188. Looks Like It's Good To Be Kind - Vaccines, Nasty Notes And The Unkind Murders Of Gail Moody And Lori Arrowood
This time around we have what a 1980s television marketing whiz would call a “Very Special Episode” of the podcast. And that’s because what is normally the intro is actually half the show – and there’s an important reason why. It’s because Melissa has had some things she’s been wanting to say for a while about kindness – being nice – and those things came to the fore this past week in the form of vaccine side effects and a particularly icky email she received from a clearly unhappy person. So in addition to the usual than-yous (and a dynamite discussion on one of America’s longest-operating travel-stop businesses), during the first half of this episode Melissa holds forth on an important fact of life – that kindness is the fuel of any well-lived life. And how much the kindness of you Tip-Sters means to her and Producer Mark. The second half – this week’s case – is about the tragedy of three friends – two of whom were murdered only because they happened to be friends with the third. Gail Moody and Lori Arrowood were both raped, strangled to death and tossed into the woods, three years apart, in two separate but nearby towns in Souhern Georgia. Gail’s body has never been found. But three years later, when Lori was murdered, her body was found. And it didn’t take long for law enforcement to focus on, and arrest, a former corrections officer named Ken Lumpkin, who confessed, was convicted of Lori’s murder and sentenced to Life Without Parole. And during the Lori Arrowood murder investigation, an unexpected connection to Gail Moody’s death was revealed. Turns out that Ken Lumpkin had a wife – Shelly. And Shelly had been friends with both Gail and Lori. And unknown to Shelly, her friendship with the two women cost them their lives – at the hands of a man she never imagined to be a killer. Get ready for a fast-paced, engrossing and downright stirring visit with Melissa as she not only shares some of her most dearly-held thoughts – but relates the ultimate story of a very bad man being very Not Nice.