Robert Riggs
True crime reporter goes inside the yellow crime scene tape. I'm investigative reporter Robert Riggs with decorated former federal prosecutor Bill Johnston. You can follow our journey into darkness and get bonus episodes by joining our true crime community at truecrimereporter.com. Our true crime cases are stranger than fiction. With that said, here's a classic police procedural, a true crime reporter, confidential. They were called the Devil Lovers, a group of middle-aged men and women from prominent families in central Texas around Waco. They would meet in an industrial warehouse at 11 p.m. sharp every Wednesday night, take off their clothes, and put on floor-length satin robes emblazoned with names including Black Warlock and White Witch. They would gather in a circle, prick their fingers with a needle, and then each would let three drops of blood splatter on the pages of an open Bible. When a person pricked their finger, it meant they would respect the order and protect their brothers and sisters. David Russell Zell was the master of this circle. Zell's robe sported a five-star mystical pentagram with the word "master" sewn above it. It was a cult of crank, better known as methamphetamine. These devil worshippers operated the biggest illicit meth lab in Texas in the late 1980s, but none, with the exception of the meth cook, nicknamed the Professor, were meth users. I'm investigative reporter Robert Riggs here with former federal prosecutor Bill Johnston with another true crime story that's stranger than fiction, and it's straight out of Bill's case files. Bill, this bizarre story begins when a mysterious character arrives in the Waco area from Ohio. Tell us about him,
Bill Johnston
David Zell. Even the last name is a little spooky. Zell. David Zell was just a guy, sort of a ne'er do well, who committed a few petty crimes here and there, and found his way to Texas, and wanted some gullible people, so he would attend certain bars and restaurants, and ultimately got a little following. The following got bigger, including a number of people who would meet him for dinner, meet him for drinks, that were local business owners, real estate agents, students, and others, and they listened to his talk, you know, over drinks about how the dark side was really where it's at. It's it's the dark side that's got the power, and he can teach them that. He can teach them how to rely on the dark side, and we don't know if he spelled it out at first, but ultimately it was Satan worship, and he also decided to pepper in a little witchcraft just to make it more fun for him. And so they were there
Robert Riggs
voodoo dolls or something in this, or voodoo? Well, there were there were
Bill Johnston
altars that we'll talk about later on a search warrant, but there were altars they made. They created a number of symbols which they worshiped and cast spells with, but Zell was able to get enough of a following that they, as you indicated, they first rented a building and actually near downtown Waco, a big building. Well, the first one was not as big. They kind of moved up. All this was a step up as he became more profitable. Yeah, they they would meet, like you said, and they would yank off their clothes. They would put on these long robes and do all kinds of things, including they would listen to his lectures. They had a big pentagram they drew on the floor, and they'd go through these these ceremonies, dedicating themselves to him and and the dark side, and then he had them closely bound enough that he thought, let's make some money out of this. This would be fun. He didn't like to work anyway, so first they started dealing with marijuana. Was not that profitable for him. So in those days and these days too, what costs $100 a gram-in other words, a little sweet and low package worth of meth-is worth $100, and pounds are worth 10s, 1000s, or 10s of 1000s, and so forth. So they got into the meth world instead of the marijuana world, but they needed. If they could run this as a tight knit, devil loving organization, they needed a professional, and so they found Roy Wells Jr. who was one of the best meth cooks in Texas at the time. had his own handwritten formula. He he his specialty was large quantities. He helped put together a laboratory where they moved up to the large 12,000 square foot warehouse. Wow! Put together a laboratory with three triple neck glass flasks, like you'd see in a university laboratory, chemistry lab. And when we finally caught him, he had 61 pounds of meth in solution that they were starting to powder out, but that's how big it got within just a few weeks.
Robert Riggs
So he had some nicknames. One, the professor. Had he been a professor, or he just acknowledged his knowledge of chemistry?
Bill Johnston
Wells probably had about an eighth grade education.
