MURDERED: Brittany McGlone

13:13Brit Prawat:But Britt, they get the shock of their lives when an autopsy is done, lab tests are run, and there is no semen found. The sheriff told us, according to the medical examiner, Brittany actually was not sexually assaulted after all.

13:29Ashley Flowers:So maybe Jeff's telling the truth.

13:32Brit Prawat:Well, they wanted to put that to the test literally and polygraph both Jeff and his stepdad. They couldn't do it right away, though, because Winsboro, this is out in the country. kind of so they're gonna have to bring in a polygrapher from another city that's gonna take a minute so in the meantime they do what they can to go down other paths like checking out this guy that britney has supposedly slept with right it's like in a month ago or whatever now the guy cooperates he sits down with them and says the same thing as everyone else their hookup was just this like one-time thing they'd been drinking no hard feelings like it didn't become more and

14:08Ashley Flowers:that's it they cross him off the list i mean let's go back to the fact that hardly anyone knew that she would be over at that house. Like, who are those people again? That's like Jeff, his family, like, I guess her mom, but like, who else?

14:20Brit Prawat:Well, that was one of the questions they first asked Jeff. And Jeff brings up this guy named Cody. He admits that Cody is his weed guy. And he says that morning before he left, he'd put cash under this garden gnome outside their house. This was like their little system. Leave the money there. Cody would swing by later, drop off the weed. Except, he says, this day was different. Because by the time Jeff got back that afternoon, the money was gone. But there was no marijuana. So detectives go and track this Cody guy down. And his story complicates things. Yes, he admits that he sold weed to Jeff.

14:56Brit Prawat:But he says he didn't that day. He says that Jeff was, like, blowing up his phone, texting him. Like, did you drop it off yet, dude? Like, did you go by the house? And Cody admits he, like, got annoyed. So he just texted back yes. But he says he didn't actually go over to the house.

15:12Ashley Flowers:So either Jeff's telling the truth and he left the money, Cody went there and took it, putting him at the scene, which means he's lying about being there. Or Jeff could be lying when he says the money got picked up because he's trying to place someone else there.

15:26Brit Prawat:Or, option C, whoever else in this small circle of people who knew Brittany was there alone maybe also knew about this garden gnome arrangement. Now, within about a week after Brittany's murder, her family and friends gather for her funeral. And if you've ever been to a small town funeral, you know how they feel. The whole place shows up. People you haven't seen in years. People you barely know. People whispering about who may have done it.

16:00Ashley Flowers:And probably people you don't even want to be there. Uh-huh.

16:03Brit Prawat:And although detectives seem to be moving farther and farther from Jeff, the more they dissect his alibi, Brittany's family makes it clear. Jeff and his family are not welcome. Emotions are high. Nobody knows what happened yet. All the trust is thin for good reason. But them showing up anyway isn't actually the only drama that sticks with Brittany's sister, Hope, at the funeral. Because there, somebody else shows up. Someone she actually might be more concerned about in this moment. and that is their grandfather, James McGlone. Now this isn't their grandfather by blood, it's their dad's adopted father.

16:46Brit Prawat:And Hope told us that at one point, he walks up next to her, like puts his arm around her and says, have you gone to see the body yet? And she froze because this wasn't just a grieving grandpa asking an awkward question. See, no matter how many people are there at the funeral, she knows something that no one else does yet. A secret that Brittany had been keeping that was big enough to be motive for murder. For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet. But not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases.

17:32Brit Prawat:and in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to The Deck now, wherever you get your podcasts.

17:50Brit Prawat:Brittany had confided in her sister Hope before she died that their grandfather had been sexually abusing her. This went on from the time she was young up until fairly recently. It was devastating for Hope to hear. But at the time, she didn't push Brittany for more details. And trying to be a loyal younger sister, Hope hadn't told anyone right away. She wanted to leave that up to Brittany to do when she was ready. But now that Brittany's not there to speak for herself, now that Grandpa is over here talking about the body like it doesn't belong to someone she loves, Hope felt compelled to come forward, thinking that there might be a chance that he had something to do with what happened to Brittany.

18:34Brit Prawat:And she was right to do so because other family members were able to fill in more of the blanks. And it comes out that Brittany had told her aunts about how Grandpa would make her feel uncomfortable, like he would show up at her work and stuff. And it seemed to be getting worse once she started dating Jeff.

18:53Ashley Flowers:Like he was triggered by her having like her first real boyfriend?

