John Cornelius McGhee

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2:00have been changed or omitted per their request or for safety purposes. Listener discretion is advised. My name is Sarah Turney and this is Voices for Justice.

2:16Today, I'm discussing the case of John Cornelius McGee. This case is really close to my heart. At the center is a father who was brutally murdered and a daughter who has been searching for answers by any means possible. collecting records, conducting interviews, and creating her own podcast to raise awareness and hopefully get justice for her father. This is the case of John Cornelius McGee. John Cornelius McGee, or J.C. as he was more affectionately known, was born on May 4, 1957 in Wheeling, West Virginia, where he spent much of his life. Like a lot of kids in this area at this time, he dropped out of school after the 8th grade.

3:00After that, he got a job at an aluminum plant, but he was injured and can no longer perform that work. J.C. did suffer from substance use disorder, and at times dealt drugs himself, but eventually began working very hard towards recovery. He attended Narcotics Anonymous and really became a role model for the newer members. He owned a few properties around Wheeling and would often let people stay for free during their recovery. He would even make sure that the homes were furnished for them. Before his murder, he moved about six minutes away from Wheeling, right across the state line to Bridgeport, Ohio.

3:35This is a tiny town of just about 2 ,000 people in 2002, but it sits right between Columbus and Pittsburgh, so these larger cities weren't far away. According to reporting by the Ice Cold Case podcast by JC's daughter Madison, which is where I got most of my information for this episode, he had his first child around 14 or 15. He would have at least six children in total. But for the purposes of this episode, I'm only going to be discussing his three youngest children. In 1986, his daughter Alyssa was born, and later Madison in 1995, followed by Shane in 2001. It's important to know that they all have different mothers and would largely be raised separately.

4:19Madison's mother and J.C. didn't stay together very long, but she told her daughter that J.C. loved three things in this world. his kids, his Cadillac, and women. Madison remembers visiting her dad and cruising in the backseat of his burgundy Cadillac. They would listen to the Space Jam soundtrack and the newly released Hot in Here by Nellie on the way to pick up Alyssa from school. JC loved to sing and could do it better than anyone most people knew. By all accounts, Madison and Alyssa loved their father very much, and he loved them just the same. Unfortunately, their time with him was cut way too short.

4:57In an interview with Fox News, Madison said that her dad would often tell her mom that he believed someone was going to kill him. While she tried to just brush this off as paranoia, when Madison reflects on this, she really believes that that was his intuition telling him that something was going to happen. And of course, he was right. It was about 6.30 a.m. on July 11, 2002, when 16-year-old Alyssa McGee was jarred awake by the sound of a gunshot. When she ran to her living room to see what was going on, she found her father, J.C., deceased on the floor. He'd been shot in the head. And just to really emphasize how quickly all of this happened, Alyssa could literally see that the front door to their home was still swinging after being kicked in, and there was still a haze of smoke in the air from the gunshot.

5:48She ran to her father and grabbed his head to perform CPR, but she knew he was already gone. She immediately calls 911. Around that same time, Belmont County 911 received a second phone call from JC's nephew, Omar Faustin, who lived next door. This call doesn't mention a gunshot, but instead, Omar tells the operator that his neighbor said he was being robbed. and that they have his mom and his girl, and that they are going to kill them. When asked if he knew who the men were, he says yes, but never tells the operator who they are. He also never mentions that J.C. is his uncle. According to reporting by the Ice Cold Case podcast, Omar and his girlfriend Kim Smith were staying at Omar's mother Pearl's home, J.C.'s sister, and at least four men kicked in the door and began pointing guns at Kim and Omar.

6:44Pearl was then pulled from her bed, brought to the living room, and pushed to the ground. They were looking for money, and specifically a safe. These men tied them up with phone cords, poured rubbing alcohol all over them, and threatened to light them on fire if they didn't give them what they wanted. And in the end, they didn't. The men never found the money that they were looking for. Eventually, the men take Omar outside. He somehow gets free and runs to a break shop down the street to call 911. Kim is also able to break free, and she activates the home alarm system, which also contacts police.

7:23Her activation of that alarm was the first police contact, followed by Alyssa less than a minute later, and then Omar. Now, for some reason, police go to Pearl's house to investigate the home invasion before responding to Alyssa's call about her father being shot and likely killed. But when they do get to Alyssa and JC's house, they see that the door is open about an inch and has three footprints on it. Then they see Alyssa over her father's body, still on the phone with 911. Of course, by this time, the men were long gone. Alyssa is then escorted to her Aunt Pearl's house and remembers that it looked completely ransacked.

