“Justice delayed is justice denied” takes on profound meaning in the story of Mark Morris, whose grandparents Edwin and Bessie Morris were brutally murdered on Father’s Day evening in 1985. What began as an act of kindness – letting a familiar face use their phone when he claimed to be out of gas – ended in a savage double homicide that has left a family waiting for closure for nearly four decades.
Mark takes us through the painful journey of three separate trials spanning decades, each ending with death sentences for killers Roger Epperson and Benny Lee Hodge, yet never resulting in execution. We learn how a 68-year-old man who had survived multiple heart attacks and strokes attempted to defend himself and his wife, reaching for a gun atop the refrigerator before being overpowered. The haunting detail of his one-eyed wife in her nightgown pleading for their lives before being murdered creates an indelible image of vulnerable people betrayed by someone they knew.
The conversation reveals the devastating ripple effects of violent crime across generations. Father’s Day – once a celebration – became permanently tainted for the Morris family. Mark shares how even his son has never given him a Father’s Day card because of the painful association. We witness the surreal experience of victims’ families funding the continued care of their loved ones’ killers through tax dollars, all while watching those killers mock them in courtrooms by blowing kisses and showing zero remorse.
Despite these profound challenges, Mark reveals how his family has preserved his grandparents’ legacy through their values of generosity and togetherness. He finds some comfort in knowing what happened – a luxury not afforded to families of missing persons – and in the belief that his grandparents are together in the afterlife, having never spent a night apart in life.
This episode provides a raw, firsthand account of how our justice system can fail victims’ families even when securing convictions. It forces us to consider what justice truly means when those sentenced to death outlive the family members who fought so hard to see that sentence carried out.
Transcript
Mark MorrisGuest00:01
During the trials we find out it’s late at night. Father’s Day evening, someone knocks at the door. My grandmother’s in the back getting ready for bed, wearing a nightgown. She’s got one eye. He looks outside. It’s Roger and Hodge Ed. I ran out of gas. Can I come in and make a phone call? Well, sure, come on in, roger. He turns his back and they put a gun to him.
Wendy LyonsHost00:29
Warning the podcast you’re about to listen to may contain graphic descriptions of violent assaults, murder and adult language. Listener discretion is advised. Murdered in their home the brutal killing of Edwin and Bessie Morris. Part three of three.
Mark MorrisGuest01:09
You know they love it when they do get retrials or get to go out, because that’s a day out for them.
David LyonsHost01:13
Sure Well, yeah, let’s go there real quick before we dance away. You said three trials. We’ve had three trials, If you can remember. So you have a trial, you get a conviction. What was reversed or sent back down for trial two.
Mark MorrisGuest01:26
Sure On the first one. They were convicted after three hours and 45 minutes of deliberation and the judge went straight to the penalty phase. The Supreme Court said that there should have been a break in between. Do what?
David LyonsHost01:44
I’m saying that because it happened.
Mark MorrisGuest01:45
it was a little late 6 o’clock at night or whatever when they found him, and so he said, no, we’re going straight to it. And it actually went that day and the next day. But in their ruling at the time they basically stated that it wasn’t allowed in jury instructions because it didn’t give them time to process what would have been the gravity of their verdict.
David LyonsHost02:06
On the other side, they could have left that courtroom and talked about it with their friends and their family and tainted the decision. That’s where I don’t agree with it. And I said, say what? Because in every one I had we went right into sentence. So I’m like, what is that? Well, that’s a judge. I’ll just say probably an ineffective judge.
Mark MorrisGuest02:25
Yeah, and it was. There’s a motivation there and here’s the. In the other retrials we went straight to sentence. That’s it. So it was funny it never got overturned in the others yeah.
David LyonsHost02:45
But in that one that was the one thing that they used was that there was enough. You go, then you the the anguish it puts through the family and everything again, and then I can’t imagine sitting on trial number two and it’s like, okay, good, let’s do sentencing. And you’re probably thinking, okay, what?
Mark MorrisGuest02:54
bus just drove past. We mean we just yeah, yeah, we just got. No, we don’t want to wait, yeah, we’re here stop it’s like jeez, oh pete.
03:01
So that sounds boneheaded to me when, well, and people don’t realize that well, you’re not paying for anything, oh Well, you do. I mean, yeah, we had the same attorneys this time. The trial was moved to Bowling Green. We’re taken away from work because we’re going to be there every day of it. Your hotel stays, the stress of the family, food. You do have to help take care of some of the witnesses, or the expenses that are happening in commonwealth, and to get them to do it, because you want to make sure, okay, that technicality is gone. Let’s make sure there’s nothing. So let’s dig in a little bit further. What else can we find? Uh, and one of the things we talked about earlier too testimonies. It’s the same, because you can use the script, but the judge may allow something this time that he didn’t last time, or he may say, no, you can’t use that, even though it was used in the last trial and you had those type of things come up. It’s just a bad tradeoff.