18:58Brit Prawat:That or like now that she was getting older, now that she has a boyfriend, maybe he was worried that Brittany was going to start telling people what he'd been doing. I mean, and we know now she already was.

19:10Ashley Flowers:I mean, if he'd been showing up at her work and stuff, do we think he may have been following her too?

19:15Brit Prawat:So here's the wild part. James McGlone actually lives in the same community as Jeff. Like right across the lake. So maybe he didn't know Brittany was going to spend the night that night. But he could have easily seen that her truck was there. And seen that everyone else had left. When this revelation makes it to investigators, they find out that even Jeff knew about the grandfather's abuse. Apparently Brittany had confided in him too. So Grandpa's biggest fear is becoming a reality. Yeah. Now the question is, did he know that or not? Or did he think that she still held his secret and getting rid of her might make it go away?

19:56Brit Prawat:I mean, you want to talk about motive. This is motive. So they check Grandpa out, and pretty quickly, they come to one conclusion. He couldn't have killed Brittany. I guess time cards show that from 7 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. on the day she was murdered, he was at work. Now, James ended up dying in 2009, but detectives feel pretty confident that he didn't commit this crime, murder, against Brittany. But the whole ordeal coming to light so suddenly made the family realize that Brittany may have been surrounded by more than just one person capable of pure evil. That's a hard pill for them to swallow. And the mystery only deepens once polygraphs are administered.

20:43Brit Prawat:Weed guy Cody? Pass. Jeff's stepdad? Pass. Jeff? They say he passes with flying colors. So what now? Police are probably shocked and a lot stumped. I mean, I know polygraphs aren't perfect, but these, combined with other verification that they've been able to do of people's alibis, it really is looking like none of these people were involved. So detectives go back. What had they missed? Who had they missed? And it turns out there was just one more person. Someone easy to gloss over because his role in Brittany's life seemed so insignificant, almost non-existent. But he was the only other person that, for a fact, knew Brittany was in the home alone that day.

21:34Brit Prawat:Someone who was close enough to the family to know that there might be money under the garden dome. And his name is Chad Carr. I mentioned that Jeff had two younger siblings, a brother and a sister. Well, his sister, Velva, is dating Chad. And included in the original timeline that Jeff gave deputies of the day that Brittany was murdered, he mentions that around 8.30 in the morning or so, as him and his stepdad are fixing up their car to leave, Chad stopped by to pick something up for Velva. And the interaction they have is, like, pretty brief. Like, he didn't even go into the house. They actually told him not to.

22:10Brit Prawat:because Brittany was there sleeping. So he gets what he needs from them and leaves. Oh, why is he also at school at 8.30 in the morning? Oh, because Chad is a grown-ass man. He isn't in school anymore. He's 25 years old at the time, dating Jeff's high school sister.

22:27Ashley Flowers:I'm sorry, absolutely not.

22:28Brit Prawat:To make it even worse, people we spoke to told us that it wasn't just her age. She also may have been mentally vulnerable too. So Chad wasn't there when they left the house. And like I said, he has almost no connection to Brittany other than the fact that they're like dating siblings. They don't even really hang out and there's no beef between them. Like there were people with far more motive. But now they're realizing that maybe he's the only person who checks a lot of most of all of the boxes.

23:00Ashley Flowers:I mean, did he have a key to the house?

23:01Brit Prawat:He didn't. And like there was no forced entry, but he would have known that the family didn't usually lock their doors out there in the country where they live. So now that they're looking at Chad in a new light, they're going back through every page of the file that they have. Did we like miss anything else? Like, does he show up anywhere else? And they do find this one report that stands out. It's from a deputy who was there on scene right after they had found Brittany. And sometime after school, Velva and Chad show back up at the house. and Chad is acting straight up weird. He is shaking. He's visibly nervous.

23:38Brit Prawat:He's all fidgety. So nervous that Velva actually tells him to chill out, that the deputy's a nice guy. And maybe they chalk it up to the stress of the situation. Like, this is a situation most people don't find themselves in. So they didn't do anything with it at the time. But now, now they want to have another conversation with this Chad guy. He's reluctant. to comply at first. But when he does, he gives detectives a play-by-play of his entire day. Like he's extremely detailed about every stop that he made, almost like he's trying to establish an alibi before anyone even asks him for one. And here's what Chad lays out.