8:04For some reason, whoever did this decided to leave her home completely untouched. They came, kicked the door in, shot J.C., and ran. In the end, despite nothing being stolen, and the perpetrators never even entering J.C. and Alyssa's home, police considered the murder a home invasion gone wrong. They believe that whoever did this planned on robbing both homes, but for some reason, never went through with the second. This message is sponsored by Greenlight. Money is this invisible thread that ties us all together. It's something everyone has to deal with. That's why teaching kids about money isn't just smart, it's essential.

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10:28After this, Madison was raised by her mother and grandmother in West Virginia. It wasn't until 2012, when she was 16, that she learned the truth. She and her mom were visiting J.C.'s side of the family and purchased a headstone for his grave. During this trip, Madison met Omar for the first time and just kind of nonchalantly asked her mom if her cousin was there when her father died from the heart attack. That's when her mom sat her down and told her what really happened. Her father was murdered and the case was unsolved. I mean, at this point, at age 16, all Madison could really do was grieve her father's death all over again, trying to make sense of it all.

11:11It wasn't until 2020, when she had a few years to grow up, and that the coronavirus pandemic slowed down the world, that she decided to investigate the case herself. She went back to Ohio and West Virginia, she spoke with her family and law enforcement, but it didn't seem to move the needle. By this time, Madison was in her 20s and living in LA working in TV and film production. She'd tried posting pictures and information about her father on the anniversary of his murder to help raise awareness. But in her words, no one cared about a black ex-drug dealer. So she decided to start a podcast to tell his story as a last resort.

11:52She knew how to tell a compelling story and was determined to get to the bottom of who killed her father. She began calling family and requesting any records she could regarding the murder of J.C. McGee. As she began to pour through these documents and speak to members of her family, some she hadn't seen since she was a small child, so much came to light, including one major piece of information that Madison and most people who know this case, believe likely contributed to his murder. He had been working as an informant for the Belmont County Sheriff's Office. It seems that somewhere along the way in J.C.'s life between dealing drugs and working on his recovery, the Sheriff's Office recruited him, and the information he gave to law enforcement resulted in many people being arrested and convicted, including his nephew, Rico.

12:46See, J.C. not only owned residential real estate in the area, but he also owned a bar called Johnny Cools in Wheeling, and Rico was selling cocaine out of that bar. J.C. worked with the sheriff's office to have Rico arrested when he was 18, and after J.C. testified against him, he was given life in prison. While of course other people testified against Rico as well, he'd always blame JC. Madison believes it's very likely that Rico put a hit out on her dad, and that he may have enlisted his cousin Omar to do this. In the Ice Cold Case podcast, Madison discusses how she's always felt that that original police report about her father's murder just seemed off, especially when it came to Omar.

13:33How he referred to his uncle JC as just his neighbor. How he said that he knew who these men were but never gave those details. But what really seems to have hindered this case is that Omar kept changing his story. Remember, Omar is likely the best witness in this case. He supposedly saw the men that killed JC and knew who they were. But during his interviews with investigators, his story just kept changing. At first, he said the men were driving a black van with California plates. Then it was a truck. And in the same breath, he says it was an SUV. It was four people, eight people, three people.

14:13I think you get it. Madison says that Omar was dealing drugs at this time, so it would make sense why Omar wouldn't trust law enforcement. But in their interview with him, they address this and outright say that they aren't concerned about that. They just want to know who killed JC. But Omar doesn't budge. Madison presents a few theories for why this could be. Of course, Omar could just be protecting himself. But another theory is that he was protecting someone else, the owner of the safe, which many believe was Omar's brother, Richard's. But an important question posed here is was the safe at Pearl's house or possibly at JC's?

14:56And if the safe was at JC's, why didn't he grab one of his many guns when he heard his door being kicked in. Instead of grabbing a gun, J.C. balled up his fist. This was noted in the case file. So why would that be? While Madison's theory is that her dad knew the person who came to the door, possibly Omar, who according to witnesses, looked like he'd been punched in the jaw after J.C.'s murder. But there's also another possible explanation for Omar looking like he'd been punched in the jaw. In the Ice Cold Case podcast, Madison explains that there was a rumor in her family that Omar had been sexually abusing her sister Alyssa.

