Sandy and Tom Bird/Lorna and Marty Anderson - Part 1

Rich: Hi, I'm rich

Tina: You know

Rich: if there's one thing we've learned in over 20 years of marriage

Tina: It's it some days you you'll feel like killing your husband

Rich: as some days feel like killing your wife

Tina: Welcome to love Mary kill

Rich: Hi, Tina.

Tina: Hey Rich.

Rich: How are you today?

Tina: I'm good. How are you?

Rich: I'm doing good I

Tina: was laughing because I couldn't look at you because you had like the biggest bread on your face And it's just a big old cheesy bread. I'm just so happy to be here You're really trying to sell it It's a beautiful day here in southeast, Michigan

Rich: Beautiful day to be here in the light bulb lab recording a podcast with you

Tina: Yeah, no place I'd rather be If

Rich: you hear screaming in the background, it's only because we have our windows open and our neighbors are outdoors And

Tina: there's probably gonna be a cat meowing as well because he is also in the room I think he gets excited when we record

Rich: He does seem to really like it

Tina: Do you think it's time that we move to the old folks community? Because whenever the neighbor kids are out we're like, oh we be kids are in the pool again We're

Rich: becoming curmudgeon's aren't we?

Tina: Get off of my lawn I mean, I don't think you've actually you did say that the other day So

Rich: well the other day they were they were out at the pool and one of the like somebody who was over their house Walked over into our yard. This is the most random thing They walked into our yard and they picked up a turtle And they brought it back to show with the kids I guess which was fine But I really wanted to run out and just

Tina: well the other day I saw it was yesterday I saw someone with a shovel and I think it was like dog feces and they they didn't put it in our yard But they put it in like the back like the back part of our yard that we don't mow But I was like, why are you not putting it in your yard? Yeah. Anyway, these are always

Rich: drama

Tina: things. Not really

Rich: So your car is in the shop

Tina: and

Rich: I believe they have decided to keep it so

Tina: I mean it's only been

Rich: two days

Tina: 48 hours It's fine.

Rich: The thing that drives me crazy though is we made an appointment Like what is it? What does it mean to make an appointment? They

Tina: didn't know what needed to be repaired I

Rich: don't think they've even looked at it.

Tina: Yeah, that is kind of a bummer Yeah,

Rich: so it might be I

Tina: like it though because then you get to show for me everywhere and I get to be It's like driving Miss Tina. That's my favorite.

Rich: Yeah,

Tina: we're not quite there yet, but in a few years I'm not gonna be driving anymore and you're gonna have to drive me any everywhere anywhere.

Rich: I don't mind chauffeuring you around It's my my pleasure. Well, I have an exciting announcement for our listeners

Tina: Okay for me too, because I don't know what you do know. We

Rich: have a website I'm very excited to announce that you can go to lovemarykill .com.

Tina: We didn't have that before.

Rich: No, we didn't have

Tina: I have no idea what's going around

Rich: No, after however many years we've been doing this podcast I finally decided we should probably have a website

Tina: and

Rich: I'm just gonna say it's not the greatest website It's not the you know work in progress though, right? But it's a nice little place You can go and you can listen to our episodes there. You can sign up to you know Talk to us you can you can leave a message for us. You can leave a voice message for us Oh, which I think that's kind of cool

Tina: What if people are just telling us for idiots and swearing at us get a

Rich: bunch of prank calls? Yeah.

Tina: Yeah. Okay, that sounds fun Something important to me though that we are going to work on We're going to put resources on the website resources for people that might be suffering from domestic violence or you know other Family issues and we hope to have that up and active soon.

Rich: Yeah We'll keep kind of growing the content that we have on the website over time But yeah, we definitely want to add resources there But keep in mind that it's just us doing the podcast the website social media and everything So we will do what we can to make it a really great website, but just be patient. That's all I have

Tina: I Wanted to thank everyone for all the nice reviews We asked for news on a recent episode and you guys really followed through so makes our hearts so warm and grateful So thank you so much. If you took the time to do that.

Rich: It really is. Awesome. We appreciate it We I have a snack for you. Would you like I am hungry? Yes, that's good. I'm really I Have to tell you that

Tina: I saw it in the in the meat drawer because I was making a sandwich And so I was like, oh that looks interesting.

Rich: You know what it is though. I bet you don't really know what it

Tina: is Caramel,

Rich: it's sort of it's it. So there's a dessert in Brazil, which the case today has nothing to do with Brazil I just happen to see a video online. It's called Bala by Anna. I believe is how it's

Tina: No,

Rich: I've never made it. It's got it's nor it normally has coconut in it But this variation I found it is made with Biscoff and it's basically like yeah, it's kind of a caramely sort of thing It looks a little like a cake pop But it's got like a candy coating on the outside that's supposed to be like a glass kind of you know candy I haven't tried them yet. So I'm excited to try them Richard Very little create a really great website. Maybe is one thing. But yeah, let's give these a try What did you think of the Biscoff Bala by Anna,

Tina: they were amazing so good it took me about 20 minutes to chew But so good.

Rich: Yeah, I really like them too.

Tina: Yeah delicious. I

Rich: love Biscoff flavor and having like a caramely texture like that Yeah, I would

Tina: say nine point eight out of ten.

Rich: Well, that is pretty good on the Tina rating scale I mean, I would say

Tina: 10 out of 10, but I feel like we need to be slightly more discerning Well,

Rich: I guess given that I'll also give it a nine point eight out of ten

Tina: copycat

Rich: today We are going to go back to the 1980s in Kansas to tell the story of Sandy and Tom Byrd and Lorna and Marty Anderson two couples involved in today's case. This was a recommendation from our longtime listener and friend Perry Thanks Perry for the recommendation

