, which is 437 square miles. So everybody knew everyone, you know. And when something like this happened, it was very traumatic and scary. So my mom started locking our doors and you know, was just scared to death of something happening to us. And there were, and then a murder occurred 3 weeks later. Oh, wow. A young 21 year old girl was stabbed and she had only worked at this laundromat for three days and was stabbed and I don't want to give away too much of it because the book has some that chapter. In the chapter before there is a link to serial some serial killers, so we'll leave that as a kind of a. Teaser for the future for people who wanna buy it to learn about what serial killer is linked to Granberry. All right, granberry.

32:38 Nobody knows where that is. To be fair, you're right. I couldn't point it out, but I think most people couldn't point out small towns in any state. Right. There's small towns all over the country and I'm sure most of your listeners have had some kind of experience with that or known somebody or you know, heard of in a neighboring small town. It it affects everyone all over, all over. Well, it's so weird because I'm not sure about this because you're a bit older, you're a little older than I am, but I feel like throughout all of my childhood. Just nonstop crime, crime, bad things happening in the new like every day, just inundated with it. So it becomes like part of the background noise. Especially because I grew up in a town like 30 minutes outside of Philadelphia.

33:30 And if you don't know this for a brief bit, during the 80s they called Philadelphia Philadelphia, so things were a little. In 10th, in the city back then. So I don't, I don't know if it affected me like it would have affected you because these are people you saw, I mean. I went into that gas station where a lady was kidnapped and drowned. I, my dentist's office and my daycare was on the same St. as this laundromat where this girl was stabbed. You know there was a lady that was stabbed 110 times in her and my best friend growing up.

34:15 Her house was right around the corner in that same neighborhood and in the bus station 2 doors down from the Sheriff's Department. But guess what? 2 doors on the opposite side was my grandmother's house. And you had family who worked in that very same? Yeah, my cousin was the sheriff when this happened. Now this happened actually inside the city limits, so it was the under the jurisdiction of the Police Department. But in little Granbury, every cop in the county, it didn't matter if they were Sheriff's Department or city cops, They showed up at Holly's crime scene. It was it was horrible. And get this, Holly's stepsister was a police dispatcher and she's the one that had to dispatch the call. Oh, that's awful, because she had to have known who it was when they listed the location.

35:04 Yes, exactly. Because nobody else would be there at 1:00 o'clock in the morning. Yeah, So Holly's step sister's husband was actually a sheriff's deputy at the time, so he actually came to the scene as well, so. Yeah. So now, because we're talking about these are cases from 20-30 years ago, right? What's it like interviewing the people who lost family members and things now? It's very. Gosh, I'm trying to think of the right word. Well, I personally know, you know, Dolly's Dolly Palmer, which is Holly's one of Holly's sisters. And another sister was just a grader 2 above me in school. So I knew of her.

35:52 But I was kind of wary about, you know, would the family members be upset? You know, maybe they didn't want to have the. Scab ripped off, you know of this wound so to speak. But Holly's sister there and her family are very appreciative because Holly's case is still unsolved and or not prosecuted when there's been somebody that the police has suspected all along but you know you never know. You never know how family members are going to react. So, so far it's been I'm trying to be very careful about. And how I asked questions, you know, especially if one of the like the lady that reached out to me via Facebook Messenger, I don't know her that well.

36:38 So she was very appreciative that her grandmother's story would be included in the book, you know. And so I think people realize that I'm doing this because I don't want these women to be forgotten. No. And I want to honor the victims and their families and I want to educate people about what families go through. Really hear from them. So in one of my chapters, I have had these family members write up a little story about when they first got the call, how they reacted, what they were thinking, what they were feeling. And because I've been friends with Dolly for about four years now, we've had long, deep conversations about it and it, you know.

37:29 Try not to cry here. She is a true inspiration to me because she is like a bulldog, a pit bull. She's going to dig in and not let go. She will not stop fighting for her sister to get justice for Holly, no matter how painful it is. She has pushed through the tears. She has pushed through the anxiety that, you know, this is causing me, you know? But she said to keep doing it. We're going to keep going. I'm. I'm. I'm faithful. I'm hopeful that God is in control here, that this is really when something is going to happen. With my sister's case, she has pushed through all of that pain to do this for her sister to speak to me almost daily about the book and the people I'm talking to and the progress we're trying to make and reinvigorating interest in our community about these cases that have not been solved.