15:38Madison believes that her father may have punched Omar after finding out. Then, Omar came back to JC's. JC answers the door knowing it's Omar, hence not grabbing a gun, and instead balls up his fist, anticipating getting in a fight. But JC was shot instead. and then the gunman ran from the house before Alyssa could see them. Outside of Omar, investigators found his girlfriend Kim's statements to be extremely helpful. While she never saw the men that came into their home that day, she did remember their voices very distinctly, and she gave enough details for the sheriff's office to identify a suspect, a man named Daryl Smith.

16:21He's the only person officially associated with J.C.'s murder to this day Now, the possible motives for why Smith may have wanted to kill J.C. vary from a connection to J.C.'s time as an informant to just wanting a cut of whatever money the men were looking for that day But Daryl Smith says that he wasn't in the area on the day that J.C. was killed and his girlfriend says the same They were together at the time and he couldn't have done it but this alibi just wasn't cutting it for the Belmont County Sheriff's Office. Omar picked Daryl Smith out through a composite sketch and Kim said that she was 120 % sure that he was there that day as well.

17:02They were so confident that in 2002 they took their evidence to a grand jury and Daryl Smith was arrested on July 30th. The Sheriff's Office and County Prosecutor were sure that they had the man who murdered J.C. McGee But there was a major problem. Omar kept changing his story and eventually admitted to lying on the stand. While Madison has been unable to obtain this document, Daryl Smith also claims that he was cleared via a polygraph test. So the prosecution dropped the charges in hopes of gathering more solid evidence for a slam-dunk case. But Daryl Smith didn't remain a free man. According to Madison's reporting, he was eventually up against a 30-year sentence on drug charges.

17:49And when he was arrested, he asked the officer what type of leniency he might get if he assisted with solving a homicide. He was told it would be substantial, unless he was involved in the murder. After speaking with his attorney, Daryl Smith declined any type of deal. And all these years later, Daryl Smith heard Madison's podcast and agreed to speak with her. Nearly 20 years after her father's murder, she sat face to face with him. Obviously, you can hear a lot more about that over on her podcast, but in the end, he stuck to his story. He was innocent. Not long after, in September 2024, Daryl Smith was arrested again on drug trafficking charges.

18:36He is currently awaiting trial and facing up to 20 years in prison. So we've discussed Omar and we've discussed Daryl Smith, but I want to talk about another theory that Madison explores in her podcast, that maybe her dad was killed in an attempt to prevent him from speaking up about a case of human trafficking. I know, we just took a sharp turn. Let me explain. At the top of this episode, I told you that JC had a son named Shane who was born in 2001. Shane's mother is a woman named Deneen. When she got pregnant with Shane, she was a sex worker in Philadelphia. According to the information that Madison obtained, the woman running the operation Deneen worked for was also trafficking the children born to these sex workers.

19:24She was selling them. She would get$5 ,000, the mother of the child would get$5 ,000, the doctor who delivered the child would get$5 ,000, and the lawyer handling the adoption paperwork also got $5 ,000. Madison says that Deneen had agreed to sell Shane, but in the end, ended up keeping him. And this is where it possibly fits in with J.C.'s murder. After Shane was born, Deneen decided to raise Shane with a man named Butchie, who by all accounts hated J.C. But J.C. wasn't ready to just give up his son. He took them to court for custody, and in an effort to prove that Deneen wasn't a fit mother, he planned to expose the human trafficking operation she'd once agreed to.

20:10J.C. was doing court to give his testimony the day after he was murdered. Alyssa even mentions this during her 911 call to police that day. She explains that they'd had problems with Deneen, and while things seemed to be fine, there was a custody hearing scheduled for the very next day where J.C. planned to testify against her. Again, like Omar, like Daryl Smith, in the end, both Butchie and Deneen denied any involvement in J.C.'s murder, and they were eventually cleared by the Belmont County Sheriff's Office. But Deneen did tell investigators that she heard J.C. was shot by his nephew. Now, if your head is spinning with theories in this case, you're not alone.

