On January 23, 2023, just six days after William Vick was found dead on his bedroom floor at 1954 County Road 3259 in Clarksville Arkansas, police did a welfare check on his wife Larenda’s mother, 72-year-old Martha McLean, who lived in a detached house on the property with William and Larenda.
They found Martha struggling to breathe with drugs including lorazepam and morphine around her. Martha had overdosed and was close to death, but paramedics administered Narcan, a drug that blocks opioids. So Martha's breathing improved, and she survived.
Matt Foster with the Arkansas State Police wrote that Martha had a pen and a partially handwritten note in her hand when he found her. The note stated that Martha didn’t want to hurt anyone. And after he found her, he executed a search warrant for the property, and he found a second handwritten note where Martha confessed to tampering with William’s medication and to killing him.
But why did Martha kill William, and what really happened to her?
If you have a case you’d like Catherine Townsend to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.
School of Humans.
On January twenty third, twenty twenty three, just six days after William Vick was found dead on his bedroom floor in Clarksville, Arkansas, police did a welfare check on his wife, Lorenda's mother, seventy two year old Martha MacLean. Martha lived in a detached house on the same property with William and Larenda. They found Martha struggling to breathe with drugs including leriiza, PAM, and morphine around her. Martha had overdosed and was close to death, but paramedics administered narcan, a drug that blocks opioids and can be used in the case of overdose. They administered that drug three times, so Martha's breathing improved and she survived. Matt Foster with the Arkansas State Police wrote in his report that when he found Martha, she had a pen and a partially handwritten note, and after he found her, he executed a search warrant for the property.
That's when law enforcement found a second.
Hand written note, and in that note, Martha confessed to tampering with her son in law William's medication and to killing him. But why why did Martha kill William and what really happened to her.
I'm Catherine Townsend.
Over the past five years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've learned that there is no such thing as a small town where murder never happens. I have received hundreds of messages from people all around the country asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities. If you have a case you'd like me and my team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone murder Line at six seven eight seven four four six ' one four five. That's six seven eight seven four four six ' one four or five, or you can send us a message on Instagram at Helen gonpod. This is Helen go on murder Line. After Martha McLean overdosed, she was stabilized at Johnson County Hospital, where she remained for the next two weeks.
Shortly after that, the prosecutor, Jeff.
Phillips told William's family that he was getting ready to file murder charges against Martha. I've seen the affidavit for the warrant that was typed up. All the facts are there, but in the version I saw, it's not yet signed or dated. According to the affidavit, Martha was going to be charged with capital murder. So we asked last week, how exactly did Martha gain access to William's medicine and did she give it to him or did she tamper with it and then give it back to Laurinda. What was the exact sequence of events there? In the note she allegedly wrote, Martha said she had altered William's medication, and then she stated at a later date she injected him with a drug that would cause paralysis. We know that William and Martha did not like each other. In fact, William's son will said that Martha hated his father. William's brother Ted.
Confirmed that Martha supposedly hated Willie and had to kill him in the past. And you know, Lorenda's even posted on social media sides that, Yeah, my mother hated Willie and I had to take a gun from her not too long before that because she said she was going to shoot him, so I took her, took her gun away from her, give it at William Lorenda's house. It's all just unremarkably bizarre that it's too far fetched.
So again we wondered if Martha gave him an injection. Is that something that could have been a realistic possibility, Is that something William would ever have allowed. Ted told us about what the prosecutor told him about the series of events that led to William getting that medicine. According to William's autopsy, he had a combination of drugs in his body. His cause of death was listed as mixed laurazapam, morphine and tramat all toxicity. But apparently William was prescribe some other drugs. Ted said the story that he was told by Larenda was that after William's surgery, William was prescribed steroids, but that Lrenda told investigators that William did not want to take them.
I guess she went and got hit them up, came back home. Willly said no, I don't want to take them. Probably be fine, or actually she said he would probably be fine. And then from that's our understanding, and then later on that evening or at some point, he did say, okay, yeah, I think I probably need to take take those steroids. But she had already gave them away. He had already gave them to her mother.