38:22 It's so tough. There's a lot. There's a big lens on the true crime community right now, especially as it. Relates to at home sleuths as they refer to people who want to help cases. And it's an interesting thing because in some regard those at home sleuths end up being responsible for reopening cases, opening things like that. But of course, bad things happen too. It's tough. I don't know these, I mean just doing what I do, which is recounting cases that have been solved. It's. Very emotional.

39:03 It's I started writing this book at the end of March, maybe 1st of April, and I've almost written this entire book. I have not been sleeping. I have not been eating. I haven't been exercising. I haven't been taking care of myself. As a matter of fact, I stayed up till 5:00 o'clock this morning. I mean, I was up for. Well over 24 hours and got a few hours sleep before I was to do the podcast this morning. I couldn't stop and so. Now I totally understand what you're saying. I used to work my 8 hour job, come home and just research and write and select one or two in the morning.

39:48 Actually, that's why the podcast hasn't come out so regularly recently because I'm trying to find a healthy workflow. And it's very difficult cuz like sometimes you read something or about someone that something happened to and you feel compelled to get it out of you, and in a way. That's what's happening. And you just have to. Yeah, and but I'm not. I don't know. I just keep thinking I need to do this because. I need people in my community and everywhere. I mean this book that homicide in the hood, murders that haunt a small town girl. I mean, anybody can relate.

40:35 There's, you know, anybody that lives in a small town across the globe, not just here in the United States. They can relate to murders like that affecting a small community and. Just by me starting to write this book, it is kind of stirring things up around here and think things are happening, which is great. I mean, it's exactly what I intended to do in in addition to honoring the victims and their families. So being a researcher too and being a professor and teaching some of the book is, you know, the book is written from a first person point of view from my perspective growing up as a kid and I had kind of an interesting childhood.

41:17 So they're funny. Stories are weird things. My connections to being a victim, you know, are woven throughout the book. But also being an educator, you know, I want this to be an educational experience because I've worked in the criminal justice system for nearly 30 years. And the TV programs and all of the, you know, law and order, SVU and all these different kinds of programs, CSI and everything. People get a erroneous and erroneous perception of how the criminal justice system actually operates and how it actually works. You know, all the and all of that. And so I I want to kind of have a little educational piece in my book too about the different types of forensic techniques and technologies, how they work and and interestingly enough, the former Granbury Chief of Police.

42:14 From years ago sent reached out to me cuz he you know saw me posting online and social media about the upcoming book and he said Kelly do you remember this case well? Granberry little old Granberry Texas Police Department made Texas history. At least we were the 1st Police Department to connect. A suspect using CODIS when CODIS was fully online and operational in 1998. Oh awesome. Yes. So it's. For people who don't know CODIS is. The Combined DNA Indexing System, which is operated by the FBI.

43:00 So people submit, you know when there when there's a sample. Found of some kind of biological material at a crime scene. They collect that, submit it to the system and compare it to other samples, and those other samples can come from other crime scenes. They can be in there because the state law requires an arrestee felony arrestee to submit a sample or. I think in California they require that now. Yes, all 50 states have some type of legislation requiring. DNA submission from certain types of felons. In Texas, it's all felons, you know, every single felon and anybody that's placed on supervision that was convicted of a felony, they submit a sample to you and of course, all sex offenders.

43:51 I mean that was invaluable up in I think it was Michigan where there was a I don't want to be wrong issues to the police officer or somehow related to the Justice Department and. She realized there were like 4000 rape kits that had never been properly tested or submitted, and when they finally, I think she raised the money for it. It took years, but they were able to link so many felons that were already in the system to these crimes. Well, the the federal government has, you know, they provide grants through the Office of Justice Programs and the Bureau of Justice Assistance. So there are actually federal grants available right now to law enforcement agencies to test the backlog of rape kits and sexual assault kits.

44:42 So that's. So good to know cuz when that first came out like 10 years ago, it was pretty alarming right, that we had thousands upon thousands of rape kits and all these potential rapists just out there. Right running around doing what they do, unfortunately and. There's still a backlog. I mean, even with the federal funding, it's just, but you know, it's really interesting that the cops of that law enforcement, even back before they even knew anything, like they could never have imagined that we'd be using genetic genealogy right now to solve cases. They collected, they collected biological material somehow. They knew okay, this is evidence, this is important. And if it was preserved properly, you know, and not mishandled over the years.