24:19Brit Prawat:He says that after he stopped by the family's house that morning, he drove to Alco, where his aunt works, and she asked him to pick up breakfast for her at Sonic. But instead of going straight there, he says that he went home first to change clothes for what law enforcement later remember as being like some weather-related reason. Like maybe it was like too hot or something. Then he goes to Sonic. Then he goes back to Alco to drop off the food. And then after that, he says he arrives 15 minutes early to his 10 o 'clock eye appointment. And then he left the doctors at around 11.40 or so. From there, He picks up Velva from school at 11.55.

24:55Brit Prawat:They go to the bank. They go to lunch. And then after lunch, Chad and Velva go back to the eye doctors at 1.30. Why do they go back? I don't know. It's probably, it's not in the report. So we say, I'm assuming to like pick up a prescription or glasses or something, whatever. But after the eye doctor, they go to the insurance office and then a flower shop, then another store, back to Alco. That's a lot of stops. I know. And then finally, that is when Chad and Velva end up at the crime scene shortly after law enforcement. So let's call that somewhere between like 3.30 and 4ish. And when investigators start trying to verify his timeline, it does check out, sort of.

25:31Brit Prawat:So Chad did go to his eye doctor appointment that was scheduled for 10 a.m. However, he's saying he got there early. But according to two staff members, Chad actually showed up late at 10.20. And they remember this clearly because he even called to give them a heads up that he was going to be late. said that he was having car trouble or something, which, like, weird. I don't think he mentioned any car trouble to detectives.

25:56Ashley Flowers:But, like, maybe he was just, like, using an excuse at the doctor's office, like, to, like, make up for the, like, you know, just to get out of it, you know? Sure.

26:05Brit Prawat:But then why was he really late if he didn't have car trouble?

26:09Ashley Flowers:Great question.

26:10Brit Prawat:And remember how Chad said that he went home and changed his clothes that morning? Yeah. Because it was, like, too hot. Weather-related. Well, sure, maybe that was the reason. But we pulled the weather reports, And it was fairly mild for Texas that May morning. High 60s, low 70s. So detectives told us that they found that excuse for why he might have been in different clothes when people saw him. And when he showed up on surveillance footage, weak. And they know Brittany wasn't just killed, right? She was beaten to death in a small room. Chances are that her killer was covered in her blood. Like, you can't be walking around like that.

26:48Brit Prawat:And don't forget, one of the earliest flags to detectives was that the shower in the house appeared to have been used.

26:54Ashley Flowers:Right.

26:54Brit Prawat:And as they keep digging into Chad's story, they realize that even though he is accounted for for a lot of the day, either by people or with surveillance video, there is this small window of time where he wasn't. From around 9.21, when he shows up on surveillance footage, leaving the Alco store, until about 10.20, when the doctor's office says that he finally shows up for his appointment. So he would have had to do all that driving, commit the murder, and clean himself up in like an hour? Yeah, but all the stops, I mean, again, it's just like the stops he made in that little window. They're like in a super close radius, like from the Alco to the crime scene.

27:36Brit Prawat:It's like six minutes. Oh. So they give Chad the same treatment that they do everyone else, bring in the polygrapher. And finally, they get their first big fat fail. Obviously, this doesn't mean everything, but along with the other circumstantial evidence, it is something. Yeah. They just need something more. Because I think the thing that was partially haunting everyone was why. Because when they talk to Brittany's family, they say they didn't know this guy from Adam. This was the first time they were ever even hearing the name Chad Carr. And according to Brittany's mom and sister, he and Brittany seemed to just be like ships passing in the night, like orbiting each other from time to time, maybe, sure, but like simply acquaintances.

28:23Brit Prawat:He was just Jeff's sister's boyfriend. And this isn't just coming from them. No one they talked to could connect Chad to Brittany in any meaningful way. And even in all our reporting, the only thing we were able to dig up is that Brittany had mentioned Chad before to an aunt, not even by name, just calling him Velva's boyfriend. But she said that he gave her the creeps. And listen, when you talk about motive, like we know nothing from the house was stolen. So it's not like he went to the house to try and take things while she was sleeping and then she surprised him. Someone went to that room to kill her.

28:58Ashley Flowers:That was the goal here. I mean, to me, there has to be some kind of sexual component, though, like with her being naked and her underwear missing.

29:07Brit Prawat:I agree. It's just that no one can point to anything that Chad ever said or did that would be a precursor to this. At least not to Brittany. But when they did look into Chad's past, there was something hard to ignore. You see, years earlier, in 2001, a woman reported to deputies that Chad assaulted her. by hitting her in the head with a jack handle, which I don't know if you're familiar with that.