Tina: Perry is one of our biggest supporters and we appreciate her so much

Rich: on a Sunday morning in July 1983 a group of canoeists came around a bend in the Cottonwood River just south of Emporia, Kansas and Found the body of a woman floating face down in a foot of water beneath a wooden bridge a white Station wagon lay upside down in the shallows nearby. Her name was Sandra Byrd She was 30 years old a mathematician and a mother of three Her husband was Tom Byrd the pastor of a fast -growing Lutheran Church four miles away She should have been there that morning getting her kids ready for Sunday school teaching the teenagers Bible class and sitting in the front pew for her husband's sermon a Highway Patrolman named John rule was among the first investigators on the scene He had worked more than 700 accident calls in 14 years on the job What he found at the bottom of that 65 foot embankment troubled him There was blood in the wrong places No skid marks leading up to the scene and the seat was pushed back too far For a woman who stood five foot one. He went back to the station and told his supervisors He didn't think it was an accident Nobody wanted to hear it the county coroner ruled Sandy Byrd's death an accident a few days later and Emporia tried to move on it might have stayed that way just another closed case that left a family grieving over a tragic accident But three and a half months later and 50 miles away on a lonely stretch of highway in the Flint Hills Another person connected to Sandy and Tom Byrd turned up dead and this time the circumstances were harder to explain away This is the story of two marriages two murders and the small Kansas City that found itself at the center of both But let's go back two years to 1981 where our story really begins The leaders of Messiah Lutheran Church in Emporia, Kansas had to make a decision The church's congregation had grown large enough to either expand or divide and create something new They chose to create something new Faith Lutheran Church the original church's pastor Reverend Larry Calso knew that the new church needed the right kind of pastor not a Traditionalist trying to maintain the status quo but a builder Someone who could walk into a half -formed congregation and make people believe they were part of something worth building When Calso reached back into his seminary years trying to think of the right man for the job one name kept surfacing A young pastor he had known back then someone currently serving two small churches in the Arkansas Delta country Outside of West Memphis he had turned down other opportunities before but when Calso called Tom Byrd said yes Tom was 31 years old He had grown up in Little Rock played football and ran cross -country well enough to earn a scholarship to the University of Arkansas He was the kind of man who competed at everything He still ran more than five miles a day played basketball with the optimist club and played first base on the church softball team People who knew him used words like tireless and magnetic The kind of preacher who made you feel sitting in a pew that he was talking directly to you He arrived in Emporia in early 1982 bringing with him three young children and a wife who had no intention of being a traditional Pastors wife Sandy Byrd had been the valedictorian of their high school graduating class in Little Rock Tom played ball while Sandy was at the top of the academic rankings She had gone off to Rice University in Houston after graduation one of the more demanding science programs in the country Before transferring to Arkansas after her freshman year to be closer to Tom they married on August 21st 1971 in Little Rock Sandy's mother had reservations She worried that by marrying young Sandy would never reach her full potential It was a fear that Sandy seemed determined to disprove

Tina: so they were high school sweethearts.

Rich: Yes She had a bachelor's degree and a master's degree both in mathematics and in Emporia She got a job teaching at Emporia State University while simultaneously working toward a second master's degree in computer mathematics This was 19 early 1980s computers were pretty pretty new at that point time.

Tina: That was a great career choice

Rich: She barely paused for anything including she would have been the first to admit housework She once told a neighbor when I start cleaning it's either because I'm moving or because my mom and dad are coming Tom wasn't much for yard work either the lawn at the bird house had a way of reaching shin height before anyone got Around to mowing it But if the house occasionally showed the strain of a busy family life their work at faith Lutheran was another matter Tom maintained a 65 hour work week. He preached he taught he organized He and Sandy ran a couples club arranged potluck dinners and taught a class on family living together Tom taught the Sunday Bible class while Sandy taught the teenagers The plan for the new church was to gradually build up a following and establish their financial footing The original church Messiah Lutheran had expected to carry the new congregation financially for several years Instead within eight months of its founding the new church broke off on its own by the fall of 1983 Membership had tripled the main reason people agreed was Tom his exceptional charisma tireless work ethic and Community -focused initiatives helped the young mission parish blossom much faster than expected

Tina: So he wasn't the pastor at both of the churches No He

Rich: was just at the new church that started up

Tina: the other couple involved in our story is Lorna and Marty Anderson Martin Anderson had not had an easy start He'd grown up in Wellington a small city in South Central Kansas the younger of two sons He graduated from Southwestern College in Winfield with a biology degree in June 1970 and two weeks later married a young woman from Scott City Seven months after that they separated the divorce was finalized in April 1972 the reason listed on the paperwork was Incompatibility I

Rich: think back then incompatibility was just sort of the default that they would put on divorce certificates It could really mean just about anything.

Tina: Well today isn't it a reconcilable differences Marty was emotionally devastated He found his way into a fundamentalist religious community that took him in with warmth and for a time He threw himself into it completely He became by his own behavior something of a zealot Telling acquaintances that they were condemned heading for the devil the drinking stopped Swearing stopped in their place came the rolling in the aisles the speaking in tongues It was the faith of a man who had been badly hurt and needed somewhere new to direct his attention

Rich: I bet all his old drinking buddies were really happy with Marty changing and telling them they were all going to hell

Tina: Yeah, that's a wild transition Then Marty met Lorna Slater Lorna was 20 years old slender and attractive with a sweetness and tolerance about her that seemed to reach something in Marty that their Religion hadn't quite managed he was six foot two Beefy tough talking a man who seemed to distrust the world after being burned once already But Lorna found the soft interior beneath all of that slowly steadily She brought him back to himself. They married in Hutchinson in June 1973 Marty was 24 in 1978 Marty took a position as chief medical technician at Newman Memorial County Hospital in Emporia he arrived to find a lab that was poorly equipped and understaffed and set about fixing it adding personnel and badgering Administration for funding of new equipment He was good at his job and he knew it at home The family grew four daughters all of them younger than ten by the early 1980s

Rich: I think the youngest were the youngest two I believe were twins

Tina: Marty lived for those girls and Lorna to all outward appearances was exactly what the community saw a Devoted capable mother the kids were always clean well -dressed and well behaved Neighbors looked at Lorna and thought super mom from the outside It looked like a solid stable happy family we say this every I know and

Rich: it never really is is it

Tina: But there was another side to Lorna that the neighbors who admired her didn't always see though Plenty of others did by the summer of 1978 not long after the Andersons arrived in Emporia Lorna had developed a reputation It was most visible around Marty's hospital softball team where it became over the course of that first season Something of a running joke among the players After the games Lorna was available to whichever of them was interested The men placed an informal bet on who she'd set her sights on that particular night Many of them were men that Marty worked with every day Lorna wasn't always discreet about it at a party one evening Marty was drunk on one side of the room while Lorna was on the other Openly pawing another man. I thought Marty stopped drinking

Rich: Well, that was when he had his brief spell of religious zealotry, but he Lorna yeah,

Tina: okay Lorna and the man slipped out together and returned 20 minutes later Lorna pursued Marty's friends from high school and she even pursued his best friend Larry Schalk What she seemed to want more than any particular man was the feeling of being wanted being desired made her feel good Whether Marty knew the full extent of it or simply chose not to see it was never entirely clear But among the people around them, it was no secret. The super mom was maybe not so super after all In 2026 were not supposed to call women super moms because that's you know Making women seem like they should be able to do it all when if you see a woman that is a super mom It means that she's overworked and you know tired.

