Death Of A Ladies' Man (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

0:00One afternoon in January of 1998, a prosecutor for the state of Georgia sat in the very back row of seats in a courtroom where a divorce trial was unfolding. Now, this prosecutor was not involved in this divorce case. He handled murder trials. But he had still come here today because he had gotten a very surprising phone call about an unsolved murder case he had worked on a year and a half earlier. The caller had told him that the testimony in this divorce case could potentially solve that murder. Now, in the courtroom, the prosecutor felt his heart rate pick up as the witness he had been waiting for finally took the stand.

0:36And as soon as the witness began talking, the prosecutor knew he had just solved that murder. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So, if that's of interest to you, on the next very hot day, offer the follow button a nice ice-cold cup of water. Except don't tell them it's actually white vinegar. Okay, let's get into today's story.

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2:37On August 7th, 1996, a 41-year-old entrepreneur named Lance Herndon woke up at 3.40 a.m. to the sound of his alarm clock going off inside of his mansion in Roswell, Georgia. The alarm was actually one of three alarms set to go off that morning. The first was at 3.40, the second at 3.50, and the third at 4 a.m. And this was actually how every workday began for Lance. He was the founder of an IT consulting company called Access Inc., and his borderline compulsive work ethic not only made him millions of dollars, but also it had made him a trailblazer for the Black business community in greater Atlanta.

3:13His company, Access Inc., had actually been awarded the National Service Firm of the Year Award by President George H.W. Bush. President Clinton had honored Lance with the Minority Entrepreneur of the Year Award and had appointed him to the 1995 White House Conference on Small Business. Lance sat up and slammed his hand down on the clock to stop the alarm and then shut off the other two alarms so they wouldn't ring. Then he threw aside his bedsheets and got up and walked over to the dresser to pull out some clothes. On top of his dresser, he kept a sexy lingerie photograph of one of his girlfriends, a woman he'd been seeing for years named Kathy Collins.

3:49Now, usually when Lance saw this photograph, he would smile, but today, he flipped it face down so he wouldn't have to look at it. He was going to have to break up with Kathy, and he was not looking forward to it. Lance and Kathy had been on again, off again, since they first met three years ago. But they'd rekindled things for real about seven months ago, and she had moved most of her stuff into his house. But for Lance, this progression sort of made the whole thing feel too serious. He sort of preferred to play the field. In fact, at that very moment, he didn't just have this one girlfriend.

4:22He had another steady girlfriend, a 27-year-old college student named Dion Baugh, and he was also interested in another woman that he had just met who worked as a schoolteacher. Plus, he was also still dealing with the fallout from his divorce from his third wife, Janine Herndon, who he had a four-year-old son with. Lance actually had to keep meticulous notes in his calendar just to keep all of this straight, and it was really starting to wear on him. Plus, in addition to dumping Kathy, something he knew he needed to do soon, he was also considering dumping Dion as well, because she was the jealous type and he just felt like he didn't need the drama.

4:57But for now, Lance threw on a shirt and a pair of pants and then headed downstairs into his basement, where he had a full working office set up for his IT company. Every day, Lance's small staff of full-time employees, plus his assistant, came to this basement office to do all their work. But they wouldn't actually arrive here for another four hours, which gave Lance plenty of time to get everything ready. Lance sat down at his desk, hit the record button on a small tape recorder, and started dictating detailed lists of instructions for each of his employees. Every morning, he would make these cassette tapes so that when his employees came in, they knew exactly what he wanted them to do, even if he had already gone out for the day, which he was doing more and more lately.

5:38When Lance had first started Access Inc., he had pretty much worked exclusively on his business all the time and was never really out of the office. But recently, business had not been going very well, and so Lance's attention was now split between, you know, a growing list of problems and new ventures he was considering. He hadn't told anybody the details, but Access Inc. was in pretty big financial trouble. At its peak, it had been valued at more than$3 million. But now the business was heavily in debt and losing money. Lance had tried to diversify by investing in a hip-hop club in downtown Atlanta, but that had failed and now he was embroiled in a lawsuit with his former business partner.

