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The day is done…and you want to relax. You need a place—a certain kind of place—where they know you and you know them…where you can take the edge off. A place where the lights are dim, the music swings, but it’s never too loud…and you don’t even have to tell ‘em when to make it a double…where the skirts are tight and the necklines plunge. You say, “No such place exists!” Ah, but it does…it’s the Sunset Lounge. Step inside the green door…have a seat at the bar…
This is the signal 51 chronicles Love a Flame in Kennadale. I like it. I'm John Henry. To my left here is my compadre, Jake White, retired sergeant of the Fort Worth Police Department. We come to you from an undisclosed location in Fort Worth, Texas with a television monitor behind us. We are here on the platform of the Sunset Lounge DFW. On the other side of the table here is the wonderful Ashley, our producer. Hello. I've got my mouth full. You would talk to me right as I put a chip in my mouth. I have that. I have that habit. I have a habit of doing that, catching people right in mid bite. It's really good. The sour cream and there's sour cream and cheddar? Ruffles. Mhmm. Snacking over there. Ruffles are are are an iconic American snack. I feel like they're underrated too. Like, you don't like, you go to the Cheeto first or something. I'm a big Cheeto fan. I was actually looking through this stuff for Cheeto for, like, regular Cheetos because I don't like spicy Cheetos, and they only had spicy Cheetos. I was very sad. Are those are those jalapeno Cheetos? Mhmm. Or they're they're gonna jalapeno Cheetos? Mhmm. Yeah. I like those, but I like Cheetos. Right? What's your go to chip? I don't know. Chip wise, I'm not really I don't have a discerning taste, to be honest with you. So, like, when you go to Subway or Jersey Mike's or something? Yeah. What are getting? I'd probably just grab a bag. I don't I mean When you look at it? Okay. Not really. No. Them all too. But I usually don't eat chips when I eat sandwiches anymore, but my mom had has an affinity for these, and I'll crush them. But I love crunchy Cheetos. Oh, yeah. Not Puff Cheetos. The standard Cheetos. You know, I I was too I had a discussion about Cheetos not long ago and somebody was talking about how the Puffy Cheeto is their go to, which I don't mind. They're a psychopath. But well, they they probably were psych they I think they are psychopaths, to be honest with you. But I don't mind the chuffy the this the Puffy. Puffy Cheeto, but I think names would make this better. We lost the psychopath. We're calling. Is it you, Jake? No. It's not me. I mean, it's probably been said before. Is it your wife, Jake? No. No. No. No. No. I I Hell, I didn't even remember the pink orange shirt, so I don't know. That's right. Never remember. Yeah. Jeez. Like going on that night. Whole lot going on that night, John Henry. Well, our let's turn to our last meal where we will not be eating Ruffles. No. Potato chips. No, we won't. What do we got? Jake, let's attend to our last meal. We're attending to the last meal. What do you have? Alright. The Arizona murder case involving a one Thomas Kemp. Thomas Kemp. Yep. Centered on the 1992 kidnapping and killing of the 25 year old Tucson Community College student, Hector Juarez. On the night of 07/11/1992, Juarez left his apartment to get food at a nearby restaurant. Kemp and an accomplice, a one Jeffrey Logan, spotted him in the parking lot and abducted him at gunpoint. The pair forced Juarez to withdraw money from an ATM before driving him to a remote desert area in the Silverbell Mine Town Northwest of Tucson. There, Kemp shot him in the head twice. Why'd he do this? Robbery. Robbery. Alright. Needed money as he tells Logan. After the killing, Kemp and Logan fled Arizona and committed additional crimes before Logan eventually contacted authorities and led investigators to Juarez's body. Kemp was arrested and later convicted of first degree felony murder, kidnapping, and armed robbery, receiving a death sentence in 1993. He spent nearly two decades on Arizona's death row and became known for showing little remorse for the crime. Kemp was executed by lethal injection at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence on 04/25/2012. So today, we're dining on Kemp's final meal. Which is? Bacon cheeseburger, fries, root beer. Root beer? Root beer. Alright. And some strawberry ice. Some strawberry ice cream. Seems like they all have ice cream. Yeah. They do. I'm thinking they did. Who wouldn't wanna die with a little ice cream? I guess. I guess. I mean Exactly. And you don't really have to worry about your figure at that point. Mean No. At that point. Who cares? I mean, I might have ordered a pizza too while I was at it then. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that's on a lot of the list. So that's the final meal for the day. Alright. Who who wouldn't want a bacon cheeseburger? A bacon cheeseburger. Are they fully loaded? No jalapenos on it? No. Oh, gosh. They have an okay. So while y'all are grabbing them, I'm gonna look at this. So it's got mustard, pickles Yes. Onions. Check. It has everything. Lettuce Check. Tomato. Check. Hey. We got this bacon. All it's missing is a little jalapeno. We got this from a nearby establishment that's pretty good. Wow. How may I I'm waiting for you to take the McDonald's CEO bite. Okay. Did y'all see how that went viral? Yeah. Now they're all I I don't even know what you're talking about. Okay. So the McDonald's CEO took a bite of a new burger. Oh, yeah. Our new burger whatever. Product. Proceeded to take one bite. And you could tell that it was not a bite he enjoyed did not take any more bites. Oh, no. Burger King, A and W, and I don't remember the other one, decided that they were going to do it too. So, like, a couple of them actually went and cooked their own burgers and that kind of stuff. And at the end, like, they you see them chowing down on their burgers. They were like, so obviously, we're better than McDonald's. Loving every bite of it. Yeah. Then one of them was like, obviously, our meat's real. Wow. Well, I think I'd give this about a for a final meal, I'm probably gonna go pretty high. I mean but this burger is an elite burger. It is elite. But I think just a combo, I'm probably gonna go with about a 7.5 or so. No. Isn't the strawberry ice cream your go to ice cream? Yeah. It is. That's what I thought. I don't like root beer. I'm not a big root beer either. Like, beer is not my thing. No. I think y'all should take a bite of your burger and then a bite of your ice cream and then a french fry and just see and see how much you like it like that. I don't think I've had root beer in the better part of I don't even know the last time. Twenty years? God, easy. These french fries could use some salt. Need some salt. I'm sure the attorneys say, let them salute themselves for fear we'll get sued for a heart attack. I wonder, are we doing these guys a favor by putting them to death? I mean, it's better than us taking keep mark paying our taxpayer money towards it. Well, I get all that, but My whole thing is, why would you kill somebody for $200? Guy I mean, yeah. Guy's giving him the money. He's not resisting. It sounds like they just wanted to kill somebody. Stolen water media is making a move. After two plus years, it's time to change and keep up with our growth. You can continue to view all eight of our podcasts on our Patreon pages, but now you can get all episodes at stolenwatermedia.com. That's right. All Stolen Water Media productions, Your Dark Companion, Just Wondering with Norm Hitskas, Al Maximo, Beer thirty Sports O'clock, The Clubhouse Podcast, Ingle Angle, Signal 51 Chronicles, and Sunset Soccer Club are all available on our website. It is a developing story, but you can begin consuming all of our content now at stolenwatermedia.com. Continue to find all audio wherever you find your favorite podcasts and some places you've never heard of. And of course we are available on YouTube. You all continue to support us in our success. We feel and appreciate the love. As always, please rate us and leave a review wherever you follow us. Share us on social media and recommend us to your family and friends. Thank you. So our case from our last episode took us to Kennadale, Texas. Small little suburban town of, we discovered 11,500 or so. Mhmm. Between Fort Worth and Arlington. You get there on I-twenty to 287 or I-twenty Little Road, man. Yep, I-twenty Little Road. And we learned in our last episode that law enforcement or first responders took a call on Little School Road in Kennadale to a house in flames. And as the fire department's putting it out and the cops are there, Who comes upon them but the man of that household named John Hummel, who asked what's going on and if there were any survivors in this house. As it turns out, there weren't any. In the house, first responders discovered 34 year old Joy Hummel, the wife of John Hummel, their daughter, a five year old girl, and Joy Hummel's father, Clyde Bedford, all of them had what appeared to have died in the fire. Well, as it turns out, police begin to believe that John Hummel might have had something to do with this, and not only had the three deceased persons not died in the fire, they were killed beforehand according to the autopsy. About the time of that discovery, John Hummel had skipped town and they locate him at a border town on The US side in California. And detectives with Kennadale and the ATF went out with arrest warrant in hand, read him his Miranda rights, and brought him back here charged with arson. Arson, yeah. At least arson first. Still working through those murders. Working through the murders. But we discovered that by the time that the Kennadale detectives and the ATF had begun piecing together the final hours before these murders, they were now trying to understand how an entire family had been completely wiped out inside their home. And they were now working on the strong assumption that what happened on that little school road wasn't, you know, certainly wasn't random violence, but it was something deeply