IN2018A sleepover with 10 soccer moms would end in one of the
most unsettling mysteries in recent years.
The night started like any other, with wine, pizza, late
night gossip. At one point, they all even snap
a photo together, huddled up in their pajamas that all smiles.
It looks like the perfect girls night, but photos don't always
tell the whole story. By sunrise, one of these women
would be found dead in the backyard, and as the morning
unfolded, the other guests, some of whom were never even supposed
to be there that night, scrambled to get their story
straight. But those stories would quickly
start to unravel because from the beginning, none of them
quite lined up. Hello, and welcome to Outlaw
Podcast. I'm Eleanor Neil, And in today's
episode, we're in Georgia in 2018, where Tamela Horsford's
friends and family were desperately trying to get
answers from local police. It had been weeks since Tamela
was found dead in another woman's backyard.
To the people who loved her, this whole situation was clearly
suspicious, but police didn't seem to see it that way.
Instead, they quickly dismissed the whole thing as a tragic
accident. But the closer you look.
This case, the harder that explanation becomes to accept
the injuries just don't seem accidental.
The timeline doesn't really make sense.
Some things seem conveniently forgotten, while other things
almost feel staged. And taking into account the dark
past of the very town she died in, a lot of people simply
weren't buying the fact that this was an accidental death.
And honestly, me too. The whole team here at Outlaw
have been discussing this case for years, actually, literally
since it first happened. It's one of those cases where
every time you revisit it, every time you dig back into the
reports, it just raises more and more questions.
And trust me, we've been digging.
There is so much for us to unpack with this case today, and
I know that this one has been very widely covered in online
true crime circles, but it's a case that I'm simply not willing
to let go of. Tamela deserves justice.
Her family deserve real answers, and right now what they have is
just not good enough and we're going to keep making noise until
we get somewhere with this case. So before we get into this case,
I just want to give my usual disclaimer that I mean
absolutely no harm or disrespect to anyone that we talk about in
today's case. Our episodes are are always made
with the utmost care to honour those who lost their lives and
to respect the profound grief that their loved ones endure.
And given the nature of today's episode, we're going to be
covering some very sensitive topics including racism,
lynching, taking one's own life, self harm, police harassment,
violence and murder. This episode is created with the
hope to raise awareness, to inspire change and to further
Victim Support. Viewer discretion is advised.
And one last thing, Outlaw Podcast is now on Instagram and
on TikTok. You can find us at Outlaw
Podcast on both platforms where we'll be posting updates and
short form true crime content. Of course, you can still find me
on my personal social accounts at Eleanor Neil.
I love interacting with you guys over there.
But now the pod has a whole unit verse of its own, and we'd love
to see you guys on the Outlaw podcast pages.
Now, with all of that out of the way, it's time to embark on what
will likely be a very frustrating and very emotional
episode. I'd like to start this case from
the very, very beginning because it's crucial that the woman at
the center of this story, Tamela Horsford, is remembered first
and foremost as a person and not just a victim in an unrelenting
mystery. Tamela Horsford, who also went
by Tam or Tammy, was born in the Caribbean in in 1978.
And truly guys from everything the people that knew and loved
her have said she sounds like such an Angel of a person.
Tamela was always known for her big heart and how much she put
others before herself, especially her family and later
on her own children. She had this magnetic charisma
about her. Her mother said that Tamela just
drew people in. Her house was where people would
gather they would want to be around Tamela's energy and her
warmth. She was funny, witty, outgoing.
She's been described as larger than life and the life of the
party. And God, I love it when women
are described like that. Women that don't shrink
themselves for others. And it was.
Exactly this, along with her beautiful looks that drew in the
man that would soon become her husband.
Tamela was 22 years old and now living in Florida where she met
a man named Leander, Lee for short, and the two of them fell
head over heels for one another. Lee already had a young daughter
from a previous relationship and Tamela was the mum that stepped
up for real. She took on that little girl and
loved her as if she was her own. They had a true mother daughter
relationship. Pamela and Lee got married a few
years later and they decided to move with their daughter to
Georgia. A place called.
Coming in Forsyth County now for context, this is the Deep South
and a very, very white area. Pamela and her family were one
of the very few black families around, and sadly that becomes a
very integral part of this case later on.
But they were happy living there.
Pamela and Lee were loved up. Their daughter was happy and
soon their family began to expand.
Expand more like explode. The two of them had five more
children together, all boys as well mind you.
So Pamela and her stepdaughter were pretty much outnumbered.
But it was such a happy, loving and energetic household.
Pamela adored being a mother and she was damn good at it as well.
She's been called Super Mom by those around her because she was
just always there, no matter what.
Whether it was school meets or football games, helping with the
homework, being a shoulder to cry on, Super Mum was on it
always. She was an especially proud
soccer mum. I think most, if not all of her
boys played football, so she'd be there at every single game
with her bullhorn, chanting, cheering them on.
She was so, so proud of every single one of her six kids.
As the years passed, Tamela watched her children grow into
amazing human beings just like herself.
In fact, by 2018, her stepdaughter was all grown up
and expecting a baby of her own. Tamela was about to become a
grandma and she was over the moon, another baby for her to
dot on and adore the way that she had her own.
But then everything changed. In October 2018, Tamela received
an invite to a birthday party. It was for a woman that she'd
only recently become friendly with, another soccer mom.
Their sons were friends, and so all the moms started to hang out
as well. The birthday mom was named John
Mayers, and like I say, Tamela didn't know her hugely well
because they only really hung out on Saturday mornings at
football games. In fact, they'd only seen each
other outside of football games once.
Before and it was about a week. Week before this birthday party
when Tamela took her sons to a Halloween party at John's house.
But Tamela was such a social person, like I said, and she was
always up for making new friends.
It was a no brainer that she was going to attend this birthday
party. Making new connections came so
easy to Tamela, but this was a connection that would prove
fatal for her. The party would take place on
November 3rd 2018 and it was actually going to be a big adult
girly sleepover, which I do love the concept of to be honest.
It was mainly so that all of the mums could come over and get a
little wine drunk and not have to worry about how they were
going to get home or at what time they were going to get
home. If everyone just crashed there
at Jean's then they could get a bit wild with it.
For her 45th birthday. And honestly, that's exactly
what they all needed, a night off to chill and let loose with
the girls. Girls, it would be a.
Classic girly gossip night. No boys allowed.
Specifically that meant no sons, no husbands, no boyfriends or
partners. Just the girls, boxes of pizza
and a few bottles of wine. Not to mention there was a big
football game on and these women being all boy moms, most of them
are very into the football. Tamela herself was a huge Dallas
Cowboys fan. So when all the women arrived
that night, it seemed that a few of them were actually in the
same boat as Tamela, some of them being introduced to each
other for the very first time. But it was clear that there were
two main ringleaders of this soccer mum group, Jean, whose
birthday it was, and a woman named Stacey Smith who had
actually organized the party and sent out the invites.
As far as we can deduce from reports, these two women were
besties. Stacey and Jean were a duo,
almost giving like queen bees of the group.
I'm sure if you've ever been a part of a big girl group,
especially back in school years, you know exactly what kind of
vibe that is. But I think one of the most
important things about this group that I need to mention
right now is that Tamela Horsford was the only black
woman in attendance. It was her and 9 white women,
but she of course believed that she was fully safe and welcome
there because, well, why else would they invite her?
I say that but Tamela had voiced some concerns to her husband
before she went that night. Nothing too bad but she just
like Lucky didn't want to go. She wasn't feeling it she but
she also didn't want to drop out and disappoint anyone.
So she ultimately decided that she was just going to push
through and go anywhere. And by the time.
She arrived. It seems that that, like CBA
feeling had subsided. She was in good spirits, pajamas
on, wine in hand. She'd even brought a bottle of
tequila as a birthday gift for Jean.
Although very quickly, the slumber party wasn't exactly
going to plan. It originally started, like I
said, as a no boys allowed kind of thing.
But John Myers and Stacy Smith, the Queen Bees, had brought
their partners. Jean's boyfriend, Jose Barrera,
and Stacy's husband, Tom Smith, would be joining this girly
slumber party. Not only that, but Jean reacted
really weirdly when Tamela presented her with the birthday
gift. A bottle of tequila, because
apparently Jean doesn't like tequila.
I mean, we've all been in that awkward situation before where
someone buys you a gift and you don't really like it.
You know, you're probably not going to use it, but I thought
it was just like an unspoken rule that you just politely
accept the gift with thanks. And I don't know.
Pass it off to someone else later on.
But no, Jean carried on and on and on about.
