Bush Blade In The Hog Bucket - Parsons, Tennessee

Small Town Murder

In Parsons, Tennessee, a man discovers his baby niece crying in a crib and his brother brutally murdered in bed, with his wife missing—setti

Key takeaways

• The crime was driven not by typical motives like money or revenge, but by extreme paranoia and hallucinations caused by methamphetamine ('crank').

Main topics

• Small-town life in Parsons, Tennessee
• Drug-fueled criminal behavior

Notable quotes

'A straw full of crank' is probably too much crank & may make you commit horrible crimes.

Conclusion

The Parsons murder case stands out as one of the most bizarre and surr

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:15) Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express. Yay and choo-choo. Yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you folks so much for joining us today. We're so excited for another crazy edition of Small Town Murder Express. These are always crazy. Ten pounds of murder in a two-pound bag. This is wild, senseless insanity this week. I can't wait to get into this. It's crazy stuff. Before we get into that, though, definitely head over to ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com. Get your tickets for live shows. That's what you want here. We have coming up in Milwaukee on the 18th of September at the PAP. Still a couple of tickets left for that. We released a bunch of holds that we had. That's all there is. Speaker 1 (1:02) Get those tickets now, September 18th at the Pabst Milwaukee. Next night, State Theater, Minneapolis. Get those tickets. Tickets available for that. Dallas on October 3rd. Those are available. Also San Jose, Sacramento on October 16th and 17th. And then the 13th and 14th of November, Tarrytown in Boston. And Tarrytown is almost sold out. So get those tickets right now. I know it's November, but you guys have been buying them. So thank you so much for doing that. Shut up and give me murder.com. Also all the merch and everything else you could possibly want. Check out Crime and Sports and Your Stupid Opinions, our other two shows. Speaker 1 (1:38) You don't have to like sports for crime and sports. We promise. And your stupid opinions. All you have to like is comedy and reading people's reviews, which I think we all like doing. So you should check that out. Definitely. Get yourself a listen to everybody on Netflix. Go. Yes. Check those out. And a matter of fact, also get yourself Patreon. That's where it comes in here. That's where the value comes in. Patreon.com slash crime in sports, just like the name of our show that you should be listening to there. All you have to be is $5 a month or above, and you get every damn thing we could possibly produce. As soon as you subscribe, you're going to get almost 400 back bonus episodes to binge on immediately. And then you get new ones every other week. They won't stop coming. And this week is no different. One crime in sports, one small town murder. You get them all. Speaker 1 (2:26) This week for Crime and Sports, we're going to talk about the worst stadiums of all time. And it is hilarious. Just municipal fighting and terrible surfaces. It's very fun. Then for Small Town Murder, part one of the Donner Party. Find out what happened there and what would drive people to have to eat each other. We will find out all about that. That's the Donner Party. Patreon.com slash crime in sports. Speaker 1 (2:52) And that would be enough anyway for five bucks, but that's not enough for us, damn it. It's a pretty good deal. No. Pretty good. No. No. We want more. We'll give you more. But wait, there's more. But wait, there's more. You also get everything we put out. Crime and sports, small town murder, your stupid opinions, all ad free with your Patreon. What? And you get a shout out at the end of the regular show. You can't beat it, everybody. Get in there. Get your Patreon. Patreon.com slash crime in sports. That said, I think it's time, everybody, to sit back. What do you say here? Let's all clear the lungs. There we go. Arms to the sky. Let's all shout. Speaker 1 (3:29) Shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody. Okay. Let's go on a trip, shall we? You packed up over there? You got your suitcase? Good as I'm going to get. Looking for it here. Got this crossbody. Must be behind your chair. I can't see it. That's the problem. It's a fanny pack. I just put one pair of underwear and I'm on the road. One pair of underwear and one sock. That can be a catch-all. You never know what you need that for. That's in case, yeah. Speaker 1 (3:57) Just in case. So we're going to Tennessee this week. We're going to Parsons, Tennessee, which I had never heard of. Parsons, Tennessee is in western Tennessee. It's about an hour and a half to