Apparently Lorenda's mother, Martha, had a lot of health problems. Lrenda said that Martha had throat cancer and was on hospice care, but Ted said Lrenda said that after Martha passed, so we're not exactly sure what Martha's diagnosis was.
Was She's like, Willy didn't even know because I didn't tell him, But my mom's on hospice for froid.
Answer.
That's never been confirmed that her mom was ever on hospice, but that is what she told me.
And I'm like, oh, okay, and she's like dad, but.
Willie didn't know that. Nobody knew that my mom was sick. So she's like, so I whenever Willie decided he didn't want the steroids, I gave him to my mom, thinking they would help make her stronger on her week days.
Lareenda said, since William didn't want to take the steroids, that she gave them to her mother in case her mother needed them, and then Ted said Larenda told investigators that William was apparently experiencing some pain, some side effects from the tom selectomy, and Lrenda told him that at some point William apparently decided that he did want his meds after all.
And then sometime in the middle of the night. This is coming from investigators telling us they're around three three point thirty in the morning. She text her mom and said, you know, Willy said he wants to take the drugs. He wants to take the steroids. And I guess the mom supposedly text back and said, they'll be on your porch. So supposedly she left the drugs on the porch. Lorenda got them, gave them to Willie, and they were laced with tremodol, morphine, and larazaphim high doses of all three of those. And then he appears to have passed out and you know, maybe coming out of the bathroom. And then according to Martha in her confession letter, she said, then she injected Willy with a drug called such methanonium. That is a drug that they use in an er room. Only it is not a drug that gets you know, put on the streets for you know, drug abusers or anything like that. It's literally the drug that they use for they COVID patients or people who they just totally put under and incubated. It basically collapses your lungs and then they're breathing for you. That's like an antesthesiologists, medicine for when they put you totally under. Martha took the rap for it all. She said that in her confession letter, supposedly Martha went upstairs and injected Willie with the messmonium in his left side lower extremities. I believe, which would be pretty accurate because where he fell and they found him, when you walk up the stairs to his bedroom, his left side would be facing that stair line, so that stairway, so it would be that would be you know, sounds plausible that someone would stab him there.
William's family was bothered by Lorenda's actions right out after William died. Remember William's daughter Ashley said that she was shocked to get the call when her father had already been dead for two days. Ted said that Ashley wasn't alone. Ted said that after William died, to his knowledge, Lareenda didn't call anyone in William's family.
Not only was that, but Lareinda didn't call any family, not even my brother's children, not even my niece or nephew. She waited my niece and nephew didn't find out that their father had been murdered for two days and the second they found out. Of course, they call Lareenda and she was like, yeah, yeah, he's dead.
After receiving the shocking news that William was dead, his family at first thought that it might have been a complication from his recent surgery.
The first thing that goes through our minds is, you know, maybe a you know, a possible tom selectomy, something went wrong. But we just it was to believe because my brother was in this was in very good shape. He was put together well, he was you know, he was muffled up. He was in good shape. He wasn't in poor health. He didn't drink and in smoke.
Ted told us up front he hadn't talked to his brother in over four years. They got into an argument after Ted alleges that William began to take money out of their parents' accounts that William had access to. Because of that, they were estranged at the time of William's death. So it wasn't until later that Ted learned that William's body was in rigor mortis when he was found. According to the autopsy report, the rigor mortis was fixed in the extremities.
Obviously, as we.
Have discussed many times on this podcast, estimating time of death is very difficult and depends on a lot of factors, but in general, fixed rigor mortis and extremities means that the body would have been lying there for several hours as a very general estimate, possibly between six and twelve hours. Because of that, Ted believes that Lreinda was trying to create a narrative to explain why she waited so long to check on William. As we said last week, Lreinda explained that she had not checked on William in several hours because she was letting him rest. She also told investigators that she was staying in her own room, separate from William because she was feeling sick and worried that she might have COVID.