6:17Add all that to the alimony and child support that Lance was paying to his ex-wife, plus the lavish lifestyles he was funding for his various girlfriends, and for the first time in his life, Lance was starting to worry about whether he could even hold everything together. Lance finished the cassette tapes for his employees and left them on their desks. Then he went back upstairs to get ready for his day. By the time his workers actually started arriving at 8 a.m. through the designated office side door, Lance was already halfway through his list of daily tasks in his calendar. Which meant, by the time the late afternoon rolled around, Lance was free to leave his house, and therefore his office, and go to his mother's house to have dinner.

6:55His grandmother, who was visiting from out of town was going to be at this dinner, along with Lance's ex-wife and their son. But despite wanting to see his family, Lance didn't stay for very long. At around 8 p.m., he told his mother, his grandmother, his ex-wife, and his son that he had to get back to work. Then he said goodbye and drove the five minutes back to his house.

7:19When Lance pulled back into his driveway, he saw his secretary's light blue car parked in its usual spot, and he smiled. His secretary was a woman named Talana Carraway, and she was one of his closest friends. They had been romantic in the past. In fact, Lance's divorce was caused in part by the fact that his wife had found racy pictures he had of Talana. But now, their relationship was purely platonic, and they both actually confided in each other about their respective love lives. Talana worked another full-time job, so she typically only worked evenings for Lance. Lance went in the office door and found Talana working her way through the list of tasks that he had outlined for her on her cassette tape.

7:58Talana was very obviously happy to see him, and for a little while, the two of them just sat there chatting and catching up. Talana was apparently having trouble with her partner, a guy named Jazz, and she complained about him a bit. Lance actually knew Jazz because he had lent him some money, and he nodded sympathetically. Lance told Talana that he was actually hoping for a fresh start in the romance department. Because he had another new woman, but this one he was really interested in. He said she was a teacher and she was really nice, and he asked Talana if she would help him write her a card.

8:29And like he knew she would, Talana just laughed. Like the idea that the ex-girlfriend is now writing a card for the new girlfriend was just kind of comical to her. But this was actually one of the things that Lance really liked best about Talana, and it's why their relationship continued to flourish. She was just easygoing, unlike his various current girlfriends. And so Talana, without any hesitation, helped write the card, and then Lance signed it. As Lance stood up to head upstairs, Talana gestured for him to wait. Then she handed him a couple slips of paper. She said they were messages from his girlfriend Dion, who had called for him a couple of times while he was out.

9:04At this, Lance groaned. Dion was a lot to deal with. A month earlier, she had shown up at his house unannounced while Kathy was over. Dion had seen Kathy through the window, and she had made such a scene that Lance actually had to call the police. She actually had a court hearing about that incident tomorrow that Lance was supposed to go to. Lance thanked Talana for the messages, and then he went upstairs to his bedroom to begin moving Kathy's things out of his closet. About two and a half hours later, at around 10.30 p.m., Talana came upstairs and told Lance she'd see him tomorrow. It was raining, so Lance made her promise to call him when she got home so he knew she was safe.

9:43And she would do that around 11.30 p.m. And they actually chatted for another few minutes on the phone. But at some point, Lance told Talana good night. He could have talked to her for hours, but he knew that he didn't have long before his morning alarms would start going off. The next morning, August 8th, at exactly 8 a.m., one of Lance's employees arrived at his house and unlocked the side office door. And the first thing she noticed when she stepped inside was that Lance was not there. This was weird because even on days where Lance left early, he was usually at his desk first thing in the morning.

10:18But the employee figured that maybe Lance had an appointment. So she went over to his calendar to check to see where he was, but sort of atypical for him, there was nothing listed for that day. That was when she noticed the second thing, which was that Lance had not left her a cassette tape for the day. And this was not just weird, it was completely unprecedented. Lance had literally never not left her a tape. And so the employee paged Lance, but he didn't answer. So unsure what else to do, the employee just sat down and started to work. About an hour later, at 9am, another employee arrived, but there was still no sign of Lance.