Robert Riggs
Okay,
Bill Johnston
and he looked like he looked like a commercial for rednecks. He was clever, though, and he had. We mentioned in a prior podcast. In fact, we talked about murder, mayhem, methamphetamine. We talked about Kate Chrisenberry, the godmother of meth in Texas.
Robert Riggs
Yes,
Bill Johnston
Roy Wells wasn't a direct student of hers, but he was an offshoot of that early cooking, meth cooking establishment.
Robert Riggs
So she had students that spread out from her. She had
Bill Johnston
she had a cadre or a group of teachers and and students meth graduates, myth graduates. And Roy was an offshoot from those first handwritten formulas that she helped develop, and others did by that time. And but his formulas were perfect for a large quantity, which was unusual. A lot of people didn't want to make that much at once; it was too dangerous.
Robert Riggs
Yeah, I want to encourage listeners: if you haven't heard that episode, you will want to listen to it because both of these are really kind of giving you the the lay of the land in Texas in the early '80s, when boy, meth was king through here, and and the violence came with it.
Bill Johnston
It did. The firearms, which we'll talk about in this case, and the violence and the threats of violence were all throughout.
Robert Riggs
Quinzell is is preaching, so to speak, at the bars. What's what's the pitch here? What do you think that appeal was?
Bill Johnston
Well, it's hard to say. Perhaps ordinary Baptist sermons were getting old for some of these people, or perhaps Zell not being from around there and sort of seeing the gullibility of these folks felt like if he appealed to something that was shocking, you know, although it might be shocking at first, once they absorbed it a bit, they might actually like it, and they did. They thought it was cool, and they thought it was naughty. And like I said, these weren't 18-year-olds sitting around with a Ouija board. These were grown folks. Many of them, some were college graduates, most weren't, but many had successful businesses and and endeavors, and they just sold out to him.
Robert Riggs
Okay, so is there something in the water around Waco? I say that facetiously because I covered the Branch Davidians, you know, for 51, and you have David Koresh, who's just got the wacky stuff, but to the other end of it,
Bill Johnston
I don't know. So I prosecuted, you know, in Western District of Texas, mostly in Waco, some in Austin, San Antonio, Del Rio, El Paso, but mostly in Waco, and so we did have a number of students. I don't know. Can't explain it. There've been some in
Robert Riggs
Austin. Some in Austin.
Bill Johnston
But for whatever reason, this group coagulated around the master, David Zell, and ultimately their meth cooking and distribution prowess was unbelievable.
Robert Riggs
And there was testimony in the trial of sex was a big part of this too, and Zel trading or giving out women as favors and stuff, which is very similar to Koresh. That's true. Having sex with the wives of husbands in his cult.
Bill Johnston
That's true. Yes, if the thing about any cult, if you can convince someone that their eternity or their well-being is based on what you tell them, if they'll go that far, which is the ultimate, they'll do anything for you. And so, directing sex acts or directing someone kill someone or anything else is just part of the deal. You're supposed to obey, and they do. So, how does he end up on the radar screen of local law enforcement, and and what
Robert Riggs
other did the rangers get involved? The sheriff's deputies, who all gets in on this case? Okay,
Bill Johnston
so in Texas, the state police, known as the Texas Department of Public Safety, on DPS, they had at that time an excellent narcotic service. It's been changed now, but back then they the DPS Narcotic Service was the finest narcotics investigative agency in Southwest that I was aware of, and one or more of their investigators who came. Friends and close, you know, colleagues and all this-they were always looking to see where meth was coming from. It's one thing to buy it, have informants buy it, or buy it undercover. What happened in this case was there was an informant of a DPS narcotics agent that was buying some meth from someone, and when she would turn it over to the agent, as she was supposed to do, so it could be tested and logged in. It was still a little wet and had a very strong smell, and what that meant at the time was it's close to the lab. That meant this is fresh when it's still because