Well, things weren't adding up, and then all of a sudden, you know, Lorenda, we hadn't talked to in years. She calls my wife Michelle, and she starts talking. And we're sitting there and I'm being quiet because if I talked, she's probably going to hang up. But that already pretty much suspected something really weird. But she just started saying things that weren't adding up. I mean, she was like, yeah, me and Willie both didn't feel well. I thought I had COVID. We were sitting on the couch and then we went upstairs to try to get and sleep, and then she's like, I couldn't sleep, so I came back downstairs. I decided to go get my mom and still grocery shopping. You know, I don't know who's going to go get their seventy two year old mother when you think you have COVID and go grocery shopping with her. And she's a nurse, so it snows damn well. She probably should stay quarantined for a bit. And during that phone call, she told us that nobody knew this, and my brother didn't supposedly even know that. Supposedly her mother was on hospice at that time, and then supposedly when she came back, he didn't go upstairs to check on my brother at all. She just mealed around the house. Supposedly ended up going into a room downstairs and trying to go to sleep, arrest, take a nap. Bill didn't go check on my brother, didn't check on until about eleven thirty that night, twelve fifteen hours later, probably.
When Loreinda went to check on William at around eleven PM, that night she found him dead on the bedroom floor, and then as we discussed, she called the corner. Something else that Ted funds strange is with the layout of the house.
He said, the bedroom where.
William was found was upstairs and it was an open loft. Ted believed that it would have been difficult for Lrenda or anyone else to miss signs of his brother being in distress.
His house was very small, and his bedroom was not a typical bedroom. It was more of a lost and open loft was like a mezzanine. There was no wall divided. You know, if he was upstairs just talking normal, anybody downstairs could hear him. So she, you know, her claiming that, I mean, if my brother was to have went up there and collapse, first of all, she would have heard him fall. Thing of all, I highly doubt if he didn't make any noises. You know.
At the time, Lorenda had a friend named Linda who was visiting her, but the friend wasn't staying with William and Lrenda. She was staying in a hotel. So supposedly, on Sunday, January twenty second, Lrenda's mother, Martha, confessed to Larinda and her friend and gave both of them a handwritten confession letter. Ted wonders why they didn't immediately take that letter to police. He said, they did not show that letter to anyone until the next day, Monday, January twenty third.
Lorenda had a friend come down on a Saturday or Sunday, and sometime during Sunday, Lrenda's mom confessed to both of them gave them the letter of confession. Well, they said on that letter all Sunday night, they didn't call the police. They didn't call nine one one allegedly the next day, and I say, allegedly it's in it's in a Statement's in statements. They get in a vehicle, Linda and Larenda, and they go to an attorney. It's not said what attorney. It's not said where, whether it was in Clarksville where he was killed, or whether it's Russellville where the Colk County Prosecutor Jeff Phillip's office is. Nonetheless, that attorney advises them to take it to the prosecutor's office. So at that point Larinda decides, I don't want to go. So the friend drops Larinda off at a hotel, which we are assuming it's the hotel of the friends. Because she's in town. You stay in town to support Larenda. So Linda drops off Lrenda at the hotel. Linda takes this note into the prosecuting Attorney's office. Again, don't know if it's in Clarksville because his office isn't in Clarksville, or if it's in the Russville department, but it does get to just up somehow.
Eventually Agent Foster talked to Larinda, but Lrenda said she hadn't been able to reach her mother, Martha. She said that Martha was not answering phone calls. She wanted officers to do a welfare check on Martha.
Yeah, whichever office, whether it was Farceville prosecuting office or Russaville, Larenda just shut it down and said, I want a health and welfare on my mother. So she pretty much refused to talk until she had a health and welfare on her mother. So they're like, okay, So the state police goes out to my brother's property. Martha isn't opening the door. They kick in the door. They find her laying down, laying on the floor with a pen in her hand. Supposedly that's what the affidavit says from Matt Foster, the investigator, a note and the confession letter. Another confession letter. I suppose she wasn't dead, she was alive.