10:57The two employees paged him a few more times, but he still didn't answer. And even though both of them considered going upstairs and just checking on him, neither of them felt comfortable doing that. After all, the upstairs was Lance's house. It just felt like an invasion of privacy. Finally, at 10 a.m., so two hours after that first employee arrived, Lance's mother, who also worked at Access Inc., arrived at her son's house. She had come in through the garage, and when she entered the office and the employees told her that Lance was still not there, she said that didn't make any sense because his car was in the garage.

11:30So, the two employees waited in the office while Lance's mother went up to search the house. And for a few minutes, the two employees down in the basement heard nothing. The house was quiet. They could just hear the sound of Lance's mother walking around upstairs. But then, out of nowhere, they heard a scream.

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15:20About 30 minutes later, around 10.30 a.m., Roswell police detective William Anastasio pulled up in front of a mansion that sat on a quiet cul-de-sac in a wealthy community in suburban Georgia. The only thing dispatch had told him was that someone inside of this mansion had been killed. Outside of the mansion, he could see there were police cruisers and ambulances on the street, and his sergeant and a few other investigators were standing in a cluster right near the front door. He walked over to them, and his sergeant briefed him on what they knew so far. The homeowner, Lance Herndon, had been found dead inside of his bed by his own mother after he had failed to show up for work in his basement office.

15:58There were no signs of forced entry, and the crime scene itself appeared to be contained to the master bedroom. Lance's employees had discovered that the office laptop was missing, but the rest of the house was filled with expensive electronics and jewelry that had not been touched. The sergeant told Anastasio that uniformed officers were already canvassing the neighborhood and that Anastasio should take the lead in the investigation. So Anastasio turned and walked inside the house and began going up the stairs to the master bedroom. Outside the door to the bedroom, there was a uniformed officer whose job was to make sure nobody touched anything before the crime scene techs arrived.

16:34And so Anastasio greeted him and told him he understood the protocol, but then he just stood there outside the doorway, you know, not interfering, but looking inside, you know, getting a first glimpse of the actual crime scene. He could see Lance's body on the bed. Lance was on his back, with his arms crossed over his chest, and he was naked. Even from a distance, Anastasio could see that whoever had killed Lance had beaten him so badly in the face that his facial bones had basically collapsed inwards. It was like someone truly bashed his head in. But strangely, despite this, it didn't seem like there had been any sort of struggle in this room.

17:11I mean, typically with a beating death, there was often a big fight between the victim and the assailant, which can create a very messy scene with furniture knocked over and everything messed around inside the room. But from the looks of it, it didn't seem like Lance had fought back at all. Like nothing was knocked over. He was just laying there on his back on the bed with his head caved in. And reinforcing the idea that this was not about money, Anastasio could clearly see on the dresser next to the body was a wallet, a stack of credit cards and a folded up wad of cash. And so despite the one missing laptop, you know, this didn't really appear to be a robbery.

17:46And so as Anastasio went back down the stairs towards the office he had been told was located in the basement, he was thinking to himself that Lance must have known his killer. This had to have been personal. In the basement office, Anastasio found a police officer standing with a small cluster of very shocked looking women. One was Lance's grandmother, another was Lance's mother, and the other two were employees of Lance's company. Anastasio spoke with each of them one by one. And Lance's family, their general impression was they had no idea who would want to hurt Lance. Lance's mother told Anastasio that Lance had just gone through a divorce, which could create some animosity, but he and his ex-wife had stayed on good terms.

18:30And in fact, just the night before, had had dinner together. Lance's grandmother echoed a similar sentiment that, you know, Lance was this harmless guy, but she also had Alzheimer's and so couldn't really answer any of the questions, at least not credibly. The other two women, the employees of Lance's company, they told a slightly different story to Anastasio. They said there had been some, quote, shady people in the office recently, but when he pressed them for specifics, they said all they knew was that Lance was involved in some business disputes. Just then, a uniformed officer opened the basement door and told Anastasio he'd better get outside.

19:11The detective jogged outside, and there, at the foot of the long driveway, he saw a woman sitting in a car. The uniformed officer told him that was Lance's ex-wife, Janine. This was not what Anastasio had expected, and he would have preferred to talk to the ex-wife under more controlled circumstances, not suddenly at the crime scene. But it was also an opportunity, because it was very likely that Anastasio would be the first person to tell her that Lance was dead. And in a murder case, the ex-spouse is always a suspect, and so Anastasio wanted to see how Janine reacted to the news of her ex-husband's murder.

