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A Killer's Mistake Season 1 Episode 3

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Transcript
00:00Willie Inman is a 21-year-old who liked to practice shooting on his down-at-heel family ranch deep in the Arizona countryside.
00:10Recently claiming to be back from serving as a soldier in Iraq, he was on edge when police called by.
00:20They start pounding on the door and with me being so jumpy from the service, they're lucky I didn't come to the door with my gun.
00:30Do you like guns?
00:34Yes, I do.
00:37What kind do you have?
00:38I've got a Walther P22, I've got an M14, I've got three shotguns.
00:47Willie's friend, Ricky Flores, 16, missing from home. He'd gone AWOL before, but had promised to mend his ways.
00:55It didn't make sense that he was gone and he wasn't coming home, so that was the first clue that something wasn't right.
01:03A lot didn't add up for local detectives in this remote part of Apache County.
01:07We both had the same feeling that Ricky was hurt or that he was dead.
01:12I knew it wasn't good. He didn't hang out with the best crowd of people.
01:17Nick Flores' brother Ricky hung out with Willie Inman, the guy with the hurt trigger.
01:22One day, Inman walked into a police station and started talking.
01:26Did detectives have a killer in custody? And was he responsible for the murder of two other men?
01:33I didn't suspect any foul play or anything. There was a little bit of blood that was outside of his mouth and some blood pooled up in his left ear.
01:42We know that, you know, if you've done something bad, the worst thing in the world is for you to have to carry it the rest of your life.
01:47The rules of engagement were in place. Cop seeking the truth. Killer a skilled liar.
01:54If I was to do such atrocity, I could be out there getting rid of it and you would never know.
02:01Detectives gather evidence until a picture of a suspect emerges.
02:04Which piece of the puzzle will reveal Willie Inman as guilty of murder? What would be the killer's mistake?
02:34Apache County, an area of ranchers and small communities like St. John's. Population 3,200.
02:59It's a small town. There's not a lot of people. Everybody knows everybody.
03:04It's a good place to live if you don't like a lot of company.
03:15But unfortunately, you know, bad things happen everywhere and just happened to be to my family here in St. John's, Arizona.
03:27Ricky Flores, Nick's brother, was murdered.
03:31His head was blown off with a 12-gauge shotgun.
03:37Ricky had last been seen alive with this man, Willie Inman.
03:42He lived on a ranch just outside St. John's.
03:45Willie's girlfriend, Stormy, lived in Springerville, 29 miles away, different police jurisdiction.
03:50Something which would loom large in the story of William Inman.
03:56Willie walked into Springerville Station on a hot August morning just five weeks after his buddy Ricky was first reported missing.
04:05When he got there, he insisted on seeing the chief of police himself, Steve West.
04:12I sat down with Mr. Inman and we started talking, just general talk.
04:16Chief West knew nothing about the missing Ricky Flores. Why would he? Flores was a St. John's matter. This was Springerville.
04:23Like a lot of communities, we still have crime. We just don't have as much of it. You know, children still walk, you know, to the stores. They still go to the movie theater by themselves.
04:37Chief West was as in the dark as anyone about Ricky Flores as he sat opposite Willie Inman. During a nine-hour interview session which followed, there would be many revelations.
04:50As well as a love for guns, Willie Inman shared views with Nazis. He showed his fascination by donning Nazi insignias on his baseball cap.
04:58Wow. My grandpa was the greatest Luftwaffe pilot, any pilot ever existed. Only one to receive over 1,200 kills.
05:10Willie had a deep sense of what he believed was wrong, was right, was bad or good. And he wanted to rid the world of what he saw as undesirables.
05:22I tried to be as law-abiding as possible.
05:24The first time that I knew about the case was when we got a press release about the disappearance of Ricky Flores.
05:33Karen Warnock is the local reporter who covered the story of Ricky's disappearance.
05:38We've had other missing people in the area occasionally. And at the time, it didn't really strike a chord. It was just another juvenile disappearance.
05:50My brother went missing in August of 2009. No one really knew what was happening or what was going on. No one in my family knew.
06:01What was confusing to the Flores family about Ricky's disappearance was that he had turned over a new leaf. He'd been something of a wild child until recently.
