0:00

All right, everybody. Unknown Nine.

0:02

Awakening. It's a video game.

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Is Deja Vu more than just a quirk of

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Haruna, who is played by Anya

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0:45

Out of Sight, paranormal podcaster

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Blake Elrich and his

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enigmatic producer, Lazary, travel

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the country seeking out regular people

0:54

with uncanny stories, those with knowledge

0:56

of the unknown. The

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strange cases, eerie locations, and peculiar

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characters Blake and Lazary encounter all

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2:54

Out

2:58

there. The

3:06

Huntsville unit, the oldest prison

3:08

in the state of Texas, is

3:11

notorious for its execution chamber, the

3:13

most active chamber in the United States. 585

3:17

executions have been carried out there since

3:20

1982. Tack on

3:22

another 750. It's

3:25

nicknamed Pekker Wood Hill. Pekker

3:27

Wood being a derogatory term for

3:29

poor whites from rural areas.

3:32

The name kind of comes from them, most

3:35

of the men being buried there,

3:37

they moved on to the electric

3:39

chair before finally settling on lethal

3:42

injection. And for those

3:44

men and women, sorry ladies, there

3:46

were nine of you represented in that

3:48

total, for those executed and left

3:50

an unclaimed corpse, there is a

3:52

burial ground. It's nicknamed

3:54

Pekker Wood Hill. Pekker

3:57

Wood being a derogatory term for

3:59

poor whites. from rural areas.

4:01

The name kind of comes from them, most

4:04

of the men being buried there

4:06

having resembled woodpeckers with their straight

4:08

strong backs from hard labor and

4:11

their often greasy hair

4:13

standing on end like alfalfa's,

4:15

that little rascal from TV.

4:17

The Huntsville units saw many a peckerwood

4:20

swing in the early days. Sizzle

4:23

in its heyday. Along with

4:25

blacks and Hispanics and you

4:27

know any other race of course there's no discrimination

4:29

here. Well actually there's

4:32

nothing but discrimination here. It's

4:34

a prison after all. Prisons

4:37

are the most discriminatory places on earth.

4:40

A bunch of real like low level

4:42

thinking when it comes to how we

4:44

decipher who we should hang out with

4:46

that comes right down to race but

4:50

I digress. Peckerwood

4:52

Hill is where I walk for today's

4:54

episode. I'm simply looking for

4:56

something new to talk about. A

4:58

dark topic that hasn't been scavenged and

5:01

used up by the countless crime shows

5:03

out there these days. I'm thinking that

5:05

maybe there's something here on peckerwood hill.

5:08

Maybe there's a lot here. Every

5:11

graveyard is filled with secrets. The

5:14

oldest prison graveyard in America must

5:17

have something worth digging up

5:20

and I'm correct of course. In fact

5:23

I'm shocked by the stones I can clearly

5:25

read. Those dating back to

5:27

the early 80s. I'm surprised

5:29

that I don't recognize even one of

5:31

these names. Oh but

5:33

wait there's David Lee Spence of

5:35

the Lake Waco Murders and

5:38

now we're cooking. Here's Kenneth McDuff whom

5:40

I covered in episode 29 of Dark

5:42

Topic the Broomstick Killer but

5:44

truly as I look around

5:46

I don't see a lot of names

5:48

here or any that the true crime

5:50

consumer let alone the general population would

5:53

immediately recognize or recall. So

5:56

let's just pick one, shall we? Let

5:59

me just... take a few more steps, dig

6:02

in with my shovel, and

6:04

see what kind of trouble we

6:07

can get into. Welcome to Dark

6:09

Topic, I'm your host, Jack Luna.

6:12

This is a true crime happening. A

6:15

random killer. Michael

6:20

Lee Lockhart was born

6:22

on September 30, 1960 in Wallbridge, Ohio. He was sentenced to

6:28

death via lethal injection on December 9, 1997.

6:35

As I go back and research on

6:37

my iPhone in the corner of this

6:40

graveyard, I find his last words quote,

6:43

A lot of people view what is happening here as

6:45

evil. But I want you to know

6:47

that I found love and compassion here. The

6:49

people who work here, I thank them for

6:52

the kindness they have shown me and I deeply appreciate

6:54

all that has been done for me by the people

6:56

who work here. That's

6:58

all, Warden. I'm ready.

7:01

End quote. Well,

7:03

that's nice. Those are fun

7:06

words by Lockhart about the Huntsville unit.