methamphetamine, the old style of methamphetamine, as we talked about in the prior episode, was a phenolic acidic acid based meth. Not to get too scientific, but that's a very pungent. That's that's used in perfumes. So phenol acetic acid really smells, and so they smelled it in this these samples they were buying, and they knew they were close to the lab. So the informant was asked to continue buying, and she did. And at one point, though, person she was buying from, who was a local businessman, when she bought, I think she bought an ounce, a larger quantity, which is about $1,000. He sat still for a moment and he looked at her, and he let me have your hands. He held her hands. He was suspicious of her, and he said, "Let me light a candle here. I've got a man that can look right inside of you. Let's do that. And quickly as she could, without blowing her cool, she got out of there. She told the agent, "I'm done. I am done. Scared her to death. And at the same time, we were trying to figure out who that guy was associated with, and we start getting the group. We're like, "Okay. The agent started surveilling at 11 o'clock every night. The group going to this meeting. They would go. They would leave. When they left, they'd throw something in the trash. The agents would recover it. Mostly, it was scraps of paper. It was candle wax. It was things that looked like the ceremony. And then the agents, in thinking there's a lab nearby, started trying to follow this group. And there's a thing called a firefly that they can put on a car, and it flashes a non-visible light. I guess it's infrared or something. They did that, and ultimately would follow one or two members of the group north on Interstate 35 in Texas, and it was north of Waco. Where are they going? And so, within a week or so, they believed that this warehouse area, large warehouse, industrial, like you could start a full-scale pharmacy lab in there, was the subject. And back in those days, again, because of what meth was made of, it was probable cause. In other words, you could establish probable cause for a judge to get a search warrant based on the smell alone. So, an agent describing his experience, his training-they were all taught to make meth in a laboratory, how to break down the labs, and all that. They knew the smell. So, about 5o'clock in the morning, one morning, I got a call at the house from the agent who said, "I just got the smell. It's a warehouse off of Interstate 35. I said, "Let's go. So I went and met him. We wrote a search warrant, took it to the federal judge, and by about nine in the morning, the group was ready to hit the building with a search warrant, and about that time, fortunately or not, one of the other members was pulling up to the site. He went in the warehouse. He closed this big steel bay garage bay door, and right as it was coming down, the agents rammed into it to try to keep it from coming down, so they could safely get in.
Bill Johnston
And what they saw as they went under the door and looked, first of all, were weapons everywhere. There were 61 firearms, every every kind of firearm you can imagine, eight machine guns, just everything, sawed-off shotguns. Every every firearm they had, we proved this at trial. Every firearm they had was loaded. Every firearm they had had a chambered round, and every firearm they had was off safety. Every one of them, and there were within a few feet. But they hit it so quickly, as I said, they busted through that door. They hit it so quickly that only one of them got to a firearm, and it was a the youngest member of the group who was in the so-called powdering out room. This was a room where they took the powdered meth. I'm sorry, took the oil of meth and created it into powder. They used acetone for that ether or acetone. There were four five gallon drums of acetone in this room where they saw this young lady run. She grabbed for a 38 pistol, started to pull it up. A DEA agent who was there drew his weapon, prepared to shoot her. As she brought the weapon toward him, he yelled at her. She dropped it. And of course, had he fired at her, just fired, just a spark within the firearm, the whole city block would have gone up. There was so much acetone that was encased in those barrels. It would have likely blown everyone to smithereens. Everyone, all of us at the in the area, probably would have been killed. But thankfully, didn't kill her. Didn't kill us. And that was the first search. I'd like to tell you about the moment. The second starts when when you're ready.