06:08My brother just got out of juvenile. And instead of staying in there longer, he decided to take one year probation for some minor drug charges and stuff. And he was working on himself and his life. He was starting to realize that he couldn't just off. And he was really trying to work on himself.
06:26And he was a good person. St. John's detective Lucas Rodriguez knew all about Ricky and liked him despite his adolescent ways.
06:45Ricky Flores. Good kid. A little bit rebellious. He has been in trouble. Mostly I would say a lot of it mostly the juvenile. Only juveniles can get in trouble with curfews, smoking and maybe a little drinking.
07:03He has done a little bit of drugs. A lot of some fighting with his mom. And by fighting it don't mean punches. I mean verbally and not wanting to listen to mom and stuff like wanting to be his own man and stuff like that.
07:18And he decided that, you know, enough was enough and told my mom that he wanted counseling and he wanted to just do some programs to help him through it. I mean, he's a young kid. He doesn't know what's going on and he's just trying to have fun.
07:37How would officer Rodriguez sum up the character of Ricky Flores around that time?
07:42Ricky does have a good heart. He does care about his mom, does care about his brothers and family and stuff like that.
07:47He just likes to do his own thing and doesn't want people to tell him, but he is in the process of changing his life. He just has a new kid. Now he knows he has to be responsible and change his ways. It's not just about him anymore.
08:10What had changed Ricky for the better was fatherhood.
08:14He wanted to do good and he wanted to take care of his newborn baby.
08:19Ricky, Hispanic, had a white girlfriend called Jessica Johnson, now the mother of his child.
08:25They all knew Ricky was behaving himself, so why would he suddenly disappear?
08:29I was called by dispatch and asking me to meet Malda Flores and she had reported him missing for, it had been a week now and still had not heard back from anybody and still had not heard from Ricky.
08:49Ricky, she said never left without his phone charger and always checked in, even on bender days when he would get high. But not this time.
08:58So it didn't make sense that he was gone and he wasn't coming home. So that was the first clue that something wasn't right.
09:07Well, I knew it wasn't good. He didn't hang out with the best crowd of people.
09:12People like Willie Inman.
09:14William Inman was just another person that hung around my house. He was friends with my brother. My mom fed him. She gave him food. She gave him clothes if he needed him.
09:25Willie referred to Malda as mom. So, hey mom, I'm taking Ricky out to the ranch when I shoot or something, go shooting or something like that.
09:35Ricky said, hey mom, I'll be back in a little while. And Ricky said, yeah, no problem, son. And saw them jump in the Jeep and take off.
09:47And she waved goodbye to Ricky with Inman by his side. They went to Willie's ranch, met up with his girlfriend, Stormy Williams.
09:55She said that was the last time she saw Ricky and heard from Ricky.
09:59Willie Inman picked up Ricky Flores and they were friends and he took them out to his property out east of St. John's.
10:10Officer Rodriguez brought Willie into St. John's police station for questioning. Where is Ricky? He asked.
10:16Willie told me that indeed Ricky was at the ranch with him and that they had gone, talked about, he talked to him about drugs and to stay away from drugs and stuff like that.
10:28It was to be a recurring theme in the interrogation of Willie Inman.
10:32He was a good guy, helping out a teenage kid with good advice during target practice.
10:37Willie had no idea where Ricky was, but detectives didn't believe him.
10:42And Ricky's brother Nick was not hopeful either.
10:45He liked to party and he liked to get in trouble. He hung out with older people.
10:51So I figured it wasn't anything too good why he was missing.
10:56Detectives in St. John's did not believe Willie Inman's story and suspected him in a murder of Ricky Flores.
11:04Now, could they get him to admit it?
11:07If there was an accident, something went wrong, self-defense, whatever the reason was, I'm going to give you one chance, one time, sitting here in front of the chief, to tell me why it happened.
11:26Over the days and weeks following the disappearance of Ricky Flores, Officer Lucas Rodriguez was to meet with Willie Inman often.
11:42He'd asked the same question.
11:44I mean, Willie, come on, tell me where Ricky is.
11:47As the interview progressed, I can see a lot of deception signs on Willie.
11:56His carotid artery I'd never seen, but his carotid artery was literally bouncing.
12:01He started sweating, he started getting hot.