Nashville, about two hours to Memphis. So right in between in that nowhere land in the middle there in Tennessee when you drive on the 40 and it just goes hills like this. Is it in the Smokies? I guess so. Two hours and 40 minutes to our last Tennessee episode in Tullahoma, Tennessee. Speaker 1 (4:26) That was episode 689, Murder Breadcrumb Trail. That was a wild one, too, because I remember there was body parts and everything else. This is in Decatur County, like Georgia there. What is Decatur? Is that a tree or something? No clue. I have no idea. It's all over the South. Yeah, a lot of Decatur's there. A bunch of different states have Decatur's in it. In the North, too, there's Decatur's, I think. Is there? I don't know what that is. It's got to be a fucking tree. Maybe. Speaker 1 (4:55) I mean, but then it would grow. I don't know what it is. We'll have to find out one of these days. Area code. Yeah. Let's have a bonus episode on the Decatur. Why? Why Decatur? Area code 731 here. Population 2,462. Not a big place. Oh, little guy. Yeah. Little small place. It's pretty rural. A lot of farms out here and things like that. Median household income here. Wow, this is low. Less than half the national average. $31,293. That's household. Living off the land. Wow. Yeah, I hope you grow something to eat because you can't afford to buy anything with that kind of money. Median home cost here, $126,100. So also extremely low. This is like living in 1988, essentially. The motto here, they do have a motto, and you rarely see mottos with punctuation. Speaker 1 (5:50) And this has an exclamation point on it, so they're really selling it to you. Take pride in Parsons. Do it. You son of a bitch. It becomes aggressive with the exclamation point, doesn't it? All right. History. 1880 here. A young man named George Washington Parton, I-N, not O-N. Oh. Parton. George Washington Parton left his home in Georgia on a horse-drawn buggy because how the hell else would he get anywhere back? Unless he walked. Unless he walked. That was a long walk to go to Northwestern, to go to Tennessee to sell sewing machines. They were new at the time, sewing machines. Eventually, he went to Decatur County where he married a woman, Maggie. So they liked the Bear Creek area and thought it would be a good place to start a town. Speaker 1 (6:43) Such wild times back there. You see some nice land and you go, let's start a town. Not let's live here. Nobody does that. Does anyone start a town anymore? No, we start a house. That's it. We start with a place. He wanted to start a town. A town. He purchased a number of acres on the Perryville-Lexington dirt road near the present Bear Creek church building and opened a big general store, and people went to the general store. So all of a sudden, other people started coming here. Cotton gins, doctor's office opened up. Things started happening. There was no post office nearby, so he put in an application for a post office, and the post office was going to be called Partonville after him. Oh, yeah. Speaker 1 (7:27) It was approved, and he became the first postmaster of the town. But then the railroad decided they wanted to build a railroad from Memphis to Tennessee across the Virginia state line. It was completed, and it ended at Perryville. From Memphis to Tennessee? It missed Partonville by about a mile to the south and fucked the town, basically. If the railroad didn't come through, you were toast. So he saw what was going on and moved. Purchased a new— Purchased the first lot sold in the new town and bought nearby Buckner land and then sold Torres building down and moved to a new town. And then the post office was moved to Parton or Parsons and then Partonville was gone. So some guys. Yeah. So how does that change his name to what's going on? Why is it not Parsons? No, they just. Speaker 1 (8:22) forgot about him and it's Parsons. He was stricken from history. Reviews of this town. Here's five stars. I was raised in arsons, not Parsons. I was raised in arsons, he just said. And there's no other city I would rather grow up in. It's a small town where everyone knows everyone and I like that aspect. A takeaway, though, is that there aren't many job opportunities. I would think not. 2,500 people. And then finally, four stars. There's only five and four star reviews. There was like three fives and a few fours. Parsons is a small town, so you'll get to know most of its residents within two years. It's a friendly little place to live, and big towns and cities are a 30-minute to one-hour drive away. One drawback is that, since it is a small town, most everyone will hear about you and your life, so make sure you give a good impression. Don't fuck up. Speaker 1 (9:15) Jesus Christ. It's like prison here is what that sounds like. Everyone's