7:09

But that's not get too mushy. I'm

7:11

sure he can't be all that sweet, considering

7:13

where he was laid to rod. Speaking of

7:15

mushy and sweet, what was his

7:18

last meal? Just out of curiosity before we keep

7:20

digging here. And oh

7:22

yeah, it's a classic. A double

7:24

patty cheeseburger, french fries, and a

7:26

coke. Beautiful. Beautiful choice.

7:30

You know, don't get too fancy about it. Just

7:33

have what's nostalgic to you, what tastes

7:35

good, and you

7:37

know, go get your shot. It

7:40

doesn't get any more American, any more

7:42

wholesome than what we got here

7:44

so far on this random killer. I got a

7:47

good feeling about this one. I'm

7:49

assuming he killed. That's a

7:51

prerequisite for acceptance to be buried

7:53

on Pekka Wood Hill. He's

7:56

a Pekka Wood, that's for sure. Born in

7:58

small town Ohio, there's no doubt that Michael

8:00

Lee Lockhart grew up white trash. The

8:03

ninth of 10 kids, he'd later describe

8:06

his childhood as having been terrible. Melested

8:08

twice by two different men at the age of

8:11

six, from the age of six to eight, I

8:13

believe. And this changed young

8:15

Michael in ways he later realized as

8:17

detrimental to his mindset and thinking

8:19

patterns going forward. A

8:22

head injury while playing football didn't help much. Now

8:25

they're teasing from his peers all through school

8:27

years that only stopped when he

8:29

dropped out early. He was teased,

8:31

I believe, because Michael Lee Lockhart was a

8:33

poor kid from a shit town, a shit

8:35

family, and could look forward

8:37

to nothing but a shit life. Lucky

8:40

for him, he had decent looks. I never

8:43

had much trouble with women as he slowly

8:45

began to move away from his hometown

8:47

where he was seen as kind of like

8:49

a little weasel, you know, a

8:52

little dirt squirrel, a kid

8:54

that would just, you know, steal your mom's

8:57

purse when you invited him

8:59

over, who

9:02

would dip his fingers into the

9:04

pie that's on the sill, say, who

9:07

would try to dip

9:09

those same sticky fingers into your

9:11

sister. He joined the army and was

9:14

stationed in South Korea. This

9:16

military career was short-lived, and

9:18

he received a general discharge only a year and

9:20

a half in to this

9:22

military career as a combat engineer.

9:25

He was a thief, a sociopath,

9:28

and nobody from home wanted much to do with him

9:31

by the time he reached early adulthood and

9:33

by the time he got back from this

9:35

short stint in the military. He did get

9:37

married when he got back to an Ohio

9:39

girl from Toledo, I believe. They

9:41

had a daughter together. But in

9:43

August of 1984, in his mid-20s, something snapped. Lockhart

9:48

visited a suicide prevention center in

9:50

Toledo, saying he'd been having

9:53

suicidal thoughts and that his drug and

9:55

alcohol use was out of hand. He's

9:57

placed in a psychiatric hospital for treatment. But

10:00

his family soon convinced him to leave

10:02

that center. It's one of

10:05

those situations where everyone feels uncomfortable with

10:07

his struggles as they may reflect on

10:09

them somehow. This is a

10:11

loser culture, a trash culture. I've been around

10:14

it a bit. And Lockhart

10:16

returns to life still uneasy with himself,

10:18

though it brings relief to everyone else that he's

10:20

out of the psych ward and people can stop

10:22

whispering about, you know, what the rest of them

10:24

might have going on wrong with them. Michael's

10:27

fine. We're all fine. Everything's

10:31

fine. But it, of course,

10:33

isn't. Lockhart had completed

10:35

a questionnaire upon a mission to the psych

10:38

ward. When asked what

10:40

he feared most, his answer was,

10:42

quote, hurting someone else.

10:45

It would take until that autumn for him to

10:47

give up the charade as a family man and

10:50

disappear. On October

10:52

11th, 1984, Lockhart drove his

10:54

wife to work in his parents' car, quit

10:56

his truck driving job. Then

10:58

drove away. Off to get cigarettes,

11:00

you know, that whole thing. Men

11:03

like this, they get involved with the woman, they have

11:06

the child, they think they're doing everything right, and then

11:08

as soon as things get tough, they got to go

11:10

get a pack of smokes. There's

11:13

little information on what Michael Lockhart got up to until

11:15

1988, but it's been reported

11:18

that he may have been responsible for

11:20

over 20 bank and store robberies across

11:22

the South. For certain,

11:24

he performed a stick-up at a Baton Rouge bank

11:26

in mid-March of 1988. A

11:28

marked bank note would later be proved to have

11:30

been used by Lockhart for a cab ride to

11:32

Houston, but I'm getting way ahead of myself. I

11:35

don't even know why I have that written down. We

11:37

will get to that eventually. There are

11:39

plenty of robberies that could

11:42

be proven to be attributed to him,

11:44

but there's little information on them considering

11:47

what his larger crimes are later on.