Robert Riggs
All right, so we're we're going to pause for a moment, come back with the second search, but I want to start with asking you about all of those guns. All right, Bill. One of the things we've seen in these meth groups and other groups is this proliferation of firearms. And in the other murder, mayhem, and methamphetamines episode we did, I talked to you about a big kingpin I had covered called mr. Z, and he had air-to-ground rockets, lots of them, that would go on huge helicopters in Vietnam, grenades, shoulder-fired bazooka rounds of takeout armored vehicles and stuff. We saw this with Koresh, just a huge arsenal, 10s of 1000s of rounds, and everything converted to automatic. And now you you saw what, and I've saw this through my whole career. Is does paranoia or stuff set in? Is it are they doing the drug? What is it that
Bill Johnston
I think that's I think it's mostly paranoia. They know they know they're doing something wrong. They know law enforcement either knows about it or might, and they're paranoid enough to think law enforcement's following them around. In fact, in this case, Zell told one of the other members of the group at one point, "I think the police are following us, but Satan-he'll protect us. He'll protect us from them. Don't worry. And of course, he and Satan were both wrong, thankfully. But I think their firearm collections are often based on-they know they're, you know, screwed, so to speak. They know they're going to get caught someday, or they think they will, and they're ready to fight it out. They're ready to have the end game with police or anybody else. And I think that's, I think that's partly what it's based on. So after we found all those firearms there, we needed to search the homes they were in, or well, they're actually in some apartments in the Waco area, and one of the apartments was fairly normal. It had some of the people were living in there. It was somewhat unorganized, but you know there were clothes and beds and all that. There was in the kitchen where you'd find your box of recipes. There was a box of spells, and so under under W would be wreck, car wreck. When want to cause car wreck, cast the following spell, and so that was, I mean, ridiculously
Robert Riggs
yes
Bill Johnston
humorous. But but was there a
Robert Riggs
spell in there for you? No, I didn't see one.
Bill Johnston
And so in the in that upper apartment, we saw these things, and there was also 11 pounds of powdered out meth, which was worth hundreds of 1000s of dollars, but there was a phone line that had been a hole had been drilled. This is before wireless. A hole had been drilled from one closet downstairs, and a line had been dropped. So we, gosh, that downstairs is going to be theirs too. We didn't realize it at the time, we got the we had a search warrant drafted. We got the search warrant. The apartment manager let us in, and this apartment was looked more or less unoccupied. We went in with the apartment manager. She sort of followed in curiously, and we went to a back bedroom of the apartment, opened a closet door, and a red light came on. And the red light illuminated an altar, which was comprised of a goat's head, a table below the goat's head, a bone looked like a cat's head on a stone tablet. The stone tablet had two circles on it, and the various names for Satan were carved or written on the stone tablet. And then below that were some other items. To the left, as illuminated by the red light were their robes. There's the black robe of the master. There's the white robe of the white witch. The red robe of the black warlock, and so forth. So that we heard about there. They are. They're their robes. Of course, the agents dressed up in those robes and took a picture with me later, which was. Weird, but that's that's the agents,
Robert Riggs
of course.
Bill Johnston
So anyway, but but interesting. So as that door, by the way, as that door opened and you could see the altar, the apartment manager ran. She ran from the room. She ran from the apartment. We never saw her again, and it it because we're sort of laughing about this, but it was so dark and so weird that it actually it was disturbing, and none of us had run across a satanic altar in the last few months, so we were stunned. And and as we in the we were in there, I was just looking at it for purposes of accident, take pictures and so forth. It was all gathered, and we ultimately found a former member of the Church of Satan in California, who was an expert on this matter, who became a Christian and became kind of guy that did lectures about this sort of stuff. We found him, and he broke this whole thing down for us in the dark side and what it meant and what it didn't mean and whether they were professionals or amateurs, which they were more or less amateurs. But we were missing something from all this. David Zell, he was nowhere to be found. He wasn't at the lab with all the bubbling meth, powdering out meth, the acetone, the 61 firearms. He wasn't