How disgusting tequila is and how she didn't want it.
It was going to make her throw up in her mouth.
This was probably making Tamela feel so uncomfortable.
Mind you she barely knew this woman and she was just trying to
do something nice. Quite early on at the party,
Tamela goes outside to smoke a cigarette and while she's out
there all the other women inside start banding together and
taking the piss out of this tequila gift, talking about how
disgusting it is. They're all passing it around
and smelling it and and fake gagging and even though it
doesn't seem like that of a deal, it was how the women
likely made Tamela feel. That's the real issue here.
Did this like jokey dogpile moment make her feel left out
and like an outsider? When Tam came back in from her
cigarette, the night seemed to go back to a good vibe.
They all drank, they ate snacks, they watched the game.
And from all the pictures of that night, Tamela looked really
happy. She seemed loved and appreciated
by the other women, and it certainly looks like she felt
that way about them as well. There she is in her white onesie
paw print pattern all over it. She's cuddling the other women,
she's smiling. She looks like her usual life of
the party self. Throughout the night, when Tom
would go outside for a cigarette, the other women would
come and join her and keep her company, even though I don't
think anyone else in the whole group actually smoked.
They'd just come out for fresh air and to keep the
conversation. Going In fact, John's Aunt
Madeline was living in her basement at the time, which was
like in line with where Pamela would go outside for a smoke.
So Aunt Madeline spent quite a bit of time with her that night,
just like chilling outside on the patio.
But then one time when Tam goes out for a cig, she pulls out a
bit of weed and rolls a joint. And as she lights that up, it
seems that no one really has a problem with it.
In fact, a couple of the other women had a puff or two until
Jean comes outside. She freaks out on Tamela, saying
that her boyfriend Jose is a pretrial probation officer, a
cop, and he could get in so much trouble if anyone found out that
he was at an event where controlled substances were being
used. Tamela completely understood
this. She was very apologetic.
She put the joint out immediately.
She wasn't trying to cause problems.
She was just trying to let loose a little bit.
Her girls get together while she didn't have the kids.
You know, Jean actually tried to joke it off with Tamela calling
her the female Bob Marley, which is insane.
It's I actually have no words. It's just bad form.
Isn't it really the one black woman at the party?
Is the female Bob Marley to you Because she smoked one joint?
OK? At roughly 10:30 AM, Tamela
first timed her husband and her kids to say goodnight.
She actually went around the whole party getting everyone to
say hi to her kids. They truly were her whole entire
world. Around this time, 2 of the women
leave the party and go back home.
These two never planned to stay for the whole thing anyway, so
this brought the group down to 8 women.
Well, 10 people in total with the two men that decided to
crash the party. And now, at around midnight,
this group of 10 are gathered around the table in the living
room playing Cards Against Humanity.
If you're unfamiliar with this game, it's dark humor central.
It's edgy jokes about the darkest, most taboo topics.
Not all of it is controversial, but my God some of it is
problematic. Low key love it though, it is
quite a modern classic. The group played this game for
about an hour and at one point Tamela takes a call with her
stepdaughter, the one who's pregnant with Tammy's first ever
grandchild. So obviously she wants to answer
and make sure that everything is.
Okay. But it seems that this second
phone call started to agitate the other partygoers a bit.
At one point, another guest took out their phone and began
recording. And in the background you can
hear them saying. When's she going to take a turn?
Is she going to read the card she going to?
Read it. Whatever, the game seemed to go
down fine, and then at around 1:00 AM, the group call it a
night. They begin tidying up all the
bottles of alcohol and the pizza.
They're deciding which bedroom each guest was going to sleep
in. Jean Jean, Jean.
Sorry, it's spelt like Jean. So like my Yorkshire self has
been calling her Jean in my head the whole entire time.
If I do that again. Please forgive me, it is
accidental. Jean has a massive house, by the
way, plenty of bedrooms for these guests to stay in.
But apparently around this time, Tamela expresses that she
actually wants to go home to her family.
She changed her mind about staying the night, but Jean,
Stacy and Tom weren't having it. I mean, Tamela had driven
herself there, but since then she'd had a craploader tequila
because obviously all the other women hated it.
They were gagging when they were smelling it.
And it got to a point where Jean just told her, like you have
that you finish it. So I don't think she.
Finished the book. Not all, but she had.
She had a decent amount. So it really was out of the
question for Tamela to get behind the wheel and drive home.
And everyone knew that even she knew that.
It's unclear why Tamela suddenly wanted to go home.
Maybe the vibes were off. Maybe something had happened or
something had been said that we're not Privy to because.
It is quite drastic for her to want to drunk drive home at 1:00
AM, no? And you know given the way that
this case. Ends.
It really wouldn't shock me if the vibes had already begun to
shift and Tamela got a bad feeling about staying over.
In the end, Tamela does agree to stay over at Jean's, but she
doesn't want to go to. Sleep.
Yet she was still on the party vibe.
She didn't want to go to bed. She wasn't tired.
Apparently she'd been mixing her tequila with Mountain Dew that
night, so she was a caffeinated queen.
And trust me, I'm an espresso martini girl myself.
I know that feeling when you've had a couple of drinks and
everyone else is getting like sleepy drunk, but you feel like
you could hang out for hours and hours longer.
Plus, they were all mums and they didn't get to do this kind
of thing often. She wanted them all to just
enjoy this very fleeting moment of freedom for as long as they
could. Stacey said that Tamela was
upset apparently because she didn't have a sleeping body.
I think most of the other women were sharing bedrooms and she
was the only one that would have a room to herself.
And while I know a lot of people would be happy with that
outcome, that they don't have to share a bed with someone else,
but a girly sleepover, that's kind of one of the best parts of
it all. To go to bed and to whisper and
gossip and debrief with the lights off before you close your
eyes. It's also just a bit unsettling
how many instances there are of Tam being left out and
ostracized that night, from the tequila moment to them
complaining that she wasn't taking her turn in the game
quick enough and now being the only one who's sleeping alone.
I appreciate that some people will think it's silly to be
upset over little things like these.
But for a black woman in a fully white friend group, these little
things will have surely felt. Loaded right?
For someone who has experienced so much discrimination in her
life, this behaviour from her friends might have picked at
some old wounds. Even if nothing was explicitly
racist. Being left out in a way and not
included with all the white women, I'm sure it will have had
Tamela feeling a kind of way. But.
Like I said. No one was interested in staying
up with Tamela and people started dropping off 1 by 1 and
heading to their bedrooms and eventually it was just Tam and a
lady named. Bridget in the kitchen, eating
the food, chatting. Bridget was on the phone to her
partner at the time, trying to get him to come and pick her up
because she'd actually had a bit of a tiff with one of the other
women there. A lady named Jennifer had gotten
so insanely drunk that she had to be put to bed quite early,
and I think she just kind of pissed a people pissed a few
people off that night with her behavior.
It was about 1:45 AM when Bridget's husband pulled up
outside. Bridget says that Tamela walked
her to the door, gave her a hug, said goodbye, and she then
mentioned to her that she was just going to stop outside the
back and have one last cigarette before bed.
And from what everyone at the party says, that is the last
time anyone saw Tamela Horsford that night.
So up until this point, most of what we know about the night is
based on what attendees told the police.
But here's where we get some actual time stamps.
John's house had a security system that tracked every time
the. Front door or the back door were
opened or closed and yes it. Caught Bridget leaving the house
at 1:47 AM, it caught Tamela going out of the back door for a
smoke at 1:50 AM, and then the next time the door to the
outside opens it's at 4:10 AM. Quite random.
One of the women named Marcie explained that this was her
leaving super, super early for work.
She had just started a new job and she wanted to make a good
impression. She didn't want to turn up
hungover and gross so she was going to head home really early
to shower, to eat, to get the kids sorted and then get to her
shift. Now, I noticed when we were like
researching and digging into this case that some people found
it suspicious that Marty left at 4:00 AM, especially considering
that her shift didn't actually start until 10:30 AM.
But I mean, given the context of everything, I don't think it's
all that wild. It was like her second ever
shift on the job. She wanted to make a good
impression and also she had kids.
That needed taking care of. We also don't know how far
Marcie actually lived from Jean and how long that commute was
going to be from there to her own house and then from her own
house to her job. I don't know.
I've just seen a lot of people online, and I'm probably going
to say this a few times throughout this case, but I've
seen a lot of people online being suspicious about this one
particular thing. But I'm not sure that we have to
be that suspicious about it. I could be wrong.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
Around 8:00 AM is when the rest of the party gradually start
leaving out of the front door. Everything's normal until John's
Aunt Madeline wakes up. Remember she was living in the
basement at the time, which was in line with the backyard.
