415: Anonymous Texts, Soundproof Bedrooms & The Affair Next Door | The Gregory Rice Case

Serialously with Annie Elise

A woman's suspicious death in South Carolina leads to a web of secrets, affairs, and a shocking murder involving a man who worked with dead bodies. The case reveals a twisted family drama with anonymous texts, hidden motives, and a chilling cover-up.

Key takeaways

• Megan Jackson, a funeral home worker, allegedly orchestrated her partner's murder.
• Anonymous texts may have been fabricated to frame the victim or manipulate others.
• The children were deeply traumatized, with the eldest now raising her siblings.

Transcript preview

If you could write a script, isn't this perfect? You have a body transport person, a deputy coroner, and at least one visit to a funeral home that night. I felt it was kind of fishing. She ended up putting in a missing person's report. Savannah says her parents' relationship took a bad turn. Greg had actually said to Ryan, if anything ever happens to me, it's not a suicide. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to an all new episode and Happy Monday. I hope you all had a fantastic weekend that you're having a great start to your week. Maybe you're not listening to this on a Monday, but it released on a Monday. But yeah, I hope you guys are all having a good week so far, you know, had a great weekend and whether you're driving to work right now, listening at work, maybe working out, cleaning the house, whatever it is you're doing, I'm right there with you. And we are going to go down this rabbit hole together because today's case, you know I hate this word and you know I don't say it a doozy through and through because the family dynamics within this case are so bizarre and wild that it's going to take me a minute to like untangle it for you to walk you through it because then it's like it's just it's very very interesting okay I will say that and there are you know anonymous text messages that get exposed there are what else do I want to say some shady stuff happening with a river there's Affairs I mean we've got a lot and we are gonna be together for a while today because like I said I gotta untangle it walk it all back for you and explain it from the very beginning because you know if I'm going down the rabbit hole I am bringing you along with me and that is what we are doing today now before we jump in I did want to share some exciting news with you guys because it's that time of year I've already seen the messages start trickling in but our annual subscription sale is officially here so if you've you've you've you've you've our true crime club whether that's on patreon because you're a video watcher you want the episodes ad free you want more access you want behind the scenes you want flogs giveaways our 24-7 group chat all of the things now is the time also if you are an apple podcast listener and you just want every single episode completely ad-free plus bonus episodes this is also for you we only run this promotion once a year and it gives you our lowest pricing of the year which is why I think so many people are asking like when's it coming back when's it coming back And for my patron users, like I said, you can choose the tier that's right for you, depending on which tier you join, you'll get access to things like BTS content, bonus content, extra episodes, our 24-7 group chat, giveaways, merch discount, so much more. And for all of my Apple Podcast listeners, you can subscribe through one click of a button on Anna-E-Lise Plus, right in the Apple Podcast App just open up the show page, click the button and you will get all the bonus content over there, the extra episodes, which we have like over a ad free which I know you guys hate ads so this is the way to get around all of that. However the deal will not last for long we only offer this discount once a year and it expires very soon so if you've been on the fence now is the time to you know jump in head first. Head to patreon.com slash Annie Elise to join on patreon especially if you are more of a video consumer or if you're listening on Apple podcast simply open the show page and tap the Annie Elise plus subscribe button more content more access and more access and no ads Sounds pretty good, right? So go sign up. Well, it's ending soon. You're welcome. So this takes us back to 2020. I know probably a year that most of us wish to forget, right? But on November 7th, 2020, a woman named Donna Sue Soles was out at the Peee River in South Carolina with her family. She was doing something they had done plenty of times also. Catfishing. And not catfishing, pretending to be somebody else, but like actually fishing for a catfish. Now they were very experienced out on the water. They were very experienced out on the water. They did this all. They did this all the water. They did this all the water. They did this all the water. They did this all the water. They did this all the water. They did this all the water. So when they spotted something strange just floating nearby in the water, they immediately knew that it did not belong there. Now at first, it just looked like a tarp. Maybe it was something that had fallen over somebody's boat by mistake, maybe it was trash that had somehow blown into the water, who really knows. But as they paddled closer to get a better look at what this was, they realized that this piece of tarp had a shape to it, a human shape. Donna later said, once, once we later, lifted it with the paddle, that's when we saw Ratchet Straps. Now I will be honest with you. When I was researching this case and I first saw that detail, Ratchet Straps, I was like what the hell is a ratchet strap? So I'm going to do my best to describe it for you for anybody else who might be unfamiliar like I was. It basically is kind of like a seat belt, you know like the big fabric belts, but then it has like the big silver clamps where you're like tightening it and you pull it together and that's it together and it. to hold something like on the back of a pickup truck and it's like you crank the silver thing to tighten this big strap that's what a ratchet strap is. So they're paddling over to this tarp, they use their paddle, lift the tarp up and they see ratchet straps and sure enough wrapped inside that tarp was a body, a body that had five bullet holes in it. The legs and the head of this body had been tied down. A cinder block had also been attached to it. I mean seemingly to make to it, seemingly to it. I mean seemingly to make heavier to weigh it down so to hide it underwater forever possibly. So they alerted the authorities of course and then the