David LyonsHost03:54
It is Now. If it’s a hard, real agreeable technical foul, all of that I’m okay with Right. So number oneity, yeah, it’s just I think that’s just a decision a judge made, and they don’t always nail it right. So you get to number two, you get that. How did you wind up with number three then? What went wrong with number two?
Mark MorrisGuest04:16
so what was funny? It was, I think, one thing that they told us in state of kentucky at the time seven years is the quickest. If you convictict somebody on a death row case, that’s the quickest. That’s how many pills they’re supposed to take. So we’re like, okay, well, we made it about four years before it was overturned. It took another two and a half years to do the retrial. So now we’re in 95, 96. We start the retrial again.
David LyonsHost04:46
And why did you end up with number three? Do you remember why I’m trying?
Mark MorrisGuest04:49
to think it was something was brought up about prior convictions or something they had done. I think because it was brought up in the sentencing phase that Epperson had been on the run from a conviction or an assault charge in Atlanta.
David LyonsHost05:11
There’s a certification process they use on prior bad acts, I think, and I can’t remember the form. Maybe they jammed that up a little bit, but it’s still. I mean, you can’t use it during trial right.
Mark MorrisGuest05:22
But use it during the sentencing phase. Sentencing for sure? Yeah, because that shows you a prior history of what you’re doing on it.
Wendy LyonsHost05:29
And it was interesting.
Mark MorrisGuest05:30
In the second trial, bartley had testified the first time. Well, he shows up because he wanted out of the. You know, at this time he was lodged in Boyle County, but he’s still there. He’s like I’m not going to testify again, you can’t make me, I just wanted to have a jail. So it was one of those like okay, so now what do we do? And so you had a lot of objections. Well, we can’t enter it because he won’t testify and it took a day for the judge to rule. No, we’ll use the script. All right, who’s going to read the script? Who gets to do this? And you can’t redirect questions because it has to follow the exact questions that are there. Well, the defense in this one was like we’re not going to ask the same questions, we want some different answers. So it was a whole process of again you think you know a lot about life how things can be turned, or one statement can mean one thing one time, but you don’t know how they’ll take it the second time.
06:27
Sure, one thing that came up in the first trial that I thought was interesting. We talked about how they treated us like criminals. For the most part there was a break taking place and me and my cousin and I can’t remember one other person who walked outside to get a drink or something. And then we came back in, bartley was standing right in front of me getting ready to go into the courthouse. Well, I’m a young kid and my cousin was. He was a year older than me. Tell me, guess what? This is our shot. Let’s get him. And we couldn’t get close to him by the time they got us. But going forward from then, we were basically strip searched or went through metal detectors everywhere we went because we got that close to them.
07:08
Because you know at the time you think, yeah, I’d love to get to them, you know, but you never know what happened. So in the second trial it was even worse because they knew we were angry. They had already had a retrial in the accurate and convicted again. They had already had a retrial on the Acker and convicted again. But we were worried about okay, we’ve got to get them for ours because ours was more of a locked-out case. We want to make sure they’re put to death for our grandparents and for Dr Acker.
07:35
Dr Acker was there during the trial on both cases some of his family and we were there for his. So the second trial when it happened it was a little bit faster and I remember Hodge was still the I’m gonna blow this kiss. Uh, I’m gonna do this. Come do something, big boy, or you know y’all, come do something to me. You’re, you’re scared. Just sit there and be good. And he’d laugh and smile at different comments and, uh, my dad and his brothers and sister they’re like don’t make a scene, because you’re so afraid that if you do something it’ll cause a mistrial.
08:11
Yeah, or you’re scared to death that. If you know the first trial I did my best to get to him three or four times. Yeah, you know, my cousin tried to get to him because you’re going to keep blowing stuff.
David LyonsHost08:21
Well, at least you wouldn’t be allowed in the courtroom to see it. Yeah, you know they stuff. At least in the least you wouldn’t be allowed in the courtroom to see it.
Mark MorrisGuest08:26
Yeah, you know they’re like. You got to be good. We can’t have anything mess up. We’ve already done one trial. We’re not going to go through this again. So you’re you’re on pins and needles you know the jury.
08:34
You try to read them when they come in. You try to see what. Are they looking at us? Are they not looking at us? You spend more time watching them. Watch the people on the stand to see how they’re reacting. Or they’ll say something that you know is not true and you want to be like bullshit or no, it didn’t happen and you can’t do anything. So it was a big learning experience trying to figure that part of it out.
David LyonsHost08:59
Because a lot of times judges, before they’ll read anything, they’ll look and they’ll tell everybody. They’ll say I know this is an emotional thing, but I have to caution you that, if you outburst anything you say, it’ll be a problem.
Mark MorrisGuest09:12
And for the grandkids, and even I think my Uncle Bobby had seen pictures maybe of it, but I don’t think my aunt and my other Uncle, ronnie, had During the trial. The pictures are out there, yeah, I mean it’s put up on a big screen for you to see, and I remember in the first and the second trial they’re like you all can’t see it. You got to walk out, so the grandkids, the parents, would tell us we’d have to and you’re nosy, you want to see out of, I guess, curiosity.