And when she looks out of the window she sees a body laying
face down on the ground, not moving, still in her paw print
onesie pyjamas. And she knows straight away that
that is Tamela Horsford. The first thing Aunt Madeline
says she did when she saw this was drop to her knees and pray.
And then she rushed upstairs to Jean and Jose's room to tell
them that Tamela was out there. But there was a.
Problem. Madeline couldn't remember
Tamela's name, I guess she had just met her the night before.
But I did mention that they spent a decent amount of time
together, work like at working, smoking together outside.
But forgetting her name isn't the crazy part.
Some people are just bad with names.
The crazy part is when she goes upstairs to tell people, she
says to John that she saw her friend from the islands laying
on the ground in the back garden and she's not moving.
So Tamela doesn't have a name or much of an identity to Miss
Madeline. It seems that she was just the
Caribbean woman at the party. Not even like the woman in the
paw print onesie or the tequila girl or something.
That's like actually relevant to the night that they spent
together. Even your smoker friend.
I just think it says something, at least to me.
It says something, in fact. Aunt Madeline was weird, full
stop. That morning.
I already said her first reaction upon seeing Tamela face
down and not moving in the yard was to pray rather than to
scream or get help or or panic in any kind of way.
I think a lot of us would have an involuntary reaction to
seeing that. You'd be horrified and scared
and adrenaline would surge through your body.
You'd be primed for action, and maybe praying was Madeline's
involuntary reaction that her body just did.
But it does get weirder. She actually went to try and get
help twice, but the first time she knocked on John and Jose's
bedroom door, they didn't answer.
Madeline said that she heard running water coming from
inside, so she assumed that they were just in the shower, so she
just left it for a minute. She went back downstairs to look
at Tom out of the window again and just kind of did nothing for
a moment. So she eventually goes back up
and knocks again. And that's when they answered.
And actually the first thing that Aunt Madeline says to Jean
was I need to talk to Jose. What I again interesting.
What does Jose have to do with anything?
Why is he the first one that needs to know that Tamela is out
in the backyard unresponsive when she was John's friend?
Well, I'm not sure you can actually call them friends, but
you know what I mean. Surely it'd be Jean that you
would want to talk to about her party guest being face down in
the backyard. The Jose of it all is weird to
me and it gets weirder. People have pointed out that
this series of events from Aunt Madeleine was just odd for the
person who found the body to react like this.
It was a strange reaction. You know to to fall to your
knees and prayer before even checking if she was OK or or
trying to get help. I don't know.
So all three of them go downstairs and they go out into
the yard, Jean, Jose and Aunt Madeleine, and that is where
they properly see Tamila now for the first time.
Jean describes the scene as if Tam was apparently laid very
neatly face down, like actually face down into the ground.
Her arms were by her sides, straight by her sides, her palms
up. Her legs were together.
Her toes were pointed towards the house like.
A perfect planking position. Finally, a good 15 to 30 minutes
after Madeline apparently first saw Tamela's body, the police
were called just before 9:00 AM. 4-5 standing number one.
Yes. I need an ambulance and a place
in my home. What is your name?
My name is John Myers. Jeanne.
OK, What's going on? We had people over last night
who were drinking. Most of us went to bed.
One of them stayed on the balcony.
She was drinking and we just went out, sit outside and she's
going face down in the backyard. It looks like me.
I'm guessing maybe she fell off the balcony.
But she's stiff. OK.
Is she breathing? Not if she's face down.
How old is she? 41 here.
Hold on. Hey, this is Jose Pereira.
Hey have y'all checked to see if she's breathing?
She's not moving one bit. She's not breathing.
I just tried to assess her testimony.
She's completely face down in the yard.
She is stiff. Do you see?
Blood or anything? Where's are you?
There? I am.
Do you see any blood or anything?
To where? At?
From where she fell. I don't know if I should move
her over. I mean, she's completely fell
down. OK.
I mean, can you just check and see if she's breathing?
If she's not breathing and you know she's gone, then just leave
her where she's at one minute. I'm completely not sure.
OK. And that's the only blood that
you would see? That's what I can see without
moving her over do. You know, if she was suicidal at
all. I have no clue.
I've met her one other time. You know, like my girlfriend
said, people were over last night.
My girlfriend's birthday party, instead of having everybody go
out, she had everyone. So she was the last one I saw
before everybody. I mean, everybody was typically
put off the bed and she was the last one in the kitchen and she
was just either waiting around to the ride or waiting till the
morning. OK.
How far is the where she would have fell from?
How far is the deck from the ground?
I would probably say 20 feet, OK, You know, 20 feet from where
your feet would be on the railing.
The railing itself is maybe 3 1/2 four feet, OK.
And what is her name? Called Pam.
I'm assuming that's short for Tammy or Tamara.
Was she there with anyone else? Her name is Pam Horsford Hors.
I don't believe anybody was my girlfriend has cameras here on
the back deck that we can check OK, that I think would have
caught the incident if she fell from here.
It's it's hard to say she fell from the deck or if she was
already downstairs. She was the only smoker here.
And so you think she's popping out from smoking?
Yes, she was she was the only smoker.
I mean, I'm, I'm on the back deck right now and you know,
cigarettes lighter that's had to finger out here.
Are all the people that were there last Saturday, are they
still at your house? OK.
There are four people that were here last time that are no
longer there, OK. And they just left this morning
or they leave last night. We can chat and she's got an
alarm system that gives the lights when the doors are open
on her phone. OK.
I think the last time that I personally saw Pam was probably
about 1:00 in the morning before I gone upstairs to bed.
OK. And at that point, she was the
only one in the kitchen. Much to unpack from that call.
The first thing that struck me was just how calm I all sound.
I mean, I feel like I have more panic in my voice when I'm just
trying to call the doctors for an appointment.
They have literally found someone dead in their yard.
They're also theorizing already that she must.
Have fallen from the balcony. Which was only about 14 feet off
the ground. It's a second story balcony.
It's really not that high. Well, Jose on the phone, I say
it was 14 feet off the ground. And that's true.
But Jose on the phone calls it 20 feet off the ground,
explaining that if she was to get up and stand on the railing,
she would have fallen further. But why the hell would she climb
all the way up so that she's balancing stood on a railing?
I mean, we'll get to the theories and the weirdness of
everyone's reports very quickly, but right off the bat, why the
hell would she be tightrope walking the balcony railings at
2:00 AM? And why is that one of the first
things we're saying on the 911 call?
In fact, there's quite a few odd moments from Jose in this call.
About two minutes in the official release, 911 call seems
to have a redacted section. Now, I can't say that for sure,
so I guess I need to say allegedly.
Allegedly. Maybe the line cut off or
something but I don't know. It doesn't seem like that to me
because when the call comes back in about 30 seconds later they
are mid conversation. So clearly they were talking
during that time, but it's just not been released.
I'm completely not sure. Jose is seemingly checking for
blood near Tamela when the call comes back in and he says that
he found a little bit on her sleeve, but he can't see much
more since she's laying face down and again, he doesn't want
to touch her or move her. Now.
When I watched Bailey Sarian's coverage of this case, she made
a really good point that the dispatcher asks when the call
comes back in and they're talking about the blood on her
sleeve. She asks Jose if he knows
whether Tamela was suicidal at all.
Does this mean that Jose had implied already in the 911 call
that the blood on Tamler's wrist may have come from a
self-inflicted injury? Is that what was left out of the
911 call? Very much a theory, mind you.
Very much alleged, but a really. Interesting thing for her to
catch. So shout out Detective Bailey,
but Jose seems really reluctant to go anywhere near Tamler or
touch her at all. Bear in mind his job literally
requires him to be professionally trained in CPR
and other life saving techniques, but he doesn't seem
willing to try shit. He doesn't attempt CPR or check
for a pulse. Not once did he ever try to see
if there was anything that he could do to help Tamela.
Why? Why didn't Madeline call 911
right away? Why did she need to speak to
Jose that morning before alerting anyone else?
Did everyone really just go to bed while Tamela was left alone
in the living room? And how did so many people,
about half the party leave the house that morning and not
notice her body lying outside? Make it make sense, because none
of it does. The first officers arrived on
the scene at 9:07 AM. There were detectives from the
Sheriff's Department, people from the Major Crimes unit,
crime scene investigators and even someone from the county
coroner's office. A hell of a lot of police on
scene already trained investigators, people who should
have known exactly what they were doing.