going to be watching you and judging you. Hear about your life. That literally sounds like if you're going to prison is what they would say. Make a good impression because everyone's going to know what you did and everyone's going to know, you know, like that's wild. In two years. You will probably meet everybody because just by virtue of living, you're going to run across everyone? There's only 2,400 people, and you figure a bunch of those are little kids, so you're not going to meet them. A bunch of those are like elderly people. So anyone within like a 20 to 50. Speaker 1 (9:48) 20 to 60 range of age, you will meet all those people probably. James, I was on the HOA board in my neighborhood. There's only 60 houses. I still don't know all those people. You should be fucking ashamed of yourself for doing that, by the way. I had to do it. I had no choice. That's how you get shit done for your own stuff. I had to get on the board to vote for my own house. That is a disgrace. That's a disgrace. But I did it. Jesus Christ. I want to buy a house but let you tell me what to do with it. That sounds fun. Yeah, it is weird to ask other adults if it's okay if I put different rock down. That's what I'm saying. It's very bizarre. No. Do you know how much I rebelled? I could build a burning wicker man in my front yard. No one would say a fucking word about it. I love that. I was arrested as a teenager for breaking, you know what I mean, doing bad things. Speaker 1 (10:46) Now I ask other adults, is it okay with you if I put gravel in my yard? They're a slightly different color gray, but I think you'll really like them. I think they'll match everybody's stuff, please. That's so funny. It's a little darker brown color. Is that all right with you? God damn it. Things to do here. The Big Squeeze is what I found. Oh, what is that? It's held the weekend before July 4th, if you want to go out and not have to mix up all those fireworks and bullshit. It's to raise awareness and funds for the veterans in Decatur County. I don't know if there's any actual like body of anybody that's behind this, like an organization or anything like that. If you serve, we'll give you a couple bucks. Yeah. It has a lemon up there. So it's a big squeeze talking about lemons, I guess. Starts off with a hero's breakfast. There's a drop off for the lemon bake off. Speaker 1 (11:45) There's a lemon bake-off. The lemonade stands open at 10. What's that? Oh, yeah. Yeah, lemonade stands. There's not much to bake with lemons, is there? Meringue and tart? Yeah, I got a schedule. It says drop-off for lemon bake-off. That's the only information I have. You can just bake a lemon, and eventually it'll just, I don't know. Pre-heat, 350. Don't know. The lemonade stands open at 10. At 6.30 p.m., they're going to play the Sandlot on a movie screen in the middle of the park there. Then there's going to be fireworks. Then the next day, they have a Lemon Lane touch-a-truck. Then they have food trucks. They have a patriotic parade followed by an outhouse race. I don't know what that is. Oh, boy. Yeah. Your guess is as good as mine, but it doesn't matter because they're opening for the big headliner, the Kimberly Helton Band. Speaker 1 (12:42) I'm sure she's great. I'm sure she's lovely and wonderful. That said, let's talk about some murder, shall we? Let's do this. My goodness, this is weird and messy. Okay, let's start out hot. October 18th, 1993. Okay, here we go. 93. Kurt Cobain is still alive. Put it that way. It's a much different time. Everything's going great. I'm going to read this right from the Jackson Sun newspaper here. Wilkinson, Wilkins Town Road winds through the beautiful wooded countryside of Decatur County off the U.S. 412 near Parsons. This is where we're going to be. It's dotted with farms and small homes that are located here and there. The entire area conveys good, peaceful living. OK, that's what that's how they just the newspaper to set the scene here. All right. Yeah. Speaker 1 (13:38) On this day of October 18th, 1993, Ted Barnett, he is going to knock on his brother Timothy's door. Timothy goes by Timmy. He's going to knock on his door. He hasn't heard from him in a couple days and is wondering what's going on with Timmy here. So he knocks on the door for several minutes and nobody answers. So he thinks Timmy might be sleeping or something. He keeps banging, keeps banging. Eventually, he just opens the door and goes in. When he goes in, he finds his brother's eight-month-old daughter, Amelia, crying in her crib. Speaker 1 (14:15) She's just sitting in her crib. So that's the first thing he sees, the baby crying in the crib. And he's like, okay, this is weird. Where's the people here? Then he walked into Timothy's room and he sees blood all over the walls, everywhere. I mean, when you find out what happened, it is a bloody scene. You can't imagine how much spray, spatter, everything else is going on here. He sees that his younger brother, he sees his head and sees he has several sharp wounds and his head is kind of mushed in between his waterbed mattress and the bed frame. Speaker 1 (14:51) So those water beds, you can kind of pull up the mattress and get like a spot. So you can, yeah. You can roll it up. So that's what's going on. If you sleep towards the edge, you'll get pinched. You'll get in there. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, he finds him. Now he looks around. There is no sign of Timmy's wife also because he has a wife. Oh. And so there's a baby who's crying and fine. His brother, who is very dead and blood everywhere, and we don't find the wife anywhere to be seen. She's nowhere to be seen. So this is interesting. So he calls the police, obviously. They come over. And a little bit of background here. Now, the victim, Timothy, Timmy Barnett, he's born 1972. He's 21 years old at this point. Wow. Yeah, young guy. Young guy. He, by the way, not only has an eight-month-old, he has two other kids, too. Speaker 1 (15:47) From before his marriage. At 21? Pre-20, he had two kids. That a boy, Timmy. Wow. Yeah, that a boy. Way to completely fuck up society. Great job. That's good. Keep it up. Come on. He is virile. More parents who can't watch your kids. Please have them, all of them. I knew he was young just because he had a waterbed still. Post-30, you can't sleep in that anymore. 93, though, people didn't give a fuck. They had waterbeds. Speaker 1 (16:16) Which was crazy. I don't know when they went. Late 90s, that had to die, right? Mid 90s, that was the end of it. Probably 96, right? Around then. You can't have a waterbed after that, right? I've been to the room store and places, furniture stores. They don't have them anymore. No, no. Nobody buys them. Nobody's buying them. No. So Timmy, a little bit of background on him. He's got a dad named Ralph, a mom named Rita. He has a brother named Ted, obviously, who found his body. Speaker 1 (16:45) He also has a sister. Like we said, Timmy already has two sons and a young daughter with his wife. He's a farmer, Timmy. That's what he does for a living, farms. You'll find out he also does some other shit that we'll find out about. Now, they classify Janice, his wife, as a missing person at this point. They don't know if she's a suspect or a possible victim. They have no idea. Usually, though, when you walk in and you see one spouse. completely slaughtered, and the other one gone, you put two and two together and go, okay, the other spouse probably did it, I would imagine, right? Generally, that's the first clue, yeah. Generally. Now, the baby girl appeared to be fine and remained at the County General Hospital for protective surveillance at this point because they were afraid maybe somebody had it in for this family or something. They didn't know. So they literally have a... Speaker 1 (17:36) A little baby sitting in a hospital room with a cop standing outside. Nobody go near this fucking baby. There could be a Terminator coming back for this baby. We don't know. We have no clue. That's the thing. We don't know what he's changing forms into at this very moment. We can't tell. Now, where's his wife? Let's talk about his wife. His wife's name, Janice Ann Robinson, now Barnett since they've been married. Janice Ann Robinson. She's born 1969. She's about three years older than him, 24 at this point. Now, she comes from a good family. Her father is the Reverend James Robert Robinson. James Robert Robinson. Goes by Jim. Big Jim Robinson, the Reverend. And her mom is Barbara Ann Robinson. They have three kids, including Janice. Janice is the middle kid in this mix. She's the Jan. Speaker 1 (18:28) So we have John is her older brother, John R. Robinson. He's born in 67. Then there's Janice, born in 69. Then they have another daughter named Deborah Sue, who was born a couple of years later. Now, her brother, John, is married to a woman named Kimberly, who's about five years younger than him. And they have a young son. OK. Kimberly, by the way, has a ninth grade education and has no job prospects, no anything. I think she's just from the rural area and doesn't know shit about shit. She has kids and shit. Exactly. Now, Janice met Timmy, and they hooked up and got married here, like we said, March of 1993. Speaker 1 (19:17) whatever, a little bit earlier than that, February maybe. That's when they had the baby. That's when they had little Amelia here. Amelia Ann. Everybody's, wow, that's weird. Everybody's middle name is Ann. That's interesting. Okay. Now Janice. There's only like four middle names back then. There really is. Yeah,