12:04He didn't fidgeting, he started, he actually took his shirt off saying it was too hot in there.
12:09I was in uniform and it was not hot, I had a vest on and I was comfortable.
12:15He was just, I just could not get him to tell me what had happened to Ricky.
12:22I asked him, I remember asking him if I was going to find Ricky alive and Willie said he hoped so.
12:34It was soon after one such interview that Inman left St. John's police station.
12:38He headed over to Springerville to meet up with his girlfriend, Stormy, 18 years older, with educational difficulties.
12:46Detective Rodriguez wasn't giving up easily and called on the couple there, along with a colleague, Deputy Morales.
12:52Still no answers.
12:55We thanked Willie and Stormy for talking to us, told him to get back in touch with us because we were looking for Ricky.
13:01And they said, yeah, no problem.
13:04Deputy Morales and I left and on our way back into town, me and him were talking and we both had the same feeling that Ricky was hurt or that he was dead.
13:14As for Willie, he'd grown tired of Lucas Rodriguez and the St. John's police department.
13:21He headed to the chief of police, Steve West, over at Springerville.
13:25Help me out, chief. Get these guys off my back.
13:28What St. John's PD is asking you is they're asking you if you know the whereabouts of Ricky.
13:35Correct.
13:36And what's Ricky's last name?
13:37Flores.
13:38Flores.
13:39Okay, so they're asking you if you know the whereabouts of Ricky Flores.
13:43They're saying what? That you were the last one to see him?
13:47Correct.
13:48And that I know something and they keep pressuring me like I do know something, which if I didn't, I would tell them because I want them off my back.
13:56So I'm tired of being harassed.
13:58They have no right coming to my girl's house.
14:00No right whatsoever.
14:02And last time they came here, they came here without a sheriff's escort.
14:07They came in their St. John's police car out of jurisdiction.
14:11Oh.
14:12And they've broken the law.
14:14They searched her next door neighbor's house.
14:17And which...
14:18This is Stormy's next door?
14:19Yeah, correct.
14:20Which they had no right being in his yard.
14:23Willie Inman had made a big mistake.
14:25He believed one of the police forces in Apache County would not support another in a missing person inquiry,
14:31which was increasingly feeling like a murder investigation.
14:35Normally it's for a chief of police not to get involved in a case.
14:40It's kind of rare.
14:41Since he had already struck a rapport with Willie, we allowed Steve to continue talking to Willie.
14:48Still, no one knew where Ricky Flores was.
14:52But if he had been murdered by Inman, investigators needed to find a body, establish motive and method.
14:59That last part would prove straightforward.
15:02Inman was a trained gunman whose best friends were the guns that he fired out on his ranch.
15:07When you were in the military, were you ever dispatched overseas?
15:15Yes, sir.
15:16Oh, is that right?
15:17Where did you fight?
15:18Iraq.
15:19Oh, did you?
15:20Yes, sir.
15:21Where was the first place you were deployed over there?
15:22First place was Fallujah.
15:24Uh-huh.
15:25And then from there we moved downwards and then it was the sniper alley I mainly was on, which was the six-mile stretch between the Green Zone and Baghdad Airport.
15:37Steve West was employing a softly, softly approach and was getting results.
15:44Inman had almost certainly revealed how he had killed Ricky Flores by shooting him.
15:50But if he had, what was his motive?
15:52It was really strange because Mr. Inman, he had this affinity, number one, as far as being calm, to why he was there.
16:08He didn't seem upset about that at all.
16:10But the other thing was he had this affinity to talk about Nazism.
16:16And the way he did that is he did the Nazism and the way it came out was on his baseball cap, he had some Nazi insignias, some little medals on there.
16:31Inman, who cherished his German heritage, claimed that his grandfather was a crack Luftwaffe pilot who'd fought a just war.
16:39And as Chief West sweet-talked Willie, Officer Rodriguez was listening to a different story.
16:46He'd asked Willie's girlfriend, Stormy, to call by Springerville Police Station.
16:51Her arrival was the turning point in the investigation.
16:54She'd been with Willie when he had returned to his ranch with Ricky.
16:59It was decided to tell Stormy that Willie had confessed to the homicide.
17:06Stormy actually started talking and said yes, they had killed Ricky.