11:50

They kind of overshadow them. And there's little information

11:52

on this case in general. I just

11:54

stumbled across it walking through this graveyard on Pekka Wood

11:56

Hill. Can we smoke out

11:58

here? Well,

12:01

it looks like we're doing it. I

12:03

know that he robbed a gas station in Wyoming and

12:05

was caught. He spent some time in

12:07

prison. From what I could tell,

12:09

he mainly used up women, gaining their

12:12

trust, charming them, betting them, before

12:14

robbing them. I'm not

12:17

satisfied with the thin research here, but

12:19

I share what little I found as a way to

12:21

fill in the four-year gap after he left

12:23

his family in the lurch. And

12:26

men like this, when they leave their families, actually,

12:28

often they don't leave their family in the lurch,

12:30

they're doing them a favor. They

12:33

weren't that great in the first place, so it's a bit

12:35

of a relief for them to have gone. From

12:38

my understanding, Lockhart left his wife, stole

12:40

his parents' car, and went on a

12:42

plodding four-year crime spree that fueled

12:45

his alcohol and cocaine addiction, and

12:47

kept him busy until one day, Lockhart

12:50

again seemed to snap. He

12:53

was laying in an Indiana motel bed,

12:56

hungover and jittery from his drug use.

12:59

The date was October 13, 1987. Lockhart

13:02

would later recall his feelings that morning. My

13:06

first thought was that this is

13:08

a perfect day to die. I

13:11

was suicidal, and if I

13:13

was going to die, then I was going

13:15

to kill somebody too. The

13:19

previous day, he'd robbed and assaulted a woman in

13:21

Chicago about an hour and a half away. He

13:25

still had her purse in the stolen

13:27

blue Toyota Silica parked out front of

13:29

his sleazy Indiana motel room. This

13:32

car he pilfered from a woman in Atlanta, along

13:35

with $300 worth of jewelry. The

13:37

car type, however, I'm not 100% certain on. Conflicting

13:41

research shows that Lockhart was earlier arrested

13:43

for the blue Toyota theft. Silica,

13:46

probably fucked that name up, Silica.

13:49

In this story, Lockhart had verbally abused

13:51

the arresting officer and threatened to kill

13:53

the woman he'd robbed. Later

13:56

he apparently stole a Red Core Vet at

13:58

gunpoint from a car salesman This

14:00

Corvette is what may be parked out in front

14:02

of the Indiana Motel, though I'm

14:04

not sure. Because the dates surrounding his

14:07

thefts are reported differently in separate documents, I get

14:09

hung up on cars. I just want you to

14:11

see the type of car he's driving for some

14:13

reason all the time. So it's

14:15

either a red Corvette or a small

14:17

blue Toyota car. It

14:20

seems that Lockhart was involved in so much

14:22

random crime across so many states that it's

14:25

a challenge to keep it all straight. And

14:27

that's the nature of men like Lockhart. They

14:30

create chaos. Just when you think

14:32

you've got a good idea what they're all about,

14:34

they pull some stunt that makes you forget all

14:36

the previous transgressions. Then they disappear.

14:39

Then they reappear. Claiming to

14:41

have changed, seemed to have changed,

14:43

before the change in the console of your

14:45

vehicle goes missing, then the vehicle itself. And

14:48

that's just Michael. What a

14:50

rascal. You know, a real little stinker. Michael

14:54

Lockhart got around, and he's difficult to keep

14:56

track of leading to the events forthcoming. He

14:59

reminds me of my father. And Dark

15:01

Topic listeners, those of you here on

15:04

Patreon, Apple Plus, will know

15:06

that I had a conversation with

15:08

Kent talking about how I

15:10

would at some point try to contact my

15:12

father. I did try at Christmas, and

15:15

I think he's gone. I don't know where he is. Nobody

15:19

knows where he is. And

15:22

that's the way with

15:24

men like this. I'm sure one

15:26

day he'll show up at

15:29

my door, or I'll get a message that he's gone.