45:30 My gosh, look at all the cases it's solving now, twenty, 30-40 years later. I mean, that's the one I referenced earlier, Joseph James D'Angelo. Golden State killer? 30 years later we get a match based on somebody in the family doing a DNA test. Right. Incredible. Isn't that amazing? And this is happening all over the place. I get alerts on my phone cuz I set up Google alerts for cases this cold case. Handled based on genealogy. I mean, it's awesome, but also it just all these people who got away with stuff because we just didn't have the tools to get them.

46:13 Right. And so that's why I wanted to put there's 10 chapters in the book on site in the hood. Chapter 9 is about forensic techniques and technologies and. And you know, like I said, being a professor and an educator, I'm, I'm not going through a complete timeline of forensics because that goes back to you know 5070 AD, you know, I mean way or even BC, you know, I mean there's there's. And we were always trying stuff wasn't always right, but we were trying things. I mean, I know for a while they were very stuff like set on your blood type.

46:55 That was a way to eliminate people very quickly. Yes, yes. So nowadays it's just there's so many amazing things. The MVAC technology which has been recently used to solve the 40 year old cold case, The MVAC is a wet vac system that squirts like a sterile solution onto an object and creates like this mini hurricane and it loosens up all the biological material. And it's really good for obtaining DNA from very porous rough surfaces that maybe is not traditionally you know like the swabbing technique is kind of you know but but you can use this for a large surface to make sure you get everything but yes and it and it puts that into a special filter and then you can take it out and test it and that sort of thing. But it's you can test rocks.

47:50 And bricks and different kinds of surface. And you know what? This technology was first designed to be used in the food industry to remove pathogens from, you know, work surfaces. And you know, hey, let's get all the damage out of this place where we're cooking food. Y'all. Right. No, it makes total sense. Right. So yeah, that's been around for a while, but it's, you know, they've solved a 40 year old cold case by using that technology on a really, really old piece of evidence. Oh, that's cool. So I'm, I'm learning a lot, you know, I am learning quite a bit and I love that. Writing this book and doing all of the research and getting on ancestry, you know, and digging around and trying to find people and looking at people's criminal histories and you know, writing the the chapter about technology and then it's been a very interesting learning experience. But it also has kind of been a step back in time. Going through all the old newspaper archives, I grew up in this town.

48:51 I remembered when these things happen and these murders affected me. They really did. And I. These are your ghosts too? They, you know, they are. And I don't want to take any kind of, you know, empathy or anything away from the victim's families, but they they did, you know, it did affect them, obviously, but it affects the community when something like this happens, especially in a small town. It robs people of their safety, you know, It really changes people's behavior. I mean, we didn't lock our doors. Kids rode our bikes all around. We we'd leave the house at 8:00 or 9:00, o'clock in the morning during the summer and we wouldn't come back until it's dark. You know, you can't do that nowadays, so. It's so interesting that we we brought this up about how this made you feel.

49:42 Because my first episode this season was speaking to another author and she wrote a book about she actually wrote a fictional book about a crime that didn't. It was her. Her who would go out, who would have been her motherinlaw. But she's talked to this man named Howard Morton, and he reminded her that she had a right to care, even though the woman who died wasn't her mom. Even though she divorced out of the family, like, she still had a right to care about the things that happen. And it's okay that we care on some.

50:25 In some ways, true crime is entertainment, but it's okay that we care about, the people that we write about and talk about, and it's even more so right that you care because you lived there. There is. You know, another murder that happened, and I'm not going to cover in the book because the family member just asked me not to. They're not ready at this time. But I spent the night at their house. I had a close personal connection to them. I worked at a grocery store with them as teenagers. And, you know, I was 20 years old when this girl was murdered. And, I mean, that was the first time I'd ever actually had a very close. Close personal connection to someone that had died in that manner, and it was devastating.

