20. Bad Cops. Bad NEighbors.

Previously On Ice Cold Case

Okay, it's Friday, July 12th, 2024, and I am probably five minutes away from getting a phone call from Rico McGhee

Rico. Rico is a real smart, intelligent individual, right? He can play and he can manipulate almost any situation in the world.   

 You have a prepaid call from an inmate at Washington County Jail.

I don’t really feel that comfortable talking about Rico.

But I'm just letting you know this one about your dad.  That wasn't me. 

One’s reputation often becomes a matter of life or death.

The reason why they didn't get it solved is because motherfuckers was trying to protect their people that created the situation from the beginning 

So can I ask you now you know who killed my dad?

Part 0: Friend or Foe

From the time you’re a kid, you’re taught that when something bad happens, there are three numbers you can always call. It’s usually the first phone number you memorize. The first thing shouted in a crisis. And if you don’t do it — if you hesitate or second-guess it — you’re criticized.

Call 9-1-1.

Those numbers carry weight. They’re branded with trust from the second you learn them. But here’s the hard truth: those numbers are just the symbol of a system – and that system doesn’t serve and protect everyone equally. That’s not a theory. That’s not a feeling. That is a fact.

I’m curious what happens when someone starts pulling that system apart – and the impact of our ignorance – the numbers, the patterns, the real-world consequences. It’s finally time to say some things out loud that I’ve only hinted at before.

I’ve spent a lot of time talking about how I feel about the Belmont County Sheriff’s Department but I’ve also been cautious. My dad’s case is entirely in their hands, still sitting on their desks. Whether right or wrong, their own feelings about me could decide how much time and attention my dad’s murder gets. That’s a fine line you are forced to walk as a family member investigating the murder of a loved one. On paper, you have absolutely zero authority. You’re completely dependent on a system that’s already failed you once. And it’s exhausting – because half the reason you’re digging in the first place is because they didn’t do their job when it mattered most.

Family members are supposed to play nice with the police – be cooperative, be polite, be grateful. Here’s what it happens when you say: fuck it.

Part 1: Can’t Stay Here

While I have questioned the quality of the police’s investigation in my dad’s case, I have given a fair amount of grace to the Belmont County Sheriff’s Office. I didn’t have much choice. I needed them. I still need them. As I’ve learned, they are the only people who can solve my father’s murder through the justice system. Law enforcement is a crucial part of what many people imagine when they think about closure. However, as I mentioned, the gloves are coming off. That doesn’t just include protecting other people’s secrets. I’m done trying to play nice with the police in hopes that my cooperation magically inspires them to do their jobs. 

The Belmont County Sheriff’s Department hasn’t been doing its job – not just in my dad’s case, but in general. Just listen to former Sheriff David Lucas, who was elected for three terms, serving between 2012 and 2025, talk about his accomplishments as he prepared to retire. 

Drug dealers, pack your bags and get out of Belmont County. I don’t care where you go, but get out of Belmont County. People in the community know if they call us and there’s a problem, we will investigate it. And if there is evidence there, we will prosecute it. My main thing is I was elected by the people of Belmont County, so that’s my major concern. It’s not on me to worry about if these drug dealers go to another county or they go over the river to West Virginia. My job is to get them out of Belmont County, and that’s what we do.

Let’s sit with that for a second. 

If I had to write a tagline for the Belmont County Sheriff’s Department it would be, “Bad Cops. Bad Neighbors.”

Lucas explains that his job is just to get the drug dealers out of Belmont County. It's not his job to care where drug dealers go after he runs them out of town. He doesn’t care if they go to neighboring counties or states. He doesn’t even care if they stop dealing drugs. He speaks about drug dealers as if they are some sort of magical entity that can be warded away. Hint: they can’t be. 

But even if you could spell away problems, it’s pretty wild to be so casual about dumping your community’s issues on the one next door. I can’t imagine anyone – much less someone who’s built their livelihood on selling illicit substances – saying, “Welp, Belmont County doesn’t want me, guess I’ll apply at a car rental place and turn my life around in Wheeling.”