29:34Ashley Flowers:Yeah, it's like a tire iron.

29:36Brit Prawat:Yeah, the kind of weapon that Brittany was possibly killed with, the weapon that they've never been able to find. And listen, once you hear the details of this other attack, it's hard not to draw some chilling parallels. For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now, wherever you get your podcasts.

30:23Brit Prawat:According to the report we have, it's a couple of days before Christmas in 2001 in the same small town of Winsboro, Texas. A woman we're going to call Debbie was working the second shift at her parents' video store in town when Chad Carr drops by with his wife. Wife? Yeah, he'd been married before. He's obviously divorced by the time he was dating Velva, by the time that Brittany was murdered. But apparently he had gotten married pretty young, like when he was 18. Now, Debbie knew Chad. He was good friends with her soon-to-be ex-husband. So they get to talking, and she mentions how her parents have a bunch of people in town staying at their place for the holidays.

31:00Brit Prawat:Space for her and her daughter was getting tight. So she was actually going to spend the night in, the report just says, the trailer. So I don't know if this was like her old place with her husband or if her family owned it or what. But her and her daughter were going to go there so that they didn't have to sleep on the couch. So there's nothing to this. Chad and his wife leave. Debbie gets off work at 10, picks up her daughter and her pup from her mom, and then goes to the trailer at around 11. Now, Debbie says she puts her daughter down in bed, and then she stays up watching movies. And she was kind of like dozing in and out.

31:30Brit Prawat:So finally, at like 5.30 in the morning, she went to the bedroom to sleep next to her daughter. But shortly after laying down, her dog starts barking. That's not normal. So she kind of like sits there still for a second. and then she hears leaves crunching like footsteps and then knocks on her front door. So Debbie gets up and as she's making her short walk to the front door, she could see who was standing outside. It's Chad Carr. He's like looking through the glass and she could tell that he spotted her. So she goes to the door and opens it and asks Chad the obvious question. Why are you here?

32:09Brit Prawat:At this hour. And he says, oh, I was just in the area picking up a co-worker. Okay. But her spidey senses go off. Like, she knows this co-worker that he mentioned. Like, he gave her a specific name. And that person doesn't live around here. So she says the name kind of skeptically. Like, you're picking a bad guy?

32:28Ashley Flowers:Like him?

32:29Brit Prawat:Yeah. And that's when Chad, like, backtracks. Oh, like, no, not that guy. It was actually one of that guy's friends. Like, it doesn't matter. He's not home anyways. But that's neither here nor there, he says. I stopped by because I saw someone outside your trailer. And as I pulled up, this small car sped away. Now, this obviously worries her. So she's like, okay, can you just like stay here on the front porch? Keep an eye out. I'm going to like get my daughter together, get our stuff. We're going to go back to my parents' house. So she goes to the bedroom to get her things. And when she comes back to the living room, she sees Chad standing there, very much not on the front porch like she asked.

33:05Brit Prawat:But still, she doesn't seem concerned because Chad's there to help, right? So she told him again, like, listen, I'm just going to get my things together. And she goes to, like, move past him. And she kneels down on the floor for something. And then Chad asks her this chilling question. Are you sure there's no one else here? Of course she's sure. Like, what do you mean? Yeah. And then came the blow to her head. This didn't knock Debbie out, but it stunned her. So she, like, jumps up and yelled, you just hit me in the head. And when she flicked on the light, she saw Chad with a red jack handle that had a rubber grip.

33:42Brit Prawat:And Chad seemed stunned, too. He was saying, oh, my God, I'm going to jail. Please don't tell anybody. What? And I don't know if she meant it at the time or if she was just in shock or survival mode, but she told him that she wouldn't. She just needed to get her daughter. But when she went to the room and, like, bent down to pick up her daughter, she felt blood dripping down her neck. And so she like reaches back with both hands, touches the spot where she'd been hit. And when she looks at her hands, they are covered in blood.

34:13Ashley Flowers:Oh my God.

34:14Brit Prawat:And when Chad saw it, he just began apologizing. There wasn't time for apologies though. She told him she needed to get to a hospital now. He needed to drive her. And he did. She had to get three staples in her head to close the wound. Now, I don't know what exactly she told Steph at the hospital or if Chad went in with her, but I think that she was still trying to make sense of what had happened. So before going to police, she actually went to Chad's wife first. And she's told by her that when Chad got home that day, he was acting really off, upset. And when she asked what was wrong, at first he would say that he had just done something really bad, But she like kept pressing him.