at the apartment upstairs with the witchcraft recipes. He wasn't downstairs with the altar. He was gone, and we needed him because we didn't want to get the members without the leader. We had a within about a day, we had a lead that I'll tell you what happened. We had a lead that he was arrested and released in in Arizona within like two days of this under a fake name, but the fingerprints match. It was a it was just one of those lucky deals. We found that, and then there was some evidence. I don't remember if it was a phone call, some some electronic evidence that he might be in Las Vegas. Well, let's go. Let's and he was unusual looking dude, and he he just had this aura about him, and so there was a Texas Ranger, good friend and quite a character, John Acock. John Acock was, of course, in our podcast about when the last ranger died, yes, this is John Acock and Stan Guffey that were in on that rescue of the little girl, and so I really wanted John to go get the. John was a great fugitive man in addition to everything else, and it's unusual to send the rangers out of state, but you know, so let's see. So the problem was that this wasn't this was a narcotics case, not a ranger's case, and there was another person in law enforcement that really wanted to go, and he was a DPS intelligence officer. And we talked to the number two guy at DPS. He said, "We're not sending all these fellows out there on a wild goose chase. I'll let one of them go, and y'all decide. And so the ranger right in front of me with the other guy there said, "I'll flip you, and he said, "Well, well, well, I flip you. And so Acock flipped a coin, call it while it's in there. The guy called it. The guy lost. Acock won. Acock gets on a plane to Las Vegas. Las Vegas is a weird place, funky place for a lot of reasons, especially back then. Probably more fugitives are in right like until the situation we're in now. More fugitives can be found in Las Vegas than probably any other town. Yes, and so the FBI maintains a fugitive squad out there that's really great, and they have all the intelligence from the casinos because those are former law enforcement. Acock arrives, no firearm because he's a ranger in Texas, and the FBI agent meets him. They arranged to meet him. He says, "John, what are you carrying? John, "Well, I'm not carrying a firearm. For he says, "Aren't you after a devil worshiper? These guys have guns or crazy. And John said, "Well, yeah, but he said, 'Come here. He popped the trunk of the of his car. The FBI agent did said, 'Pick it out. What do you want? And there was all kinds of guns and shotguns and pistols. And John picked out a firearm or two. He said, 'You sure you okay with that?
Bill Johnston
Yeah, of course. You're with me. So they got on the hunt for Zell. At the same time, we didn't realize David Zell's son was sorry rat too. He had was in the army at Fort Carson, Colorado. However, he had gone AWOL some weeks before, so he's missing too. The army wants him; they've got a warrant for him. Acock with the FBI agent, checked all the casinos. They had all photographs submitted to all the casinos, and one casino said, "You know, we've seen a guy that looks like this down here, circus circus, one of the old casinos. Acock and the FBI agent go to the casino, and lo and behold. Playing seven card stud is David Zell sitting at a table. He's gotten a couple cards. He's not finished with the hand. Across from his from David Zell, behind the table, up on a slightly elevated platform against the rail, is his son. His son is cheating for him by calling out the card by signaling him card counting. I say, yeah. He's signaling the cards of his opponents, and so that's frowned upon as well out there in Las Vegas. So while that's going on, this little miniature cheat scheme by Zell and his son Johnny Acock sidles up next to him and says, just whispers in his ear, "I'm John A. Cock of the Texas Rangers, and you're under arrest. And about that time, an FBI tries to grab the son. He flies over the rail. Zell's knocked off his chair, and the all the the whole card card game is interrupted. I don't know what they did with the winnings, and they haul him in, haul the son in, and I got a call later. And Zell had confessed to quite a bit of not everything, but most of the drug activity, a lot of the spooky stuff he was doing. And I asked the ranger, I said, "This guy is the head devil of a group. He's the master. He controls all these human beings. He literally has him under a spell. Why is he talking to you? He said, "Hell, he was impressed. He said, "We got out there the day he got to Las Vegas, and the Rangers caught him. Said he was impressed, so he confessed. And I tried him to a jury, and tried a couple more, and scared the jury to death.
Robert Riggs
Well, you know, I remember the accounts back then in the papers that you you had armed agents at the courthouse. That the jury was so afraid, and there were fears of part of the the cult coming in to try to break him out.