Now, this next part is incredibly important because the
way that Tamela's body was found by these many, many police
officers on the scene was quite different to how Jean had
described it. She was face down but like her
arms were down like she just face planted is the best way I
can describe it. So her arms are like by her.
Side. Yeah, they were by her side,
palms up, and he said. It palms up, like to her back.
Like, yeah, this is already very inconsistent with falling from
the balcony. If she had accidentally fallen,
her body wouldn't be laid so neat.
She'd be sprawled out, limbs bent, maybe one of them tucked
up beneath her. Because wouldn't your natural
reaction be if you were falling to put your hands out in front
of you to break the fall? But no, when officers arrived,
Tamela was laid nothing like how Jean had described.
She wasn't straight and flat, arms by her side.
In fact, one of her arms was bent in AV shape, extending away
from her, not by her side. Her palm was facing down, not up
as well. Her head was tilted and facing
to the side, not literally face down into the ground like Jean
said. Police even brought this up to
her about this inconsistency and she doubled down telling them
that she saw what she saw. Tamela was laid perfectly
straight down. Do you?
Remember her hands being fireside.
Yes, and I know everybody. There's different things that
says 1's out or whatever. I am telling you, Jen saw it, I
saw it, Jose saw it, my aunt saw it.
I will never get that image out of my head that that woman's
hands, it was so just unnatural that they were down by her side
and like, and if she fell, why didn't she try to stop?
Like that's my first thought is I guess I would put my hand
like, how do you land like that? And I'll never get that image
out. I don't know who failed in
documenting what, whether the corner, the officers on the
scene, I don't know if it's somebody moved her, I don't
know. But that is what I saw.
So now that the body positioning is officially described
differently by the 1st responders, it does seem a bit
more consistent with falling. Yes, but something's still not
right here. Clearly.
Either Jean was describing the positioning of Tamela's body so
blatantly incorrectly at first for some reason, or her body had
been touched and moved by someone before the cops arrived,
which they all insisted that they didn't do.
I mean, famously, Jose didn't want to touch her to get her
pulse or to perform CPR. He later said actually that he
had touched Tamela. He said that he had picked up
her leg and tried to bend it, but this is how he realized that
she was stiff and that rigor mortis had set in, that she was
definitely dead. He could tell that because he
picked up her leg and tried to flop it about a bit.
But when did this happen? Because on that 911 call he
seems quite insistent that he hasn't and can't touch or move
her. But as soon as they come off
that call, the police have already arrived at the scene and
seen Tamela for themselves and she's in a different position so
she can't have been moved after the call either, right?
Also, can we talk about that leg situation?
What an odd way to check on someone who is laid face down
and unresponsive. Surely you would check check her
pulse on her neck or on her wrist rather than pick up a
whole leg to check if she's stiff yet.
Like it's almost lacking in humanity isn't it?
And Jean, in her interview with the police is still suggesting 2
main theories that Tamela either fell from the balcony or she
took her own life with that wrist injury, which by the way,
it turned out to be a broken wrist, not a self-inflicted cut.
But the thing that strikes me, and frankly, the whole team here
at Outlaw is that they're immediately jumping to such
horrific conclusions. Like in the 1st 10 minutes of
seeing Tamela face down in the yard, they're thinking that she
either scaled the fucking building, climbed the balcony
railings and fell or jumped. That was one of the theories at
one point that she just like threw herself on the floor or
that she randomly cut her wrist and took her own life in the
garden after this party. Are there not any other
reasonable explanations for such a sudden death?
I don't know, like a heart attack or something?
It took me back a bit that they immediately start offering up
theories in the 911 call all together, but the fact that
they're all quite graphic explanations as well.
Especially given that they all said that they couldn't see
blood at 1st until they looked closer at her wrist.
I just think if that was me, if I found my friend like this in
the garden after a birthday party, I would assume that
something awful and sudden and random had happened to them like
a medical issue, not that they had gone outside and taken their
life in my garden after my birthday party while we were all
asleep inside. What kind of a conclusion is
that to come to immediately? An important thing to note about
Tamela's arm that was now extended away from her body is
that there was evidence that her palm had once been face up, but
now it wasn't. There was apparently grass, or
like grass, in imprints on the back of her hand, like it had
been laying into the grass for some time until it was shifted.
But no one, not Jean, not Jose, not any single police officer or
first responder or party attendee will own up to having
moved Pamela's arm. So who did it?
Now, lots of people have questioned whether it's possible
that someone had moved her arm, be it police or someone at the
party, in order for it to fit the narrative that she fell from
the balcony or tripped over and fell.
Because when a black woman is found dead at a white woman's
house, wouldn't it be easier for everyone, including the police,
if it could just be labeled an accident and brushed away?
And considering the racist history of Forsyth County, it
wouldn't exactly be surprising if this was the case.
The area in which all these women lived has a really long
history of racism. Between 1912 right up into the
1980s, black people were not allowed to live in Forsyth
County. Well, anyone who wasn't white
would be purposefully excluded and the county used everything
from racist laws to straight up threats and violence to keep it
that way. To put it simply, it was a sun
downtown and if people of color tried to live there, which they
did at points, they would be met with hostility and violence and
the looming threat of murder. Many, many public lynchings
would take place in Forsyth County where townspeople would
show up in their thousands to watch people of color die.
It mainly started in 1912, when a 24 year old black man named
Rob Edwards was lynched after he was accused of raping and
murdering a young white woman. But here's the thing.
There was never any actual evidence that that crime had
even happened. Regardless, hundreds of people
in the community gathered outside the jail.
They beat him with crowbars. They dragged him through the
town and watched him be killed. And even then, after he was
already dead, they hoisted his body up onto a Telegraph pole
for the townspeople to shoot at. The word overkill is an
understatement here. The townspeople took immense joy
in doing this. After that case of Rob Edwards,
all hell broke loose. White mobs began setting fire to
black-owned businesses and black churches in an effort to
racially cleanse the area and run people of colour out of
town. And it worked.
All 1098 Black residents, which was about 10% of the population
at the time, were forced out of their homes, terrified to try
and live there when their literal life was at stake.
And for decades following that, the county remained entirely
white. Even as recently as 1990, there
were only 14 Black residents in the whole of Forsyth County.
By the time that this case took place in 2018, the Black
population in Forsyth County was just 4%.
I did mention right at the start of this case that Tamela's
family was one of the only black families around and that really
was not an exaggeration. And more specifically, the city
that they all lived in in Forsyth County.
Coming was one of those very small, close knit southern
communities where everyone knows everyone and people seem to look
after their own, if you get what I mean.
Especially those who work in the police force.
Tamela's body was taken to the coroner's office where it stayed
for two days. This is routine.
But the disturbing thing is that one of the men working at the
coroner's office had previously been fired from that job for
posting racist images online. In 2014, Chris Shelton was
forced to resign after sharing photos of himself and, I
believe, another police officer posing with racist mammy dolls.
You'd hope that that would be the end of his work in the
authorities, right? But sadly, no.
Two years later, he popped up in Facebook photos standing right
next to the guy who was running for sheriff in 2016.
And once that guy won, Chris Shelton was appointed deputy
coroner for Forsyth County. It seems that his mate had got
him his job back and his racist actions were just forgotten
about. Unsurprisingly, Jose Barrera,
Shawn's boyfriend, knows at least 75% of the people working
at the courthouse or in the Sheriff's Department.
These are his boys, his mates, or the other cops.
In fact, a good few of the officers that came out to the
scene that day were personal friends of his.
One of them was actually caught on body Cam footage saying and
that he knows Jose very well. They've worked together for a
while. Another interview caught one of
the officers speaking with one of the women who was in
attendance at the party and she actually worked with this
officer's wife. Now, she told the officer that
she was worried about being late to work that day.
And he said something along the lines of, oh, don't worry about
it, I can have a word with my wife and it'll be fine.
He would make it OK for her. As a police officer, I tell you
all of this to really paint the picture of how close and
interconnected all of these people are.
The police, Jose, the women attending the party.
There are so many social media photos that show them all moving
in the same circles. They have each other's backs and
it gets even worse. John Myers actually bought 2 of
the detectives that were working on the case.
Duncan gift cards, which is wildly inappropriate to the
point that it's almost unbelievable and she knew it
too. She was caught on one of the
officers body Cam footage. Like saying that this.
I know this is really inappropriate but I just wanted
to get you guys something. Look and I just went and got
y'all gift cards. Oh, what are you going to be?
I told. Them I just made them cookies.
But then I was told I shouldn't because then it could look bad
if I give you something before the case is closed.
John Myers is clearly not stupid.