Wendy LyonsHost09:45
You don’t want to see your grandparents that way, but you’re like.
Mark MorrisGuest09:46
I want to know.
Wendy LyonsHost09:51
I want to be able to see what was there. Yeah, I think it helps to grasp it, it helps to process it In your mind.
David LyonsHost09:54
you have in your mind what it is, and then with that you’ll never get it graphic enough to be what it really was when you see it, but then you’re like I want to see it, but then you’re like I don’t, because that’s, it’s part of that, why is that it’s? It’s like, theoretically, that we believe that the dots will connect a little bit better. Um, in the end it doesn’t change a lot, you know, in the end it can. It can really leave some marks on you that are pretty yeah, it’s you know.
Mark MorrisGuest10:24
And then you find out, like I said, my grandfather had had several heart attacks and strokes, walked with a cane During the trials. We find out it’s late at night, Father’s Day evening, Someone knocks at the door. My grandmother’s in the back getting ready for bed wearing a nightgown. She’s got one eye. He looks outside. It’s Roger and Hodge Ed. I ran out of gas. Can I come in and make a phone call? Well, sure, Come on in, Roger. He turns his back and they put a gun to him. And at the top of the refrigerator. When you walked into the kitchen the refrigerator is right there there was a pistol up there. As soon as my grandfather, or grandpa, Papa, walked through the kitchen, he went to grab the pistol because he was going to fight. Well, that’s when they started beating him and then tied him up. Well, my grandmother could hear while hell breaking loose.
11:17
Here’s the shots comes running in and she’s like I’ll give you anything, I’ll give you, or if you give us anything, we’ll let you all live. Well, they’d already killed Papa and she told him where everything was, took her to the back and then, you know, did her the way they did and killed her. And then you’re like you keep hearing that over and over. And then we’re talking about. You know, yeah, 60 is not old, but 68, 65-year-old heart attack, stroke walking with a cane cancer survivors To make it that far. Yeah.
David LyonsHost11:48
Just this week, just locally, and I know we’re dating this a little bit, but that 74-year-old man at the lake, that stumbled, yeah, stumbled, and fell and died. To make it to 74 and slip probably on a piece of loose rock and die. So yeah, it’s like when you look at the struggles people have in their life, it makes it that much more selfish.
Mark MorrisGuest12:10
Yeah, because you think in the 70s and 80s if you had a heart attack or a stroke you usually didn’t make it. They didn’t have the advantages they do today, so for him to survive so many of them we always thought he was superman. Yeah, she woke up with a dot in her eye one morning. It’s like we’re going to go to the doctor and see you and they’re like yeah, we was without an eye, and so all of that just to have that happen.
12:31
Because you open the door to what you think is a friend in need. You know you get your life taken from you Trying to offer a kind gesture to them.
Wendy LyonsHost12:38
That it happens to you and you know it often makes you wonder and I’m sure you all have why did you just not rob him and leave Just like with the doctor and his daughter Just rob, and leave.
Mark MorrisGuest12:53
Why do you have to do that to them? It’s funny it came up during some of the interviews. They knew that Papa would know Roger and the reason that they were killed is because they couldn’t leave a witness behind to know who they were. If they would have done the Ackers and not done the grandparents, he wouldn’t have known them from Adam, that’s it so you know, if they’d have killed him, we wouldn’t have known.
13:12
But because they went to someone they knew and again they started getting brazier. First they dropped a little drug dealer and got some drugs and some money, and then they’d done this oh, I got a bigger hit, let’s go do this one.
Wendy LyonsHost13:23
And it was always going to be not enough. The next one’s going to be the next.
Mark MorrisGuest13:32
It’s that rush or adrenaline that they get. Can you imagine how they reacted when they found out the doctor didn’t die? Oh it just. I would have loved.
Wendy LyonsHost13:36
I would have loved to have seen the looks on their faces.
David LyonsHost13:38
They probably shed a peach seed. I mean, that probably blew their minds. That’s another thing too. Is that when people talk about, when people debate, whether you should protect your home?
Wendy LyonsHost13:50
whether you should protect your home. You know.
Mark MorrisGuest13:51
Kentucky’s big on that castle doctrine.
David LyonsHost13:54
What the argument you’ll hear is well, people just want to come in and take things. Well, I’ve always said that any time somebody crosses the threshold of your door, or through a window. You need to be ready, and I know some people will hear that and they’ll go nuts, but the reality of it is it’s never just really a theft and if somebody’s home, that’s why the punishment for that kind of burglary is more and home invasion is that high is the likelihood of injury or death on your part because of the fact that those people don’t care, and if they happen to find you there or they target you, you’re in big trouble.
14:27
That never works good.
Mark MorrisGuest14:28
Well, and it’s like, this isn’t about politics, it’s not it’s one side or the other. It’s about protecting what’s yours, what’s your right, your life and your family. That’s it. You know, if someone came in and they were going to hurt her, you’re going to do anything you can to stop them.
David LyonsHost14:43
Oh yeah, that’s a fun thing, and when people are like, well, I just let them have.