personal. And so, today we're gonna begin to find out what detectives found out about John Hummel's life as they continue their investigation. What exactly triggered these murders? Jake, what do you know about all this? Let's take a step inside the Hummel household. So 2009, John, Joy, five year old daughter, Jody, all seemed to be living a relatively normal, ordinary life. So John was a Marine Corps veteran. And in 2009, he was a security guard at a hospital in Cleburne, Texas. He lived in Kennandale, so short back road commute. Lived there with his wife Joy, five year old daughter Jody, and Joy's dad, his father-in-law Clyde Bedford. Joy also pregnant. To outsiders, nothing seemed unusual in the house with the family. There are no major public warning signs suggesting this horrific murder case in North Texas was about to unfold. But like with many of these, there's some facts that come to the surface. So there's a little bit of strain going on, financial pressures, family tensions growing. John seemed to be coming somewhat unstable emotionally. None of those though remotely foreshadowed what investigate what investigators believe happened during the overnight hours on December 17 into December 18. This attack, if you remember, violent. Wife stabbed 35 times, hit the head with a hard object that we'll get into. Daughter struck in the head. Father-in-law struck in the head. It's a violent, quick attack. So what leads to this? Where did this start to go off the rails? So on John Hummel's way to work in Cleburne, and it's ironic that we were just talking about another convenience store, he finds a convenience store that he stops at. An easy mark convenience store in Joshua. He'd stop there on his way to and from work. Yeah. Josh was just on the outside of Cleburne. Yep. It was there that he meets an employee. Her name is Christy Fries. She worked at a clerk or she worked as a clerk at the Easy Mart. The relationship started to grow and they're texting back and forth, calling back and forth. This is starting in around October 2009. They get to know each other. Freeze tells Hummel that she's married. Hummel likewise, but both share that not all is well in their marriages. A very appropriate conversation to be having with your convenience store clerk. Right? Yeah. So I've never fallen for a convenience store clerk. No, but in the parking lot. On the way to Calmont. Just kidding. So this this relationship I don't remember either. Starts to blossom, if you will. And it looks like both parties, both Christie and John are telling each other, hey, we're gonna get a divorce and now we're going to get together. So Freeze is still I don't how play the safe. I don't know how to frame this, but basically says, Hey, I don't want this to be any kind of relationship, just a friendship. That's all that this is. Yet, they exchange what's described as sexually explicit text messages. And then they have sex on December 10. So, I guess she changed her mind, the case may be, Some I don't people have different ideas of what friendship means. Perhaps you're right there. Could be the Friends with benefits. So, after this after this intercourse, Hummel tells Freeze, hey. Just thought this would be worthy of you knowing. I have, you know, the five year old daughter and my wife is pregnant. Uh-oh. Turns out she's fourteen or fifteen weeks pregnant. Yeah, fourteen, fifteen weeks pregnant. So Freeze is like, Hey, pump the brakes. We're not gonna do this anymore. Stop contacting me. Don't talk to me, etcetera. Hummel doesn't heed that advice. They continue talking, calling, texting, etcetera. On December 16, so The day before. The date yeah. The day before, Freeze tells Hummel that her divorce had been finalized. So perhaps this is what sped this process up, this tragedy up, I should say. Mhmm. Hummel actually got to and where this will become relevant is so Hummel stops at the easy mart in Joshua, and he also has another spot that he stops at. It's a restaurant called the huddle house. Don't know anything about it. Never been But he meets one of the employees there, and he was a regular. So he would come in on his way to and from work. Most of the time he's in a uniform. He would sit in a booth. It seems kind of like a what's the other breakfast? Waffle House? Waffle House. It seems like a Waffle House set up, right? So he sits in this booth and he works midnight hours, so he probably gets there either at 9PM or 5AM, Could probably kind of an empty restaurant. And so he and he gets to know one of the employees there. He's talkative. He'd strike up conversations with her. So that's how he's described. So, we go back to Hummel is now in custody. So, he's been trans transferred back to no. I'm sorry. He's still in San Diego. So, you have the the Texas investigators in San Diego at the San Diego County Jail interviewing Hummel. So, they had spoke with him the night of, where he said, hey, I'm checking prices on my Christmas presents at 04:00 in the morning. Right. So this time, Hummel provides a he he both a written and a verbal confession. But in a written