She knew exactly how this would look, and she did it anywhere.
That's not her just doing a kind gesture just to do something
kind. That's someone trying to cozy up
to the people in charge of the case, don't you think?
And it wasn't just Jean either. You might have heard in that
clip that Aunt Madeleine had baked the officers cookies.
Girls, what are you fucking playing at?
How suspicious do you want to come off?
Because right now it's at Max potential.
So yeah, there were connections everywhere.
And it makes you wonder, did this have anything to do with
the way that Tamela Horsford's case was handled?
On the day that Tamela was found dead, police went over to her
home to break the news to her family.
And this is possibly one of the most sensitive jobs that an
officer will ever have to do. There is so much patience and
empathy required to do this. You have to genuinely care about
the emotional well-being of the deceased family.
Her widower too. But the officers breaking the
news to Leander and to Tam's sons couldn't have been worse.
Truly. They knocked on the door and
Tam's husband Lee was actually in the bathroom at the time.
So one of their sons answered the door and he quickly ran up
to his dad to tell him that it was the police.
Keep in mind the context that this is a Black family in a
historically extremely racist area of America.
Having the police drop by unannounced isn't just
surprising, it can quickly turn into a very scary situation.
Black communities have every reason to distrust the police,
and that kind of history doesn't just disappear.
I actually think it's important to note that just two years
after this case, Breonna Taylor would be shot and killed by the
police inside of her own home. So when officers knocked on
Lee's door that morning, he wasn't expecting it and he was
cautious to speak with them before he knew what they were
even here about. So they arrived at his door and
they asked are you Lee? Before he confirmed his identity
with them, he asked what is this pertaining to?
The officers had no patience for Lee's caution and just repeated
the question, Are you Lee? It immediately made the energy
of this interaction hostile. Why wouldn't they tell him what
they were there for in a sensitive way, you know, without
breaking the news immediately. It almost started to confirm
Lee's fears around such an interaction.
Since they won't explain themselves.
Lee, he didn't want to explain himself either.
Answer the door and the cop says, is your name Lee?
And I said, and what's this pertaining to?
And he said, is your name Lee? And I said, I'm going to ask you
once again, what is this pertaining to?
He said, is your name Lee? And I said, actually, no, it's
not, it's Leander. But once again, what is this
pertaining to? And he said, well, your wife is
deceased. So he said it's about your wife,
she's deceased. That was his exact words.
It's about your wife, she's deceased.
And I said what? I said no, no, no, no, no, no,
no, no. I said, where's she at?
And I went to go get my clothes and, and all this stuff because
I was thinking this is horseshit.
First, I think she got into a car accident or something like
that. Somebody hit her or something
like that. And they're like, Oh no, it was
an accident and this and that. And I was you can't go, you
can't go, you can't go over there.
Everybody, everything's been taken care of already.
No, we don't want you going over there.
This and that. So I was sitting on the front
porch with them and they're like, well, it seems that if
there was an accident, seems she tripped over something and fell
in the grass and, and this and that.
And I'm like my wife tripping over something and falling in
the grass. I've seen this girl drink a half
a bottle of tequila and dance salsa in six inch heels.
That's don't make no sense. She didn't trip over anything.
And well, Sir, that's where we're at right now, this and
that. Would you like us to, to, to get
her car? And I was like, what really?
That's what we're talking about right now.
So he talked to his officer and told his officer.
He said go get her car. And so they went, got her car
and gave me her cell phone. And that was basically, well, if
there's anything you need, here's my card.
And then he scratched his actual cell phone number off of the
card but gave me the card. The lack of patience and empathy
is just abhorrent. To break the news to a man that
his wife, the love of his life, the mother of his five children,
is dead in such a hostile and aggressive way is just
despicable. I can't help but feel like if
this had been a white family, not only would this interaction
have gone down much differently, but there would have also been a
lot more patience and understanding.
The way that the news was delivered almost feels
revengeful, like tit for tat. You've pissed us off by not
confirming your identity, so now we're just going to break the
news in the worst way possible and leave you emotionally
scarred. Lee didn't fully believe what he
was hearing at first. He couldn't.
He went to go and get dressed, saying that he wanted to see
Tamela himself. He was thinking that maybe she
was in the hospital, Maybe it had been a car accident or
something. Something that could make sense,
Something fixable. But the police wouldn't let him
go. They told him that it was an
accident, and they told him what had happened.
Which, by the way, they'd already come to a conclusion on
very, very quickly. There'd not been an autopsy yet.
No formal interviews with the people at the party, barely an
investigation at all. But they're sitting there
telling him exactly how they feel.
His wife died. The story was already decided.
Tamela had tripped and fallen to her death.
They really shouldn't have been saying this to Lee with that
much certainty without knowing the results of the autopsy.
It's just wrong. Especially because that very
first theory didn't actually involve the balcony at all.
Because at first they were saying she was walking on a flat
ground and tripped over a little thing, maybe this high that
holds the the rocks or mulch, whatever inside.
They said she tripped over that. She was so drunk that she
tripped over that so face first into the grass and just laid in
the grass and died. That was their original story.
So this is a high balcony or one?
Where you could live, you can make it for.
No, I'm not even talking about the balcony.
I'm talking about their story. Was walking.
They said she was downstairs on the downstairs floor, the
basement floor, walking and tripped over something.
Just tripped over it. Went straight in the grass from
standing on her feet. That was their original story.
Fell face first in the grass and just suffocated and died.
Said the police's initial theory was that Tamela had just been so
drunk that she had tripped, I guess like over her own feet and
fell on ground level. She tripped over something in
the garden and just died, as if that ever really happens.
This theory makes no sense at all, but honestly neither does
the balcony theory. That thing, like I said, was no
more than 14 feet off the ground.
It would have been a survivable fall.
When I was young I'd see lads jumping from higher heights at
the park and landed it perfectly.
If Tamela had fallen from that balcony it'd be a broken bone or
two at most surely. And actually you'd expect the
worst injuries to be to her face since she supposedly fell face
down. If we're going by what Jean said
when she found the body, it would be a broken nose or a
tooth knocked out, but there were no such injuries.
And you know when you like fall and you hit your chin, sometimes
you might end up biting your tongue or split in your lip.
Again, nothing like that. For someone who supposedly fell
face down from a height, her injuries simply were not
consistent with that, which is strange to say the least.
Finally, when the autopsy results came back, it revealed
that the medical examiner did in fact find multiple blunt force
injuries to Tamela's body, head, and neck, but not the kind of
injuries that you'd imagine. So let's break it down.
First off, Tamela had a subarachnoid hemorrhage, which
is basically bleeding in the space around your brain.
You don't get that from just slipping and falling gently.
That is a major knock to the head.
And there was also a subdural hemorrhage too, which means
bleeding between the brain and the skull.
Again, not just some little bruise.
It's major trauma. She had a fracture to her second
cervical vertebrae, which is high up in the neck basically,
and it takes serious force to break that bone, either from a
brutal fall from high heights or or something much more sinister.
And then there was a laceration to her heart.
A laceration to her heart, obviously still inside her body.
How the fuck does that happen? Do you know how hard you would
have to be hit in the chest for there to be a laceration to the
heart? I'm talking about car crash
levels of force or a seriously violent beating.
These injuries aren't just like oops she must have tripped over
her own feet and fell over. These are serious massive high
impact injuries. It would have taken a serious
fall from a high height or a violent assault 'cause them then
adding bruises and abrasions all over her face, her arms, her
wrists, her legs, and even a dislocated wrist.
And I'm sorry, but that just doesn't sound like someone who
has just tripped over a second floor balcony railing, does it?
And what's even more insane is that they didn't even check for
signs of sexual assault. No sexual assault kit, no
fingernail clippings, not even a basic DNA swab.
How can you even begin to rule something out when you haven't
even done the basic checks? The toxicology report report
showed that Tamela's blood alcohol level was at 0.238,
which is nearly three times the legal driving limit.
And of course, she also had traces of THC in her system.
And these things do all line up with what people had said about
the night. But there's more in that
toxicology report that doesn't line up.
They found Xanax in her system. Pamela was never known to do
Xanax. She wasn't prescribed it.
No one around her was prescribed it.
Her family had never known her to take Xanax.
And what was really interesting is that it hadn't yet been
metabolized in her liver, meaning that she'd taken it very
recently, before she had died. So who had given her that Xanax?
She didn't know anyone with a prescription, but one of the
moms at the party did have one, Bridget.
At first, Bridget was very vocal about never giving her Xanax to
anyone, even if they asked for it.