51:14 And when I was in college at that time I was majoring in English. Hey. That's what I wanted. Yeah, I went to school for. I switched. But that's what I started out with me. Too, I switched. I switched to college me and I think just having a lot of. Family members myself and law enforcement and them be and seeing that they're good people and that they want to help people and and then me having a helping nature as well. And I don't know. I just I changed my major. I wanted to you know study psychology but I know that these murders have have had an impact on me and I just.

51:57 I've always wanted to write a book. It's kind of like the last professional or goal that I have in my life to complete. I've published other articles and published in scholarly criminal justice articles. I mean journals. You know which? I will link listeners to If you wanna see Kelly's other writing, I have it saved. It's gonna go in. You know, remember having to write papers for school and look up resources and cite your sources? Well, that's the kind of writing that I've done mostly. I mean, I did do something for the US Department of Justice back in 2008. I was a field researcher examining domestic minor sex trafficking, oddly enough, with one of my old Graduate School professors, Doctor Ray Eve.

52:42 So that was, that was pretty interesting to team up with the. One of my former professors to do that research. But you know, but this writing, this writing is the most meaningful to me because it's about my community. It's about people that I knew. It's about connections to places that I had been. And it was frightening. I mean, my mother has literally been waiting for the other shoe to drop her entire life. She is, she has been so afraid. Have somebody breaking in our house, which they did try, and that there's a little recap, a story about that in the book. It's pretty entertaining because in Texas everybody has guns. That's all I'm going to say. So you'll just have to read the book to find out what happened. But.

53:27 I'm interested. Why is your mom afraid if everyone has guns? Are they? Supposed to make it better? You know what? Well, my mom has suffered her own trauma in her life, so. That's caused some anxiety for her. And so she was always very protective of us and very afraid. And she literally has been waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know, something bad to happen. It's just sad, you know, my poor mom. But yeah, we had guns. But sometimes, you know, that's not enough. Well, I mean, the statistics about those are so up and down. I mean, what's the statement that women are more likely to die by the gun in their home when they have one That's not a good feeling to have because you got it to protect yourself.

54:16 It's it's rough. That's why in Texas, we keep them blocked and loaded on our night stand. There's no sense in digging around in your drawer somewhere trying to load the gun. It's right there. Gosh. I know we talked about so much fun stuff before, but I think we'll leave your your funnier stories for your book for people to read. Yeah. I mean, because it's such as a serious it's serious. It's. Yeah. As you're you're talking, I'm thinking about a situation. A little boy I knew who was killed. We semi grew up together.

54:57 I sort of. I worked at like his summer camp. His mom knew my parents. And that what I'm thinking about is, is how that crime affected his mom to this day. I mean, he would be almost 30 years old now, and I think he died when he was like 13, and she's written and talked about it extensively and it was just so senseless. Yeah, they all are. And and I write about the last chapter in the book is about the families and how they deserve justice. And I talk a little bit about what justice is. But I also have had some of the family members of the victims write an excerpt of something for me to use in that chapter.

55:47 And I'll also talk a little bit about empathy. And I throw in a little bit of research, scholarly research, because that's what I did. I'm sorry, I can't help it, people. I'm a nerd, too. So I throw in research like real, legitimate scientific research about how homicide affects the family members, which by the way, which you may already know this Britney. But for the listeners who do not, they're called Co victims of homicide. They are left behind to pick up the pieces of their lives because someone they loved has been taken away from them. I didn't know about that but where I work. Offers therapy for not just the victims of sexual assault, but also the family members too, for free in our community. And they were the first people I heard that use that terminology. Some of the people who work there have been connected to our department because we work with kids. And of course, sexual assault.

56:51 This happens to children too. But I that was the first time I heard that phrasing used was this year was that the rest of the family technically are considered victims too. Right. And it's it's in the scholarly research it has been. So that's great that you heard that from folks at your employment. That means that they are staying abreast of scientific research for their field, you know, which is important for all any, any job. I mean, unfortunately the Predators are up on the information too, so everybody else has got to be. That's right. We're we're always, it seems like we're always one step behind them. But, you know, yeah, it's funny you mentioned that about, you know, anybody that knows me.