Mark MorrisGuest14:46
Did, that’s it they gave them everything.
Wendy LyonsHost14:49
Well, dr eckert and tammy.
David LyonsHost14:51
Well, they gave them everything they had, and it wasn’t enough, that thing that they told your grandmother I’ve always called it. The last lie you’ll hear is that thing is that how many victims were told? Go along with the program and you won’t have to worry about it and they’re dead.
Wendy LyonsHost15:06
Yeah and so, yeah, it’s just like we mentioned tommy lindsell’s that had basically told on himself. He told the 13-year-old little girl if you just come with me and let me do this, I’ll let you go, I won’t hurt you and he did and he killed her. Yeah.
David LyonsHost15:20
It happens over. So I know people have different opinions about it, but I think now we’re talking about that gross reality of what the risk is and what people are like to do that. So you get the trial three verdict again the guilty. And what were the verdicts on the three?
Mark MorrisGuest15:35
on trial three, yeah, so we basically two, Epperson and Hod, received the death penalty again. That was in 2003. By that time my father had passed away, so he never got to see final justice, even for them being. They were still on death row the entire time, so they never got removed from death row, but he never got the satisfaction of knowing okay, this is it, they’re done. Um and again right during the deliberate. This time it only took about an hour and 45 minutes and they’re like what they told us? That, uh, epperson was dying, he was going to have, he had kidney failure and he was going to be dead in a year. So let’s not put the death penalty. That’s what they tried to tell us during the deliberation. We’re like I hope your kidneys blow up when you’re in the chair.
16:22
At that time he still had the chair around you know nothing. So we got the death penalty again. So then the whole process starts all over again. So if you think about it in in 2003, that’s 28 years that we have been. Or 2000, yeah, 2018 years that we’ve been waiting, and now we’re 21, 22 years this year and they’ve still not been still not been executed and still not been executed.
16:50
We know that Hodge is way up on the list. There’s only three that’s been on death row longer than they have now. Yeah, In the Acker case, since Dr Acker passed away, there was going to be a retrial and they decided just to give him life in prison.
David LyonsHost17:12
The family just said there was no more that that’s a, that’s a thing you uh that you’ll catch every now, and especially like if you get another appeal or whatever. Is life without and and again? I think one thing the defense attorneys do that I’d probably do is, if you have somebody that just got the death penalty, uh, if you, the next fight is the death penalty and we’re going to talk about that for a minute. I mean, it’s this. The fight changes, your strategy changes. You’re not in a hurry because you’re not forever.
17:39
Yeah, you got, you got until you breathe your last breath or whatever. Uh, I’m well. While we’re talking, I’m gonna.
Mark MorrisGuest17:44
I can’t remember the last person in kentucky that was put to death because when that first one happened, I actually went, went and was on one of the major news networks because you had all these people going against it. Yeah, and at the time I’d figured up it cost almost a million dollars to keep a death row inmate alive and I’m like this million could have saved this many people. So if you don’t know for any other reason, let’s do it to help control this, if all these cases or these souls are so important to you. And then, of course, now there’s the Miranda, the right word, but there’s a pause on the day.
David LyonsHost18:24
The last one was a guy named Chapman in 2008.
Mark MorrisGuest18:28
That’s it yeah.
David LyonsHost18:29
I think it’s right.
Wendy LyonsHost18:31
How long did he?
David LyonsHost18:31
sit there I don’t know it’s but it’s and the couple I think. I remember looking the other day that the last couple wanted the death penalty and they didn’t want to be defended, kind of like a Gary where he was like remember.
Mark MorrisGuest18:46
I’m.
David LyonsHost18:46
Gary Fryme.
Mark MorrisGuest18:47
Yeah, gary, but here’s, I had that t-shirt. Yeah that, they it. Timothy McVeigh. Yeah, exactly he did. And what’s crazy about it? I wish there was a lot more to do that.
Wendy LyonsHost18:57
Yeah.
Mark MorrisGuest18:57
But you know he said I don’t want to spend a lot of time and drop all my appeals. And even in Oklahoma, and I think there was one in Texas, they tried to do the same thing for a murder case and the judge wouldn’t let them. But I same thing for a murder case and the judge wouldn’t let them, but I know you have to go through the appeal.
David LyonsHost19:19
We’re not going to let you drop the appeal part of it, so it’s. It’s weird how that works. That you know well I get. I get the idea that everybody has to have a virulent defense and that we have to protect it. I’ll never, even when we talk about defense attorneys, I don’t throw shade on them because, no, that that’s what this game. It’s hard to watch if you’re on your side, but that’s what separates this country from other countries.
Mark MorrisGuest19:35
And there are mistakes made. I mean to me. I wish and I’ve talked to Attorney General Coleman about it Make a seven or a 10-year, whatever that timeframe is going to be, because if you process it there’s enough stuff you can do in a decade. There we go.
David LyonsHost19:51
Remember, I told you, and I think we agree, that if you’re not in a hurry, though, then that gets a little shady, because when time passes, witnesses change their mind they do. Or they die.