She insisted that she needed it herself and she would never
never share it, but later the police found out that she had
lied about that. It turns out that Bridget had
given Xanax to both Jean and Stacey.
They found texts on Stacey's phone talking about getting
Xanax from Bridget, and Bridget herself even eventually admitted
to giving Jean some as well, but Jean completely denied it.
She said that this never happened, she had never had
Xanax from Bridget so. Someones not telling the truth
here. Well, let me ask you, because
yesterday you told me that you don't ever share your Xanax with
anybody because you need it. I've gone through Stacy's phone
and I know you've given Stacy some Xanax.
After this happened, yeah. So with that said, yeah, because
she was, I mean, I thought she was going to have a freaking
nervous breakdown. But I need to know then, because
Tam got Xanax from somebody. It didn't.
It didn't just pop out of nowhere.
I want to make sure it's real clear.
You know, I'm not here to charge you with giving her anything.
We just need to know where it came from.
I knew Stacy well enough that the woman was going to crack,
OK? I mean, she was going to fall.
How many did you did you give her one that morning and then
want and meet her that night to give her another one?
Just say I don't remember. That interview clip is batshit
insane actually. What the fuck are police doing?
It sounds like they're helping her with her story, telling her
to just say you don't remember It sounds less like an
investigation and more like coaching, giving someone an out.
Before Bridget left the party at 1:47 AM that morning, it was
just her and Tamela, alone in the kitchen, chatting, waiting
for her husband to arrive. No one else was around.
And timeline wise, if anyone gave Tamela the Xanax, Bridget
would have been one of the last people who had a private moment
with her. And since the toxicology report
showed that it hadn't yet metabolized in Tamela's liver,
she'd probably taken it about an hour or two before she died.
That's right around the same time that she and Bridget would
have been alone in the kitchen together.
I wonder if Tamela had mentioned to her that she wasn't tired and
she didn't want to go to bed yet, and Xanax could have been
brought up as a solution to that.
So Bridget had the pills. She'd shared the pills with her
friends before, and then that night it was just her and Tam in
the kitchen. And not long after that, Pamela
ends up dead with Xanax in her system.
I don't know about you, but that sounds pretty fucking suspicious
to me. The medical examiner concluded
that Pamela's injuries were consistent with those received
in a fall, and they ruled that her cause of death was multiple
blunt force injuries and the manner of death is accident.
But something really important to mention is that there were no
photos taken of Tamelas body during her autopsy.
Which is more than weird because it's quite literally required
and for some reason it just didn't happen.
In that same vein, the crime scene, well, they never actually
called it a crime scene because it never ended up being a crime.
It was just an accident. But it was also just really
badly documented. I mean, the police should have
treated it like a crime scene because they couldn't have
possibly known if this was a crime or an accident at the time
of arrival. There was no proper perimeter.
There was no real evidence collection.
There were people walking around and touching things and moving
things and contaminating the scene from the very beginning.
It's like they had already made-up their minds that this
was an accident. And it really makes you think,
did the police just want this case closed quickly and quietly?
And tragically, that is what happened.
The case was officially closed on the 20th of February 2019.
It was officially an accidental death, but with no real answers
and no sense of justice. But Tamela's friends and family
have never stopped fighting for answers, and there is actually
something that you can do to help.
Yes, you listening right now there is a petition on
Change.org calling for the FBI to take over this investigation
because as we've seen, there were serious issues with how the
Sheriff's Department handled this case.
Everything from posting racist photos online to their personal
connections with people at the party that night prove that this
investigation was messed up from the beginning.
When not naive and Tamilas friends and family aren't
either. They know just how much that can
cloud the detectives judgment. So if you want to help, please
sign the petition, which is LinkedIn the description of this
episode. Over 700,000 people already have
and with your help, I know that we can get so many more names
added to that list. After signing your name, make
sure that you confirm your signature by clicking the link
in your e-mail or it won't count.
That bit is super, super important.
And when you've signed, please share it around, post it on your
story, send a link into the family group chat.
Don't let this case get brushed on off and forgotten, because it
really does seem like there's way more to this.
And what an injustice to Tamila if we let this ruling remain
unchallenged. Now the time had come for Tamela
Horsford's funeral, which was paid for by Jean's mother.
Actually, she also paid for plane tickets for Tamela's
stepdaughter and her family to be able to attend.
Jean says that she asked her mum to pay for the funeral because I
was upset that this woman was a stay at home mum with five
children. They were renters.
They didn't have life insurance and it wasn't fair.
And while we're on the topic of the funeral, let me quickly take
you back to the moment that Jean gifted the detectives Duncan
gift cards because she's heard doing all of that on body Cam
audio. And I assume it was on the same
day as the funeral because she follows it up with do you need
me? Or can I go upstairs and get
ready for this funeral? This funeral, not Tamela's
funeral, not even her funeral, this funeral, like it's a chore,
like it's totally emotionally disconnected from her.
Mind you, this. Is a woman.
That she called a friend who died in her garden.
Her choice of that one word actually speaks 1000.
But now let's talk about Tam's family.
When it came time for her funeral, Lee went to the Funeral
Home to do a viewing, something that usually happens before the
actual ceremony. It's a moment where close family
members can see their loved 1 privately and say goodbye, maybe
spend a bit of time with them before the service.
It's deeply personal, deeply emotional.
But when Lee got there, his heart just broke.
What they had done to Tamela's face was horrible.
Of course they tried to cover up the bruising and the marks with
makeup, but the makeup that they had used was straight up
disrespectful. The white people working there
had essentially put Tamela Hosford in blackface and no one
else seemed to have a problem with it other than Lee.
This is The thing is that a lot of people don't know the extent
of the injuries, but I know them because, and this is going to
shock some people, but when I went into the Funeral Home, I
probably scared the shit out of everybody because I yelled what
the fuck as loud as I could. I walked in and I saw my wife
look like she had shoe Polish on her face, black shoe Polish all
over her face. And I flipped out and I was like
Nope, Nope, Nope. And I walked out and I told
them, take that off of my wife. Well, Sir, well, we I'm sorry,
but we had to cover up the bruising and this and not cover
up the bruise. You don't cover up the bruising
with black sheep. All shit.
My wife is my color you know, but yet her her skin was this
color like blackface. 5 little boys came out and asked their
dad what was wrong and Lee just said you can't go in there, you
can't, you can't see that that is not your mum.
Their eldest son however was pissed at this.
Of course he wanted to see his mum one last time but Lee didn't
want any of his kids remembering their mum like that, especially
with that fucking face paint on. But his eldest was insistent,
and so Lee said to him, You're making a grown man decision that
you're going to have to deal with.
Still, their son wanted to see her, and so he took him inside,
just the two of them. And they stood there looking at
her. But neither of them shed a tear.
Not because they weren't devastated, they truly were, but
because it didn't look anything like her.
The way that the Funeral Home had dressed up and painted this
poor woman had ruined the very last moment that her family
could have had with her. That wasn't Lee's wife, that
wasn't the boy's mum, that wasn't Tamela Horsford, not the
way that they knew her. And that made the pain even
worse. Now I know we've already gone
through a lot. The inconsistencies, the dodgy
behaviour, the lies. It's a lot to take in, and
somehow we're not done yet. Let me take you back to the
security system at Jean's house, the one that sends a
notification to her phone with the exact timestamps of when a
door to the outside is opened or closed.
We saw Tamela leave out of the back for her smoke at 1:49 AM.
She closed the door behind her a minute later at 1:50 AM.
But then the door opens again at 1:57 AM, which you would assume
was Tamela coming back inside after her smoke, but there never
comes a notification that it had closed again.
Now I don't know about you, but this raises a lot of questions
for me because who opened that door?
Like was it actually Tamela coming back in?
Because I mean she was found outside so she clearly never
actually made it in, or if she did, she ended up coming back
out into the yard? Or was someone else all together
coming outside to her? And these alerts weren't the
only kind of security system that Jean had.
She also had cameras in the back garden, in the exact spot
actually where Tamela's body was found.
But it just so happened that they were all out of battery
that night. What a horrendous fucking shame,
because that footage could have easily answered a lot of the
questions surrounding this very suspicious case.
It could have given us the clear truth of the situation.
Now, as I said earlier, a lot of this case did rely on witness
statements from everyone that was in the house that night, but
not one of them can keep a straight story.
We've already heard how Bridget had originally told the police
that she would never give her friends any of her Xanax, but
later she admits that she's given it to two of her friends.