57:32 I just have kind of a crazy personality. I I always am trying to make people laugh and I kind of always wanted to be a standup comedian, you know? And then I have my serious side where I'm doing this research and, you know, publishing articles and all of these things. And I don't. You know I'm just myself I'm just a small town girl from Granbury. No matter what I've accomplished in my career that still how I see myself you know but I I, you know like you said it's a serious subject but in the book there's kind of some funny stories of about me and different things growing up and and I the first chapter in homicide in the Hood sets the stage for the reader to kind of immerse themselves in little Hood County Texas.

58:13 You know and it's interesting that it's. You know, we call it homicide in the hood. That could be any hood. It could be anybody's neighborhood, you know, any small town in in the country. But I just kind of set the stage for the reader and then I have to go into this. The bulk of the book is about the the cases. And then the kind of the last part, you know, kind of section three of the book is called Justice and demand and it's about it's about some murderers who got caught and really, really punished around here. Some some very significant cases that affected a lot of people in in a really old cold case from 1979 that was solved in 2014 so and that that that occurred under very interesting circumstances. So, so I'll throw in a little bit of that about cases that were solved and some weird stories from like you know the newspapers I found from back in the early 80s. But then go on to talk about how forensic technology has so advanced and it can how it can be used to solve certain cases and types of cases and types of evidence. And then the last chapter to round it all out is about the victims and their families.

59:27 And I'm a very I know you are too. I'm a very empathetic person. I. Which? Is different from sympathy. Sympathy is kind of feeling bad for a person. You you see what they're going through and. But empathy is putting yourself in another person's shoes and trying to imagine what their feelings are. It helps us as part of a it's part of our emotional intelligence to connect with other people and to have relationships, you know? So I want people to feel that, and I want people to get motivated, get active, to do something. Not just in in my town, but in your town, wherever that may be. If there are cold cases that haven't been solved, what's going to help is pressure from the community. That's right.

1:00:18 Pressure to political elected officials, you know, keeping that information fresh in the minds of the community. And we've all seen stories. And I know you have, Brittany. You've covered lots of cases where? The community has just everybody came out searching for the missing girl, right? People came out in droves. It just really impacted a community. Everybody was involved. That's sometimes what it's going to take cuz right now in our day and age, you know, we need to be connected. You know COVID, it's. Weird. Yeah. It's weird how social media has made us less connected, yeah.

1:00:59 It it. It's a different thing, you know, sitting in front of a murder victim's family member and watching the pain in their face while they talk about their loved one and getting angry. They have every right to be frustrated and angry that their loved one's case has not been solved and they feel like nobody cares anymore. They see people going on with their lives. How can they go on? They're thinking, well, how can I go on and live? How can they go on and live their lives when my sister or my mother is still dead and we don't know who did it? Do you remember the Heart family murders? There was a lesbian couple with six adopted children. They the the mothers were implicated in child abuse and they drove their car.

1:01:47 Off of a Cliff in California. Oh my. Gosh, no, I don't think I've heard of that. One, it happened in 2018, and actually shortly after I kind of blew up on TikTok, the mother, the biological mother of three of the children who had died. And they were taken away from her because she had a mental illness, which is so unfair. And on top of that, she, she reached out to me and she was just like, can you cover the story of my children's death and that? Is one of the hardest ones I've ever done. Right. Because, I mean six babies between the angels of, well, I guess they're not all babies, but 12 and 19.

1:02:28 Oh my gosh, that's. Horrific. And and what's worse is that three of them shouldn't have even been there because I could go on for hours about how unfair. The the the Child Protective Services is to certain people in our culture and they let other people get passes and that's exactly what happened in that case the the two. Yes, girl. The Listen working in childcare and making the amount of reports that I do it is insanely frustrating the number of cases that get dropped for lack of evidence because the victims are three or four years old. And a three and four.

1:03:09 They don't have the language to explain what's happened to them. And it's extra traumatic to force a child to now go through this conversation again. And so we just let it go. Oh, it just boils my blood. Well, there a lot of states have child advocacy centers. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that concept, but it's a colocation of services where it's the. Police, the district attorney's office, people that can provide, you know, orders, legal advice, and they they, they put every agency in one building that a victim would need to speak with. And they only tell their story once. So that's what they over and over and over. But they have forensic child interviewers, people that do play therapy with some of the younger children you're talking about that may not be able to.