17:11And went into detail on how they had killed him, and how they had taken him back to town, and how they had buried him.
17:23Until the moment that Inman entered Springerville Station, he had revealed no mistakes in the murder of Ricky Flores.
17:29Now, he was regretting ever asking Chief West for protection from those St. John's cops who'd stepped out of line.
17:36It had resulted in his girlfriend giving them both away.
17:40What had happened down on the ranch?
17:44Just tell us what happened, Willie.
17:47That's the biggest thing.
17:48Run us through it.
17:50Oh, my God.
17:51Well, I mean, stuff happens. We know that.
17:53Yes.
17:54You know what I'm telling you?
17:55I did not want to kill the kid.
17:58It was not murder, I can tell you that much.
18:01Okay.
18:03Oh, God. I can't believe this was what happened.
18:04Just tell us what happened.
18:05Well, that's okay. Yeah, just tell us the story.
18:10Inman claimed that he and Ricky had got into an argument whilst at target practice on Inman's ranch.
18:16But Ricky had fired first.
18:18This ended up as self-defense. Something happened.
18:27We finally got him to admit that he indeed did shoot this kid.
18:33Now, the way he said he shot him was this.
18:36He said they were both out at the site east of St. John's and that they were out there and they were target practicing.
18:42And they started shooting cans and whatnot and Ricky wanted to shoot the rifle and so he let him shoot the rifle and Mr. Inman said that he was standing by his car and a bullet hit the window next to him.
19:01He said that he took that as an aggressive move and he got his rifle and started firing at Ricky.
19:06He shot at me, I shot back.
19:11Willie did disclose that the homicide had actually occurred at his ranch.
19:15I believe he shot him in the head.
19:21I had a single gate shotgun and he had my M14 and he took a shot at me and I shot him.
19:30As the real-life drama unfolded, it seemed the case was closed.
19:36Of course, by then he was in tears.
19:39You know, he was acting semi-remorseful.
19:42And the way that we got that interview out of him was basically saying,
19:49Hey, you know, people do bad things.
19:51You know, please, you know, we know that, you know, if you've done something bad, the worst thing in the world is for you to have to carry it the rest of your life.
19:57You know, you need to come clean on that so that your conscience will be clear.
20:01And we went on and on and on and finally that's when he admitted that.
20:03God, I can't believe this. I'm going to go away from murder. I need to fucking do it.
20:11Willie, you need to settle down. We need to get all the facts so that we can determine what's happened here.
20:18Okay? We need you to stay together for us. We're not your enemies.
20:23I need some back at least.
20:25My God, I can't believe this.
20:27At first, Willie stuck to his self-defense story, but was he telling the truth?
20:32Was this really a case of self-defense?
20:35Ricky's girlfriend, Jessica Johnson, had a father who did not like Hispanic boys, like Ricky Flores.
20:43I believe at one point Mr. Johnson and Melissa Johnson, the mom of Jessica Johnson, got a restraining order against Ricky and not allowed him to come around and be around Jessica.
20:55Well, it didn't matter because Jessica loved Ricky and she would sneak out of the house as well and go meet with him and vice versa.
21:03And Jessica had just recently given birth to a child which belonged to Ricky.
21:11It was even rumored that Jeff Johnson, Jessica's dad, was connected to a white supremacist group, one that Willie was all too afraid of.
21:20I'm dead either way. As he goes down, there's too many out there. They are too smart. They will find me. They will kill me.
21:27They will kill me.
21:28What other damaging evidence which might implicate others would emerge from the interview room?
21:34Was Willie Inman a hired gun working for a racist?
21:38Throughout Texas and Arizona, a neo-Nazi group called the Aryan Brotherhood has been carrying out drugs and gun-running crimes for decades.
21:58Exclusively white, its so-called captains exert a violent influence over its members. Fraternization with non-whites is forbidden.
22:07Detectives throughout the Apache County area suspected Jeffrey Johnson, father of Ricky Flores' girlfriend, of involvement with the Brotherhood.
22:16Police now had a theory which would blow Inman's self-defense claims out of the water.
22:21It would not look good to Mr. Johnson that, since he's a white supremacist, that his daughter had a kid from a Hispanic kid.