20:55It seems a lot of people had a motive to want J.C. dead. But where's the evidence? We have four men potentially a part of this murder, at least three witnesses, and two crime scenes. Surely there has to be some evidence. Well, when the Belmont County Sheriff's Office got to J.C.'s house that day, the crime scene was never secured. It was never taped off, and they allowed countless people to come in and out. Madison says that within hours of her dad's murder, there were family members there cleaning up his blood. They also failed to take fingerprints from Pearl's house next door. As Madison explores theories in her podcast, she's even contemplated the sheriff's office being involved in a cover-up.

21:41Her line of thinking is, well, if her dad was killed for being an informant, that could be pretty bad for business. It could discourage other people from acting as informants in the future. So they called it a home invasion gone wrong, a totally random murder. Which brings me back to that safe, the potential motive for a home invasion. It was 45 minutes from the time the four men broke into Pearl's house and the time the sheriff's office got to the scene, and no safe was ever found. The stories about the safe vary wildly, though. Some witnesses say it was there, and the men just couldn't get into it.

22:21Some say it was never there at all. Did Rico put a hit out on JC for giving testimony that sent him to prison? Was there payment in that safe? Did the safe even exist? Did Omar kill his uncle for potentially exposing his crime of sexually assaulting a minor? Did Deneen want JC dead so he couldn't testify against her in court the next day? I have so many questions about this case, and I'm sure you do too at this point. But more importantly, these are questions that JC's daughter Madison sits with every single day of her life, and attempts to answer in the 18 episodes of her podcast, Ice Cold Case.

23:07And just like I experienced when I dug deeper into my sister Alyssa's case, not everyone in Madison's family was thrilled about all this information coming to light. She's gotten a slew of hateful messages and comments, including one relative telling her, quote, you should stop or I'll make you stop, end quote. Someone even told Madison that her quote, snitch-ass daddy, end quote, deserved it. But this has only fueled her mission to find answers about who killed her father. She's continued putting out episodes, interviewing relevant parties, and collecting as much information as possible. She even composed a song and produced a music video called Snitch-Ass Daddy.

23:52While not everyone in her family is thrilled that Madison is revealing all of this to the world, tips are now being generated because of her podcast, which is essentially happening in real time right now. She's released these 18 episodes in two parts, and is working on part three right now. Her plan is to go back to Belmont County to retrace the steps of as many people as possible, to speak with anyone she can about the case, and to ensure that the sheriff's office understands that she's not just gonna shut up and go away. Now, of course, throughout those episodes, Madison explores the theories I presented here and even more in great depth.

24:33At this point, she hasn't really married herself to a single theory or person of interest and welcomes being wrong. She says that for every time she's proven wrong, it gets her one step closer to figuring out what really happened to her dad. After all this time, that's all she wants. She wants to know what really happened, and for her dad's case to be a priority for law enforcement. Which brings me right to our call to action. Please share JC's case, and please listen to and share Madison's podcast, which again is called Ice Cold Case. You can go to icecoldcase.com right now and listen to all 18 episodes that have been published thus far.

25:17It's a wealth of knowledge that goes into deep detail about everything. She talks to Omar, she talks to Daryl Smith, she talks to as many people as she can. While of course all cases are different, Madison is basically on the same mission and track I was with Alyssa's case for so many years, investigating and sharing what she finds as much as she can. And really, she's crushing it. She's been featured at CrimeCon and the True Crime Podcast Festival She's been interviewed by Glamour Magazine, a slew of local news sources And her podcast has been nominated for a variety of awards But if you guys have been with me for a while You know that none of that is possible without help from people like you You listening right now Please support her and her podcast just as you have so graciously supported me Like I always say, it means more than you know.

26:14And as a special bonus, so you guys can get to know Madison even more, come back tomorrow for a special bonus episode where we discuss the case, what it's like to be a family member in true crime, the future, and more.

26:35As a reminder, John Cornelius McGee, or J.C. McGee, was murdered on July 11, 2002 in his home in Bridgeport, Ohio. If you have any information about his murder, please contact the Belmont County Sheriff's Office at 740-695-5124. But, as always, thank you, I love you, and I'll talk to you next time.

27:05Voices for Justice is hosted and produced by me, Sarah Turney, and is a Voices for Justice Media original. This episode could not have been made possible without Madison McGee's podcast, Ice Cold Case. If you love what we do here, please don't forget to follow, rate, and review the show on your podcast player. It's an easy and free way to help us and help more people find these cases in need of justice.