Don't Lie to Me: Images & Transcript

Don’t Lie to Me- Three years of case coverage told from the prosecution’s perspective who say Marcus was on drugs (but not to the point that he had no idea what was going on), had a history of choking women during sex, and that’s exactly what they say happened in spite of his lies.

 

Penny  00:01

So there you have it, from May 11th 2019, through April 8th 2022, almost three years of covering this case. I still don't know what happened. I can tell you that the prosecution, and probably most of the people listening think that Marcus Lillard absolutely strangled. Marianne Shockley, you've heard the case put forth by the prosecution. And you may or may not agree with everything that they said. Their argument was that it was not intentional that Marcus Lillard did not intentionally strangle her. So if you believe that Marcus Lillard should have been found guilty, then there is some vindication here. When the jury's verdict of not guilty on all of the charges was read. I think that it was lost upon those present, that the judge disagreed with what the jury had found. So I want to read what the findings were from Judge Burleson. And she did find that the defendant has violated the terms and conditions of probation and the following particulars condition one, do not violate the criminal laws of any governmental unit and be of general good behavior. offender did commit the new offenses of felony murder, aggravated assault, involuntary manslaughter, and reckless conduct in Baldwin County, Georgia. So even though the jury found that Marcus littler, did not commit these offenses, the judge did find him guilty. I'm sure the people who think that Marcus Lillard is guilty, very much so wanted the jury to find him guilty and to hear a very lengthy prison sentence. And that's not what happened here. And I can certainly understand the disappointment of, of this being the case, his probation being revoked and having to serve out however long he ends up serving for violating his probation is not the same as having a felony conviction on his record that follows him forever. And what the prosecution knew and what law enforcement knew at the time of the trial is obviously not the same thing as what they were able to put on as evidence. So what is it? What is it that makes them so certain that Marcus Lillard did this, that he was the one who murdered Marianne Shockley? their primary argument is based on common sense that Marcus Lillard is the one who had the history of choking women during sex. He was there with his beautiful girlfriend, and they were naked in a hot tub. Therefore, he strangled her and she died. That's their, that's the basis of their argument in a nutshell. There's a lot of complicating factors here. But in essence, that's what they're saying. It just makes the most sense.

 

Female Speaker 03:41

He was into strangling girls. And that was his thing with sex. He was trouble.

 

Penny  03:48

And then they move on to the way that Marcus and Marianne's relationship was really working or not. So they use the phrase loosely dating. And it's pointed out that Marcus, in fact, was sleeping with several other women besides Marianne. The prosecution knows that  Marcus is claiming that he's he's been faithful to her in the weeks leading up to the incident. And meanwhile, they have witnesses who say, Absolutely not; he was either trying to hook up with me and have sex or we actually had sex within days of the murder.

 

Female Speaker 04:37

Now, he was very upfront, he told me that he's never been faithful.

 

Nikki Simmons  04:42

And are we talking about Friday before like Friday before the Saturday? 

 

Female Speaker 04:47

Yeah, whatever that was. 

 

Nikki Simmons  04:47

If Saturday was the 11th when this incident occurred, we're talking about the day before and

 

Female Speaker 04:52

Yeah, spent the night 

 

Penny  04:53

so you know, to law enforcement and to the prosecution. If you lie about One thing you'll lie about anything. And not only did Marcus lie about being faithful to Marianne leading up to that night, but he also claims that she was aware he was sleeping with other women, and even went so far as to say that she gave him permission to do whatever he wanted when he was out of town. Marcus told some people that he loved Marianne and that she was very positive influence on his life. And to other people. He said some not very nice things about her that I will not repeat here. It's not true that they didn't have disagreements, though. And one of the major issues that came between the two of them was her kids. And we know from testimony that Marcus's interactions with Mary Ann's daughter, led to her not wanting him to be around their house anymore. Marcus was living with them for a little bit, and then he moved out. There are also other incidents that the prosecution was aware of, with Marcus interacting with other friends and family in an inappropriate manner.

 

Female Speaker 06:26

I know he's bad news.

 

Nikki Simmons  06:28

What do you mean bad news? What do you know about it? 