22:32And did not want, he wanted, basically he wanted Ricky gone and had offered to pay money for that.
22:43Had Jeffrey Johnson ordered a hit on the boyfriend of his daughter?
22:47Another detective entered the room.
22:53I understand the white supremacist swastikas. I know every tattoo on the guy's body. I know all about this guy right now.
22:59I've known about him for a long time. Quit taking care of him and take care of yourself.
23:05He knew you were going to murder him and he was supposed to pay you. I know that. Tell me the truth, please.
23:11Willie was not about to give evidence against Jeff Johnson in a murder crime.
23:17Listen, he wanted me to beat his ass, yes. He didn't want no death, no killing. And I thought about it, but it's not.
23:25These were the facts established. After the murder of Ricky, Inman and Stormy Williams drove at speed from his ranch into St. John's and headed straight for Jeffrey Johnson's house.
23:35He drove his body through the town of St. John's to Jeffrey Johnson's house.
23:43The whole reason for Willie bringing the body over into town in the beginning, instead of just going through the back roads and going away from town, was that he came over and showed proof to Mr. Johnson that he had actually taken care of the job and killed Ricky.
24:00My niece was probably sitting there, you know, just a couple months old. And, you know, her dad's body is in the back of a Suzuki Samurai. And her biological grandfather is going out there to look at it.
24:17Why did you take the body to Jeff's house?
24:20Because I was scared. I wanted to know.
24:22Tell me exactly what you told Jeff when you got to his house.
24:24I told Jeff, dude, he's in my car. You want to come look? Dude, I need some help. What the hell am I going to do? His words were exactly, get the out of here and I don't want to see you again. That was his words.
24:37William said that Mr. Johnson gave him a bunch of, got mad at him for bringing the body and that got $20 from him for gas and that was all and he took off.
24:49Had Jeffrey Johnson made a flippant, angry comment about wishing Ricky dead and Willie taken it at face value, Inman left, drove up to the Elk Ranch, found a deserted spot, dug a shallow grave and set Ricky's body alight.
25:08Storm E. Williams told detectives enough for them to find it.
25:28Well, his body was burned so bad and his head was blown off with a 12 gauge shotgun.
25:36So there wasn't too much to be looking at.
25:39So they had to identify him by a homemade tattoo he had on his ankle and he also had broken his arm pretty severely and got some pins and plates in it.
25:50So that's how they identified his body because there wasn't too much to say that this person was who he was.
25:58Inman repeatedly refused to say that the murder was anything to do with Jeff Johnson.
26:05Why are you so afraid of Jeff? What do you know about it that scares you so badly?
26:12I know the Aryan Brotherhood. There's too many out there. He gets one message through to anybody. I will be dead.
26:20That's guaranteed. I know how they roll. He goes down, I will go down.
26:27So you have to admit to it, but you are covering his ass because you're afraid of death. Tell me that man.
26:35I'm afraid of death. Here we go.
26:40Willie did not testify in court that he had acted on the instructions of anyone.
26:44Jeff Johnson and his wife Melissa would stand trial for hindering the prosecution in the case of the murder of Ricky Flores.
26:51I think his charges were correct because he had knowledge and he did nothing to try to slow that down.
26:57But also I think that by sure virtue of it taking place, I think that was a shock to him also.
27:08Jeff Johnson was sentenced to seven years in prison. Melissa Johnson was given probation.
27:13As for Willie's girlfriend, Storm E. Williams, she had been with Willie when he killed Ricky, had helped him move the body.
27:19But the mental well-being issues that she faced meant that she would never be charged.
27:24It wasn't a person who could think on her own.
27:27She would make a decision to do something and if she felt like it, you know, made Willie happy or, you know, Willie wanted her to do it, she'd do it.
27:39You know, she wasn't a crazy person.
27:42She was just really gullible and would do anything to, you know, make William Inman happy.
27:50So that appeared to be the full story of what had happened out on Inman's ranch and later in St. John's and Elk Ranch.
27:56A teenager shot, his body paraded in front of his child's grandfather before being burned and partially buried.
28:02Willie even drew for detectives where the partial burial took place.
28:07But that was far from the end of the William Inman murder story.
28:11Detectives were still unable to find the gun that he had used to kill Ricky.