As a side note, by the way, Bridget's interviews with the
police are genuinely some of the most peculiar parts of this
whole entire case. She rambles, she goes off topic
as often as she can, she's constantly telling them things
about how much children love her, she loves kids, she's the
mother hen of the group. I don't know she is she trying
to make herself seem sweet and trustworthy?
It's not at all relevant to the case, the ways in which she's
saying all this shit she's being asked about that night, but
she's talking about how she's always watching the group's kids
and warning them not to hurt themselves while they're
playing. There were no kids there at all
that night. It's literally not fucking
relevant. And I don't have a big circle of
friends. I'm very close.
I'm very protective. I have Jean, you know, I have a
little closer relationship with my boss to the point where he
understands my anxiety and his shows and stuff.
I've had time with his kids. They come here, they play where
Daddy's working. I mean, overall, I don't see my
down, my downfall. I don't trust people, though.
Yeah, you know, and it's more grown up people that I don't
trust. It's not so much children.
Bridget, in my opinion, seems to be like an anxious talker, like
a rambler. And I mean, sometimes I do that
as well. Like if I'm like telling a
little white lie to someone and I can tell that they're catching
me and I'm just talking. I'm talking and talking and
talking. And it seems like she's doing
the exact same thing. She even seems quite confident
in offering up another theory, saying that Tamela must have
hoisted herself up onto the balcony railing using a propane
tank as a step stool. Like, how could you possibly
even know that? Even if it was true, which trust
me, no one fucking thinks that that happened but her, that was
weird, but nowhere near as suspicious as some of the
changing stories that I'm about to tell you.
Let's start with Aunt Madeline, because I mean, she already had
a dodgy story to begin with. She said that she saw Tamela's
body out of the window, she fell to her knees and prayed, then
went upstairs, knocked. They didn't answer.
She went back downstairs, went back upstairs, knocked, and then
she finally told people. Well, now she remixes the story
even more. She says that she had actually
gone outside to the garden that morning, I guess for fresh air,
and that was when she saw Tamela laying face down on the ground.
Whenever people change their story like this, it's always so
confusing and quite indirectly suspicious.
She's not implicating herself in anything here, really, but
that's a huge thing to just forget or remember differently
after some time. It is the literal moment that
you saw a dead body. Surely it's one of those
moments, one of those memories that were just ingrained into
your brain. You either recall seeing it
through a window or you recall seeing it outside and up close
in person. Which is it?
Aunt Madeleine says that she went outside, she saw Tamela's
body, and then she ran back inside and washed her face.
This is another addition to the story.
She washed her face like splash it with water to like wake her
up and and make sure that she wasn't hallucinating.
And then she prayed and then she ran upstairs.
And the story is the same from that.
Whatever. And then we have Jose Barrera,
the cop, John's boyfriend, and he wants to switch up his story
a little bit as well. Up until now, he had said that
Aunt Madeleine came up to the bedroom, told them, and they all
went outside to see Tamela together.
But now he says that he didn't actually go outside straight
away. He said that he actually
ventured out onto the balcony for a moment, the one that
Tamela had supposedly fallen from, but he wasn't out there to
look and to see what was going on.
In fact, he insists that he didn't look up at all.
He didn't see Tam out in the garden at all.
He wasn't looking, which is weird considering you've just
been told that that is exactly where she is.
Why would you go out there onto the balcony and intentionally
not look look out for her? What was he even doing up there
if not looking at the body that they have just discovered in the
garden? The only thing he really told
the police about going out onto the balcony was that he had
spotted a cigarette and a lighter on the floor.
He explained to them that he has OCD so he felt the immediate
urge to to pick them up and to tidy.
So he did, and then he went down to see Pamela's dead body in the
backyard. It sounds awfully fucking
convenient, doesn't it? Actually, that now all of a
sudden there is this new piece to the story that wasn't there
before, mind you, but now it hints to Tamela being up on the
balcony smoking before, I guess, falling to her death.
It sounds a whole lot like planted evidence, doesn't it?
And I'm not saying it is because I'm not allowed to say that.
But if this was some sort of fictional detective show, you
know, like a Poirot, I would be yelling at the screen that it
was planted to support their story that she was smoking on
the balcony. What kind of person hears the
news that there is an unresponsive woman laying in the
backyard and their first reaction is not to panic, not to
go down and check it out? So instead to just like, go hang
out on the balcony for a minute and maybe do a bit of tidying up
What? Later on, Jose says that he
would have acted differently, and probably a lot more
urgently, if he would have known what he was about to see out on
the backyard, that he didn't realize that Tamela's body was
down there, which is quite frankly, bullshit.
Aunt Madeline had told them that Tam was laying out their face
down, not moving, unresponsive. He knew what he would have seen
if he'd have just looked up, but he insists that he didn't.
He didn't try to look. I'm saying all of this like he's
even telling the truth, which I personally don't believe that he
is. Like I said, if this was a
fictional detective show, I would be so sure that that
cigarette and that lighter had been planted up there to support
the theory that she fell as she went out for a smoke.
It also really doesn't add up to me that a cig and a lighter
would be up there because Pamela had been smoking downstairs this
whole entire time on the bottom deck.
Like out of the back door. That back door, the one that
John keeps getting notifications every time it opens and closes,
is the bottom back door. It ain't nowhere near the
balcony. Pamela hadn't smoked on the
balcony once that night, so why would she start at 1:50 in the
morning when it came to her last cigarette of the night?
Why would she choose a different spot?
And then why would she climb onto the fucking rail in and
jump off? The handling of this
investigation has also been thrown into question because
apparently the group of party attendees were often left in
rooms together unsupervised and able to talk between interviews.
Some immediate interviews were done on the day that Tamela was
discovered to be dead, but the majority of the interviews
didn't happen until five whole days later.
And you'd think surely they would have done these interviews
at the police station, right? But no, they chose to do all of
the interviewing at Jean's house.
And why they decided that, I couldn't tell you.
The first round of interviews didn't start until the 9th of
November, and then they dragged on until the 20th.
That is 11 days of interviews, 11 days for everyone at that
party to get their stories straight.
And neighbors of Jean's have even mentioned that in the days
following Tamela's death, it seems that all of the group of
party attendees kept meeting up at Jean's house almost every
single day, talking in private. And I can't imagine that the
conversations were unrelated to the case.
And especially when it comes to this cigarette and lighter bit,
we get what seems to be proof that they had all been getting
their story straight together. In one of her interviews,
Bridget tells the police that of course she left with her husband
at about 1:50 AM. But then she goes on to explain
to them what Tam did after that, as if she could have fucking
known. She says that Tom went out into
the back and she left the door open.
She went out for a cigarette. She, you know, she never closed
the door. She was out there smoking for
about 5 minutes and then she left her lighter and her
cigarette outside. And at this point the police had
to stop her and say, how do you know all this?
You weren't there? And then she fumbles a bit
saying, oh, well, you know, that's, that's what Jose said.
At one point she almost blurts out that she had been the one to
pick up the lighter, not Jose. Which what the fuck could it be
that when everyone was meeting up at Jean's house in between
interviews, Jose was coaching them all on how to keep their
stories straight and in line with one another?
He was the cop after all. He knows how these things go and
what investigators might look for.
And also just remember, he was the one that immediately took
over the 911 call within the 1st 2 minutes of the case even
beginning. He has been labeled something of
a ringleader when it comes to the group in this case.
And I mean, I can understand why all these different like story
changes and stuff aren't just little inconsistencies.
They paint a whole web of shifting and corroborating
stories, but for some reason it's never really called out by
the police. The way that this whole case was
handled is just messed up. I have no other way to put it.
These interviews that when you listen to them and you listen to
how they're talking on the body Cam footage, it's so
uncomfortable because they're so casual.
They're like laughing and joking with each other, giving each
other fucking Duncan gift cards. A woman is dead and you guys are
all chilling, just like catching up, like a group of pals.
Which, let's be honest, they kind of were.
Jose knew a lot of these guys. A lot of them had wives who
worked with, you know, one of the party attendees.
Like they were all somehow loosely linked to each other.
At least loosely, if not closely linked to each other.
I completely understand why so many people feel that if it had
been one of the white women who had died at the party in this
way instead of Tamela, then this whole case would have looked
very different. And if all of this wasn't bad
enough, just to top things off, Jose Barrera, a fucking parole
officer, was caught stealing Tamela's case files a year
later. Seriously, just when you think
this case can't get any more messed up, in February 2019,
Jose used his position to illegally access Tamela's case
files without getting permission.
Why he needed to be in there, I have no idea.