confession, John Helmholt stated, quote, I left the house at 9PM, Thursday, 12/17/2009 in my uniform. Stopped at a store to get some cigarettes off of Mansfield Highway, went to Joshua to visit Christie, sat in her living room to watch TV. I left her house and went and got gas. I then went home, killed my family, set the house on fire, drove around and looked for a place to dump the weapons. End quote. Later, same statement, This is where Hummel describes the act inside the house or his actions inside the house. Hummel stated, I remember standing there holding the kitchen knife, contemplating on whether or not to kill my wife for about thirty minutes. I stabbed her in the neck. The knife broke. She began to try and fight back. I grabbed the baseball bat and hit her in the head repeatedly until she fell on the ground. Then I grabbed some of my other knives and swords and began stabbing her. I then killed my father-in-law and daughter by striking them in the head with a baseball bat. Then I set the fires. This is no ordinary simple murder. I mean, he legitimately annihilated his entire family. His wife, his daughter, his unborn child. Yeah. There's actually four victims in this whole thing. Yeah, there really are, right? I mean, so he spells it out. So detectives, you know, this is any other case. I mean, they want to gather as much evidence as they can. So detectives continued to comb through the evidence that they had collected. Now they have his confession. They ultimately find a dumpster in Arlington at an auto parts store. In the dumpster, investigators found numerous weapons, a bat, several swords, a dagger, a kitchen knife. The other thing from an evidence perspective, if you remember when the night of the fire, he goes to the Kennandale Police Station, the ATF investigator, special agent's talking to him, and he notices blood on his pants. They do the clothes exchange. Yeah. DNA evidence. On Had it on his socks too. Yeah. Yeah. So that DNA evidence match was a match to Joy Hummel on his sock and pants. So it was her blood that was on his sock and on his pants. DNA evidence also found on the bat was a match to his five year old daughter, Jody. So at some point there was some kind of transfer, probably a blood transfer on that bat. So that DNA evidence corroborates what he says as well. All right. So the case is being prepared for trial. Defense attorneys began building a picture of their own of John Hummel. Naturally, of course, they will make the case that he's not a monster hiding in plain sight, but rather a psychologically damaged man. One whose military service changed him. And this is a case that supporters and later death penalty opponents would argue that he suffered from significant mental health problems connected to trauma and emotional instability. Psychological experts were poorly diagnosed personality disorders and described severe emotional dysfunction in John Hummel. Some advocates will later argue that Hummel displayed symptoms consistent with trauma experienced during his military service. Others meanwhile claim years of untreated mental illness contributed to the murders. But prosecutors rejected attempts to frame the killings primarily as mental health tragedy. And the reason they did so is because the evidence suggested planning. The murders involved multiple victims. The house was intentionally burned afterward. And moreover, Hummel fled the state. He knew he was in trouble. So to prosecutors, those actions showed consciousness of guilt and deliberate effort to avoid accountability. So as the case moved forward, it became one of the most serious proceedings in the American justice system, the Texas capital murder trial. So take us over there, Jake. So his capital murder trial began in Tarrant County in 2011. From the beginning, the prosecutors emphasized the brutality of the crime scene. Jurors heard evidence describing how the victims were killed inside their own home. The prosecution argued the murders were calculated and intentional. And one fact especially impacted the courtroom and that was the fact that Joy was pregnant. We talked about the three. She was fourteen to fifteen weeks pregnant at this time, at the time of the murder. So what makes a capital case in Texas? Well, there's a few things and this one would certainly be the I don't know. Well, murdered a police officer. Yeah. The five year old in this case, right? That, you know, this wasn't in the commission of another felony, like a robbery or something like that. It wasn't a police officer, but you had a five year old. You could also have somebody at 65 and over, but this one would be the five year old. There was also arson though too. Oh, yeah. So that would be yeah. And it's kinda like the one that we had in Bridgeport, actually. Yeah. Very similar. I didn't even think about the two and two together Yeah. I do think one thing that's changed now in Texas would be the fetus. I don't know exactly how it's written, I don't want to go down the rabbit hole of, you know, whatever that entails. But I think in this case, based off the