Rich: Ah, that's a very good point

Tina: but Lorna So is she having sex with all of these men or is she just

Rich: yes Lorna was having a lot of affairs She would have like one steady boyfriend on the side and then she would also have other flings that were less serious But she was always According to you know, the people that knew her and the people that were around them She was always having affairs and

Tina: it sounds like Marty was turning a blind eye to it.

Rich: Yes

Tina: the Anderson household ran on Marty's salary from the Newman Memorial and Some additional money that came in from his work as a captain in the Army Reserves in total They made about thirty seven thousand dollars a year or about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars today It was a decent living but it was never quite enough and when twin daughters arrived in 1981 Bringing the total to four girls the gap between the income and expenses widened further They borrowed money from family and from the bank when the credit cards reached their limits and the checking account ran dry They kept writing checks. Anyway in May 1983 They overdrew their checking account around 20 times in a single month each overdraft carrying a $10 penalty The math was not working at home. The strain went deeper than the finances Marty loved his daughters completely But he wasn't always certain they were his Lorna's extramarital interests had never stopped She almost always had a steady lover and occasional side interests beyond that Marty knew at least in part one afternoon He came home to find Lorna in the bathtub and her latest lover sitting beside her on the edge of the tub The two of them talking casually as if nothing were unusual Marty turned around and walked back out of the house He wanted to hold his family together and he wanted it badly enough to shut out what he couldn't bear to look at directly three times in the late 70s and early 80s Lorna was admitted to a Psychiatric ward never staying longer than a week the nature of whatever treatment she received there is unknown

Rich: I watched a documentary on this case from A &E Network and one of the people they interviewed was their former babysitter and she would talk About like she would have the kids downstairs and Lorna would be home Upstairs and men would come over while she was like taking care of the kids downstairs And she was the babysitter was fairly young at the time And so she didn't really know what was going on But like later she was like this something didn't seem right about this

Tina: That's bananas to do that when your kids are at home.

Rich: Yeah,

Tina: do you have that show linked in show notes?

Rich: I do.

Tina: We'll be back after a break

Rich: In the summer of 1982 Denise Cohen moved into the Anderson home on Meadowlark Lane to help with the children while Marty was away for a month at Army Reserve Camp What she found there gave her pause? Lorna's lover was at the house regularly sometimes staying the night while the four girls were home Denise told Lorna she thought it was bad for the kids, but Lorna didn't seem particularly concerned When Marty came back from camp Lorna told him that she didn't want him in her bedroom anymore He would need to move downstairs Denise asked Lorna the obvious question. Why not just divorce him Lorna's answer was cold and practical She couldn't take care of all four children on her own and wouldn't be able to support them financially if she and Marty lived Separate households so Marty stayed in the house sleeping downstairs and the marriage continued in name Marty for his part told friends. He no longer loved Lorna either, but that he couldn't afford to leave He also realized that paying for two households was beyond his means and the thought of losing access to his daughters was something He couldn't bring himself to accept it seemed that they were stuck together So it seems like both Marty and Lorna were staying together Purely for like financial reasons and practical reasons, which is really sad Yeah, it is because I think neither of them felt like they could you know live on their own with The income that they had kind of split into two households and

Tina: and this is not good for their kids No,

Rich: it's not good for anybody in January of 1983 Lorna told her friend Jan over drinks that she was sleeping with her hairdresser a man named Danny Carter and that there Was no love left between her and Marty She said matter -of -factly that she had never really loved him by February She told the same friend that she had a new boyfriend and that she was in love The Andersons perhaps as a last -ditch effort to keep their family together had found their way to Faith Lutheran Church a new growing Congregation not far from their home led by a charismatic young minister who had a gift for making people feel like they Tom bird the connection between the Andersons and the birds grew naturally over time Marty and Tom had met at a softball game and Marty took a genuine liking to Tom He invited Tom to join the Thursday night basketball games and eventually sponsored him into the Flint Hills optimists club Through the spring and summer of 1983 they played volleyball and softball together After games Tom would sometimes stop by the Anderson house for a post -game beer Some Sunday mornings Tom conducted confirmation classes in the Andersons living room in January of 1983 the church had grown busy enough that it needed part -time office help no more than 15 hours a week Lorna Anderson stepped forward She mentioned she had worked as a church secretary once before back in Sterling, Kansas The congregation was glad to have her and it would bring in a little extra money for Lorna and Marty The job was supposed to be 15 hours a week, but as the weeks went on Lorna began staying longer and longer

Tina: She must have been just a great employee staying those long hours. Yes

Rich: very much so To the congregation the birds looked like what they had always been a busy committed pastoral family fully invested in the church They were building together Tom preaching Sandy teaching both of them running programs Keeping schedules showing up from the outside the picture was intact But inside the yellow beige raised ranch where the bird family lived something was coming apart Sandy's mother Jane Grismer first noticed a change in her daughter sometime in early 1983 She couldn't have named it precisely, but something was off Angie Dunsing was a member of the faith Lutheran congregation who also ran the church's preschool a program that she and Tom had started Together in the fall of 1982. She was around the church constantly and she was observant She didn't know exactly what was happening But she felt something a certain electricity when Tom and Lorna were in the same room in the way that they looked at each other She began to notice other things passing the church office on certain days. She would see Lorna crying Once she saw Tom put his arm around Lorna to comfort her another time She found him embracing Lorna in a hug when they worked side by side Sometimes their shoulders touched their knees touched small things maybe but Angie Dunsing noticed and was troubled by it She thought it wasn't proper and she said so to people inside the church to people outside it and eventually to Sandy Bird Herself, we don't know how Sandy responded, but it's clear that she knew all was not well with her marriage