34:59Brit Prawat:I'm not going to let my husband be like, I did something really bad.

35:01Ashley Flowers:And be like, okay, cool. Yeah, like what? What was really bad?

35:04Brit Prawat:And he finally told her. Though what his exact words were to his wife, I don't know. I just know that the day after Christmas, Debbie finally worked up the courage to report what had happened to police. But when they go to Chad, he says this was all a big misunderstanding. And he has like this whole story. So he says that on some previous date, he had met some guy at a gas station where he normally eats breakfast, and that guy wanted to talk to Chad's boss about a job. So Chad was going to pick this guy up the morning of the 22nd and take him to his work. But this guy, who by the way, he can't even name, he couldn't find his house.

35:48Brit Prawat:So he took this rural road that went by Debbie's house, like back to wherever he was going because it was a faster way. Now, he says that he saw a small car parked in front of her place. So he went to see if she was all right.

36:01Ashley Flowers:And is he stopping at like every house with a parked car? Right.

36:05Brit Prawat:Okay, there's a car there. She's there. We know that. But he's like, so I got to the door, see if she's all right. And she's like, oh, you scared me because I heard somebody walking. So he says that she was scared. She was going to follow him back into town. So he waits in the living room while she went and gathered her things. But then at some point, he gets startled by some person walking by and hits them in the head with the jack handle and realizes, oh, my God, I accidentally hit Debbie.

36:30Ashley Flowers:Debbie, the person that you're there specifically for, you've talked to, you know, is there.

36:34Brit Prawat:The only person in the—this is a trailer. We're not in, like, a 5 ,000-square-foot home. We are in a small trailer. You know it's her there. Well, and also, like, the jack handle? Why do we have it to begin with? I don't know if he, like, showed up at the door with it. It's like there's nothing mentioned in the— Like, he didn't just, like, apparate with, like, a jack handle in his hand. So I don't know if he like came to the door with it. Again, his whole thing, at least according to Debbie's story, is like, oh, I saw someone around. So I don't know if he like had it initially. I don't know if he went back out and got.

36:59Brit Prawat:I have no idea where this thing came from as far as like him bringing it into the trailer. I do know that it comes up that his wife says he actually borrowed this thing from a friend. So it's not even his, which I don't know if it's just like a coincidence that he has this thing or. I mean, or he's using it because it's like like as a weapon because it's not his.

37:19Ashley Flowers:Like this.

37:20Brit Prawat:Yeah. And also, like, why was he there in the first place?

37:23Ashley Flowers:Like, I don't understand why he would stop, like, why he exists in this, like, space at all.

37:27Brit Prawat:Well, so here, plot twist. I originally thought it seemed like there wasn't a motive for this. Like, kind of like in Brittany's case, right? Like, it's like, why? Why this person? Right. Because there's nothing in the police reports that goes to motive. Is it just because you knew she was going to be alone? Yeah. Is it like you're her almost ex-husband's friend? Like, whatever. But then we learned from a couple of people close to the situation that what was in the reports may not be the actual full story. Surprise, surprise. Allegedly, Chad and Debbie had been having an affair. And apparently, Debbie was about to spill the beans to Chad's then wife.

38:08Brit Prawat:And obviously, he was not happy about that.

38:12Ashley Flowers:Which that makes way more sense why she took a minute before filing any kind of report.

38:18Brit Prawat:Yeah. And if that's true, it all kind of clicks into place for me. But it actually is the one thing then that really differentiates this attack from the attack on Brittany. Right.

38:29Ashley Flowers:Because like he has a connection here.

38:31Brit Prawat:Right. And we asked and nobody thought because the first time I heard this, I'm like, oh, my God, do you think there was anything with Chad and Brittany? And we asked everyone. Nobody thought they had anything going on. His connection to Brittany is still pretty much nada. Now, Chad doesn't commit any more offenses for the next four years, but that's because he ends up serving time for this attack on Debbie. He pled no contest to the assault charge he was eventually hit with, and he stayed in jail until early 2006. But just a few months after getting out, he's accused of sexually assaulting his ex-wife, ex because she had obviously moved on while he was in jail and for all the Debbie stuff.

