Robert Riggs:
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 pm sharp every Wednesday night, take off their clothes, and put on floor-length satin robes in blazoned 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 prick their finger, it meant they would respect the order and protect their brothers and sisters. David Russell Zell was the master of the circle. Zell's robes spotted 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. David Zell was just a guy sort of a nerdy 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 listen to his talk, you know, over drinks about how the dark side was really where it's at. 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.
Robert Riggs:
And so were there voodoo dolls or something?
Bill Johnston:
There were altars that we'll talk about later on in a search warrant, but there were altars they made, they created a number of symbols, which they worshipped and cast spells with, but Zell was able to get enough of following that they, as you indicated, they first rented a building, and actually near downtown Waco, a big building where the first one was not as big they kind of okay, this was a step up. As he became more profitable with it, 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. It'd be fun. He didn't like to work anyway. So first, they started dealing with marijuana. It was not that profitable for him. So in those days, and these days to what cost $100 A gram. In other words, a little sweet and low package worth of meth is worth $100 and pounds are worth 10s of 1000s or 10s of 1000s. And so marijuana, yeah. 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 Junior, who was one of the best meth cooks in Texas at the time, had his own handwritten formula, 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 net glass flats like you'd see in a university laboratory chemistry lab. And when we finally caught them, 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 these nicknames one, the professor, had he been a professor of these technologies, not knowledge of chemistry,
Bill Johnston:
Wells probably had about an eighth-grade education, okay. 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, and methamphetamines talks about Kate Christenberry, the godmother of meth in Texas. Yes, 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.
Bill Johnston:
She had a cadre or a group of teachers and students that graduated, meth graduates, and Roy was an offshoot from those first handwritten formulas that she helped develop, and others did by that time. 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 was too dangerous.
Robert Riggs:
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 the violence came with it,
Bill Johnston:
it did firearms, which we'll talk about in this case, and the violence and the threats of violence were all throughout.
Robert Riggs:
When Zell 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 Baptists, 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 endeavors and they just sold out to him. Okay,
Robert Riggs:
Okay is there something in the water around Waco, I say that facetiously because I covered the Branch Davidians, you know, for 50 ones, and you have David Koresh who's just got, what the wacky stuff, but to the other end of it,
Bill Johnston:
I don't know. So I prosecuted, you know, in the Western District of Texas, mostly in Waco. So I'm in Austin, San Antonio, Del Rio, El Paso, but mostly in Waco. And so we did have a number of Yes, I don't know can't explain. Austin, sone in Austin. 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 that sex was a big part of this too, and Zell trading, or giving out women as favors and stuff, which is very similar to Korweag, having sex with the wives of husbands in his cult. That's
Bill Johnston:
That’s true. Yes. 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, killing someone or anything else is just part of the deal. You're supposed to obey. And they do.
Robert Riggs:
So how did he end up on the radar screen of local law enforcement, and what other, did the Rangers get involved sheriff's deputies, who all gets in on this case.
Bill Johnston:
So in Texas, the State Police known as the Texas Department of Public Safety, we call them DPS. They had at that time an excellent narcotic service. It's been changed now. But back then the DPS narcotics service was the finest narcotics investigative agency in the southwest that I was aware of, and one or more of their investigators who are friends and close up, 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 undercover. What happened in this case was there was an informant of a DPS narcotics agent that was buying some meth from someone. And once 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 is fresh when it's still, because methamphetamine, the old style of methamphetamine, as we talked about in the prior episode was a phenyl acetic acid based meth. And not to get too scientific, but that's a very pungent that's, that's used in perfumes. So phenyl acetic acid really smells. And so they smelled it in this, the 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, the 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. As 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 agents started surveilling at 11 o'clock every night, the group going to this meeting, they would go they would leave. When they left, they would throw something in the trash, the agents would recover. 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 the car, and it flashes, a nonvisible 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, that's where they're going. And so within a week or so, they believe 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 five o'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 to get 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. And what they saw as they went under the door and looked at first of all were weapons everywhere. There were 61 firearms, every kind of firearm you can imagine. Eight machine guns, just everything sawed-off shotguns every every firearm they had. We prove 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 they 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 the youngest member of that 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 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 will probably would have been killed. But thankfully, it didn't kill her didn't kill us. And that was the first search. I like to tell you about the moment the second search when when you're ready.
Robert Riggs:
we're going to pause for a moment come back with a second search. But I want to start with asking you about all of those guns. I believe 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 talk 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 into Huey helicopters in Vietnam, grenades, shoulder-fired bazooka rounds that would take out armored vehicles and stuff. We saw this with David Koresh the leader of the Branch Davidian cult. He had a huge arsenal of 10s of 1000s of rounds, and everything converted to automatic. And now you saw what I've saw this in my whole career is just parallel here saw stuff set in is it they're doing the drug? What is it that?
Bill Johnston:
I think that's I think it's mostly paranoia. They know they're doing something wrong. They know law enforcement either knows about or might that, and they're paranoid enough to think law enforcement is 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 gonna 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 probably 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 or recipes, there was a box of spells. And so under, under W it'd be wreck car wreck when want to cause car wreck cast the following spell. And so that was I mean, ridiculously Yes. humorous, but
Robert Riggs:
So was there a spell in there for you?