It’s not that Lucas is all bad — he did use his power as sheriff in 2024 to open a dog park, named the David M. Lucas Dog Park, and I’m sure the four legged citizens of Belmont County are grateful for their recreation space. It’s just that by his own admission, Lucas was content to make the problems in his community become somebody else’s… and not someone else far away, just a few blocks over to the other side of the river.

I know I’m picking on the retired sheriff a little bit. It wasn’t under his administration that my father’s case went cold. This matters because it shows a pattern – a long, unchecked pattern – of a law enforcement agency that doesn’t feel accountable to anyone.

Part 2: Do It In Belmont County

David Lucas wasn’t an outlier. He was a continuation. Before Lucas, there was Fred Thompson, who served between 2004 and 2013. Thompson later became the police chief of Bethesda, Ohio, where he had to resign while under investigation in 2018. By Lucas’s own account, he inherited quite the shitshow from Thompson, which included an understaffed jail. The Sheriff who oversaw my father’s case actually makes Lucas and Thompson look like friendly, somewhat lazy, teddy bears. 

The Sheriff you’ve heard me mention before, Thompson’s predecessor, Tom McCort had one of the longest tenures as sheriff in all of Ohio. McCort served Belmont County for 20 years, starting in 1984. McCort was the Sheriff at the time of my dad’s murder, and for most of my dad’s criminal career. McCort’s reputation is colored with rumors of corruption. 

Seven years after J.C. got shot, there’s still rumors and talk on the street that McCort orchestrated it.

All roads will lead to Mr. McCort. 

His deputies would always say… You know Tom is lying when his lips are moving.

These rumors of bad behavior and the pattern of shirking of responsibility were certainly felt when it came to my own dad’s case. I uncovered witnesses Belmont County detectives said they couldn’t locate. I interviewed people who said those same detectives never followed up. Under the leadership of David Lucas, Belmont County Sheriff’s Office’s default mode seemed to be dodging their duties. 

In my first meeting with the investigator who was on the scene the day of my dad’s murder, he said he would really love to talk to Kim Smith, but he had no idea where she lived. In the ways that a small town can mean less resources, it also means no one is that hard to find. As soon as I got to my car, I spent a few moments looking through the internet to find out that Kim Smith lives less than 15 minutes away from the very parking lot I was sitting in. 

I got a tip from someone who really piqued my interest. After an hour on the phone I realized this person should have been considered a witness. I went back through my notes and all the police files I had been given. All this person gave was a short written statement. He was never brought in for questioning or to identify suspects even though he still to this day remembers what Omar was wearing, the getaway car’s details, and how many people he saw in it when they drove away. No one has reached out to him since, and no Sheriff has nudged his deputies to do anything further to solve this case.

According to FBI data there’s been 30 homicides in Belmont County, Ohio between 1990 and 2025, which averages out to less than one per year. In comparison, the Cleveland Police Department had 1,967 homicides in that same time period. Despite being a very small department with limited resources, and carrying the reputation of being a great place to get away with murder — they have solved some of those crimes. Former Sheriff Fred Thompson was even one of the lead investigators involved in the capture of serial killer Thomas Dillon in the early 90s. More recently, Belmont County arrested and charged Andrew Isaac Griffin for the 2021 murders of Thomas and Angela Strussion.

Even with their smaller force, Belmont County has access to various other agency’s tools and data when they are solving crimes. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations has a database which, according to their website, “provides visibility and investigative resources to help local law enforcement agencies resolve unsolved homicides. Through this database, BCI provides details and photos related to unsolved homicides and solicits tips from the public to assist local law enforcement in pursuing their investigations.”

This is the first time I’m learning about the website. Of course I had to check it out. It’s pretty useful, there is a search tool and a place to submit tips directly for a specific case. If local law enforcement can submit their cases here to try to get tips from the public, and Belmont County has had 30 murders in the last 35 years, surely they have submitted their unsolved cases to the BCI database.

So I typed into the search bar various versions of John Cornelius, J.C., and John McGhee. 