28:19He asked him about the gun, you know, what happened to it.
28:21He had indicated that he had thrown it in the sewer pond over in St. John's.
28:26Not having the murder weapon felt like a loose end.
28:30Perhaps it had been used in other crimes.
28:34In St. John's County, there had been a suspicious death two years earlier.
28:38And another person had gone missing that same year.
28:43The suspicious death was of William McGarriga, known as Stoney.
28:46A 72-year-old who'd been found dead in his trailer in 2007.
28:50Did Inman know anything?
28:56There's another case I want to talk to you about.
28:58The clock is running.
29:00If you can help us on that murder.
29:02I have no idea on that, at all.
29:05I do not.
29:06He and me...
29:08Stoney was murdering us quite some time ago.
29:11How did you hear about it?
29:13First, I was, uh, laying down and I got a phone call.
29:18And, um, the, uh, my dad told me.
29:24That's how I first found out.
29:26Six hours after William had asked Chief West for help,
29:29he had confessed to killing Ricky Flores.
29:31Now he was a suspect in another murder.
29:34But how would detectives get the evidence for that crime,
29:37if indeed he was guilty?
29:39Oh my God, I can't believe this.
29:41I've got to go away from murder.
29:42I love you.
29:43I fucking can't.
29:54What else had happened in the William Inman story?
29:57Stoney McGarriga was a loner who lived out in the woods near St. John's.
30:01His ranch was right next door to Ricky's.
30:04Real estate salesman Louis Leroux helped buy the property for him.
30:08Stoney, um, I met him when he first came up to St. John's.
30:13He was a character, and he didn't trust a whole lot of people.
30:18And if you betrayed his trust, then, oh, all hell broke loose.
30:24And, um, anyway, if you made him mad, he'd get in your face,
30:28he'd go nose to nose with you, and he'd scream at you.
30:31And, oh, gosh, he was dramatic.
30:33But he was a character, and he was a caring type of character once you were in his inner circle.
30:41Unpopular with many, Stoney McGarriga had faced some difficult times.
30:45He'd lost his wife and a young son in a tragic accident.
30:48As a result, he was depressed and an alcoholic by 2007.
30:53He mentioned suicide to his friend Louis on numerous occasions,
30:56said he was drinking himself to death.
30:58He would not touch a $50 bill.
31:01Because when he lost his wife and his two sons many years earlier,
31:06he had been hoarding money, and all he had was $50 bills.
31:10And so that freaked him out.
31:12He wouldn't accept it for payment.
31:14He wouldn't carry it.
31:16Stoney, mistrusting of the bank, hoarded money in his home.
31:21People, including William Inman, knew all about that.
31:24One day in 2007, Louis LaRue was to be plunged into a drama all of his own.
31:30I had been out of town during that day.
31:34I'd been up in Pinetop.
31:35And a couple of people had contacted me and said,
31:39hey, we need to get a hold of Stoney.
31:41He's not responding.
31:42He's not getting back with us.
31:43We're concerned about him.
31:46Louis headed out to the ranch.
31:49So I went in there and I found him.
31:52He was laying on his right side like he always slept with his arm up above the blanket.
31:57And then when I got over to him, he was kind of gray color and cold and stiff.
32:03I realized he was dead.
32:06Not expecting anybody to be murdered.
32:08Nobody had been murdered in St. John's in decades and decades.
32:12The real estate salesman was in for a shock.
32:16Stoney McGarriguer was shot in his bed while he was sleeping.
32:22He had been murdered and been shot.
32:26And the homicide had gone unsolved since 2007.
32:29Detectives knew Inman was a neighbor of McGarriguer.
32:33When still talking after the Flores revelations, one officer threw out a question.
32:38Back to the Stoney deal.
32:41You don't know anything about that?
32:42No, sir.
32:43Help yourself out.
32:44No, sir.
32:45No knowledge of that murder at all.
32:49A reward had been offered for information about the death of Stoney.
32:52Willie knew all about it.
32:54He would certainly have cooperated if he could.
32:57If I did, I'd be collecting the money.
32:59Me and my brother did.
33:01What did you say, you and your brother?
33:03Me and my brother were trying to figure out who did because we wanted the money.
33:08Because we were hurting bad at that time.
33:10Right.