Tina: Poor Sandy

Rich: The new man that Lorna told her friend Jan about in February 1983 was Tom Bird She said the two of them had been taking day trips to Topeka and Wichita spending afternoons together in motel rooms She offered her assessment of the pastor without much hesitation for a minister. He's really good in bed The affair was not as hidden as Lorna may have believed in March Jan called the Anderson home expecting Lorna to answer But Marty picked up when Jan asked for Lorna Marty sounded confused Lorna was in Wichita. He said meeting with her wasn't she Jan scrambled and came up with an explanation The next day Lorna called Jan to apologize explaining that she had needed a cover story She also mentioned almost in passing that she was worried one of her daughters may have seen her kissing Tom a few days earlier

Tina: So Jan is covering for Lorna here. Would you cover for a friend in this situation?

Rich: That's a really tough one, but I don't think so I think that's a really icky feeling to be covering for a friend who's having an affair on their spouse You know,

Tina: I would like to think that I would too, but I might give them one chance Yeah, and then say end this or you know, I'm never gonna cover you for you again,

Rich: right? Yeah, I think it depends on the circumstances, but I could see that on April 19th Lorna arrived late to meet her friend Jan She complained that her home life was worse than ever and that her feelings for Tom were deepening Then she said something that Jan would not forget I know this sounds really terrible Lorna said But sometimes I just wish that something would happen to Marty and to Sandy So Tom and I could spend the rest of our lives together That same month Lorna ran into one of Marty's hospital colleagues named David Workman at Newman Memorial She was crying and he could see bruises around her eye and cheek He asked if she had been in an accident. She said that Marty had been hitting her They went out to her van in the parking lot and talked for nearly an hour She told Workman that if Marty didn't stop he was going to get a dose of his own medicine That her hairdresser and former boyfriend Danny Carter and his brother Daryl were going to beat Marty up if it continued And if that wasn't enough She said they were going to drug him and run him off the road or shoot him Workman wasn't entirely sure what to make of what he was hearing. He never told Marty and he never called the police Marty carried life insurance as he always had enough that if he died accidentally Lorna stood to collect in the neighborhood of a quarter million dollars Just before he left for Army Reserve Camp in Washington State that May they added a little more Marty traditionally would add more life insurance when he would go away for Army Reserve Camp because he would tell Lorna that his odds of dying yet at Reserve Camp were like significantly higher than it was day to day So he was actually a big believer in life insurance But Marty came home safely from camp and the extra coverage expired Sandy Bird was not a woman who unraveled easily but by the spring of 1983 the pressure was showing Tom had never fully made peace with Sandy's career What he wanted it seemed was a pastor's wife in the traditional sense Someone whose primary role was the church and the household Sandy was incapable of being that person She loved learning and she loved teaching and the tension between what Tom wanted and who Sandy was had been building quietly for years

Tina: Here remind me Sandy is a college professor.

Rich: She was teaching at college I don't know if she was a full professor, but yeah, she was working on her master's degree in computer mathematics and also teaching Sandy told a friend that she was worried that Tom didn't love her anymore She didn't know exactly what was happening, but she could feel it Tom had stopped asking her to review his Sunday sermons something he had done as a matter of course He told her he no longer wanted her dropping by the church unannounced or calling while he was at work She noticed how much time he was spending with Lorna on June 1st 1983 Tom's birthday Sandy stopped by the church even though Tom had told her not to She found Tom and Lorna and all seven of their children from both families together in the fellowship hall mid -party a birthday celebration Sandy hadn't been invited, but she stayed anyway Can you imagine that walking into the church finding your own kids as well as your you know husband's girlfriend's kids?

Tina: Yeah, it's

Rich: outrageous Sandy's neighbor noticed the weight loss around this time 15 maybe 20 pounds gone Sandy when it was mentioned was matter -of -fact about it. Yeah, she said that's what stress will do to you And then in early July Sandy seemed to have made peace with whatever was going on She told her mother that her life was right with God whatever Tom needed to sort out that was between him and God It's not clear exactly what Sandy meant by this comment to her mom Like whether she had just accepted that she was guiltless in whatever was going on with her or Tom Maybe she had made a decision. We don't really know

Tina: Whatever is going on here. It sounds like Sandy does not deserve that.

Rich: No, absolutely The week that she died she learned that she was being promoted at Emporia State Which would mean extra classes to teach in the fall It was a recognition of everything she had been working toward but it may have Exacerbated the tensions in the marriage. We don't know for sure on July 14th two days before her death She was at the student union with colleagues having coffee and cinnamon rolls Her friends found her talkative and warm full of energy Telling anyone who would listen about a convention trip that she and Tom had just taken to st Louis she was people would remember her usual upbeat self That was the last time that most of them saw her

Tina: the evening of Saturday, July 16th 1983 had been a good one by all appearances Sandy and Tom were going to celebrate her promotion at work Sandy picked up hamburgers and brought them to the church where she and Tom ate them before heading out to see return of the Jedi After the movie they swung back home at around 930 p .m Where Sandy ran inside twice once for a bottle of wine and then again for a bottle of bourbon She told the babysitter they'd be back in about an hour Then she and Tom drove the three blocks to the church and had a few drinks together What happened after that is unclear as the only account we have is what Tom later told police We'll talk about that later What we do know is that Tom called the security office at Sandy's workplace Emporia State University At 1 10 a .m. On Sunday morning He told the security officer that Sandy a graduate student in the math department Had left the church over two hours earlier to pick up a computer textbook at the science building and she hadn't returned Campus security checked and found no sign of Sandy or her car Tom also made at least three calls to the police late that evening and early the next morning to report his wife missing The exact time of those calls is not clear But it seems that he made at least one call before midnight another around 3 a .m And then a last call at 830 a .m He made one other call that night to his home where their 14 year old babysitter answered The babysitter would later say this call took place around 1 a .m