And no results were found.

I took it a step further. Have other cases from Belmont County been submitted to this database? So I typed in Belmont County to the search bar. Only one case came up from 1983 – Kerry Lynn Melnick. No other cases out of the 2,692 listed were from Belmont County.

In a county where murder is happening at an average rate of one per year, every single case should be given substantial attention. While families like mine are desperate for closure, Belmont County hasn’t submitted a single case to this centralized database in over 40 years – a database designed to help them solve cases. Either they didn’t know about it, which is negligence, or they didn’t care. Either way, they are not doing their job.

When people ask why I’m still doing this and I can’t just leave it alone – this is why. This isn’t just about my dad anymore. It’s about a system that is built to avoid accountability – where the Sheriff’s pass off their drug dealers to their neighbors, where public resources go unused, where killers don’t get caught.

There’s a saying in Belmont County… If you wanna rob a bank, do it in Belmont County. If you wanna mug somebody, do it in Belmont County. If you’re gonna kill someone – do it in Belmont County. Loosest county in town. In the whole state.

I’ve done more with Google and a cell phone than an entire law enforcement agency has with decades of authority and resources.

That’s not a failure. That’s a choice.

Part 3: A Killer on the Loose

I recently spoke with a retired FBI agent, Paul Wiergartner, who had a really outstanding career working in criminal investigations. I’ll let him give you his resume…

I was an accounting major undergrad, and then I, I went from, uh, college right to law school, and then I joined the FBI, uh, right outta law school. After Quantico, my first office was Sacramento on a white collar prime squad. Given my background, uh, for about seven years. Um, Sacramento was a very, you know, besides being the state capital, you'd be surprised it was a very small office, had about a hundred agents compared to like, close to 2000 in New York. Um, because there's an LA field office, there's other field offices in, in California, they're much bigger. So being a small office, uh, it was a very good experience. You got to work a lot of other things. So even though my main focus every day was white collar crime. We had a fatal Unibomber, uh, attack while I was there. So everybody worked. The Unabomber. We had a number of kidnappings. There was a, a pretty high profile one. The JC Dugard case, uh, that I worked on. Um, I don't know if you recall that she was a girl. She was. Taken when she was, uh, 11 or 12 years old. She was missing for 18 years and then they found her alive. I went back to, uh, New York after about seven years. I was in the legal unit there as a supervisor. Um, we worked, uh, reviewing all the informant cases, making sure that your operation of informant, uh, complied with law. We reviewed all the search warrants and, uh, arrest warrants before they went to the US Attorney's office for review. Um, while I was there, I was a, a special assistant US attorney, so I, uh, I defended the FBI in, in federal court while we got sued. Uh, I, I did that for about four years, uh, which gave you a very good. Like a 30,000 foot view of all the operations that were going on in the FBI. There was an undercover review committee, which, uh, that I was part of where, uh, if someone is proposing undercover operation, we would review it for legal sufficiency and to make sure there's no liability problems. If, for instance, if you sell drugs and you're gonna let them walk or, or you're involved, you know, this crime of violence to be committed, what is your obligations to stop it? Um, what, what, what is your liability? That was something that, it was, was the issues I would raise on the Undercover Review Committee. Um, after nine 11, I, I was, I worked terrorism for five years, 'cause I was in New York when that happened. Um, and that was, uh, a lot of, uh, physical surveillance, strong people. Um, and then, uh, I went to, about five years later I went to a violent crime squad, uh, in Westchester County where we did, uh, kidnappings. A lot of those were drug related kidnappings in, in New York, but we did kidnappings, uh, bank robberies. Uh, probably the biggest case I was involved in was a big truck hijacking case. Um, and, uh, the last couple years of my career, I, I did an undercover, uh, where it was a national security related thing. And then, uh, I retired when I was 50. I, I joined when I was 25. So I've been retired from the Bureau since 2014, so 11 years now.

Not only well-versed in what was happening on different levels of the FBI, but very knowledgeable about the very topics that surround my dad’s case – drug dealing and informants. 