Mark MorrisGuest20:04
They don’t remember as well. You know nine years. We went 18 years and yet people had to get up and testify again. They’re like well. Well, in 87 you said this oh yeah, and you said this word instead of that word, and yeah you’re like well, that was 20 years ago well, what?
David LyonsHost20:19
what happened in kentucky is that? Uh, okay, so chapman was the last one in 2008 and 2010. A franklin circuit judge stopped it. Uh, yeah, judge, his name was judge philip shepherd put a stay and what it was? There was a guy for execution named g, named Gregory Wilson, and it was his turn and there was an appeal and he did it and the stay was based on Kentucky had moved away from the chair old Smokey, which actually probably looked better in Eddyville. I mean, eddyville is a scary-ass place.
Mark MorrisGuest20:48
It is, yeah, that place is weird-looking.
David LyonsHost20:52
So they kind of went after the protocol and we won’t go to the whole rabbit hole of the death penalty and how it’s attacked, but the lethal injection protocol is where a lot of people go. I remember that like two of the big things that he argued in that way he got that stay was the belief that there was a complication between regulations and the statute, that the state had mandated a three-drug lethal injection, a cocktail I guess, but the statute, the state thing, allowed for a single drug or a combination of drugs, and so there’s a discrepancy. But I’m like I think three is a combination of.
Mark MorrisGuest21:35
So are we playing words? It’s basically semantics. Are you trying to just use this one? And it seems like it would be as simple because I’ve done this through the last four attorney generals we’ve had let’s rewrite it. If that’s the thing, then let’s pass this and get it rewritten to stop. And that’s what they’re working on.
David LyonsHost21:53
Because in other places they’ve still called it cruel and inhumane because people didn’t die as fast as they did, Like in one of them I read years ago where somebody snored.
Mark MorrisGuest22:02
And they were like well, well, well, yeah, that means they’re alive, and that doesn’t mean anything. I snore and my life is at risk life is at risk because when he doesn’t wake, she does. I’ve got bruises. It’s not like would you stop, honey, and you wake up sore and don’t know what you think exactly, exactly so.
David LyonsHost22:17
But you know, that was one of the things. There too, is that, uh is is on that. The second thing is that he argued a lack of safeguards for people mentally uh ill disabled or insane inmates.
22:27
and there goes the mental health argument, which has always been on the table anyway. For example, I don’t know what it is, what the IQ number is, but it gets in a fight over one number, one number, and that’s where maybe some BS starts. But I don’t think anybody in their right mind wants to put somebody to death that is in a state of mind like that. That said, if we all agreed that they were insane or had that kind of problem, we probably wouldn’t take them.
Mark MorrisGuest22:56
that we wouldn’t, you know I’m talking about it from the victim’s family. But if you’re on the jury you know some people.
Wendy LyonsHost23:03
Man, I’m putting somebody to death you know what does that make me? And?
Mark MorrisGuest23:06
so you, you try to take into that consideration because that’s a big thing for them, because they’ve got all the eyes of everybody. You know both families, the, the, the victims, and the the defendants. Well, you’re going to kill my son or you’re not going to kill the people that killed my grandparents, so you know there’s a lot to that. So the it’s a heavy weight, it is very heavy, the iq part of it. It’s always been interesting because and you a lot more in depth as far as your, your background, but that can be manipulated too some of them know.
Wendy LyonsHost23:36
If they’re within that, yeah, margin of error a little bit, there’s a way to the so I, you know, I always said a number doesn’t do it.
David LyonsHost23:44
The, the talking, the, the interactions, watching a person over a time frame, yeah, you’ll know if they’re mentally capable or not mentally capable that’s like what state is it that they just are getting ready to release a guy that killed somebody and ate his brains and he was. He was ruled insane and went into a facility and he’s coming out?
24:04
now because they rehabilitated him you don’t, that’s it and I’m like okay, a couple things either happen there. Either he faked really good heigned and they didn’t get it, or whoever’s at the facility is full of shit.
Mark MorrisGuest24:19
That’s too far and extreme.
David LyonsHost24:21
Because it reminds me of who was it? Richard Kemper, the big, tall serial killer. Same thing. He was a poster child for rehabilitation mentally, where they were bragging and writing papers about how well he did.
24:31
He was a freaking mastermind and he killed a lot of people. So I just don’t buy that. So back back. So we’ve had that on hold since 2010. Uh, people could debate that. I really. I just I just wonder sometimes was this a judge’s opportunity? Who’s against the death penalty to stroll the yellow flag? Or are these real? And it’ll take court cases to find that out? Because, again, what goes on if your state has a lethal injection? There’s a lot of pressure put from the anti-death penalty people toward the pharmaceutical companies that make it Right.
Mark MorrisGuest25:01
Because they won’t sell it to the states that do the death penalty. That’s it, yeah, so there’s a lot.
David LyonsHost25:06
Okay, that’s how you fight that. My solution is you go to the evidence room and you get some of that car fentanyl that probably killed my youngest brother back in 2020 and kills a lot of people. Go ahead and do that. I’m not going to go political here, but we’re not really beating on that as hard as we can anyway.