39:11Brit Prawat:And then less than a year after that, Brittany is brutally murdered. And he becomes the main suspect. With that past, a shaky alibi and a failed polygraph, detectives have enough to get a search warrant for his aunt's place where he'd been living. They're looking for anything to physically link him to the crime. Bloody clothes, a murder weapon, Brittany's missing underwear. Oh, yeah. And they do find and take some interesting items into evidence, like a pair of white shorts with what appears to be drops of blood on them and a white t-shirt that also appears to have blood on it, a gray ski mask, and women's underwear.

39:54Brit Prawat:Two pairs. One is pink, size 7. The other is white, size 5. Now, there's no blood on either pair or anything like that. And we know Chad is dating Velvet then, right? Like, could be hers. So they go to Jeff's mom and she says the pink ones, the size 7 ones, those are velvet. She knows that. But the size 5, no one in that house seems to claim those. So then they go to Brittany's mom. And sure enough, she tells them that the size 5 is the exact size that Brittany wore. So they've got Chad. Not quite. This search didn't happen until more than two weeks after the murder. And according to law enforcement, it seemed like the underwear had been washed by the time that investigators got a hold of them.

40:39Brit Prawat:So even though they do send them off for testing, nothing comes back that would definitively link Brittany to the underwear.

40:47Ashley Flowers:Okay, did Jeff remember her underwear being white that morning when she got into bed? Like, could he have ID'd them?

40:53Brit Prawat:This, this was my question too. But in all of the documents we have, there is no record of anyone specifically asking Jeff this. So I don't know. And Madison tried reaching out to him to ask about this, along with a lot of other things. But as of this recording, we haven't heard back from him.

41:10Ashley Flowers:Okay, but there was other clothing, like the shorts and the shirt. Like, whose blood was on those?

41:15Brit Prawat:I don't know. It sounds like the testing didn't come back with anything useful on those either. Like, either it was inconclusive or maybe it was Chad's, but, like, it didn't give them anything to go on.

41:26Ashley Flowers:What about all the stuff at the actual crime scene back at Jeff's house? Like, this was a violent scene. I think that there would be something there, like maybe under her fingernails, just something.

41:39Brit Prawat:Well, the fingernails, so we asked about those. Apparently, Brittany's were too short, so like nothing helpful there. But to your point, yeah, you'd think there would be something somewhere at that scene, especially because they think that this is a killer who apparently sticks around long enough to take a shower before leaving. And that's one of the reasons that they actually test the shower, including the drain. But here's the catch. According to the sheriff, there's only one bathroom in that whole house.

42:04Ashley Flowers:So it's a really shared space then. Even if they can place Chad in that bathroom, it kind of means nothing.

42:10Brit Prawat:Well, except for the fact that it kind of might if they can place him there. Because apparently Chad makes a specific statement to authorities that I find really interesting. When they tell Chad that they're in the process of testing evidence, He says something like, my DNA will not be on that girl or in that room.

42:30Ashley Flowers:I honestly was expecting him to, like, preemptively explain why his DNA was there.

42:36Brit Prawat:I know. That's why I was, like, surprised. But he doesn't do that. In his original statement, Chad says that he never went inside that house.

42:41Ashley Flowers:Is he talking, like, just that morning or ever? I think he's just talking about the day of the murder, but, like, still. So a statement like that, I have to wonder, like, does that come from, like, the confidence from being so meticulous? about cleaning up after yourself or from being innocent.

42:58Brit Prawat:I mean, I know what a defense attorney would argue. Because in the early days, most of what they find at the scene seems to belong to Brittany or people living in the house. Nothing that clearly identifies an outside attacker.

43:12Ashley Flowers:Okay, but would Chad technically count as an outside attacker if he'd been at the house at some point?

43:18Brit Prawat:I mean, I know what you're saying. Like, I feel like I'm like dancing around. So I feel like I'm being a little cryptic here. And that's because investigators were tight-lipped with us surrounding DNA stuff. But from what I could gather, if they did have anything early on, it was either inconclusive or too limited to point to, like, a sure suspect. So, in that early time frame, like, the investigation starts to slow way down.

43:44Ashley Flowers:You're kidding me. Like, they have so much. And where is Velva in all this? Like, this is her boyfriend they're accusing of murder.

43:53Brit Prawat:You know, I don't think she's saying a lot initially. I mean, it sounds like they're really only talking to her at the scene that day. Because, like, she was in school when this happened, right? And then after they're, like, focused on Chad, it doesn't seem like they circle back around to her, at least, like, in any real formal way. Maybe she was still with him for a little bit and they thought that she would take his side. I don't know. But she doesn't stay with him, like, long term. Like, I know that for sure. And sometime after they break up, she does actually seek out police because she wants to talk to them.