Martha was in the hospital for two weeks. Eventually she was stable enough to be trained. Ted says that that's when the family got another call from the prosecutor's office.
Well, it got to the point where Jeff Phillips calls us. We have a family meeting and it's about an hour long, and we do have it recorded. He tells us that Martha confessed to it in a letter. He tells us that he has to release Martha to somebody. We're like, what she confessed? Why can't you arrest her? And he said, we don't have the facilities to keep her. And he says, so we have to release her to somebody. My niece literally is like, well, or at least her to me. He's like, it has to be family. He's like, oh, She's like, well, I'm family. He's like, no, that'd be a conflict. Okay. So he's like, I think I have to release her to Lorenda. I said, wait a minute, you're going to release Martha to confessed murderer to Lrenda, who he told us in that family meeting that he suspensed Larnda as the prime suspect, as the mastermind, literally nicknamed her the black widow. So he tells us that he's going to release Martha to Lorenda. I said, Jeff, she won't live the weekend. That was a Friday, I believe, Yeah, I don't know, but he said that he was going out of town, but he would ride up and arrest Affid David and have her arrested, and he didn't need to be in town, that they could just go arrest her. Once he wrote up his affidavit, he released her to Larinda. She was dead like five hours later.
According to Ted, Martha's cause of death was drug overdose. We don't have access to Martha's autopsy report, but Ted says he's been told that the manner of death in Martha's case is listed is undetermined. The prosecutor announced that he was pursuing murder charges. It's William's mother, seventy two year old Martha McLean, But then Martha McLean died very suddenly. After Martha's death, the prosecutor's office released a statement. It said that before official charges could be filed Martha McLean had died in hospice care. Ted said that he was outraged after Martha died. He said that he spoke to Jeff Phillips after the fact and that the prosecutor told him he was not aware of how serious Martha's medical issues were. But Ted said he has trouble reconciling that. He pointed out that even if Martha was more physically capable than some people believed, that Martha had admitted to attempting to take her own life. So Ted believed that was a sign that she obviously had mental health issues, and he also questioned the prosecutor's logic of releasing the suspect in a murder investigation to someone whom Jeff Phillips had allegedly implied could be a co defendant in future. Another question I had, why would Martha have so many drugs in her home, so much access to them, and so much knowledge about how they worked, enough to be able to tamper with someone else's medication. Ted started posting information on a Facebook page, Justice for William Vick. Some people have commented online and said that Martha apparently considered herself some kind of amateur veterinarian, so for that reason, they said she kept drugs around so she could perform veterinary surgeries on animals, including one commenter claimed de skunking skunks. We also know that Martha did have various health issues, though we don't know if she was terminal or not. Either way, her being seventy two years old and having issues could explain why she had certain drugs in her home. Because William's family felt the legal system wasn't making progress on murder charges, they started to take a look at the fraud angle.
They started following the money.