Mark MorrisGuest25:27
There’s drugs out there that people are down from every day accidentally.
David LyonsHost25:31
Let’s just use those and call it even. I mean, that’s just. I’m pretty opinionated in that part of it. The only people I don’t debate on that with the death penalty is if they have a strong religious, true religious thing, then I dig that. But all these other things about whether it’s a deterrent or it’s not justice or it’s cruel, they haven’t met you and they haven’t met people who have been in your shoes.
Mark MorrisGuest25:48
And that’s the thing. Some of them are like what I feel the same way. There’s no way you can know how you would feel and people’s been through a whole lot worse stuff than I have but until that actually happens, you try to have sympathy for them and feel it, but you don’t know. You know and explain the bond that’s there, because families today sometimes aren’t as close as they were then or as they are now. Well, there’s, there’s, the today sometimes aren’t as close as they were then or as they are now.
David LyonsHost26:14
Well, there’s there’s the idea of putting it behind you, because a lot of people will, and I don’t blame a fault for this is, that is, if you’re fighting it and you’re going along with it and they come to you with life without, then yeah, that okay, that’s, I understand why they did.
Mark MorrisGuest26:27
But I’ll give an example. Like my son, to no fault of his, we’ve never said he never got to give me a dad’s day, a father’s day card. Yeah, we’ve never done anything for father’s day and he’s been very understanding about it. But now, if he, him, and his wife, if they have a child, I’m like you, please do it yeah, I don’t want you, you know, but I want you to understand why we don’t.
26:50
It’s not that I don’t want to be your dad, I’m not proud of being your dad but that’s just not a day we in our mind or in my mind, and, I think, the whole family it’s just not a day we want to be happy about.
David LyonsHost27:04
It’s a giant wound.
Mark MorrisGuest27:05
It is, and it’s not fair to the wives, the spouses, the kids, the grandkids that come generate because it wasn’t them. But it shows you murder or these type of events don’t affect just that, it’s generational. It goes on and on, because I’m sure most of my views might have been different if that hadn’t happened at 16. Sure sure.
27:29
Or going through three trials and seeing what happened and then how the news can try to manipulate it. You know we’ve tried to keep it at least somewhat up front. Some of the local news stations they’ve done stories periodically or they’ll come back up for a trial. Or when the ACCR decided to go, you know, to make it their thing Two years ago, local stations because they talked about doing away with the death penalty and they wanted our opinion, what we thought about it, and a bunch of us got together to like, no, we, we want this done. Yeah, it’s not about we respect other people that believe differently, but for our family and for the victims of the people that we know and those that we don’t know, that’s had this happen to them, we fuck it. It’s. That’s the only way I know I’ll get total closure. Yeah, is that? I see them take their last breath. Whether it be I want it to be by death penalty. The good lord may take them home beforehand, but I don’t think he’ll be taking them.
Wendy LyonsHost28:29
No, and I agree with you and that brings up a whole.
David LyonsHost28:32
They have a contract and we won’t get into.
Mark MorrisGuest28:33
that brings up a whole other thing. You know, the Bible says that there is no greater sin. A sin is a sin. My telling a lie or doing something deceitful, whether I mean to or not, can be the same Right. So you know, they all claim they got religion.
Wendy LyonsHost28:53
They always get it when they get in there, but it’s amazing.
Mark MorrisGuest28:55
When you need him the most, that’s when you. But you know I don’t want to see him in heaven. I hope they burn from the day. But at the same time, that’s why I’m not God and he’s greater than us, because in their mind they may get forgiven and that’ll be one of the hardest things, for probably in religion that’s one of the hardest things I have is knowing that they at the same right that I do, but I think it’s different because I don’t think their mindset works that way.
David LyonsHost29:25
I think they’re purely evil, Because saying I’m sorry has to be heartfelt, I guess.
Wendy LyonsHost29:30
Well then it makes you reflect back to the trial, where they’re blowing kisses.
Mark MorrisGuest29:34
Yeah, laughing at one, that’s not remorse, that’s exactly right, that’s not.
Wendy LyonsHost29:38
You’ve had an epiphany and you thought what have I done? I’m so sorry I did this to your family. It’s not that.
David LyonsHost29:44
And that’s the condonorm of faith. Is that, if you know, without going super religious, is that if we believe in forgiveness, you almost have to say, but being in the middle of it is hard, and I was going to ask you I think I know the answer is there a part of you that has considered personally forgiving them never?
Mark MorrisGuest30:08
yeah, that I would love to go sit and talk to every yeah, that’s why I was asked who is he hodge.
30:13
I want to see. I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t want to do what’s funny. You try to be an adult, you try to be respectful, but if the day comes that they’re going to inject him or whatever, I’m going to do the exact same thing he did to me. I’m going to blow him, kisses. I’m going to smile. I say that. But then when the verdict was read and they were found guilty, we all broke down crying.
David LyonsHost30:40
Yeah, like we were heartbroken.