44:27Brit Prawat:She thinks that she has information that could help them. For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to The Deck now, wherever you get your podcasts.

45:04Brit Prawat:About eight months after Brittany McGlone's murder, Velva asked to have a conversation with police about Chad. She tells them, there were things about that day that now, looking back, don't sit right with her. She says that when Chad picked her up from school that afternoon, something was off. Like he seemed nervous, and there was this distinct smell that she remembers. It was her body wash. Soft soap, ultra rich shea butter. And this is chilling to her, because to her knowledge, Chad hadn't showered at her house that day. There would have been no reason to. Because by the way, I told you, she hadn't even stayed at her house the night before, remember?

45:49Brit Prawat:Right. The two of them spent the night together at his aunt's house. She went straight to school from there. And when he dropped her off, he didn't smell like that. So she asked him, like, did you take a shower? And he says yes. So then she asked the natural follow-up question, did you shower at my house? And he just doesn't answer, according to her.

46:09Ashley Flowers:And sometimes silence speaks volumes.

46:12Brit Prawat:Now, they went to her house, right? And the scene was unfolding. It was understandably distracting, right? So maybe, like, you don't press in on it then. And we know at least one deputy is flagging how strange Chad is acting. But Velvet says that he was acting odd the rest of the day, too. Like, he didn't want to be alone afterward. And at one point, she says that he even called his aunt to, like, come be with him.

46:35Ashley Flowers:Which all of this seems like a little bit dramatic when he acts like is saying, everyone agrees, that he barely even knew Brittany.

46:43Brit Prawat:Right? Yes. And then Velva gives investigators something that they have been struggling to find. A possible motive. Outside of just a propensity for violence. Finally. She says that Chad had complained before that Brittany was allowed to stay overnight at Jeff's house, but he wasn't. Wait, that's it? that's the motive. That's all she can come up with in the last eight months. And look, on its own, it's not a strong motive. It might not even be the motive. And quite frankly, it doesn't even really make much sense to me because from everything we learned from Brittany's mom, Patricia, sleeping over after the night shift wasn't even something that Brittany really ever did.

47:24Ashley Flowers:Wait, if he wasn't allowed to stay over, wouldn't that take away any, like, innocent explanation for his DNA to be in some specific places of the house if they were to ever find it?

47:37Brit Prawat:If. But whatever they do have, it's apparently not enough to make the people in charge think that they should move forward. So even after Velva gives her statement, nothing much changes. For years. And the longer it sits, the more leads dry up. The colder and colder her case gets. until a new sheriff comes to town. Literally. Well, kind of literally. In 2021, there is a new sheriff, Kelly Cole. But he'd actually been there from the very beginning, working in law enforcement in the same county where Brittany was killed. He knew the details. He knew the mistakes. And now he has the authority to try and make it right.

48:23Brit Prawat:So he does try. Alongside Captain Mike Chilson, they start going back through everything. Old reports, old interviews, old evidence. And at the center of it all is the same name they had before, Chad Carr. Because in the years since Brittany's murder, Chad hasn't stayed out of trouble. He went on to serve 10 years for sexually assaulting his ex-wife. And that matters because now investigators aren't just looking at a suspect. They're looking at a pattern. A pattern that frustrates Brittany's family because Chad didn't even end up having to register as a sex offender after this. And I know we've been searching for a strong why here, when there might not really be one at all.

49:08Brit Prawat:So maybe the why is just an appetite for aggression. And not just with women. Court filings that we got our hands on alleged prior incidents of animal cruelty. One involving a cat and another involving multiple stray cats and kittens. As Sheriff Cole and Captain Chilson are taking their fresh look, it doesn't appear like they uncover some brand spanking new evidence or anything. They just ultimately believed that there had been enough to move forward with an arrest all along.

49:39Ashley Flowers:So the previous administrations just didn't even want to try then?

49:42Brit Prawat:Sounds like it. So over 15 years later, it is now 2022, Chad Carr is arrested for capital murder. While describing that moment to us, Captain Chilson said that Chad didn't even seem surprised, but rather it felt more like he was, he believes, maybe relieved. And without anything ever even coming up about DNA, we were told that Chad was already changing his story about not being inside the house that day. He preemptively starts indicating to a Texas Ranger that he'd been in and out of there all of the time. So he was thinking that they found something then? Maybe. I don't know. But he's booked into jail.