15:34

But after so long

15:37

with these types, and you

15:39

have so many distressful

15:43

interactions where

15:45

you're built up, they build themselves up, they build

15:47

up your trust in them, and then they

15:49

tear it all away, you

15:52

have to remove yourself and

15:54

just, I guess, wait for the next encounter

15:57

and see if they handle

15:59

it differently. and certainly make

16:01

sure that you protect yourself

16:04

from them. And when you start to protect

16:07

yourself from them, they stop showing up so

16:09

much because they know that they can't bleed

16:11

you dry anymore. He

16:14

was like my father, coasting

16:16

constantly, avoiding responsibilities, seeking quick

16:18

thrills, charming, fun, and up

16:20

for anything, including the theft of your

16:22

wallet at 5 AM after having

16:24

shown up at your door the night before

16:26

with his tail tucked between his legs, claiming

16:28

to need a place to crash after somebody

16:31

screwed him. And when

16:33

in reality, he's just looking to not crash,

16:36

but to cash in on

16:39

you and use that cashing in

16:42

for more drugs and booze and just

16:44

selfish living. But Michael Lee

16:46

Lockhart does something now that's out of character

16:48

for such types. He

16:50

doesn't cry about his predicament. He doesn't beg

16:53

anybody for help. He doesn't

16:55

turn back to a bottle or a drug

16:57

or a small score. He

16:59

instead says to himself, am

17:02

I going to die? Should I kill

17:04

myself? Or should I just become

17:06

a completely different type of animal? That's

17:09

what he does. He becomes a completely

17:11

different type of animal. He's

17:14

empowered by the notion that he will kill

17:16

himself. He decides to

17:18

do whatever he wants as a result of

17:20

truly feeling like this is what he's going

17:22

to do to himself. So

17:25

he will just let it ride. There's

17:29

a relief there. People who are

17:31

going to commit suicide from what I've learned

17:34

often feel a big relief in knowing that

17:36

they're going to go. In

17:39

this situation, normally people are

17:41

much nicer to others. And maybe

17:43

they try to make up for some of the things that they've done.

17:46

In this circumstance, when it comes

17:48

to Michael Lee Lockhart, he

17:50

decides I'm going to kill as many as I

17:53

can until I'm caught. Or

17:55

killed. It's evil. Lockhart

17:57

becomes a random killer. to

18:00

himself, hey screw it, if I'm ready to die, let's see

18:02

how many I can take down with me. And

18:05

as derizive, low-down, filthy,

18:08

dirty, self-serving pieces

18:10

of shit like him say when

18:13

it comes to that type of thinking, that's

18:16

the spirit. The decided

18:18

killer leaves the motel and gets

18:20

into what I now believe was his stolen

18:22

red Corvette and sets the

18:25

stock in Griffith, Indiana for the perfect

18:27

victim. It's a town

18:29

of about 16,000 people. He's

18:32

decided it will be a young woman, a

18:35

teenager, so he

18:37

begins looking for a high

18:39

school. 16-year-old Wendy Gallagher is

18:42

the unfortunate girl to be spotted walking home,

18:45

entering an apartment where her mother and younger sister

18:47

live as well. It's

18:50

not clear how Lockhart deduces she will be alone

18:52

for a while, but she is

18:54

set to be the only one in the

18:56

place until 5.30pm. He has about

18:58

two hours to work with here. Her

19:01

mother works late, her sister

19:03

is busy with extracurricular activities, until

19:06

dinner. There

19:08

is no more perfect a situation for what

19:10

he plans to do, and I

19:12

have to surmise he had spent some time

19:14

scoping the situation in the days previous. If

19:17

not, then I hate to say it, as

19:19

I'm sure I've used this line before, but

19:22

something must have been looking out for her

19:24

killer this day. I

19:26

don't really believe that. I also don't believe

19:28

things happen for a reason in the positive

19:30

sense. It's just sometimes coincidence

19:33

sure can make God feel close, and

19:35

other times, the devil. Lockhart

19:39

closes in. He knocks on the door.

19:41

Wendy answers. She's a sweet young woman

19:43

and doesn't hesitate to allow her killer

19:45

in to use the phone. Just

19:48

after 5.30pm, Wendy's

19:50

younger sister Christine arrives

19:53

home from swim practice. Mom will be

19:55

home around 10.30 tonight. She's working. Christine

19:58

heats a frozen pizza. in the oven and

20:01

sits down to enjoy it while watching TV. It's

20:04

not until an hour or so later that she'll go

20:06

to Wendy's room to say hello.

20:10

But this hello turns out to be a gruesome

20:13

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20:15

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20:29

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20:32

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20:36

I mean, probably not all of those. But

20:39

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20:43

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20:48

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20:50

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20:53

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