The first case we are going to give an update on is from Season 1 Episode 14 – The Delphi Murders.
This is the case of Abigail Williams and Liberty German, commonly known as Abby and Libby. These two young girls went hiking near the Monon High Bridge in Delphi, Indiana and they were never seen alive again. Libby posted a video on her Snapchat that showed a man approaching the young girls and police released an audio clip of this man saying the words, Down the Hill. The girls’ bodies were located the following day, however in the 6 years since this crime took place, no one has been arrested. That is until October 26, 2022. A suspect was taken into custody, a man by the name of James Chadwell, who was arrested in April of 2021 after being accused of kidnapping and beating a different young girl.
Pick up last night’s recording with – On November 29th.
The next case which has a slight update is that on the Chowchilla School Bus Kidnappings, we covered this case in Season 1 Episode 15. In this case, three men, James Schoenfeld, Richard Schoenfeld and Fred Woods all perpetrated a kidnapping in which they stopped a school bus on a rural road and then they took the bus full of children and the bus driver hostage. The men’s efforts were waisted however, when the bus driver and the children escaped on their own and were returned to their families. The two Schoenfeld brothers were released on parole in 2012 and 2015, but at the time of our episode, Fred Woods still remained in prison. In March of 2022, a panel of two commissioners recommended Woods for parole. The Governor of California, Gavin Newson asked the parole board to reconsider their decision, but they stuck with their decision anyway and Fred was paroled and released from prison on August 17th, 2022.
Another case we covered in Season 1 as Episode 19 was the case of Lori Vallow Daybell. Many media outlets now call Lori Daybell the doomsday mom, because she had some outlandish end of days sentiment going on in her life as she murdered her children, Tylee Ryan and JJ Vallow. But it wasn’t just Tylee and JJ who went missing and were found murdered in this case, the dead bodies around Lori Vallow Daybell, kept mounting. On May 25th, 2021 Lori Vallow Daybell and her husband Chad Daybell were charged with the murders of Tamara Daybell, Chad’s now deceased wife, and the murders of Tylee and JJ. Lori was deemed incompetent to stand trial just two days later which caused a stay in her case in Idaho. On June 29th, 2021, Lori Vallow was indicted in Arizona on counts of conspiracy to murder her husband, Charles Vallow. And in May of 2022, the prosecution announced that they will be seeking the death penalty for Lori Vallow, asserting that she qualifies for capital punishment because the killings were exceptionally depraved and financially motivated. And after a ton of false starts and stops for this trial, a new trial date for both of these monsters is set to begin on April 3rd, 2023, and that is just next month.
Another interesting update has surfaced from a very famous case we covered in Season 1 as episode 42 – The Murder of Emmett Till. Everyone in the United States of America knows the story of Emmett Till and it is a case ingrained in the heart of the civil rights movement. For a case that took place in 1955, you may think that no stone was left unturned and that everything about this case must have come to light over the years. That is until in June of 2022 when an unserved arrest warrant for Carolyn Bryant was discovered in the basement of a court house in Leflore County. Carolyn Bryant had been the white woman who accused Emmett Till of whistling at her and flirting with her in her grocery store, this story led to the young black man’s death at the hands of local racist white men. The newly discovered warrant had been issued on August 29th, 1955. After this discovery, the family of Emmett Till began calling for the warrant to be enforced and for Bryant to be arrested. The District attorney declined to serve the warrant stating that there was no new evidence to reopen the case. In December of 2022, Bowling Green, Kentucky cancelled their annual Christmas parade, due to threats of violence against groups who planned to protest outside of Carolyn Bryant Donham’s home, in actuality, this protest took place very peacefully.
Now, we can move on from Season one of The Secret Sits, to Season two and our first update comes from Season 2 Episode 1 – Who is Anna Sorokin? Now that Julia Garner has won all of America’s hearts with her over the top portrayal of Anna Delvey on the Netflix show, Inventing Anna, and millions of people either impersonate Anna’s crazy accent or her strange catch phrases, you would be hard pressed to find anyone who has not heard of this story. In the end Anna Delvey went to jail for her money schemes, but just some silly, boring medal bars could not keep Anna down. She served her time and was released, six weeks after her release, on March 25th, 2021, Anna was arrested by ICE for overstaying her visa. She was being held in a jail in New Jersey awaiting deportation to Germany. While being held in the jail, in January of 2022, Anna tested positive for COVID-19 and she was put in quarantine. On October 25th, 2022, Anna was given a $10,000 bond and she was released from prison, Anna was required to remain in 24-hour home confinement with an electronic monitoring device.
The next case which has a slight update, is from our most listened to episodes of all time, in Season 2 we made a three-part series covering the Turpin Family, a family of 13 children who were woefully neglected and abused by their parents. After one of the children escaped and contacted authorities, the children were saved, or where they. David and Louise Turpin were both sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years and the children were sent to foster homes. We would hope that this would have been the end of a horrible life for these children, however; three years after being saved from their parents, the children came forward with claims that their foster parents had sexually abused multiple of the siblings. In the law suite the children said their foster parents would threaten to send them back to their biological parents, who are in prison. This case is still going through litigation, but we truly hope that the nightmares stop, at some point for these 13 children.
One of my favorite series to write in Season 2 was that of the Knotek Sisters, who’s mother, Michelle, or Shelly Knotek, tortured and mentally manipulated her family through the years. In 2004 Shelly was convicted of second-degree murder and manslaughter for her part in the torture and deaths of Kathy Loreno, Ronald Woodworth and Shane Watson, Shelly received a sentence of 22 years in prison. Shelly’s husband David Knotek, who received 15 years on prison for his part in the crimes had already been paroled at the time of our story. After serving around 18 years of her sentence, Shelly was released from prison on November 8th, 2022.
And here we are, at the end of our second season of The Secret Sits. We could not be prouder of the show we have produced for all of you, and just you wait, because Season 3 of The Secret Sits will be dropping into your feed this summer. In the meantime, follow us on our social media and keep up with everything exciting coming up on The Secret Sits.