arson, you've got the five year old, there's a couple of things Yeah, that could well now you say that, I believe the fetus is a factor in I think it is, yeah. The capital crime. Yeah. The state in this case is going after, they want the death penalty. It's gruesome. It's brutal. It had a lot of attention, media attention back in the day, if you remember. It was pretty well covered. As testimony unfolded, prosecutors presented physical evidence, forensic findings, and details from Hummel's confession. I mean, he seemed to be an open book, you know, when he apprehended, I mean, spelled it out. Yep. The defense though, does what the defense does and they try to humanize him. They don't want him to look like this monster who completely wiped out his entire family and tried to burn their remains. They argued Hummel was mentally disturbed, emotionally damaged, and psychologically broken long before the murders occurred. In fact, defense called upon numerous witnesses from Hummel's childhood and school. Hummel, one of the witnesses, was a special education teacher that had him for all four years. Hummel was described as being academically challenged. I think she said something along the lines that he was a horrible speller, but he wasn't a bad kid. He wasn't disruptive or anything of the sorts. He just had some academic challenges. Friends described Hummel as quiet. One prevailing theme that he was a gamer, video game guy, and was into Dungeons and Dragons. Mhmm. Did you play a little Dungeons and Dragons when you were growing up? I did not play Dungeons and Dragons when I no. I don't even have the slightest idea how the game works. Do you think I have the attention span for a game like Dungeons and Dragons? I do not. Yes. You know this. You know this about me. But so but the emotional weight of the crime scene evidence, it it was overwhelming. The defense tries. They're gonna try to minimize his him being a monster in essence and blame it on these other facts growing up. I mean, he did seem, you know, some of the witnesses they called, I mean, for lack of a better word term, he seemed like he was a little bit weird when he was younger. But he did. I mean, served four years in the Marine Corps. I mean, he was there was nothing about his discharge in the Marine Corps, you know, being under controversy or anything like that. So, I mean, you know, getting into the military, Marine specifically, I guess, they undergo emotional testing. Yeah, I'm sure there's, I don't know the process, but I mean, there's gotta be something. I mean, I'm looking it up here, there's questions about depression, anxiety, ADHD, substance abuse, suicidal thoughts, counseling history, medications, and psychiatric hospitalizations. Review of medical records, interviews if red flags appear. So stress tolerance, emotional regulation, impulse control, aggression, adaptability, team orientation. So at one time he was at least given some sort of rudimentary exam about his emotional emotional order structure. Well, think this is where the details come into play though. Mhmm. So remember the restaurant it goes to. Been there multiple times, many times. And the employee there described him. They would have him to conversate. Never described him as being abnormal. Yeah. And the months or year, however long it was that he interacted was going with her. Right. So, I mean, I think you have that detail. You've got, you know, Freeze didn't describe him as as being different or strange per se. She was presumably in love with him. Right. Now, of course, we know Right. How that works sometimes. You got you got gals who fall in love with, you know, Charlie Manson Yeah. You got that. Prison. Yeah. Anyway. I don't like I said, I I mean, I I see where they're coming from. They wanna try to paint him out to be, you know, the like I said, a little bit maybe a little bit socially awkward Yeah. When he was younger. But, I mean, again, nothing that was paramount that was gonna flip the flip the script necessarily that the prosecution was presenting. So ultimately Ultimately, he's got this problem with this other woman is what he's Yeah. That's what it boils down to. You know. And he wants to be with her. Right. So what happens ultimately? He's convicted of capital murder. So next up, the punishment phase, life in prison or death. Yeah. So at Texas trials, you know, of course, there's two phases in these trials. One is guilt or innocence. And after that's determined that one is guilty, then you go to the second phase and you hear from testimony from all sorts of other witnesses, both parties put on completely different cases to determine his or her, his or her, punishment. Mhmm. So where do we go from there? Well, you got the death penalty process. Mhmm. Texas Texas has a reputation. I don't know if you know it or not as loving their death penalty. I don't know if that's fair or not. I'm of your thoughts on this. The death penalty itself? Well, I think it depends, know. We just got done with this Athena Strand And case Tanner Horton was given the death penalty. So my thoughts are, I wonder