Bill Johnston
Well, the jury was a it was an overwhelming case. The federal judge let me bring in all the firearms, and we stacked them up on a table so high. By the time the last few firearms were placed on the stack, they would bounce off and rattle down to the end of the stack. It was a mountain of firearms. They were all, of course, rendered safe, unloaded, all that. But they ran firearms mountain on a big table in the courtroom. The evidence of the drug part was overwhelming. We had chemists and people come in, and we had I think one of the one of the cult members turn and testified against the rest, so it was an overwhelming case, and the jury quickly convicted them all. But they had a request; they they weren't ready to go home yet. They wondered if the marshals could please help them get to their cars, get in their cars, and watch them leave. They were so spooked by those robes and all this crazy stuff. So, but they did the right thing and were courageous and convicting him and got home safely.
Robert Riggs
You know, I can't tell you how many stories in my career I came across in which the fugitive was in Vegas, bank robbers, what have you. What is that site? I mean, it's like the FBI's got a task force there. I mean, look, that's the last place you want to go, but they sure go there.
Bill Johnston
As a fugitive, I think they go there for a couple reasons. They think they can be anonymous, although they can't be.
Robert Riggs
No,
Bill Johnston
and a lot of them think this is their last hoorah before I'm caught. I'll make a million. I'll you know have some big bet. I'll make a wager and make a million dollars, and I'll be able to really get away from you know from everybody with this money, and that never happens, of course. But the FBI and other law enforcement agencies work Las Vegas, and Las Vegas is one of the other than a few rare examples which we are aware of, of course, as far as in the casinos is one of the safest places you can be because the security and the law enforcement is so prevalent.
Robert Riggs
So let's talk about the the meth kingpin, the professor Roy Lee Wells, who's 34 at the time. You then later prosecute him, and he's the gunman, and he's the he's the he's got a violent record.
Bill Johnston
He did. He he was into everything, and at the time of this meth case, the the cap sentence on methamphetamine wasn't like it is today. It was maybe 20 years at that time. It became life just a couple years later. So to me, 20 years wasn't enough for Roy Wells Jr. And because he was a multi-time convicted felon, he had three or more prior convictions for violent offenses and drug trafficking offenses. He was subject to a law called the Armed Career Criminal Law, and it's a great law because it just picks on the very worst among us, the most dangerous. And so, using some of the firearms from the case that were introduced. I had the grand jury look at. They indicted Roy Wells for being an armed career criminal. So we tried him twice. Tried him in the Devil Lover case, and we tried him as an armed career criminal. He got 40 years that time. He had second thoughts several years ago. He was at the. Prison in Texarkana, and he called a deputy that we worked with that he knew. He got to a phone and said, "Listen, I'm doing an appeal, he said, "and I'm going to win. This is years after he was sentenced. I'm going to do a writ, and I'm going to win. Why don't you call Bill and tell him I'll take seven or eight years? Let's call it quits. And of course, I, you know, 40 years was better than seven, so we stuck with our sentence. But yeah, Wells got a really big sentence, more than anyone in the group.
Robert Riggs
Well, I went back and read the ruling by the Fifth Circuit, and they just blew him out. They did, you know. He he he claimed that he had poor legal counsel because they let in his testimony concerning how they were using women as sexual gifts, and his and his knowledge of voodoo, and the the appellate judge is pointing out, well, you know, you kind of brought that out in the trial yourself with your testimony because he took the stand. Yeah,
Bill Johnston
he wasn't smart. He he took the stand and he claimed that only firearm he ever possessed was a pellet gun, of course, which is not a firearm under the law. So he and that he had to do that because he was once wearing a holster, no firearm but a holster. And they said, "Well, what was in that? Oh, must have been a pellet gun. Okay, okay, didn't work too well for me. wasn't a very good witness, and the jury quickly slammed him.
Robert Riggs
And this was the first time in that region of Texas, this new statute had been used.
Bill Johnston
Right, the Armed Career Criminal Law was a great statute again to make cities safer because you find the worst criminals, the most violent criminals, and use that law when they have guns.
Robert Riggs
So one of the things I noticed, Bill, about in your career in covering your cases and all, you were always finding these new twists that would would shock the other side.