33:11With a population of just 3,200, St. John's had two murders on its hands.
33:19And only one solved.
33:21St. John's, you never expected anything like that.
33:25It's just a nice little community when the phrase is,
33:30St. John's is a town of friendly neighbors.
33:33And that's pretty well what it is.
33:36To have something like that happen is shocking.
33:40Investigators had come up with nothing over the two years
33:43since the murder of Stoney McGarrager.
33:45But for now, they asked no more of Willie Inman.
33:49Soon, at a case review, Willie Inman's name came up
33:52in relation to an old motoring offense.
33:54And another mystery was born.
33:56Willie had been stopped in a Camaro.
33:58A really nice Camaro.
33:59No plates and the car had been impounded.
34:02And, but the car was, I believe the car was still impounded.
34:07Nobody had taken it out.
34:08That had been months prior to this.
34:10Prior to Ricky being missing.
34:12And we started coming to a conclusion as to,
34:16okay, where's the owner for stuff like that.
34:19One officer remembered the vehicle.
34:21Gave a report.
34:23I used to see this guy and I think his name is Daniel.
34:26Used to drive it all the time and I haven't seen him in a while.
34:29Daniel Acton, a Vietnam War veteran and another whose ranch
34:32was adjacent to Willie Inman's.
34:35I knew that he had not been around.
34:38And people were asking about him and things.
34:41I hadn't seen him.
34:43But, but Daniel was a real nice guy.
34:46Who nobody had seen for a while.
34:49Police wanted answers to the mysteries out in Apache County.
34:52Well, it needs to still get stony and we still have,
34:59you still guys have a missing person that the car is still an impound
35:02and that needs to be, be solved.
35:06And we need to find out where the person is that,
35:09that they were driving the car.
35:11I told him, well, that's where you got to go.
35:13And that's kind of where, where, where this needs to be.
35:17Two dead men, one confession and a missing man.
35:20And they all had one thing in common.
35:22They lived on or next to the ranch of William Nicholas Inman.
35:27They'd got a confession once.
35:29What would it take for detectives to get the truth out of Willie Inman
35:32a second time?
35:33And was there actually a link between the three deaths?
35:36I don't think it was connected.
35:38I don't think in the beginning the disappearance of Ricky
35:42and the disappearance of Daniel or the death of Stoney,
35:45the murder of Stoney, was related.
35:48And if Willie Inman was in custody,
35:50not suspected of the murder of Stoney,
35:52that left just one conclusion.
35:54We have a killer loose in the community.
35:57Was Daniel Acton a victim of murder?
36:00He was missing and his car was in a police pound,
36:02having last been driven by William Inman.
36:05Acton was not the grumpy old guy that the murdered Stoney McGarrigal was.
36:09Unlike him, Acton had no enemies.
36:12I knew Daniel as best as anybody did.
36:16Daniel was, I'm hard of hearing.
36:19Daniel was totally deaf.
36:21Once in a while he'd hear a word, but he read lips.
36:24It wouldn't take long for Willie to confess now that he'd started.
36:29Throughout the interview with Chief Steve West, Willie seemed eager to please.
36:33He was a good guy.
36:34He'd wanted to help Ricky, the kid just wouldn't listen.
36:37That was Willie's story.
36:39Corporal Inman was a former army man.
36:41He could be trusted.
36:43He did give up his rights to an attorney
36:45in order for us to talk to him the second time.
36:48And it was almost like something you'd see in prison
36:52and the fact that he was willing to give up information for stuff on the second interview.
36:58If we got him cigarettes, he would talk to us.
37:01If we got him a hamburger, he would talk to us.
37:03So during that discussion, it was like,
37:05well, yeah, lunchtime's coming up, we'll get you a hamburger.
37:08We'll talk to you about it, yada, yada, yada.
37:11And he did.
37:12Willie had admitted that he had murdered Ricky Flores.
37:15He'd had good reason.
37:17The kid was fooling around with drugs.
37:20During the second interrogation, Inman decided to trade.
37:25He'd agreed to the interview in exchange for a hamburger.
37:28Now he was going to up the stakes.
37:31He traded the truth for his life.
37:34If the police did not seek the death penalty, he would tell all.
37:38A deal was struck.
