In our continuation of the State v Greg Lance podcast, listeners learn about the murder weapon found in the Kolesnikow’s neighbor’s yard, how that weapon was (loosely) tied to Greg Lance, and hear recounts of the months/days prior to the murder from Lance’s friends and former coworkers.
At the start of the episode, listeners are first introduced to the discovery of the Tec-9 gun found on the property of the Kolsnikow’s neighbor, James Bohannon. Bohannon claims he discovered the weapon, which had a green chord and a black flashlight attached to it, while walking along his property. After turning it in to the police, the gun was traced back to a Darrel Smith, who had purchased the semi-automatic 7 and a half years before the murders of Victor and Alla Kolesnikow.
This is where the investigation leading to the arrest of Greg Lance begins. After tracing the gun to Darrel Smith, authorities were told by Mr. Smith that he wasn’t in possession of it anymore; he had traded the Tec-9, along with other guns, in 1995 or 1996 (it wasn’t clarified) to Robert Sheppard as a way of paying for a used car he bought from Sheppard. Naturally, Smith was crossed off the list as a potential suspect, and the attention was turned to Mr. Sheppard.
Mr. Sheppard was also crossed off the list as a potential suspect, as he immediately sold the Tec-9 a month or so after obtaining it from Smith. Sheppard told authorities he sold the gun, containing 30 rounds in it and 2 full clips in the case, to a Tommy Jones. To find out the details of this sale, the authorities turned to Tommy Jones. Jones blatantly and insistently denied ever buying a Tec-9 from Sheppard. Even when police convinced Sheppard to conduct a recorded call to Jones, Jones still insisted he had never bought or owned a Tec-9.
As the episode continues, listeners learn about how forensics were able to link the bullets and casings found on the Heron’s farm to the murder weapon found by Bohannon, but are never told how the gun was traced back to Lance. Listeners are told, however, at the end of the episode, that though the gun could not be directly traced to Greg Lance, the green chord and the flashlight attached to it were much more easily linked to Lance.
This information leads listeners to the next episode of the podcast, where we learn how the green chord and flashlight wrapped around the Tec-9 are tied to Lance. In this episode, we are introduced to, and hear the interviews of, three witnesses that were friends/coworkers of Lance who eventually testified against him in trial: Mike Snow, Rocky Harmon, and Keith Herbstreith.
We are first introduced to Mike Snow, who was a former employee for Lance. Snow immediately gives strong first-hand evidence to Lance being guilty of the crime; 16 days after the murders of the Kolesnikows (before the Tec-9 was found), Snow was approached by authorities and was not hesitant to give up his former coworker. Snow said he had met Lance in April of 1998, and shortly after meeting, Lance had told him about a problem he was having; his property was going to be foreclosed and he asked Snow if Snow knew of anyone that could make the property owners “disappear.” Snow said he made a couple of calls to people he knew, and told Lance they needed money upfront and after the job was done. The very next day, Lance showed up to work and handed Snow $2500 in cash and a piece of paper with the letterhead that had a Mr. and Mrs. whose last name started with “K” and who lived on a street that looked like it spelled “popular”; these were the people Lance wanted gone.
This is where the timelines and statements given by the other witnesses start to mismatch and falsify one another; the girlfriends and wives of the previously mentioned men were also interviewed, and their accounts did not match the timelines originally given to the police. In particular, Snow’s girlfriend tells a detailed account of how Snow approached her telling her about Lance’s questions, but her timeline and details do not align with Snow’s.
Rocky Harmon and Keith Herbstreith also gave compelling first-hand evidence that further prompted authorities to arrest Greg Lance; Harmon stated that Lance had approached him with the question of how much it would cost to have someone killed, and Herbstreith stated that the chord that was found tied to the Tec-9 was the rope he had used on a swing on his property, but when that swing broke, Lance took the chord and never came back with it. As for the flashlight, Herbstreith recognized it as the one Lance had stored in his car. The combination of these statements and the connections to the chord and the flashlight all pointed to the direction of Greg Lance, who was soon to be arrested for the murders of Victor and Alla Kolesnikow.
These episodes of the podcast follow the same stylistic trends as their preceding episodes- three narrators take turns telling the story and the same soundtrack is strategically played/paused in the background to build the suspense and emphasize the importance of certain details and aspects of the crime. The sequence in which the narrators decided to tell the story was also very strategic; introducing discovery of the murder weapon before introducing listeners to the friends of Lance, who are also tied to the murder weapon in some way, give listeners the chance to put the pieces of the puzzle together as they are listening to the accounts given by the friends. Overall, this podcast keeps listeners engaged and intrigued, as before mentioned, it builds suspense and reveals details in such a strategic sequence that listeners are eager to solve the case before the end of each episode.
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