Mark MorrisGuest30:43
With Epperson. I’d love just the why you could have got if you told him you needed $20,000, he’d have gave it to you.
Wendy LyonsHost30:51
Why’d you have to?
Mark MorrisGuest30:53
you know, I would never give him that satisfaction to do it, but I would really. There’s sometimes it really gets me where I’m like I really want to know. But then there’s other times I’m like I hope you’re, because they’ve told us he’s had cancer, you know when you have a, you’re a victim there is a defender online lookup.
31:16
There’s a number, yeah, and they will give you any updates. That go on. And a couple of years ago I got a phone call that they had moved uh hods to uh, another facility for the hospital. And I called the warden and I’m like, hey, I would love to come visit your thing. Can I get in to visit? And he’s all sure we can set this up. I get in to visit and he said, well, sure we can set this up. What’s your name and do you know anybody here? And I’m like no, I don’t really know anything. And he’s like, wait a second, morris, we just got someone. And he said, good try.
Wendy LyonsHost31:44
He said I’ll give you a name for effort.
Mark MorrisGuest31:59
I’m like, can you tell me why? What’s going? Uh, they’re, you know they’re 23 hours in isolation and all this, but if you think about the death row, it’s almost quadrupled, yeah, since they were put in there for our murders and they got all these other people that are going through the same thing waiting, and waiting, and waiting exactly and until we start doing something, I truly and we won’t get into the politics.
32:18
I believe it’s a deterrent If you actually start. You know in Florida and Texas, oklahoma, where they’re starting to do more executions, where they have them, you don’t see as many brutal or they will solve quick. Here you know I was working at 16. I’ve worked my entire life. I was working at 16. I’ve worked my entire life and my money goes to keep the people that murdered my grandparents alive, fed, clothed, medical, a bed to lay in, food. I feed them three meals a day and that part—.
Wendy LyonsHost32:51
And an education if they want.
Mark MorrisGuest32:53
Yeah, they get everything they want, they have whatever they want, any needs, and yet you’ve got people out here that can’t get the medicine they need because it’s too expensive, right? So I’m always like there’s a lot of things people don’t think about. That, these type of actions, the what it does to you overall. Do I want to pay taxes? No, I sure don’t want to pay to know that I’m helping them.
33:16
Yeah, you know, we all got to pay it, but that’s where part of that money goes oh for sure you know when, if the people that say, well, let’s let them lose, all right here, give me some of your money every month and then that’s what we’re going to use, and they change their opinion real fast once they start thinking about that part of it it’s.
David LyonsHost33:34
It’s a conundrum for a lot of people. It’s a conundrum. If your grandparents could see everything that’s happened from that day to today, what would they say? Knowing who they were, what do you think?
Mark MorrisGuest33:52
I think they would be extremely proud of the one thing we’ve always said and you’re a Morris, you need to be. You may not be the best looking, but you give it all you got, and all of the family, from the daughter, the sons, the grandchildren, the great-grandchildren from that. We’ve all emprided that in ourselves and I think if they looked at it overall, they could sit up top and when they look down from above, it’s like they did it. Yeah, that you know. That that’s my people, that’s my. You know we’re because we bring it up all the time. We’ll have reunions and we’re like we hope we made you proud. You know that’s still a goal of mine every day.
David LyonsHost34:37
What a legacy.
Mark MorrisGuest34:38
Yeah, I mean, you know, if you look on, our motto is to give freely to love. You know, curiously, to make sure everyone has a good time, because it doesn’t matter what we have individually, it doesn’t matter what goals we achieve. If you’re the only one to achieve them, what good does it do If you can’t help other people and let them reach? That’s why I love the marina not to get on it, but because we get to see our have a good time yeah, you know they get to enjoy a little bit.
35:08
We call it our oasis and that’s I think that would be their, their one thing, that they looked at everybody, because we’ve all done so many different things. They, they could just say you did the Morris name proud. What a legacy.
David LyonsHost35:23
What a way to show strength in the face of something that horrible. That’s probably what I would imagine that’s what they would say too. Thank you.
Mark MorrisGuest35:33
Thank you all. No, thank you.
David LyonsHost35:34
Because I know this pulls back a scab, although, as long as this goes on, I just feel bad that you’re living this open wound and so many other people are living that open wound and I would have to agree that they would be proud because they’ve watched you all struggle with everything.
Mark MorrisGuest35:51
Well, we greatly appreciate you all doing this, not just for ours but for the fresh cases, and I know you’ve changed a little bit this year going back and looking at some of the other cases. Right, Because it needs to be in people’s minds.
Wendy LyonsHost36:03
It does.
Mark MorrisGuest36:03
A lot of times we get wrapped up in this social media two-minute world oh well, that happened. Oh, that’s awful. Oh, that happened. Oh, I hate that. You know, and these things are real. Yes, they don’t just happen in snap and something else. The video game world is not real world, that’s it. And for you all, doing this podcast and keeping people informed and helping victims and helping the police and just helping the general public understand all different aspects, I mean with your backgrounds and what you’re doing is a great service for a lot of people.