19:47So he walked down to her car, and as he did, Janine got out of the car looking panicked, and she told him that someone in the house had paged her. She asked what was going on, but Anastasio, without saying anything, just gestured for her to come with him to his cruiser. Once they were seated inside, he broke the news. And as he did, he carefully watched her. And Janine looked genuinely shocked. She opened and then closed her mouth like she couldn't even think of what to say, and then her eyes filled with tears. And then, in a trembling voice, she asked Anastasio what happened. But Anastasio was not ready to share anything at this point.

20:23So instead, he just asked Janine where she had been last night, and then waited to see if she got defensive or started stuttering. But she didn't do either of those things. She took a deep breath, and then told him she'd actually had dinner with Lance and his family the night before, and then after that, she went home. Her new partner had come over and spent the night with her, and then that morning, she'd gotten up at 7am to head to her side job as a house cleaner, and then of course, at about 10.30, she'd received that page, and here she was. And that detail, that the ex-wife of an obviously very wealthy man was working as a cleaner, caught Anastasio's attention.

20:58He wondered if she'd still be working as a cleaner after she received whatever life insurance payout he was certain was going to come her way. But before he could ask her anything about her finances or her job, Janine blurted something out. She said, My husband was a powerful man with a lot of enemies. By the time Detective Anastasio finished his conversation with Janine, he had gone from having zero suspects to having six. There was Janine herself, of course, but Anastasio had been surprised to learn that Lance had been seriously dating at least two other women, Kathy Collins and Dionne Baugh, and that his secretary, Talana Carraway, was also a former girlfriend.

21:39This meant that Janine, Kathy, Dionne, and Talana all had potential motives to want Lance did. But Janine had actually been much more focused on the men who hated Lance. She said that Lance had always talked about business rivals being jealous of his success. And recently, he'd become embroiled in at least two lawsuits that Janine knew of, one with a former business partner over a hip-hop club and the other with a contractor who said he hadn't been paid yet. Janine had heard that just yesterday, that contractor had actually shown up to a local music show looking for Lance. And when he couldn't find him, apparently he was telling people that, you know, Lance didn't know what he was capable of, as if the contractor could, you know, inflict harm on Lance if he didn't pay him.

22:24Anastasio was not quite sure what to think about any of this, except that he was definitely going to need a lot of DNA samples. That afternoon, Anastasio was back inside of the house working alongside the crime scene techs who had finally arrived at about noon. And while he was doing that, two other women showed up at the crime scene. One of the women was Lance's secretary and former girlfriend, Talana Calloway. She said she had seen Lance the night before and that one of his girlfriends, Dionne, had kept calling for him over and over and kept leaving increasingly upset messages when he didn't answer.

22:58And these messages, you know, Talana was fielding and she gave them to Lance when he finally did come home. The other woman who was there with Talana was Lance's other girlfriend, Kathy Collins. But unlike Janine and Talana, Kathy didn't even try to act like she wanted to help with this investigation. Instead, she demanded to be let inside the house to go get her clothes. The uniformed officers on the scene told her that she couldn't do that because this was a crime scene, but Kathy didn't seem to care at all. And so the officers took down her name and contact info, and they also made a note that Kathy had not shed a single tear.

23:38Early the next morning, Detective Anastasio went to the medical examiner's office to observe the autopsy. He'd been at the crime scene until late, and once the crime scene techs processed everything, he'd gotten a closer look at the physical evidence, and a couple things that stood out to him. First, Lance had three alarm clocks, and all of them had been unplugged. And one of the alarm clocks was an analog clock, and when it was unplugged, it stopped at whatever time it was, which in this case was 4.10am. And so, it was theoretically possible that perhaps the clocks began going off while the killer was still inside the house, and so they rushed over and unplugged the clocks to stop the alarm, which then put the likely time of death at or sometime before 4.10 in the morning on August 8th.