Rich: so the timing of all these phone calls would later become a contentious issue because it seemed that Tom had called the police before Calling home to check with the babysitter if Sandy was there Uh -huh, and the question would be why would a husband call the police before checking to see if Sandy had gone home Unless he knew with certainty that Sandy hadn't gone home now Tom would later claim that the babysitter must have been mistaken That perhaps she was woken up by the phone call and wasn't clear on the time and he claimed that of course he called home before calling the police

Tina: After speaking with the police around 830 a .m On Sunday Tom called the church elders to let them know that Sandy was missing and that he would be unable to give The sermon that morning Sandy was found around 9 o 'clock Sunday morning by some canoeists She was floating face down in a foot -deep eddy on the Cottonwood River just in front of a white 1978 Peugeot station wagon that lay on its back in the shallows beneath the wooden planks of the Rocky Ford bridge The bridge sat atop a 65 foot embankment at the end of a road that as one local put it went from nowhere To nowhere. It was about five miles southeast of downtown Emporia not a main road into town not a road anyone would find themselves on by accident

Rich: I'll put we'll post pictures of this bridge in our social media But this is very much a country road like this bridge is I think it's a one lane bridge Like it's it's out there in the middle of nowhere. Okay,

Tina: John rule had spent 14 years with the Kansas Highway Patrol He had worked more than 700 accident scenes But he had never seen anything quite like this one the gravel on the road leading to the bridge was wrong There was no skid marks No torn -up surface that would suggest a driver fighting to control a car going off the road The brush at the edge of the embankment was light Whatever had gone through it had gone through it deliberately Aimed just to the right of the bridges south approach through a narrow gap down the bank and the car was sitting almost Directly at the base of the embankment a car traveling at any real speed would have carried farther out into the river Rule estimated that had been moving at about 10 miles an hour

Rich: when we talk about this narrow gap that the car must have gone through like the bridge had like railings along the side of It and right before you reach the bridge there were like concrete abutments there And so there it really was a pretty narrow gap So the car the only way the car could have gone over the embankment was through that gap

Tina: So it seems like someone had pushed the car through the gap

Rich: Exactly

Tina: the driver's door had been torn off and lay on the bank seven feet from the car Close enough to suggest the same slow speed But sandy was in front of the car and that didn't make sense Rule began to examine the scene more carefully dry droplets of blood made a trail back up the embankment 22 feet from the car he found blood smeared on a tree branch five feet off the ground More blood dotted the leaves nearby just west of the bridge He found a woman's watch a crystal its crystal smashed, but it was in the wrong place Objects thrown from a moving car generally travel in the same direction as the car This watch was behind it and off to the west Then they went up to the bridge itself near the south end investigators found a spot of blood roughly four inches across They followed it to the iron railing Right below the railing was the tree where rule had found the blood Sandy's watch seemed to be directly below the bridge at that point as if it had fallen through the gaps between the planks of the Bridge rule stood there and looked at what he was seeing to him It appeared that Sandra bird had been beaten on the bridge and then thrown over the railing He told his supervisors that he didn't think the death was an accident

Rich: So this scene truly didn't add up like having you know at the bottom of the embankment He found blood up in a tree like five feet six feet off the ground, which is bizarre

Tina: It's crazy that they found the blood on the tree.

Rich: Yeah, but even stranger like on the bridge itself So before the car the car went off the embankment before it went over before it had even gone over the bridge so they found blood on the bridge itself and That was right above where the blood was on the tree so it seemed kind of obvious that You know something had happened at the top of the bridge and then she had probably been thrown over the side of the bridge It seems obvious in hindsight, but yeah, of course at the time, you know The I think the default was sort of like it's probably an accident.

Tina: Mm -hmm The autopsy on Monday confirmed the violence the scene had suggested Five ribs on Sandy's left side were broken the fifth sixth tenth eleventh and twelfth She had cuts on her upper right arm and her left forearm her forehead and her cheek Bruises and various stages of purpling marked her right forearm. She had bled to death from her ruptured kidney There was no water in her lungs Although she had been found face down in the water that meant that she was almost certainly dead before she got there The interior of the car contained no blood and no hair Nothing to suggest a person had been thrown around inside it during a crash The driver's seat was pushed well back Sandra bird was five feet one inches and her friends all said the same thing She never drove without first buckling her seat belt a test of her blood later showed that she was sober

Rich: I think they found traces of alcohol in her blood but nowhere near enough that she would have been intoxicated

Tina: We'll be back after a break

Rich: Around noon on Sunday an Emporia police officer and a state trooper came to the birdhouse and told Tom that Sandy had been found Her car had gone off the road near the Rocky Ford bridge They said and crashed into the Cottonwood River south of town Tom's response was immediate. What was she doing out there? We never go out there. Then he added where is it? I thought was kind of an interesting response that his first thing is what is she doing out there? We

Tina: don't go there. Where is

Rich: it? Yeah a little bit odd Tom gave investigators his account of the evening He and Sandy had eaten hamburgers at the church then gone to see return of the Jedi After the movie they had stopped at home where Sandy had grabbed some wine and some bourbon They drove the three blocks to the church and had drinks and then went on to a private club for more They left the club around 10 45 Sandy then dropped Tom at the church so he could fine -tune his sermon for the next morning While she headed to the university to work on her computer project and pick up some things

Tina: How much had they been sounds like they've been drinking a fair amount here?

Rich: Well, we don't really know how much they had been drinking We'd know that Sandy's blood alcohol level was very low. So she was definitely not intoxicated And again that the the challenge here is we have Tom's account of the evening and we don't have any other accounts of what? Happened between the time that the let you know The last thing we can verify is that she stopped at home The babysitter saw her come in pick up some booze go out to the car, but after that we just don't know

Tina: So the babysitter saw her grab both wine and bourbon. Yes, and then you said they went to a private club to drink some Well,

Rich: they went to the yeah They went to the church first apparently according to Tom had a couple of drinks there Then according to Tom and this account would change later But he said according to him that they went to a private club and had a couple of drinks later later that private club Disappeared from his story

Tina: Okay, it just seems odd that they would be drinking and then they would both be like well I'm gonna go work on my sermon and yeah gonna go. Yeah.