David LyonsHost36:36
Thank you, Because a lot of what we do that we recognized is on some of the older cases. If you Google the victim’s name, you might get a copy of an appellate record from the person that killed him. And years ago that struck me as like that’s just not fair. So when people come back now and if they Google your grandparents’ name or they Google your name, they’re going to hear who they were.
Wendy LyonsHost36:59
It’s just not a name and a story from 1985.
Mark MorrisGuest37:04
It’s not an old picture.
Wendy LyonsHost37:05
Yes, it’s a surviving grandson telling what it was like to hear that first phone call and what it’s like 40 years later. Amen.
David LyonsHost37:14
And so, yeah, we do enjoy doing that is giving a platform for that to where people are memorialized, I think, in a better way than just old news articles. Because, again, even with the media, they’ll cover the things they need to cover to get things done, but they can’t go in or won’t go in in that kind of depth.
Mark MorrisGuest37:31
Well, they do the snippet and then hopefully also if anyone else is going through this, it gives them a perspective of what it’s not an overnight Don’t think that once they’re arrested, that, oh, it’s going to be two months or three months.
37:46
This is a long process. It don’t end in a 48 minute TV episode or you know, it’s something that goes on and on. But you have to be patient and diligent to make sure your family knows that Because, like you said, in death a lot of times families tear each other apart and when you go through tragedy, just a normal death is bad enough. When you go through tragedy, it can be so much more and this is just a way to let people know hang in there, it gets there. It’s a long process and we may not know the end, but each step it’s there and there’s people like you all and others out there that help keep that going.
38:26
That way, they know what to expect, because nothing’s worse than the unexpected.
David LyonsHost38:30
That’s right. I just met two weeks ago with a family we worked with before that are coming on a 10-year anniversary date where their adult son’s been missing, presumed dead.
Mark MorrisGuest38:38
And that’s one thing we’ve always said. At least we know. Yeah, I can’t imagine you all did JonBenet.
David LyonsHost38:46
Yeah, we did, yeah, exactly.
Wendy LyonsHost38:48
And.
Mark MorrisGuest38:48
I’m like how does that how?
Wendy LyonsHost38:51
do they not know?
Mark MorrisGuest38:52
I mean if the dad, we all have theories about who did, and who didn’t, but not knowing.
Wendy LyonsHost38:58
Not knowing it all is awful. And there’s so many of them out there that way, aside of JonBenet, I think what we’ve done on some of our missings, that we’ve started doing is the truly not knowing where your son is.
Mark MorrisGuest39:10
Yeah, I can’t imagine.
Wendy LyonsHost39:12
And you don’t know if he’s in a field, been tossed in a river.
Mark MorrisGuest39:16
You know, sex traded somewhere.
Wendy LyonsHost39:20
They can’t even bury them and they yeah, or they know they’re they.
Mark MorrisGuest39:22
They buy the marker and the tombstone to put it all up and it’s there and it. What a sad.
David LyonsHost39:28
It’s just uh but thank I think you give. You’re expressing that thing of maintaining hope when it feels impossible, that that hearing from somebody is important, because it’s hard to get across to people that time hurts, but in an investigation time can actually be your friend.
Mark MorrisGuest39:47
It really is. That’s hard. You say keep living, but you do, and we can think of things that would have never happened, that were good if that hadn’t happened? Now you grow up in a county with one stoplight and there’s not a whole lot there.
40:05
I mean, the people that are there are great, but opportunities I got because we moved from there and we never would have moved if it hadn’t been for my grandparents. There we go. You know we talked about they never got to be apart. They never spent a night apart. The only time they were apart was when we drove them from the cemetery to the graveyard. But we’re so thankful they went together.
Wendy LyonsHost40:26
Yeah, Because I can’t imagine one of them having lived without the other.
Mark MorrisGuest40:30
So you know, no matter how bad something is, there are some things you can find that give you a little bit of comfort, yeah you’ve got to find the good part of it and due to faith, you know the repose of their soul, that’s exactly right. They’re sitting at the right hand of God, most definitely.
David LyonsHost40:44
There’s the power of faith right there, so they’re okay.
Mark MorrisGuest40:46
They’re good. They’re okay. They were within seconds, they were good.
David LyonsHost40:50
Yeah, there’s that. Well, thanks again. Thank you so much, mark. We really appreciate it. Thank you, thanks. The Murder Police Podcast is hosted by Wendy and David Lyons and was created to honor the lives of crime victims, so their names are never forgotten. It is produced, recorded and edited by David Lyons, your favorite Apple or Android podcast platform, as well as at MurderPolicePodcastcom, where you will find show notes, transcripts, information about our presenters and a link to the official Murder Police Podcast merch store where you can purchase a huge variety of Murder Police Podcast swag. We are also on Facebook, instagram and YouTube, which is closed caption for those that are hearing impaired. Just search for the Murder Police Podcast and you will find us. If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe for more and give us five stars and a written review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you download your podcasts. Make sure you set your player to automatically download new episodes so you get the new ones as soon as they drop, and please tell your friends.
Judy.
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