As I often say in my other podcast, Red Collar, where I cover the fraud cases that lead to murder. When someone dies and there's a suspicious death, one question investigators should ask themselves, in my opinion, is who stands to profit from this person's death. In the case of William Vick Ted believes that the answer is Laurinda. We talked about William's life insurance policies. He had taken out two policies before his death, for a total of eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars. So I'm going to go back just a minute and take a closer look at that series of events. On September nineteenth, twenty twenty, William applied for a life insurance policy through Farmers and in that first policy, which was for five hundred thousand dollars, in the event of William's death, Lrenda would receive fifty percent of that policy, and each of William's children, will and Ashley would get twenty five percent each. Ashley told us that her father had talked to her about that life insurance policy before he died. Then, on February twenty third, twenty twenty two, William submitted another application for a second life insurance policy, this time for three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, again with the same setup. In the event of his death, Larenda gets fifty percent, each of the kids get twenty five That policy was issued in March of twenty twenty two, but there was a change in those life insurance policies, a big change. On July seventh, twenty twenty two, Farmers got a form asking that the insurance policy beneficiaries be changed, and the same thing happened with the second policy, So in a nutshell, after those policy change forms were filed, this meant that Laarnda would receive one hundred percent of both policies the entire eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Ashley and William were listed as fifty percent contingent beneficiaries, meaning that if Larenda was unable to accept the insurance for some reason, like she died or turned it down, that is the only way they would see any of that money. After William's death, the insurance company had a problem because in Arkansas, as in many states, there's something called the slayer law. What it means is that if someone dies and their suspicion that a beneficiary of the life insurance policy could have been involved, the insurer will pay out the policy, but normally they leave the money with the court until the state decides what to do. According to court documents, that's what happened here. Farmers wanted to pay out the policy, but they said the decedent's manner of death has been determined to be homicide and upond information and belief Lrenda is a suspect in the decendent's homicide. That is straight from court papers. So the insurance company seemed to be saying they could not pay out the claim due to the Arkansas slayer law. According to court papers, Farmers was claiming the case wasn't adjudicated, so they actually couldn't figure out whether the Arkansas slayer law meant Larenda couldn't receive the benefits or not. And because they couldn't figure out if Lrenda could get the money, therefore they could not figure out whether Ashley or William would get a payout. So Farmer's New World Life Insurance Company filed an unopposed motion to interplead the proceeds of the two life insurance policies. In other words, they wanted to combine them together and say, hey, we're out of this. So the insurance company wanted to pay out the eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars minus six thousand to cover their attorney fees and deposit the rest of it in the registry of the court.
And that's exactly what happened.
Now that money eight hundred and forty four thousand dollars is with the Clerk of Court in the Western District of Arkansas. It's frozen there for now in a disputed ownership funds account. This is a situation that happens a lot to families. It's actually something I never thought about that much until I started investigating suspicious deaths and started doing this podcast.
It's not clear what's going to happen to that money.
If the legal case is adjudicated, the court rather the insurance company, will be responsible for paying it out. But this process could go on for years because this is an open investigation. Ted and some other members of his family believed that the criminal investigation in stalled and that the only way for them to move forward and try to get justice was to follow the money and see if they could get anywhere.
With fraud charges.
They were very suspicious of those life insurance beneficiary changes. They believed that Lorenda had done that without William's knowledge, and that she may have forged signatures on those change documents and on other documents. I want to say again, there is absolutely no proof of this. Lorenda has not been arrested or charged in connection with William's death. We're simply following the investigation and trying to follow the steps that his family took. Ted started a Facebook page called Justice for William Vick. He started putting out information there. Lorenda was posting on social media. Well on one post She stated that just because she may not be processing grief like other people or in a way that people perceived as normal, didn't mean she wasn't feeling it. Again, she completely denies any wrongdoing. She has never been arrested or charged in connection with William's death. The family was asking questions. The life insurance money was frozen by the courts, and another issue that Ted had with Larinda was the plot of the land and the house itself, the one where Laurenda and William lived. In August of twenty twenty, William and Lareinda obtained a quick claim deed from.
William and Ted's father.
This meant basically that their father transferred the title to William and Larinda, which presumably meant that after William died, Larinda would own the land and the house. But Ted claims his father did not agree to sign that document. Ted filed a lawsuit against Laurinda for fraud. In the summer of twenty twenty three, basically six months after William died. Ted and some other members of the family were going to court to try and get that lamb back. But there was another huge twist in this case coming because on September twenty ninth, twenty twenty three, nine months after William Vick was found dead on the bedroom floor, police once again rushed to a scene at William and Lorenda's home in Clarksville.
This time it was a house fire.
Before the case made it to court, William and Lorenda's house burned to the ground. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts. Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her research assistance. Noah camer mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song is by Ben Sale. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and l. C.
Crowley.
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