Rich: Yeah, it seems odd to me that like working That late, but I guess that was I think that was fairly normal for them You know to go the key would be at the church working late and she would go to the university late and do some Work, so I think that was not abnormal But yeah having drinks before then unless you know Maybe they had one drink or whatever and then

Tina: guess in 1983 people didn't work from home as much Mm -hmm might be an odd observation by

Rich: yeah, I mean they didn't we

Tina: exclusively work from home But yeah interesting

Rich: so continuing Tom's account to the police. He then said he went for a run Sometimes what

Tina: does after you have bourbon and wine?

Rich: Yeah at 11 15 p .m. Sometime between 11 15 and 11 45 He said he went for a run of about two and a half miles When Sandy hadn't returned by midnight he drove by the university, but didn't see her car there He then began making calls the babysitter the university the police the hospital Whatever he said to the officers they found him very convincing

Tina: But you said they lived three blocks from their house and he didn't go to the like wouldn't you just walk home and look? For me.

Rich: Yeah, that's a really good point to why not stop and check on your home to see if she showed up there Later that afternoon neighbors came by to offer their condolences Some were surprised when Lorna Anderson met them at the door with a smile Tom was on the couch slouched and nearly catatonic telling anyone who sat with him that he couldn't believe it This wasn't happening Over the next few days Highway Patrolman John Rule kept turning the scene over in his mind The blood on the bridge the watch the seat position the slow speed the road that went nowhere Despite rules concerns the county coroner ruled the death an accident a few days later I guess John Rule actually took the coroner out to the scene and they looked at it together and some rule was like yeah, this is gonna make sense to him, but the coroner just couldn't be bothered apparently to Rule at anything other than an accident

Tina: so frustrating because just the seat being pushed back.

Rich: Mm -hmm. Yeah that alone And

Tina: the

Rich: fact that she always wore her seat belt according to all of her friends So, and you know, I don't know if they didn't investigate that but yeah Rule would later say he lay awake nights feeling guilty about the investigation and angry that he hadn't been able to get anyone else To share his doubts. Nobody wanted to believe it was a homicide rule recalled. Hell. I didn't want to believe it myself I was sure she didn't die in a traffic wreck but I didn't have the training to prove otherwise as Details about the scene began to leak out the community started to form its own theories Some people at the university thought that she must have been mugged in a parking lot Kidnapped murdered and then forced over the embankment the seat belt detail circulated Sandy always wore one So how had she been thrown from the car? But no one seemed to suspect Tom He was a grieving pastor a father of three a man who had just lost his wife No one that is except Marty Anderson a few days after Sandy's death One of Marty's co -workers mentioned how sad the accident was Marty cut him off He said you don't believe that do you Tom Byrd did it? He seemed to be the only one in Emporia willing to say it out loud a few nights after Sandy's death Marty and Lorna were at a party together Lorna seemed forlorn She told people there that she knew Sandy had struggled with mental health problems and that she wasn't surprised that Sandy had died by The room went quiet it wasn't anything that Tom had suggested as a possibility to the authorities I don't think anyone thought that Sandy was suicidal So it seemed like Lorna was just throwing this out there as a theory just to get people thinking Sandy was buried in her hometown in Arkansas Tom presided at the service Ten days after Sandy's death pastor Cal so spotted Tom riding in Lorna Anderson's van on the Kansas turnpike He thought it was a bit soon for Tom to be seen with another woman and later confronted him about it Tom said that he had been counseling Lorna about her marriage problems The church elders got involved and Lorna offered her resignation But Marty called several of the elders and insisted his wife should keep her job The elders declined her resignation, but asked her to cut back her hours She had been spending nearly every day at the church despite only being paid for half a day So this is kind of interesting that Marty was the one to call and vouch for his wife and say she shouldn't lose her job Even though he must have known by this time that Lorna was having an affair with Tom Byrd

Tina: Well, it's a financial concern too, right?

Rich: I think that's exactly right.

Tina: If you guys could see how many times I roll my eyes during a case You'd probably be shocked. Maybe you wouldn't be maybe you're rolling your eyes right along I bet

Rich: a lot of people are The congregation purchased a computer and donated it to the church as a memorial to Sandy Tom and Lorna took to sitting side -by -side trying to figure out how to use it together I find this detail funny because this is 1983 and computers were really very Basic at this point and so just the idea of like the church, you know,

Tina: but that's your memorial I could she

Rich: was that you know, she was majoring in computer Mathematics it was sort of a tribute to her But I can only imagine that Tom and Lorna were really baffled that trying to make heads or tails of it in September a church member named Sharon Meyer confronted Tom directly about how close he and Lorna had become Tom told her that after the death of his wife and the strain of raising three children alone Lorna gave him strength