if the death penalty is not a reprieve from a harsher sentence of living your life in prison amongst all the other like minded criminal element, which sounds to me like it would be pure hell. I would think so. You would hope so. Now, now you and I now us three here are, I should say, reasonable, well adapted people. We're not a criminal element, not a criminal set that they might, somebody said to me this weekend, hey, they might enjoy. They might have friends in there. Charlie Manson was a guy who couldn't, he was miserable outside of prison. He'd been in prison for so long that the only way he could survive and knew how to live was to be incarcerated. So there's that other part of it. But to me I think it would be hell on earth to be locked up in prison for the rest of your life. I think that's work. I think the death penalty, especially the way we do it, this nice little soft drip drip, the IV stuff, it's a pretty easy way to go. I'll say this. I hope that at least mister Horn has a very justified roommate. Well, see, here's the other thing about the death row in Texas. They have no roommates. They're they're they're, they're confined individually in their own cells, and they Oh, well. They get out like That stinks. They get out like one hour a day, and I think they're completely isolated Oh, that's insane. I was really hoping he would get put with somebody who's like Yeah. Well, so so the prison system also has that reputation of treating child predators and murderers really Yeah. I mean So there's also that part of it. He deserves the worst of the worst of the worst, even more so than, like, if you could make if you could make suffering happen, that person deserves it, which is probably why they gave him the death penalty. It's probably more humane for him, but at the same time, whatever, animals need to be put down. Yeah. And he he clearly I know that that to me sound inhumane, but you know, like, going back right quick, you know, Utah brought back The firing squad. Firing last year, two years ago, or five years ago. I don't know. I can't keep up the time. I think they have a row of shooters maybe. Yeah, they do. So no one knows exactly who kills the the guy. So somebody the the others are blank? Some of them might be. I don't know. They all might be. I don't know. But no one knows who has the the wet the They better they better be light wires. Actually, they better be a good aim. Yeah. That's what I'm thinking too. That's how well, they're sharpshooters. I'm sure. They're not they're not got me out there. You know? Sometimes they miss. Well, that's what well, I know that's why I bet there's more than one who has. Yeah. You're telling right. Shocked they don't use, like, automated, like, firing where then it's not a person that does it. It's just press of a button. Yeah. And that's the other thing about death penalty for me is like the person who has to actually do it. I think that's inhumane as well. But Gary Gilmore, put to death by the firing squad in Utah in 1970, maybe '80. The crime was in '76 and I think he was executed in '80 by firing squad. Begged for them to to to call off all appeals. Put me in front of the firing squad. I want to die. Please. And and, you know, the ACLU and all the other groups, he had a girlfriend I think was trying to help him, whatever. Kept filing these appeals on his behalf and he did not want them whatsoever. He wanted to go before the firing squad and get it over with. Right. And so that's what I tend to think about the death penalty is. It's a humane way to it's more humane than being locked up with a bunch of animals. I'll say this. I think, I'm getting really tired of all of these people who do bad things. They know they do bad things. There's a reason they did it on top of that, and then go try to plead insanity. Yeah. I have a big problem with that. Like, I'm getting very tired of seeing all these people who were not insane when they did it. They felt justified in their actions pleading insanity or saying they're autistic or whatever it is, trying to get out of whatever it is that they've done that they knew was wrong from the beginning. Yeah, and that Tanner Horner obviously knew it was Yeah, well, that was his claim. Had an autism Yeah, that he was autistic. Well, then he also pulled split personality. Joel Yeah. He he was telling his his invisible friend or make believe friend that he was talking to him on the way over there or something. I forget what he said. But but anyway yeah. So so we do go to the death penalty to the death penalty. So off to death row, Texas death row, Huntsville, Hummel goes. This again, this is 2011, and you know these things take years. Some of them seem to I don't you know, I think the one in Irving where the Irving police officer was killed, I think some of those were put to death in under a decade maybe. So, yeah. So so I'd pulled some information on the process of if if we're ready to talk about that. Yeah. The the aftermath. Yeah. So in Texas, there's there's an automatic direct appeal. Mhmm. All death penalty cases typically move through