1:04:07 Verbalize it as well. We finally caught on to that. I guess what that's after research, you know research has contributed to we learning to us learning about these types of issues. And so yeah, then they have the there's a similar contact concept, pardon me, for the family Justice Center for victims of domestic violence. They've got everything collocated in one service District Attorney. Or a prosecutor that can write an order of protection or police there, there's social workers and and there's a family Justice Center in a close in a neighboring county here that I was involved in the strategic planning for. It is an amazing place, amazing concept. So I want folks to, right.

1:04:56 So yeah, it's it's been very interesting. I'm hoping. That maybe one of these cases is solved in this book, you know, especially I mean. Even if they just open them back up, I mean that's. They're all open. I did. Oh, that's great. I did confirm they have never been closed, but of course we're a really small county, Hood counties very small and we just don't have enough resources. I'm I'm wanting to work with it. Police Department and the Sheriff's Department. I haven't spoken to the sheriff yet. I used to live behind his daughter. We were next door neighbors and hung out. But I would offer my services to write grants for the Police Department for free.

1:05:43 Not even charge them to do it. Just give back to my community to help them with whatever, you know, training grants, grants for equipment. A lot of times small agencies don't, you know, get a lot because the money is sent to the larger. Especially in our city. Yeah, Houston, you know. Same thing in my state. Philadelphia is going to get all the money. Right. So I want to do that to help my community too. But this has been a very interesting journey for me. I just could not have imagined all the doors that would have opened up, the people that I've talked to, people from Granbury, and it doesn't matter what class they graduated from Granbury Pirates.

1:06:28 Class in 19, you know, 67. I've talked to all people from all ages, from all, you know that our classmates are concerned about Holly's case. They it has devastated so many people. They still remember it. You know, there's a lot of people that want this thing solved. And so the Police Department has worked really hard. They've done a lot of things over the years. They have not let it go. It's one of those cases that sticks with that detective. You know, they think about it all the time. They think of different. Mortality of that. Yes, yes. We just need our district attorneys in this town to do something about it.

1:07:10 Well, I've said this to you off air, but I'm going to say it to you publicly to Kelly. I think you're an exceptional woman and just just this is what you're doing is incredible and and I hope that you get the response. That you want from your community and from the true crime community in terms of wanting to give justice to these families and giving voices to families is something that we definitely need to do more of within the true crime community. And anybody who does that is great by me. Now I know your Instagram is Kelly. That's Kelli Tomlinson, Martin. And you told me you made a TikTok. I did, and I made a goofy video on there of me singing to a really rock'n'roll song.

1:07:58 Cuz I'm. I mean, I don't sound like it. I know I probably sound like a country bunking on this podcast, but but I'm a rock and roller, so I had Dorothy in the background. More we talk, the more we we have a little similarity. Same thing with the personality, very bright and bubbly. You know, you and I, we chatted for like hours the first time we talked and and then you feel this connection to, to wanting to to remind people of things that have happened to to to shine lights on things to you know one of the things I've been focusing on I think last season was the the the throwaway people as as I feel like they call the people of our society. Whose cases?

1:08:44 Aren't getting solved because. Maybe they're a drug addict or, or maybe you live in a bad neighborhood. And so those are cases that I've been talking more about. You know, this is all stuff that needs to be, you know, a light shone on as often as possible. And so I think it's amazing that you're doing it. Is Kelly, your Facebook page is called Homicide in the Hood, the same name as the book. Is there any other way that people can contact you on social media if they want to follow you as you're covering this case and posting about things? Those, those are the cases. I mean, I'm sorry, those are the platforms. The Homicide in the Foot Hood Facebook page, that Instagram, Kelly, Tomlinson Martin and the TikTok with that same name.

1:09:29 Kelly Tomlinson Martin, right? No. No. Cousins in there because my cousin was a sheriff here and everybody knew who Edmund Tomlinson was. But. So yeah, I'm going to link all of those in the liner notes for the episode. I was going to say thank you so much for speaking with us and I can't wait to see the book when it comes out. Get a copy post about it myself. Well, I appreciate that. Thank you so much and thank you to all the listeners. And and I just want to say, you know, say a prayer for the victims. You know, we, we tend to sensationalize the killers all the time. But in my book, I want to talk about the victims and who they were too, you know.

1:10:11 So thank you very much all. Right. And for everybody listening, you have a good weekend.