body was pretty quickly identified but as the investigators were looking beyond not only who this body belonged to but how it got here what happened they soon uncovered a whole host of new issues. I'm talking lies, secret relationships and something even more disturbing. A trail of evidence that pointed directly at people who worked around dead bodies for a living. It was a lot. But let's rewind a little bit. Let's go back to the beginning. Like Hillary Duff says, let's go back. Let's go back to the beginning. Gregory Rice, otherwise known as Greg to the people closest to him, was a 46 year old man living in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. And Myrtle Beach, I'm sure you've heard of it. It's a pretty popular tourist destination on the east coast. Many people come for the night life, the tourist stops and of course, and of course the beach itself. But also plenty of And really it was the perfect place for him. He loved doing anything that involved being outside in the sticky South Carolina heat. He enjoyed surfing, golfing, fishing, you name it. I mean any sort of outdoor activity, Greg was doing it. Now Greg was originally from Cincinnati, Ohio. But as so many things happened with all of us, life happened and he eventually ended up in South Carolina. But like I said, he really felt like it was home there. He loved it there. But it also helped it. wasn't alone during this move. Even though his siblings and his parents were still back in Ohio, Greg had a longtime partner named Megan Jackson. He also had five children, four of which he and Megan had together. Greg and Megan had been together since 2006, when they first met back in Ohio. But for whatever reason, they decided to never get married. And I'm not really sure how mutual that decision was. Apparently Greg had been married and divorced before, so in his mind he just didn't want to go through all of that again. which fair, I honestly completely get that, and I know a lot of people feel the same way. Divorce can be an absolute huge hassle. But the point is that for years, Greg and Megan were just life partners and parents together. And that really worked for them and their relationship. I mean, they had even moved to a different state together. They had four kids together. So a marriage license, it really wouldn't have changed all that much. I will say, as I was digging deeper into their history and their past, there isn't a whole lot, there isn't a whole lot of information about what Greg and Megan did for work during those years. Not until way fast forward to 2019 when Megan took a new job. In fact, a job that was pretty unexpected. And let me tell you how this all came about. You see, living right next door to Greg and Megan was this very nice older couple named Joan and Chuck Benjamin. They were neighbors, they were friends, a kind of a mix of things. They were all four very close. They would see each other outside. They would wave to each other, strike up casual conversation, you know, you know, stuff and for years Chuck had a job that was very interesting, very important to the community, but one that you never really hear much about because his job it wasn't like a traditional coroner but rather he would be the one who would go and pick up deceased bodies and then transport them back to the local coroner's office, which this job was pretty demanding. It didn't matter if it was 4 a.m. 6 p.m. you know what time of night or day it was. If you got the call to go to go to pick up a body, you had to drop everything and go pick it up. It also wasn't a super glamorous job either. It's not like he was you know transporting these bodies after they had been cleaned up and put in a nice outfit or things like that. He was the guy who was picking them up right after they died and no matter what they died from what state of decomposition they were in he was the one responsible for it. So like I said it was a necessary job absolutely but not one that people were exactly lining up to do. Chuck had struggled for years trying to find reliable help. People would start the job, thinking that they could handle the hours and the gore that comes with it, only to then quit after their first day. The turnover rate was extremely high. So anyway, somehow Chuck and Megan, through their neighborly talk, they ended up talking about his work. And surprisingly, Megan was really interested. Now, like I said, I don't know much about what her career was before this point. I'm not sure if she had been a stay-at-home mom, if she was now trying to get back into the workforce or she wanted to just get out of whatever job she had it's unclear there are minimal details out there but either way Megan was eager to help so Chuck figured okay great why not I mean the worst that could happen was that she would decide that the job wasn't for her and quit like so many other people have done definitely wouldn't be the first time he had burned through an employee but to everyone surprise Megan was actually really great at this job in terms of size pretty pretty petite, but she definitely did not act like it. She could pick up a body and load it into the van all by herself like it was nothing. And she didn't complain about it either. She didn't think it was gross, she didn't think it was dirty, she was like all for it. So Megan stuck with the job. But as positive as that might sound, it immediately started putting a strain on her relationship with Greg, a strain that they had never really dealt with before. So suddenly now with her leaving at all hours of the night and it felt like she was just constantly gone. And remember this wasn't a normal 9 to 5 where you can just like clock out and go home for the night and like mentally tune out and check out your on call basically 24-7. So I can imagine that that was probably difficult for Greg. He never really had the opportunity to plan anything ahead of time or selfishly do things for himself because at any moment Megan would receive a phone call and she would need somebody to come be with the kids while she went off and it was just this constant, you know, not, not chaos, you know, not, not, not, but like, not, not, not, but like, not, not, but like, not, not, not, not, but like, not, not, not, not, not, but like, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not you just very unpredictable and beyond just the unpredictability of it unfortunately Megan was pretty busy because of this now for those of you who aren't super familiar with the Myrtle Beach area it's yes beautiful great fun for like outdoor activities but it also has a pretty dark side to it during the day it's touristy