these several stages, and the very first one is an automatic appeal. And of course, that automatically goes to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The defendant doesn't have to request it, it just goes there. And the court reviews any trial errors, they review the jury instructions, they review the prosecutor's conduct, the judge's evidence rulings, any constitutional issues, and just simply whether the sentence complied with Texas law. Does this fit as a capital case, for example? Mhmm. Importantly, this stage is also mostly about was the trial legally fair? Not whether the defendant is factually innocent. It's just whether the trial was fair. And so, there are several possible outcomes that come from that. The conviction could be overturned, there's new sentencing hearing ordered, the entire conviction overturned, the case sent back for further proceedings. Typically, death sentences are affirmed at this stage. And then after that direct appeal, the inmate usually files a habeas corpus petition. This is different from the first appeal in that the argument now becomes, was the counsel effective? The defense attorney effective? Because typically they have public defenders who are doing it. Do prosecutors hide evidence, for example? Is there any new evidence? Was there any juror misconduct? Any mental incompetence claims? And then constitutional violations outside the trial record. This process often includes new affidavits, expert testimony, investigators, witness recantations, we've seen recants before. We saw one in our last case. Any forensic challenges. And so that phase alone could take years. And then once the state appeals are exhausted, the case can move into now the federal side and the inmate files in US district court, then possibly after that, the US court of appeals and then the supreme court ultimately. Federal courts generally do not try to retry the case. Instead they simply ask, did the state violate federal constitutional rights? Was the state court's decision unreasonable under federal law? And of course federal review is narrower, more narrow than many people assume because of laws passed in nineteen nineties limiting federal intervention and state convictions. I think that was that one law that that that they that dogged Biden all those years. Mhmm. And then the last the the last steps on these appeals are last minute appeals, you know, an appellate attorney files emergency motions, requests for stays, claims based on new evidence, more mental competency claims, DNA testing request, and those can go anywhere from the state courts to US Supreme Courts. And then the last chance, if those all fail, are just simply asking the governor to grant clemency, which I can't think of a time that happened in Texas, but it probably has somewhere along the way. Not I mean recently. Right. And then that can take all of that can take ten to twenty five years. Oh, yeah. That's what it was in in Humble's case. So 2011, that whole process that you just described Very quickly, by the way. Very quickly. I apologize for my haste. No. But, I mean, it it makes sense. It flows. So his execution date is scheduled in the year 2020. Well, a little something got in the way of that. The pandemic. Oh, yes. I can forget the pandemic. So his reprieve, if you will, though, only lasted a few months. Texas reset the execution date for 06/30/2021. By the summer of twenty twenty one, by by that date, all major appeals had failed. The execution would move forward inside the Huntsville unit, often called the walls unit. Preparations begin. On execution day, inmates spend their final hours under close observation. Witnesses gather, reporters, family members, attorneys, prison officials. As the scheduled time approached, John Hummel was escorted into the execution chamber. He was strapped onto the gurney, an IV line was inserted. The final statement is made. According to reports, Hummel expressed remorse and apologized for the murders. Shortly afterward, the state administered a lethal dose of Well, do you know what the medication is? No, not off top of my head. Pin pin Yeah. I would have well, I need to look that up. 06:49PM, John Hummel was pronounced dead. So this case here locally, It's certainly one of the most disturbing family homicide cases in our area in our time. I don't know that there's been too many that have exceeded this in terms of victims brutality. One in Bridgeport got kind of close to this. Yeah. The Bridgeport one did. Very similar. Fires. Yeah. Murder and then fires. Yeah. Yeah. Very similar. This is when you've got the the pregnant mother. Yeah. The the five year old child, the elderly grand father-in-law, three generations gone inside of one home. I guess one can make the argument four perhaps. And even now, years later, the case continues raising difficult questions. You know, this one, you have a guy that meets a girl at a convenience store and then annihilates his whole family in short. Right? So among the people who took up this case on his behalf in the appeals process was something called the Veteran