Tina: Tom and Sandy's kids are all under 10, correct? Yes And he's leaning on Lorna for strength gosh Sandy's death might have officially remained just a tragic accident, but three and a half months later Everything changed on the morning of Friday, November 4th 1983 the Anderson family Marty Lorna and their four daughters Ranging in age from two and a half to eight years old piled into their green Ford van and headed north Marty had the day off He told co -workers that he was taking the family up to Fort Riley to pick up some uniform clothing He needed a camouflage uniform for his reserve duties and they were going to do a little shopping All six of them made a day of it. They browsed the base stopped at a discount store in Manhattan, Kansas for diapers Considered a picnic before the November cold talked them out of it and aided a McDonald's instead They were headed back south towards Emporia before 6 o 'clock Lorna at the wheel the girls in the back The route home was Kansas Highway 177 a two -lane road that cuts through the Flint Hills long rolling grassland Mostly empty the kind of road where you can go miles without seeing another car Around five miles south of I -70 Lorna eased the van onto a small lip of asphalt on the roadside To the west a big hill blocked what was left of the evening light What happened next according to Lorna began with a strawberry sundae? She told investigators that she'd eaten one of her daughter's sundaes at McDonald's a problem given that she was allergic to strawberries Her stomach had turned so bad that she had to pull over and run out onto a field to throw up Somewhere in the process she lost the keys and Marty got out to help her look She'd gone back to the van to search for a spare set when she heard a man's voice demanding a wallet I turned around she told investigators and Marty was getting his wallet out and the man Started shooting he went crazy He just shot and shot she said the gunman forced her to the ground as a car passed Pressed the pistol to her head and pulled the trigger. It just clicked then the man ran The only good news she said was that the shooting had happened out of sight of the children. That's convenient Lorna flagged down a passing bus high school football fans on their way to a game and Someone went to a nearby farmhouse to call the police the football fans not knowing any better Wandered the scene freely leaving fingerprints on everything they touched Investigators would spend considerable time later sorting through them all Marty Anderson was found in a field 60 feet from the highway He had been shot three times in the top of his head with a 22 caliber weapon Investigators believe he must have been on his knees when he was shot When investigators arrived Lorna was hysterical. It seemed like the reaction you would expect She was taken to the hospital in Manhattan where she spent the night Around noon the day after the shooting roughly 18 hours after her husband had been killed at the side of a Kansas highway Lorna called her insurance agent to ask how quickly the claims on Marty's life insurance could be processed Her agent was so taken aback by the timing that he called a supervisor for advice Then on Monday the supervisor called the Geary County Police Department to share their concerns Investigators already had many questions of their own Robbers they noted did not typically stake out Kansas cornfields on the chance that someone might pull off the road Tom Byrd had been in Topeka the evening of the shooting He arrived at the Manhattan hospital the next morning with a friend one of the first people to reach Lorna He delivered the eulogy at Marty's funeral the message Tom delivered struck at least one attendee is unusual Essentially he used the eulogy to make an appeal not to waste energy being angry at whoever had done this The Christian thing Tom told the mourners was to try to forgive

Rich: I'm afraid that's where we're going to end part one.

Tina: Tom is real busy giving those eulogies, isn't he?

Rich: Yeah, he sure is So what do you make of the scene of Marty's murder like in the middle of a Kansas cornfield? Lorna

Tina: out of the side of their children. Yeah, that seems pretty unlikely doesn't it?

Rich: Yeah, very unlikely and Lorna eating her daughter's strawberry Sunday, even though she's allergic to strawberry makes

Tina: no sense

Rich: I mean, I think sometimes people are you know say they're willing to even though something's gonna make them sick They really are craving it right, but

Tina: oh, maybe it's an intolerance not an actual Yeah, I think allergy right

Rich: could be

Tina: the children you said they're like two and a half to eight Yeah, they couldn't see what happened. They weren't eyewitnesses.

Rich: That was what Lorna said I mean whether we can believe Lorna or not, but it seems they were probably still in the car when

Tina: but at a minimum They would have heard the gunshots because she said that they shot and shot and shot So yeah,

Rich: it was like 60 feet away from the car But yes, I'm sure they would have heard the gunshots

Tina: the trauma of that will stay with them forever

Rich: Yeah, absolutely So a few things I wanted to discuss one We talked a little bit about this but Marty's reaction to finding Lorna's lover sitting on the edge of the bathtub And he just turned around and walked out and I wonder like why do you think someone would allow himself to be so Humiliated like that in their own home

Tina: was Marty having affairs to

Rich: not that we know of but it's certainly possible I don't think Marty was an angel. There was the one allegation that he had been violent with her We don't know if that was true or not But Lorna did have bruises one time that she told a co -worker of Marty's that he had inflicted on her

Tina: I mean a lot of people stay together for financial reasons. We know that and yeah, they think that they're doing right by their children But

Rich: yeah, it seems like that was the case, but it's just so hard to imagine coming home even in that sick situation Coming home and finding, you know your wife in the bathtub and her boyfriend right there. It just seems like gosh I don't know how you could look past that

Tina: Like I said, maybe Marty was having an affair too and that's why he cared a little less Yeah,

Rich: that could be

Tina: I have a question for you So the night that Sandy died was the church investigated at all Was there any blood there because you're thinking that maybe she was killed prior to her car was pushed off

Rich: I don't believe the church was investigated at all because I think they ruled it an accident pretty quickly But I don't believe that she was killed at the church I believe she was killed on the bridge Like I think that was the theory is that

Tina: there was there was

Rich: a yeah There was some sort of violent episode at the top of the bridge and then she was thrown over the side of the bridge I do find it interesting that Marty told a co -worker that he thought Tom Byrd did it when Sandy died And he was I think the only one I think everybody really loved Tom He was like this charismatic pastor as we've talked about and a man of God And so no one wanted to believe that he could have had anything to do with this But it is interesting that Marty seemed to think otherwise

Tina: Well, in my opinion a charismatic pastor is almost always guilty

Rich: and we've had a lot of cases Involving that recently

Tina: in the news. It seems like every week. There's a new pastor of a megachurch that is arrested for Usually seems like it's pornography charges. It's really disturbing Do you think that the police didn't look at Tom so closely because he was a pastor Do you think that was like they were like oh had to have been an accident might have had something to

Rich: do with it It seems like it was more just that they they saw a car, you know down in embankment and were just sort of defaulted too Yeah, most of them

Tina: dumb. Yeah.

Rich: No, I mean while the police officer in charge thought it wasn't an accident It was really the coroner who ruled it an accident But yeah, I don't I don't know why it just seemed so obvious in hindsight that it wasn't an accident But they just didn't didn't go there

Tina: 1980s were a simpler time.

Rich: I guess so Let's talk about the call that Lorna made to her insurance agent

Tina: I was less than 24

Rich: hours after her husband is shot and brutally killed

Tina: Okay, but if you're living paycheck to paycheck

Rich: Mm

Tina: -hmm, and you know that there is you know a nice insurance policy there How much time do you have to wait? It seems like we always question. Oh they called within 24 hours I honestly don't think that's that a regular.

Rich: Yeah. No, I actually agree with you I think that's a really good point and I think when somebody does die suddenly Yeah, you're you're left in a situation where you're like, well, what do I what do I need to do? Like what am I supposed to do right now and and part of you may default to like I just need to take care Of business type things

Tina: one as you're making funeral arrangements. They will ask you to oh Did this person have an insurance policy because sometimes they can might

Rich: pay out for the funeral itself exactly

Tina: But if something happens to you, I will definitely wait a respectable two weeks before I call the insurance The

Rich: right move. I'll be sure to come back for part two Well, I have a new business proposition for you,

Tina: okay can't wait to hear it

Rich: I remember a few weeks ago. We went and looked at the mystery hill Roadside attraction which is about half hour someone someone

Tina: bought it. So now I'm sad someone

Rich: did buy it Yeah, we went and looked at it and we thought it was pretty entertaining, but probably not Business idea

Tina: not the million dollar moneymaker that we wanted it to

Rich: me Well now as you know another odd roadside attraction has come up for sale. This one is only

Tina: odd.