is family focused every block has seafood restaurants mini golf courses gift shops attractions all of that but at night things change crime rate there is actually pretty high, all the way to the point where it's earned a nickname like Dirty Myrtle or Murder Beach. So while yeah there are of course the everyday type deaths whether it's old age natural causes sickness car accidents things like that there was also another layer on top of that homicides and to make things even creepier Myrtle Beach also has a pretty significant alligator population along with multiple alligator farms nearby and there have always been always been rumors that when somebody goes missing and is never found, it's likely because their body was fed to the Gators. Now of course those are just rumors, nothing confirmed by law enforcement or anything like that, but still I mean the idea itself, it isn't all that far-fetched. So needless to say, Megan was working a lot, constantly out on runs. Chuck had warned her ahead of time that this job was in fact demanding, but she didn't seem to mind. However, Greg, he definitely did, and it became a major point of tension in their relationship. I don't know whether there were already issues happening behind closed doors and so that something had already been brewing under the surface and this just kind of escalated that I don't know maybe things had been rocky for a while and then this new added stress became the final straw that just was going to bulldoze the relationship completely I don't know but the point is it eventually did break this relationship. By November 2019 Greg and Megan had officially separated and from what I can tell was not simple. I mean remember they had been together for 15 years at this point and four children together. That's a long time to build a life with somebody thinking you're gonna be together forever only for things to then suddenly fall apart. And Greg he loved his kids he never wanted to break up their family but things had gotten to the point where it probably felt better for everyone to just separate instead of forcing a relationship where everybody was unhappy. And of course the truth is I mean when you share four kids together you're to actually be fully separated. You will be connected one way or another, even if it's just through co-parenting. So at that point they started trying to navigate life separately. Greg moved into an apartment nearby while Megan was still trying to figure out her next steps, and her plan was to sell the house that she owned in Murrill's Inlet, which is about 30 minutes south of Myrtle Beach. Then her mom was supposedly gonna co-sign on a new house that she had been looking at. So on November 19th, 2019, 2019, 2019, Megan sold the house, Before she and her mom could finalize anything else and get Megan and the kids settled somewhere new, her mom unfortunately unexpectedly passed away. And this all happened at the same time. And I'm not talking within weeks of each other or even within days of each other. Her house sold and her mother died on the exact same day. I mean, talk about horrible timing. So now suddenly Megan was dealing with not only being single for the first time in 15 years, but also raising her four children, grieving her mother and not even really knowing where she was going to end up living. The good news was eventually things did start looking up for her. She received some inheritance money. She was able to buy a really nice home. It was a pretty big house too. Definitely enough space for her and the kids. And what made this situation even better was that she already knew her new next-door neighbors. They were Chris Dontel, who was the deputy coroner and his wife Erica. Now because Megan transported bodies to the coroner the coroner to the coroner's office office regularly, she already knew Chris pretty well through work right and now living next door to him and to his wife she became really close friends with Erica now also during this time is when COVID hit so these neighbors and Megan they really started leaning on each other a lot spending a lot of time together during the shutdown now even though Greg and Megan were co-parenting if for any reason she got called out to go pick up a body and she needed somebody to come watch the kids it wasn't always that easy for her to just call Greg and have him show up she started leaning on her neighbor Erica because Erica was willing she was next door she was able it was easy in fact Erica had been working at a nearby daycare but that had closed indefinitely because of COVID so with that she had free time and certainly didn't mind stepping into help and there was also a positive side to all of this as well Erica was pregnant at the time and because of that she was understandably terrified of going out in public because she didn't want to contract COVID she didn't want to risk possibly even getting her baby sick. So in exchange for Erica watching the kids, Megan would help her out by basically running any errands that she needed. Grocery runs, pharmacy trips, anything that maybe would have exposed Erica to potential sickness, Megan went ahead and took on so that that was kind of their exchange. That's how they got each other back. But Megan's generosity didn't just stop there. She had become really close with both Chris and Erica, and because of that, she knew that they were struggling financially during this shutdown. And unlike them, Megan was actually doing okay. She still had a job, plus she had that inheritance money from her mother. So as a thank you for everything that Chris and Erica had done to help Megan, she decided to surprise them one day with a full-blown nursery setup. Baby clothes, diapers, wipes, toys, I mean the works, you name it. And honestly, even though some parts of their relationship might sound transactional, which I totally understand, it didn't really seem that way. They had such close friends and they were just in their little quarantine bubble together. And not only was Megan's super swamped because, again, COVID, unfortunately lots of deaths, but Chris also was incredibly busy. According to Chuck, the old neighbor and older man who had hired Megan, a lot of the funeral homes at the time didn't even want to handle body pickups or transports because of everything that was going on, especially when the calls involved hospitals or facilities that were flooded with COVID patients. So that it largely fell on to people like Megan and Chris. So as much as Megan was bonding with Erica over motherhood and everyday life, she was also spending an incredible amount of time with Chris. And when you're around