Bill Johnston:
I didn't see one. 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 why 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've got that downstairs is going to be theirs too. We didn't realize it at the time. We got there we had a search warrant for after we got the search warrant. The apartment manager let us in, and this apartment 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 that looked like a cat's head on a stone tablet. The stone tablet had two circles on it with the various names for Satan work 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 a black robe of the master, there's a white robe of the white witch, the red robe of the black Warlock, and so forth, so that we heard about them, they are there their robes. Of course, the agents dressed up in those robes and took a picture with me later, which was weird. That's agents, of course, so anyway, but it, but interesting. But by the way, as that door opened, and you can see the altar department 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 were in there, I was just looking at it for purposes of asking them to take pictures and so forth. And 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 a kind of guy that did lectures about this sort of stuff. We found him, and he broke this whole thing down for us, and 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 of them 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 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 he said, I'll tell you what, we had a lead that he was arrested and released in Arizona, within like two days of this under a fake name, but the fingerprints match. It was it was just one of those lucky deals. We've found that. And then there was some evidence, I don't remember as a phone call some electronic evidence that he might be in Las Vegas. Well, let's go let's, and he was unusual looking dude. And he just had this aura about him. And so there was a Texas Ranger, good friend and quite a character. John Aycock. John Aycock was, of course in our podcast about when the last Ranger died. Yes, John Aycock and Stan Guffey that were in on that rescue of the little girl. And so I really wanted John to go get that, John was a great fugitive man, in addition, 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 is a narcotics case, not a Rangers 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 fellas out there on a wild goose chase, I'll let one of them go. And you all decide. And so the Ranger right in front of me, was the other guy there said, I'll flip you. And he said, What a flip. Yeah, well, and so Aycock flipped a coin. Call it what's in there. The guy called it the guy lost, Aycock won. Aycock 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 LA, right like until the situation we're in now. More fugitives can be found in Las Vegas and 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. Aycock arrives. No firearm because he's Ranger in Texas. And the FBI meets him. I had arranged to meet him. He's John, what are you carrying? Well, I'm not carrying a firearm. He says, aren't you after a devil worshiper? These guys have guns are crazy. And Johnson Well, yeah. But he said come here. He popped the trunk of the of his car. The FBI agent did and he says 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. And he says you’re okay with that? 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 a sorry rat too. He was in the Army at Fort Carson, Colorado. However, he had gone AWOL some weeks before. So he's missing to the Army wants him they got a warrant for him. Aycock 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 looks like this down here. Circus Circus, one of the old casinos. Aycock and the FBI go to the casino, and lo and behold, playing seven card stud is David Zell sitting at a table. He's gotten a couple of cards not finished with a hand, across from 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 up the car by signaling him or counting us. 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, his son, Johnny Aycock, sidles up next to him. And says, Just whispers in his ear. I'm John Aycock with the Texas Rangers and you're under arrest. And about that time, the FBI tries to grab the son, he flies over the rail, Zell is knocked off his chair. And the whole card game is interrupted. I don't know what they did with the winnings. And they haul him in, hauled the son in. And I got a call later and that Zell had confessed to quite a bit of not everything, but most of the drug activity, a lot of this spooky stuff he was doing. And I asked the Ranger, I said, this guy is a head devil of a group. He's the master. He controls all these human beings. He literally has them under a spell. Why is he talking to you? He said, Hell, he was impressed. He said, We got out there the day 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 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 and 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 hi, by the time the last few firearms were placed on the stack, they would bounce off rattle down to the end of the stack, it was a mountain of firearms. They're all 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 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 convicted him, and got home safely.
Robert Riggs:
One of the female cult members testified that David Zell was always asking everyone, “do you love me?”
Johnston says he was just a conman who wanted the good life on easy street.
Bill Johnston:
The psychology of David Zell was, he was just a phony. He could have been selling vacuums door to door as well as selling Satan. He was just a full of bull. I didn't mention that. And really, what he wanted, 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 Junior was stealing. Sure he was Yeah. But Zell moved into the house of the former Baylor University football coach.
Robert Riggs:
That’s no small house.
Bill Johnston:
It's a nice house and nice part of the area. And Zell I guess rented it from him or rented it from someone Yes. And it was really going suburban and upscale there. But Zell his psychology was that of a con man, in my opinion. And so always wanting this. This feeling of being liked or loved or, or thought well of, I guess it's part of that mentality.
Robert Riggs:
Johnston prosecuted Roy Lee Wells, the Meth cook, known as the professor during a second trial under the federal armed career criminal law.
Wells had a long rap sheet for violent crimes and drug trafficking.
He appealed a forty-year prison sentence claiming that he had incompetent legal counsel who let in cult testimony about how he used women as sexual gifts and his knowledge of voodoo.
The appeals court rejected Wells’ claim.
As of June 2024, Roy Lee Wells has turned 70 inside the Bureau of Prison’s federal medical center in Springfield, Missouri.
He is set to be released in 2040 at age 86.