Rich: It's

Tina: it's pretty cool

Rich: It is pretty cool, but it's also odd and it's only like five ten minutes

Tina: People would be surprised how close we live to hell

Rich: Yeah, this is hell Michigan is for sale which hell that's the name of the it's not really it's

Tina: a hamlet

Rich: It's yeah, it's like a hamlet. It's an unincorporated community officially But it's known as hell Michigan and when I was a kid We would come camping out in this part of the state and we would always stop by hell Michigan because it was there

Tina: if I wear you grew up

Rich: I grew up like north of Detroit like about an hour a little over an hour away from Ann Arbor And so when we would go we would go camping a lot and it felt like we were going, you know Really far away, but it was really only maybe an hour or two from home But we would love stopping at hell Michigan because it was just this quirky place and we were little kids It was like oh, you know giggle about it being called hell

Tina: and

Rich: they have like a weird little gift shop there And ice cream shops

Tina: screamers.

Rich: Yeah, so it's it's for sale hell Michigan is for sale for six hundred and twenty five thousand dollars

Tina: It's

Rich: a seven acre property. There's a souvenir shop and ice cream parlor and Little mini there's a mini golf course. There's a wedding chapel. They have all sorts of business opportunities We should

Tina: renew our vows and how

Rich: yeah, we totally should you can send mail from there's a post office And when you send mail from there, they singed every piece of mail with fire So it looks like it's coming from hell

Tina: Yeah, I feel like we should maybe pull our money with our listeners and we can That seems like a fair price to me for that

Rich: It does but I'm guessing so the the real estate the listing says that it has been profitable But I'm guessing it's like barely profitable I can't imagine they make a lot of money because it's kind of in the middle of nowhere and but it is a cute Little but we can do

Tina: more with it. We could you know open a an escape room and I don't know All sorts of stuff we could have karaoke in hell and

Rich: I think there's a lot that you could do with it You could like today the current owner of hell like you can pay to be mayor of the for the day of hell You can grab a drink. There's a there's a saloon The hell saloon is right there too. They have a place It's called the scattering yard where you can scatter the remains of someone that you love or that you didn't love so much To say that I scattered my loved ones remains in hell

Tina: Yeah,

Rich: and there's also a lot of beautiful nature there, too So

Tina: yeah, but the problem with the place out in Irish Hills that we talked about and how Michigan they are very off the beaten Yeah, totally and because of our highway system, you know a lot of these roads that people used to travel They don't travel so much anymore. So I think that's why these you know, kitschy little spots Yeah,

Rich: yeah for sure the the guy that owns how today I guess he's just getting older and he wants to sell it He's like a Vietnam veteran. He seems like a really great guy He just came back from Vietnam and bought health and so that's what he's been doing for

Tina: well who? Incorporated it or you said it's unincorporated who made hell

Rich: It was originally a sawmill town because it's like on this river and there's a lot of trees around and it used to Be a sawmill and there's a lot of theories about how hell got its name Like one was that the guy who founded it someone asked him and he's like, I don't care You can call it call it hell for all I care But there's other other rumors as well, so we don't know for sure but you know The hell ice cream parlor that was screamers is what it's called But it's also affectionately known as the crematorium, but you know someone famous worked there, right?

Tina: Well famous relatively famous Yes. Yes, it was Eric from Survivor who has played a couple of seasons of Survivor we've we've watched every season of Survivor and So, yeah for us it was like yeah, he's a real celebrity Yeah, he worked and

Rich: he worked in hell as a young man at the ice cream parlor.

Tina: I think he lived there

Rich: Yeah,

Tina: I think it moved but we used to go to hell to go to the terrified forest Which is like a haunted a haunted forest. I think they moved to pinkie now, but that was always fun to go Yeah,

Rich: that's true. There's so much to do in hell so many opportunities Let us know if you think we should buy hell or if you want to pitch in with us We could all we could all go in together

Tina: need some go fund me money. Although speaking of go fund me This is so funny, but whatever kind listeners i'm not sure if it was a spotify comment, but they said Hey you guys we should start a go fund me for rich and tina's new refrigerator Which is so Kind, but I mean it's someday. We'll buy a new refrigerator It's not really it's not completely a financial decision part of it is just I don't know We really I think i'm getting closer today when I was doing the ice cubes I was like we're so ridiculous that we have not bought a new free refrigerator Yeah,

Rich: it is very ridiculous.

Tina: Maybe we could maybe this weekend We'll go look but it's also hard to find one that fits in the exact same spot I know

Rich: and goes with your other appliances too, right? Because Otherwise we would have to replace everything and I did talk about

Tina: how i'm over stainless steel even though people said Stainless steel today is different than you know, I mean our appliances are what they're probably 10 years I think our house is 10 years old now So

Rich: I want to go with appliances like they used to be and you know back in the day Yeah, like in that kind of I don't know what the material was that is on the outside of those older refrigerators But

Tina: yeah, we're not gonna we're not gonna do that

Rich: You never let me make any big decisions

Tina: I wonder why

Rich: all right. Well, we have to go because i've got to eat more of those biscoff. Uh

Tina: 20 minutes to chew it but they were delicious. Yeah Well, we are so grateful that you're here every listen follow review and share helps us keep this show growing And reminds us how lucky we are to have such a thoughtful community if you'd like to reach out we're on social media Or you can email us at love mary kill at gmail .com or

Rich: you can go to our website love mary kill .com

Tina: Or you can find us on youtube And if you want even more love mary kill head over to patreon .com Love mary kill for just five dollars a month. You get early ad free access and a monthly bonus episode

Rich: Until next time

Tina: don't kill your husband

Rich: and don't kill your wife.

Tina: Don't kill your husband So You