I was an investigator at the FBI, I was, you know, an agent, but I was, did investigations and I did the legal end of it. Then I did, um, defense work and prosecution. So I got to see both sides of, of all that. So it, I, I think it gives me a, a better understanding of, um, you know, both, both sides, all sides of the, the, the issues in law enforcement.

From the moment the police arrested Daryl Smith, it’s pretty clear that they were confident they had the guy. Even in my conversations with the police, their only real suspect was Daryl Smith. When they dropped the charges during the Grand Jury because they said they didn’t have enough evidence, it’s not a farfetched assumption to think that they would go back and try to find something more than Daryl Smith looks like he could be a killer. 

You’ve closed on Daryl? It’s not him?
No, no, no. I still think it was Daryl there.

Daryl Smith got the killer eyes.

The sense I get is that it was easier for them to do nothing than to admit they didn’t know what they were doing. This department acts like doing nothing is the same as being neutral. It’s not. When you’re in a position of power, choosing inaction is a choice to uphold the status quo. It’s a choice that says, “This isn’t worth our time.” And in my dad’s case, it was a choice to let a killer walk free.

If I lived in Belmont County, and my Sheriff’s Department let someone get killed in their home, they claimed to know who did it, and they didn’t try to arrest them – I wouldn’t feel very safe under their protection. My dad could have been anyone. You can’t disassociate from my dad’s murder because you don’t fit his profile – he wasn’t shot during a drug deal or on a street corner. He was inside his home. That could have been you, your dad, your uncle, your brother.

My dad was killed by a shot to the head. Gunshot wounds inevitably give you a certain amount of evidence. The bullet would reveal the kind of gun and the shell casing should have been recovered. The gunpowder residue test would have shown if any witnesses should have become suspects. 

But there should be things like, um, certainly the bullet was collected, and I assume that's in evidence and those can be examined and firearms make very unique, uh, tool marks on, on, on a bullet so that you, you can, in most cases, depending on how damaged the bullet is, you can determine, uh, what, what gun fired that. So at, at a minimum without a gun to compare it to you could determine, uh, the, the caliber and, and, uh, certainly the, the, um, the, the brand and make of the firearm that fired it. Uh, and then if, if you ever could find another gun to compare it to, and it's been 25 years, but, you know, in those 25 years that's, have they recovered any other firearms of the same caliber and the surrounding area, uh, things that were used in crimes. Um, any possibility to compare that gun to.

But to my knowledge, and from what I’ve received, none of that is available. Regardless of the size of your police department, there’s a level of competency that is expected. We are all familiar just from watching television shows or listening to podcasts, generally what should happen when the police are called to a crime scene.

Um, but you still have to do your job and you know which to second guess here. What if there's a homicide? If you close the scene, you don't want anybody in or out. Uh, the NYPD, um. Because there were so many homicides that they, they really have a very well established procedure for investigating them. Um, they do a very good job, even in their cold case unit too. That, which, you know, this, that's what I'm the most familiar with is 'cause I spent 20 years in New York, so I'm sure other departments do the same, but they have what's called the, they colloquially a murder book. And, and that's sort of the, the guide to the, the whole case. And the first thing you're gonna do is you're gonna secure the scene. Um, nobody comes in or outta that scene without signing in. Um, so you know exactly everyone who was there. Um, after you secure the scene, you're gonna take photos of everything before you touch anything. So if there's a bullet lying on the floor, there's blood, or there's someone positioned in a certain way, that's you take those pictures. Um, first if there's anything, um, physical evidence, then you can collect, you know, you mark it. You've seen probably a lot of these TV shows where they have like a little tent with a number on it. 1, 2, 3, whatever. Little, like a little yellow tent they put next to a piece of evidence. They put all those out so you can see where that evidence was collected in relation to the pictures. Um, and then, uh, you physically collect all the evidence. It's usually, um, you know, there, there's evidence technicians in a larger police department. Uh, it might be a full-time position, but under a small department, there's gonna be someone who should be the de designated evidence person, um, at least for that crime scene. And then they collect everything and mark it and put it in the bag. And then whatever testing can be done, certainly if there's a picture of a, you know, a footprint on them, on a, on the, the door that should be, um, photographed and, and see if you, you know, you can kind of, if it's supposedly a Nike size 10, you can contact manufacturer, You might even be able to, I know the FBI maintains a shoe database, shoe database. Um, you know, they might even be able to tell you what model of a Nike it was. I don't know. Um, but it might be able to tell you, you know, it's an air Jordan such and such. Um, and then the other thing is, is, you know, in your dad situation, you're talking about two crime scenes because right next door there was allegedly a home invasion by the same people. So you, you have to treat that like a crime scene too, and do the same thing. Um, but you're, you're talking about this small department that apparently didn't do a whole lot of that. So it's unfortunate. It's very hard to, uh, once the crime scene gets contaminated, it's very hard to, to go back, um, and look at what should have been done.