50:23Brit Prawat:And for the first time in years, it feels like this case is moving forward. And for Brittany's family, it's overwhelming. It's hope, maybe even the start of healing. But in cases like this, we know that an arrest isn't the end. It's just like the next step, especially in Texas, because before a felony case can go to trial, it has to go through a grand jury. Prosecutors have to lay out what they believe happened and why Chad Carr should stay on trial for Brittany's murder. A decision takes just about the full 90 days that they're given to decide. And then the grand jury returns a no bill, meaning there will be no trial.

51:06Ashley Flowers:How is that possible?

51:08Brit Prawat:I mean, this is, to me, like far from a weak case. Listen, especially that you're not convicting him. You're saying there should be a trial. I agree. According to Sheriff Cole and Captain Chilson, they say the problem wasn't the case itself. It's that they say the grand jury never heard all of their case. What do you mean? They say that key testimony, including their own, was never presented. And the process ended before the full picture could really be totally laid out. But, like, it doesn't matter now. The results are the same. And Chad just walks away a free man. And Brittany's family is left right back where they started.

51:45Ashley Flowers:Okay, just to be clear, double jeopardy, it doesn't apply to grand juries, right? Like just actual trials and verdicts.

51:52Brit Prawat:You are correct. So Chad Carr could still stand trial for this case if it ever went to a new grand jury and they chose to indict. Which is why, like, this no bill didn't stop detectives from working this case. They're still reviewing evidence. They're still looking for a way forward. And when it comes to the forensic side of things, the sheriff is careful with his words. He makes it clear a lot has already been tested and most of what has come back makes sense. It's either Brittany's or people living in the house. But then he says something very interesting. He acknowledges that there is DNA they're still looking at.

52:36Brit Prawat:But DNA recovered from the shower that doesn't belong to someone who lived in that house. He won't go into more detail than that, at least not yet. Because in his words, there are still things they have to protect. Still avenues that they're going down. Still evidence that could matter. Which means this isn't over. Not for investigators and definitely not for Brittany's family. The question now isn't if something else comes. I think it's when. We tried reaching out to Chad Carr every which way we could. Phone numbers, Facebook, even sent a letter to where we think he might be living now. But as of this recording, he hasn't responded to us.

53:21Brit Prawat:The number one question that I wanted to ask him directly is, did you murder Brittany McGlone? because to this day, Captain Chilson says that he doesn't believe Chad Carr has ever explicitly denied murdering Brittany. Oh. He said things like, you won't find my DNA. I couldn't have done it, but never a flat-out denial. Brittany McGlone's family was a recipient of a season of Justice Grant. I don't know if you knew that, in 2025. They put up a billboard just northeast of Winsboro in Sulphur Springs, Texas, asking for tips. It's been up for a year, but it's scheduled to come down any day now, which is why I wanted to make sure that this episode went up, right on the anniversary of Brittany's murder, so that her family's plea for help could always be heard, not just by the people of Wood County, but people all over the world.

54:15Brit Prawat:And sure, Brittany's loved ones would be grateful for a confession or some shiny new piece of evidence, but the heavy weight lies with everything they've had to live without. because while investigators can go back over timelines, maybe retest DNA, they don't get to go back. They don't get more time with Brittany, just more missed birthdays without her. And in a place where everybody knows everybody, you would think the truth would be easy to find. But sometimes the smaller the circle, the easier it is to keep things in. And for Brittany's family, that closed circle hasn't given them more answers.

54:52Brit Prawat:It has just left them on the outside, still waiting. So if you know something, or you could be someone who finally breaks that small circle, you can stay anonymous by calling Wood County Crime Stoppers at 903-760-1008, or you can contact the Wood County Sheriff's Office directly at 903-763-2201.

55:33Brit Prawat:you can find all the source material for this episode on our website crimejunkie.com

55:38Ashley Flowers:and you can follow us on instagram at crimejunkie podcast we'll be back next week with a brand new

55:43Brit Prawat:episode

56:19Crime Junkie

56:21Brit Prawat:is an AudioChuck production. I think Chuck would approve.

56:29Ashley Flowers:Okay, crime junkies, you know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not. That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Chameleon. Every Thursday, host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam so bizarre, it will leave you wondering, how did they get away with that? It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now, and I've been listening for years. I think you'll love it too. Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.