Advocacy Project. Did you read this? Yeah, I read a little bit about that. This goes back to what we were talking about as far as the death penalty. And a gentleman by the name of Art Cody, who's a retired US Navy Captain. At the time, he was Director of Criminal Programs with the veteran advocacy project. And at that same time, this would have been in when he wrote this piece for, I think it was, I think I read this in something called The Medium, he also served on the Board of Advisors of Death Penalty Action. He apparently has retired from this. I don't see any record of him still being with the Veteran Advocacy Project. But he in essence, Art Cote, argued that mentally ill military veterans should never face execution. Now of course, that was part of this case is was John Hummel mentally ill? The jury obviously didn't think so, but says, Art Cody says that veteran, ill military veterans, mentally ill military veterans should never face execution, particularly because many of their crimes are deeply connected to the trauma sustained during the service. And he focuses on two particular convicted capital murder cases, Hummel and another guy named Zane Floyd in Nevada. Both of them honorably discharged marines convicted these horrific crimes. Cody does not excuse their actions but contends society can protect itself and punish offenders through life imprisonment rather than execution. Of course they can, that's the only other option. Cody drawing on his own experience as both a longtime military officer and civilian defense attorney for veterans says military service, especially combat, fundamentally changes people in ways civilian juries and judges often fail to understand. He notes that many veterans suffer from PTSD, traumatic brain injuries, and substance abuse disorders tied to their service, citing estimates from the US Department of Veterans Affairs that roughly thirty percent of veterans experience serious mental health issues. Cody argues these conditions are frequently untreated or inadequately addressed by the VA and are also insufficiently presented in court during death penalty cases. He points to statistics showing veterans are disproportionately represented on death row, making up roughly ten percent of condemned inmates in death penalty states. His core argument is that the nation bears some responsibility for the psychological injuries veterans sustain while serving the country. Because military related mental illness can contribute directly to violent crimes, Cody believes The United States should reconsider whether mentally ill veterans should ever be eligible for capital punishment at all. And, of course, that just goes back to That doesn't really Are they mentally Yeah. I mean, that I mean, he's forming that argument under the assumption that he was found to be mentally ill, whatever that may mean. Right? I mean, that I don't think that was the case here. Yeah. And then there's other people who argue that there's a study out there about veteran stereotypes, quote, the crux of the civilian military divide in which American society has done a poor job of welcoming, of assimilating these veterans who served in war zones. And we do they do a poor job of assimilating these people back into society, and that they often are find themselves completely isolated. Mhmm. And they they they become sick through that isolation. Of course, that is a true thing. We all know that that does happen. But it's food for thought. It is. I mean, I think that Did his if he was male and male, did it cause him to find another woman in in Joshua? I don't know. Right. Maybe. I don't know. Was he I mean, because a lot of that's also seemed to be formed on the idea of combat. We don't know what I mean, you know, we don't know. I don't know what his years of service were. I mean, could be possible that it was, you know, the Iraq, you know, the beginning of the Iraq, Afghanistan issues. I don't know. Yeah. He would have been in his early twenties then. Yeah. I mean, it's possible. I mean, I I don't know. I mean, at the end of the day, I mean, the courts the courts found what the courts found. I mean, you know, the that didn't seem to be I mean, the evidence in my I mean, from what we know is overwhelming. Yeah. I mean, down to the details. Like I said, I mean, how did he act on a day to day, you know, I mean, let's call it what it is. I mean, he found another lady at the convenience store and I guess in his mind, it was worth telling his entire family. I mean, at the end, I mean, so I don't And, you know, it goes back to the question of society. If he was mentally ill and he's capable of killing four people. Yeah. And he is a threat, and he's deemed to be a further threat to society. What is the best way to handle those people? Yeah. You're Anyway, that's That a concludes our case of the love a flame in Kennadale. Thank you for joining us. We'll see you next week. And do not forget to subscribe and find us on all the all the podcast platforms. Alright. See you guys next week. Till next time. This is a Stolen Water Media production.