I don’t have a time machine. I can’t go back and ask them to get shoe footprints and keep the scene taped off. I don’t have that. I just have Belmont County law enforcement, which…often makes me feel like I’ve got no one, nothing on my side.

Part 4: No One Can Save You

But if there was negligence on behalf of the investigation… how do you proceed if you assume there’s negligence 20 years after the fact?

That’s why even though we work closely with law enforcement, we still have to have that separation. I had law enforcement in here just going over, there’s a couple of younger officers, just going over hey look this is what you gotta do differently the next time around. We can’t do it now. We can’t change it now. We’re kind of stuck with it.

People think the FBI can intervene but they don’t have the numbers to step in and do the job of local police departments across the country. Well, you know, um. Uh, um, unfortunately the FBI has, uh, you know, at, at least until recent time, has reputation as the world's greatest law enforcement agency. And, you know, a, a lot of that is true and we have terrific, um, investigators and forensics. Um, but that said, uh, to give you an idea of the size of the FBI, um, there's, I, I just looked it up in anticipation of our call today. There's, there's, uh, I think 13,700 agents is, is the best guess of the number right now. Um, and that's nationwide and that's actually even worldwide. 'cause we do have, um, legal asset phase office offices throughout the world. So that's, that's every FBI agent in the world is less than 14,000 of 'em. Um, for comparison, the NYPD has has 38,000 officers, uh, and they're responsible for 26 miles of, of, of, you know, New York. And so the FBI, that's the whole country, but the re the resources are very limited. Um, of what the FBI can do and, and they get involved in, um, you know, a very select number of, of cases for, you know, very specific reasons.

If I had to guess, the reasons the FBI would or wouldn’t get involved probably include their age, race, gender, and the morality behind their murder – and what I mean by that is… if the court of public opinion decides that person didn’t deserve to be murdered. 

There are 340,000 unsolved murders in the US, between 1965 and 2021, according to FBI data. If every single FBI agent was assigned only to solving cold cases, each agent would be assigned 24 cases. 

What exactly is the duty of the police department and what is their responsibility to solve crime?

So it, it's an unfortunate that the, the police owe a duty to the community, but they don't necessarily owe legally a, a duty to any particular given person. Um, which makes no sense, but there's court case to that effect. Otherwise, you know, every. Person who feels, uh, aggrieved by the, the way the police department did or didn't handle something, would be suing them all day long. So, so they, they do have some, some level of, of, uh, insulation from that, that, that said, I mean, the [00:35:00] only accountability then is, is, um, you know, a lot of these positions are, are elected positions. Um, I'm, I'm in Florida, we have a sheriff who's elected. Uh, you know, there's things like that, public pressure that can be brought, brought to bear on it.

If the FBI can’t takeover for cases like my dads, I’m just stuck with the Belmont County cops – the guys whose grand strategy for dealing with drug dealers is to send ‘em over to the next county. These are supposed to be the heroes in my dad’s story, but only after I put enough public pressure on them to do something. 