People think that he was trying to stay on top of the
investigation and he wanted to know what police knew about the
case. Jose was caught doing this and
he was fired. But still, if that doesn't
scream the level of corruption in this case, then I don't know
what does. Specifically, Jose was caught
looking into a woman named Michelle, who was actually 1 of
Tamela's closest friends. And from the very start,
Michelle hadn't bought this investigation and the way that
it all went down. She just didn't trust the
stories that these women told and she definitely didn't trust
the way that this case was being handled by police and
investigators. She had made dozens of Facebook
posts laying out the events of that night and calling out the
inconsistencies and naming witnesses from the party.
Her posts were viewed over 100,000 times, and
unsurprisingly, that didn't sit well with the people that she
was calling out. In fact, seven of them,
including Jean and Jose, tried to sue Michelle for defamation,
claiming that her post accused them of being responsible for
Tamela's death. But Michelle claims that beyond
this lawsuit, the group has threatened and harassed her and
even apparently had her unjustly arrested.
Now, we don't know anything more about this arrest, whether she
actually was arrested or what they claimed that they were
arresting her for. But if it's true, doesn't that
just prove that the Dunkin' Donuts gift card worked?
You know, no legal action was ever taken against Jose for him
illegally dipping into these confidential files, but he's not
the only corrupt cop involved in this case.
Can you fucking believe it? The lead investigator, a guy
named Mike Christian, was also pulled off of the case.
And he got in trouble for a few things actually, all at once.
First of all, having sex with women in his cop car while he
was on the clock. Now that might seem unrelated to
this case, but trust me, it actually is.
In an attempt to be interesting to these women that he was
sleeping with, he shared a lot of sensitive and confidential
information about Tamela Horsford's case with these
women. He even shared photos of her
dead body and referred to her not by her name, but as the
Porch lady. No professionalism, no empathy,
no game, just a weird, twisted freak of a cop.
There are so many layers to that and it's all fucked.
And it was actually the women that he told and, you know,
showed these photos that came forward and reported him for it,
knowing that what he'd done by showing them evidence and photos
and telling them sensitive information, they knew that that
was wrong. Before he could be fired for
this, Mike Christian just resigned from the force,
probably because he knew that he was screwed at that point.
Then actually, going back to Tamela's friend Michelle for a
second, she actually wasn't the only person getting harassed for
speaking up about the inconsistencies in this case.
The woman who started the original Change.org petition to
reopen Tamela's case also claimed that she had been
targeted for speaking out against the Sheriff's Department
in November 2019. So a whole year after the case,
she was detained by a police officer who said that he was
looking for three men involved in a car accident.
So why the fuck have you got her?
Why would you detain her? She was of course cleared and
released, but she thought it was a very intentional punishment
from the authorities in the area for being so outspoken against
their shit work. And things didn't stop there.
Just weeks after that, Forsyth County detectives showed up at
her house with a warrant for her devices, claiming that she had
sent an anonymous e-mail accusing one of the women at the
party of being involved in Tamilas death.
She said that that wasn't true, and she sued the detectives for
civil rights violations. For both her and Michelle to
feel targeted like this and to have a good reason to feel that
way, it's borderline police harassment.
And despite all that pressure, they refused to back down.
They kept fighting for Tamela. And they weren't alone.
Because once people started hearing Tamela story, everyone
was demanding justice. In 2020, we all remember the
powerful global fight for justice sparked by the Black
Lives Matter movement. Tamela's case became part of
that conversation, and millions of people, including
celebrities, called for her case to be reopened and for a proper
investigation to take place. And their voices were heard.
In June of 2020, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation reopened
Tamela's case, but almost in the exact same breath, they stated
that they hadn't found any new evidence to suggest that foul
play was involved. But Tamelas family attorney
didn't agree at all. Actually, in a letter he stated
that based on his review of the case, homicide is a strong
possibility. He also pointed to conflicting
witness statements, the tampered with crime scene, mishandled
evidence, and the missing autopsy photos.
And that original autopsy was something that Tamela's family
didn't trust at all. So they arranged for an
independent one to be carried out.
And it actually took place on November 17th, 2018, but it
wasn't made public. The results weren't made public
until 20/22. And there are some pretty
obvious differences in the findings.
What the original autopsy described as a dislocated right
wrist was actually a compound fracture.
Now that's a small discrepancy, but it's fucking important,
don't you think? And it gets worse.
The independent examiner also reported no evidence of skull
fractures or hemorrhaging, which is a huge red flag because it
raises serious doubts that Tamela actually fell from the
balcony at all. To this day, the police haven't
been able to explain these discrepancies, at least not in a
way that actually makes sense. There are obviously loads of
different theories about what actually happened to Tamela and
what happened in John's house that night, and I'm sure you
guys listening are already coming up with your own
theories. There are people who do believe
that this really was just a tragic accident.
Maybe she did drunk fall and land in a way that caused a very
unlikely death. But I mean, I personally don't
believe that. Everything else surrounding it
is just way too shady for it to be an innocent explanation at
this point. And why was her body moved?
That's the bit that keeps getting me.
Who moved the body? Why will not one single person
own up to having moved her? If she had fallen from the
balcony, surely she would have flipped over the railing
forward. She wouldn't land in a perfect
face down planking position. Her body would have literally
gone head up, the feet on its way down.
She would be laid the complete opposite way, wouldn't she?
With her head towards the house, not facing away.
Like I said, there are so many different theories and I want to
know what you guys think about this case so bad.
The conversations that we've been having within the team
about this case are no longer enough for me.
I need more input and I just hope more than anything that one
day we finally get some real answers.
And if we keep demanding justice, maybe we will.
If there's one thing that this job has taught me, it's that
just. This doesn't always show up when
you want it to, but that doesn't mean that it won't.
Justice doesn't have an expiry date.
I mean, remember the San Antonio 4?
The case of four lesbian women who were imprisoned after a
corrupt homophobic trial based on lies.
They had to wait nearly two decades to clear their names,
but they did. 18 year old Andy Dodgers family waited 23 years
for justice until her real killer was found.
But he was. We refuse to let Pamela
Horsford's case fade away. Her name must remain in
conversation, the racism drowning her case must be
exposed, and none of us should be resting until we know every
last truth. There have been numerous studies
carried out in the US about the difference in cases being
handled when it comes to a white victim versus a Black victim,
and time and time again, the data shows that Black families
experience a lower level of justice than white ones.
For decades, activists have been calling for structural and
systemic changes to be made to eradicate this divide.
Yet here we are, sitting at a pivotal moment in history where
fascism and racism is rearing its ugly head higher than ever
before and making this harder and harder for us to achieve.
We need to see equality in police investigations, in
forensics and injustice systems coming into action now more than
ever. We need to be on the right side
of. History fighting in Tamela's
corner until it is truly over. In the description of today's
episode alongside Tamela's petition, which again, I want to
call for you to go and sign now, literally while you're listening
to the end of this episode, click the link, open it in
another tab, go do it and also check your e-mail and and
confirm it through there. But as I was saying, alongside
that petition, you will also find a link to a charity called
Color of change. They're AUS based online charity
dedicated to challenging the racial injustice that Black
people face when it comes to the US legal systems, to healthcare,
political and corporate worlds. Their work to expose and
document correctly the reality of Black people's lives,
mistreatment and wrongful deaths has been critical.
Their determination to secure a safer, less hostile world for
Black lives has had the support of several million members and I
really urge everyone to check them out and if possible, to
donate to their cause. On their website, you can access
so much information, knowledge, official reports they hold
online, events that you can join, and workshops educating
about Black history, black stories, and importantly,
equipping everyone with how to fight for justice and secure a
safer society. That work is truly incredible.
So as I said, the link to both Tamela's petition and Color of
Change will be in the description below.
Please do visit both websites. Signing that petition, I'll say
it again, is your homework for this episode.
We give homework on the Outlaw podcast now, but as we come to
the end of this case, I do want to take one last moment to
remember Tamela Horsford for the beautiful person she was inside
and out, as a mother, as a. Wife, but most importantly, as
herself, as the life of the party, as the warm magnetic
energy that everyone knew her to be.
She accepted and loved everyone, no matter what walk of life they
were from. She treated everyone that she
met with kindness and love. Always seeing the best in
people. Tamela was an incredible person
and her story deserves justice. It deserves an answer.
From all of us here at Outlaw Podcast, we send our sincere
condolences to the loved ones of Tamela Horsford and that is all
we have for today's episode. Thank you so much once again for
tuning in to Outlaw Podcast. If you're watching on YouTube,
don't forget to subscribe, leave a like and leave us a comment so
that we can continue the conversation.
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But anyway, all of that being said, I will see you in the next
episode. Bye.