Bill Johnston
There were a lot of there were many federal laws that were being passed in the 80s and 90s and even till just a few years ago. For instance, the carjacking law, carjacking. Most state prosecutor says, "Well, that's just a robbery. We'll handle it as a robbery. But I'd like to talk about soon a case I did one of the first carjacking resulting in death cases in this part of the country, and that case again, there was a new law. Why not use it? Dangerous, violent guy. Why not use armed career criminal for Roy? Why not use a case we talked about the Lauren Bruce Pearson, the mail bombing case? Yes, that was the first use of the Violence Against Women Act in the United States, so it wasn't that I was so smart or so great in thinking of this. The laws were there; why not use them? And that was just obvious to us.
Robert Riggs
You know, in the in the trial, one of the female cult members testified that Zell was always asking everybody, "Do you love me? But she talked about he he would drink and really become mean. Was always asking, "Do you love me? The
Bill Johnston
psychology of David Zell, which he he was just a phony. He could have been selling vacuums door to door as well as selling Satan. He was just a bull of bull. I didn't mention that. And really, what he wanted out of this was an easy life and a lot of money. So by the time they were making meth and selling it, although keep in mind a lot of their profit turned out to be missing because Roy Wells Jr. was stealing it. Sure, he was. Yeah, but but Zell moved into the house of the former Baylor University football coach. Well, this is no small house. No, it's a nice house and nice part of the area. And Zell rented, I guess, rented it from him or rented it from someone.
Robert Riggs
Yes,
Bill Johnston
and was really going suburban and upscale there. But Zell, his psychology was that of a conman, in my opinion, and so always wanting this, this feeling of being liked or loved or or thought well of, I guess, is part of that mentality.
Robert Riggs
So yeah, they they saw where they had four commandments. There's that there's only one God. Love and protect brothers and sisters. Respect the order and help brothers and sisters in need. So talk up in they talked about the order and the circle,
Bill Johnston
right? So they physically would be in a circle, and they called it the circle. And again, a circle-you think of it any number of ways, as we do these days. But a circle is the continuous shape; doesn't have an edge; it doesn't have an opening, and so they saw themselves as encircled and part of something that couldn't be broken, and that's how Zell controlled them. I mean, I tell you too. This I've made light of a lot of this. One of the people that actually the one that rammed the door that was that was getting in the getting in the laboratory right by some police ramble. The agent, yeah. That member, when he, I was, I was there just a minute or two after they got in, kind of got it secured. His eyes were weird. He had a grayish glaze over his eyes. And I don't mean to sound like I believe in that stuff or believe that he had he was he had a veil over his eyes, so to speak. It was really weird. And ultimately, by the time the whole thing was over, he he looked normal. But the day of that raid, he had a weird glaze over his eyes, as if he was affected by something spiritually, it was really weird. Maybe it's why jurors so scared. I don't know.
Robert Riggs
Well, you know, I've always, as a reporter, I look at the eyes. I sure look at the eyes in the interview. I learned it when I was a congressional investigator. Watch the eyes. Where do the eyes go? Do they dart? But and well, it's I remember looking in McDuff's eyes. McDuff, Kenneth McDuff, the sadistic sexual serial killer, notorious, and I know the Marshalls always liked that I described his eyes like those of a shark, dead, dead, cold, just cold. But yeah, folks, somebody's trying to sell you on voodoo or something. You better check out their eyes. But I mean, the eyes really are the window into somebody's soul. Right.
Bill Johnston
I think so, and it showed in this case.
Robert Riggs
Okay, so as we say, our true crime cases and stories are stranger than fiction. It's been the devil lovers, and we'll come back with more episodes of Justice Strange. Thank you. We want to be your favorite true crime podcast, so please recommend us to your friends and leave a review wherever you listen. If you want to receive updates and bonus interviews, join our true crime community at truecrimereporter.com. If you have suggestions or know of a case that we should look into, email us at fan at truecrimereporter.com. This podcast is a trademarked and copyrighted news organization based in Dallas, Texas. You can read more about our news team at truecrimereporter.com. Thanks for listening to our journey into darkness.