My next line of defense in Belmont County is the prosecutor’s office – you remember our friend, Kevin Flanagan. But the prosecutor and the cops have allegiance to each other. They are the team that puts away bad guys — or you know, the team that lets them wander around — and it's really hard to put yourself in the middle of that relationship and come away with anyone on your side. You heard Kevin Flanagan and David Liberati just dodge my questions about police negligence. They have no reason to turn on each other even if it makes their communities safer and more equitably protected.

If you search “What do I do if the police don’t solve my case,” there are actual articles providing instructions on what to do — because it's common enough that it merits articles. The tips are basically: Contact the DA and local elected officials, go to the media (hello, listeners), post on social media (hello, followers), hire an investigator, and then to sue. 

But there’s no step in the process that guarantees the police will have to account for their action — or lack thereof. And when cops are bad — at their jobs or just plain corrupt, there’s no one policing the police.

Part 5: Behind the Badge

This isn’t a “Belmont County” problem with policing. I’m not wearing a tin hat when I look into allegations of corruption, misconduct, and cops who are simply not very good at their jobs. Here are some recent headlines from every part of the country. 

New York's police commissioner resigns amid corruption probe - The BBC

Officers Plead Guilty in DWI Police Corruption Probe in Albuquerque, New Mexico - US News and World Report

Alabama police department should be ‘immediately abolished’ over ‘rampant culture of corruption’: grand jury - The New York Post

Antioch Police Department agrees to oversight in wake of police corruption, racism scandals - Mercury News 

Authorities charge 10 current and former California police officers in corruption case - PBS News

A retired Houston officer gets 60 years in a couple's drug raid deaths that revealed corruption - AP News

These are not exceptions to the rule. These headlines weren’t hard to find, in fact it only took a couple minutes to find all of these very recent examples. It only scratches the surface of cases that made national news.

When zooming in on Ohio, there’s an abundance of examples from all over the state:

Third of officers in an Ohio police department hit with civil rights and abuse charges - ABC News

Columbus police settlements are common and costly - Axios 

The ‘Anonymous Memo’ that revealed Dayton police department corruption - The Dayton Daily News 

Up until recently, I had no desire to tackle the systemic failures of policing in America. I am all too aware of them, but I was committed to maintaining a much more narrow focus on just getting answers for my dad. That’s why I’m here in the first place – because my dad deserves justice. He was killed in the doorway of his home and as terrifying as it is to not know who did it, the most haunting question is why – why he got killed and why it remains unsolved.

But I’m running into a larger, more systemic issue – I keep reaching out to the police and I’m met with missed phone calls, emails into the void, and what feels like insurmountable apathy. 

As we continue, there’s going to be more unflattering information shared about the Belmont County Sheriff’s Office. We’re going to hear from people who propose some pretty negative theories about why this case isn’t solved. And when that happens, I want you to remember these stories I just told you about. I want you to remember what cops will do when they know they are being filmed.

As ABC News revealed, they break the law because in their mind, they’re above it.

In video after video, investigators say it’s the men behind the badges committing crimes against the community they swore to serve and protect.

And if that’s what they do when they’re on camera, imagine what they could do when there’s no one watching. After five years of investigating this case, I've learned again and again that those tasked to protect and serve are hell bent on protecting themselves above everything else. 

The evidence of misconduct is there, but it’s becoming harder to find. There was a national database for federal police misconduct created in 2023, and the current administration had that website shut down. It was called The National Law Enforcement Accountability Database but now it’s just a 404 page.

Part 6: Families vs. Investigators

When you are a family member, and you want to dive into a cold case the first place you go is the local police department. You have to – they are the keeper of all the files, evidence, and any “legit” knowledge of the case. You have no other option. But their regulations are nonexistent.  They aren’t required to engage with the family and communicate with them. Good relationships between victims’ families and the police are considered a professional courtesy, not a job requirement. You have to hope the detectives working your case are exceptionally decent, committed, and transparent. 

I had a difficult decision to make when I first called the Belmont County Sheriff’s Department back in 2020. Was I going to say I was a family member calling to get access to my dad’s case files or was I going to say I was a journalist? Which one would render me more favor with the police? Which one would they be more honest with?