37:40Willie would not face execution in exchange for a full confession.
37:44He admitted finally that he had killed Stoney McGarrigar.
37:50After shooting Stoney 12 times through his window,
37:53Willie ransacked the house, stole some of the money that McGarrigar kept hidden.
37:58But there was something else that Willie claimed.
38:00Stoney had inappropriately touched Inman once.
38:03He was probably a child molester.
38:06And he actually said that they deserved to die.
38:10And he took officers out into the deepest part of the Elk Ranch to show where he had buried the body of Danny Acton.
38:16His crime? The deaf man couldn't hear what Willie could each evening.
38:21Yeah, Daniel, the main reason that he wanted to do something about that was because of his barking dog.
38:27He couldn't get the barking dog shut up.
38:30Willie ended up taking us.
38:32I remember going with Willie.
38:34He agreed that it was okay for me to go.
38:36And followed him as he took us to the ranch where he had killed Ricky.
38:40He took us to the place where Daniel Ekman had been killed.
38:48And then he took us to where Stoney had been killed and how he killed Stoney.
38:53Inman, the former military man, the gun nut, had been seeking police protection.
38:57But had ended up bringing a naive accomplice in front of persuasive police detectives
39:02and then admitted three murders.
39:04Murders that he felt he was justified in committing.
39:07He wanted to rid the world of people who he felt shouldn't be in this world.
39:15So he had a grievance against those men.
39:19So he took it upon himself to be the one to get rid of them and make the world better.
39:26Indeed, he styled himself as a vigilante.
39:30He was branded a serial killer, a vigilante killer, the youngest serial killer in the country.
39:36He did this with malice.
39:38He knew where he was going.
39:40He knew what he was doing.
39:41He knew how he was going to do it.
39:43He planned it, staged it, and completed it.
39:46So if that isn't vigilantism, nothing is.
39:49And he's doing it for a cause that he thinks is right.
39:52You know, whether it was barking dogs, whether it was because they were a dope slinger,
39:57or whether they were a child molester, or whatever.
40:02He always had this reason in the back of his mind for doing that.
40:06Once he started talking, Willie Inman couldn't stop.
40:09He'd wanted to avoid detection as a killer, but made the mistake of surrendering himself in the belief that he was too clever to be caught out.
40:16Willie, when he talks to you, when you talk to him, he can be looking at you, but you can feel like he's looking into your soul.
40:24Kind of like a scary type of a demeanor that Willie has.
40:30He never showed remorse.
40:31Never, I think he would just do it again.
40:36He was nonchalant about the whole thing and how he went around him.
40:39And almost with a smile on how he killed him and what he did and how he covered his tracks and stuff like that.
40:48It's like any other day, it's just like, you tell me how your day was and how it was at work.
40:56There has been controversy about Inman's sentence. Some expected the death sentence, others life without parole. In the event, he was given 24 years for all three murders to be served without parole.
41:11He's suffering in prison and he's living with what he did all the rest of his days that he's there.
41:18I think what's going to be the most interesting is what happens when he gets out.
41:23So what happens then? And that would be the story to cover to find out.
41:27One, has he changed? Is he the same man?
41:32Of course, he was a boy. He was 21. So is he different? Is he going to do the same thing?
41:37Is he going to come back up into this community and live? I think all of that would be very interesting.
41:44Stoney McGarrigar and Daniel Acton did not deserve to be killed by William Inman, but at least they'd lived a full life.
41:50Ricky Flores was a minor, a child in the eyes of the law whose life was taken by a man who considered himself to have just cause.
41:57There's some messed up part in his head that, you know, said, if I can kill these people and, you know, people can't figure out about it, then I'm obviously doing something right.
42:13You know, I'm taking bad people off the street. That's what he claimed his thought process was.
42:20But really, you know, he was just a skinny, frail boy who lived out east of St. Johns, Arizona that everyone, you know, just knew as the skinny, poor boy.
42:31That it's kind of hard to make your name for yourself when you start there. And he just wanted to show that he had some sort of power.
42:41You know, he wasn't worthless. You know, he could make these kind of bad things happen. You know, he thought that he would be remembered as, you know, a mastermind of some sort.
42:54We really used just some dumbass that, you know, wanted to take people's relatives away from them.