But I think the more important question is why am I relying on the good will of the police instead of trusting that they will uphold their duty to do what’s right?

You’re put in an uncomfortable situation when you’re dealing with a cold case that has been ignored for so long. The police’s disinterest and — oftentimes negligence — is obvious. But if you call it out, you’re met with hostility from police that you can’t afford when you’re trying to solve a case. Because it’s not up to you if someone gets tried for murder, it’s up to them.

Calling out these systems has done very little to change them. They seem untouchable. I almost fucked myself by being critical of the police. Like everything else, I’m far from the first person to straddle this line between needing help and feeling absolute rage at the people I need help from. A 2020 study from Georgia State University found that “systemic changes may be needed to improve the relationship between police detectives and the families and friends of murder victims.”  If you are listening to other true crime podcasts, you’ve also likely heard about other cases where the cops just shit the bed, and for the sake of getting the case solved, families have to pretend the shit doesn’t stink. 

But I can’t pretend they did their job when my dad’s case remains unsolved and basically the entire county claims they know exactly what happened. Belmont County, from McCort to Thompson to Lucas, has consistently modeled a culture of avoidance – pretending that doing nothing is the same as doing enough. They treat families like they’re lucky to even be acknowledged. I’ve been playing nice, hoping that my cooperation might mean my dad’s case gets attention. But the truth is: silence hasn’t helped. Kindness hasn’t moved the needle. Respect hasn’t earned me results.

Part 7: Inconvenient at Best

The most frustrating, gut-punching part of dealing with the fractured ego of the Belmont County Sheriff’s Department is this: when tips come in — and they do, constantly — or when someone reaches out and says, “I know who killed your dad,” or a source the police once claimed they were desperate to talk to finally opens up… I have no one to call.

That happens, by the way, almost daily now. I’m convinced at least half the county knows what really happened to my dad. I’m spending every ounce of my time, energy, money, and emotional bandwidth trying to uncover who killed J.C. McGhee. And even if I get there — even when I piece it all together, against all odds — Belmont County could still look me in the eye and do absolutely nothing. And there’s not a single system in place to make them act.

Can I solve this case? That’s what everyone wants to know. Some days, I think I already have. Messages have been flooding in confirming suspicions I’ve quietly held for years. Half-whispered rumors, long-buried family secrets… suddenly, they’re not so quiet anymore. It seems like if you’ve lived in Belmont County at any point in the last 30 years, you’ve got a theory about who killed my dad. The problem is, those theories rarely match.

But there’s one thing almost every name has in common: a connection to drug crime. And that single detail — just that one label — changes how people see the murder of John Cornelius McGhee.

Let’s be real. Because of my dad’s status — not just as a black man, but as a drug dealer, and as an informant — his death was, at most, an inconvenience to the Belmont County Sheriff’s Department. Even with strong, specific theories floating around — within families, between prison walls, inside police circles. The unfortunate reality is that some murders just don’t matter as much as others – to the police or to the public. That’s the truth I’ve had to live with and actively fight against.

But here’s the thing. The truth is shifting. The silence is cracking.

And what I’ve learned recently… is going to change everything.

Next Time On Ice Cold Case

Anybody that violates that code of ethics, if he was in the streets and shit and you turn snitch, they don't give a fuck about you.

You know, there was a term used to call 'em sometimes misdemeanor homicides, like they just one drug dealer killing another.

You feel me? Like, like I said, man, 97 percent of that town work for the federal government.

Credits

Thanks for listening to Ice Cold Case a Yes! Podcast
Recorded in Los Angeles at Spotify Studios
This episode was written, hosted, produced, and edited by Madison McGhee
Copy editing and additional research by Opheli Garcia Lawler
Recorded by EJ Cabasal
Sound engineering and sound design by Sian McMullen
Graphic design by AJ Christianson
Creative consulting by Shakinah Starks

All outside sources are linked in the show notes.

A video version of this episode is available on our YouTube Channel and a transcript is available at icecoldcase.com
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