 

Female Speaker 06:31

He Gave me the creeps. 

 

Penny  06:33

Some people make the claim that Marcus used women both emotionally sexually, and financially, they might go so far as to say that he was using Marianne in all of those ways as well. The defense tried to make the case that one of the ways we know that Marcus showed his love for Marianne is he quit his job in Albany so that he could spend time with her and go on this trip to Ecuador with Marianne. And that might be part of the motivation. But there was definitely a pattern of behavior of Marcus working jobs for a short amount of time, even relocating, and then moving on to do other things. Besides the lies and the sex, the drugs are another huge factor in why people say Marcus for sure did this. Marcus doesn't just have a long history of drug use. He has a long history of arrests, and even convictions related to drug possession and even distribution charges. His first arrest for drugs was in the 1990s. And at the time of his arrest for the Mother's Day murder, he had nine previous felonies, six misdemeanors, and 60 you eyes so there's definitely a pattern of not just abusing drugs and alcohol, but definitely a significant amount of law enforcement involvement because of his drug use. So from law enforcement perspective, you have this man who over the course of the majority of his life has been using drugs, abusing drugs, and broken the law and being caught many times. And we all know that addiction is something that is the what are the hugest problems we have in our country. There is that intersection with law enforcement. And I am imagining that that affects the prosecution's point of view, that if someone has used drugs for most of their life, continues to use drugs and sell drugs, even after they've been arrested, spent time in jail, you know, gone to rehab court ordered rehab and halfway houses and sober living facilities and ordered to attend a certain number of meetings or community service and then been on probation, that this individual has been given a lot of chances and none of those chances or any of those consequences that he's been sentenced with in the past have resulted in his ability to stop using and abusing drugs and now it's escalated to the point where someone has lost their life. Consensually choking someone during sex, lying about sleeping around or using drugs or anything like that. Or even using drugs even though That is an illegal act is not the same thing as being a violent predator being a violent offender, which Marcus didn't have history of. But if you take all of those things and you put them together, law enforcement is going to be led to believe that it's probable and beyond a reasonable doubt, in their opinion that Marcus is responsible for her death. And, you know, that's backed up somewhat by witness statements that Marcus would become violent at times when he was under the influence. So that might have been a factor on that night.

 

Female Speaker 10:45

He was Like, man I've seen he was like Marcus was off the chain, he would do lines of coke at the darn sales desk and like screaming at customers say, I've just never seen that side of Marcus.

 

Penny  10:55

Let's talk about Marcus's lies. We have that he lied about being faithful. What are some of the other things that led the law enforcement and then later the prosecution to believe that Marcus was lying about everything? Clark was the one who called 911 and reported that Marianne had drowned. She had not in fact drowned. But some of the witnesses say that they believed that Marcus would have been able to influence Clark, to make any statement that he wanted him to that Clark would have gone along with it. And Marcus is very convincing, and could have made sure that that was the statement, and that he did not vary from that statement. The prosecution also says that Marcus lied about going into the woods for 10 to 15 minutes 30/20 30 An hour and then changed his story again to up to two hours. The prosecution never came right out and said we don't think he was in the woods at all. They did not say that. I don't know if he's in the woods at all. The only way we know he was in the woods is because Marcus told us he was in the woods. You know, Marcus infers that Clark had somewhat persuaded him to go into the woods and bury himself. And so, you know, there is this physical evidence of the fire ant bites all over Marcus's body that we we have no idea how he got those when he got those or how he got those. So as the prosecution points out, at first, Marcus said, oh, there's no way Clark did it. And then, as soon as Marcus finds out that Clark has killed himself, he immediately says, Clark must have done it. And then later towards the end of the case, he changes his mind again, or as the prosecution says he lied that oh, wait, no, there's absolutely no way Clark did this. Marcus says she had a heart event because the ecstasy and drinking and being in the hot tub, according to the prosecution Marcus lied about it never occurring to him to call 911 Because then they played the call when Marcus called 911 Earlier in the day, saying there was a reckless driver going over the bridge into downtown Milledgeville. When recounting the daily movements of he and Marianne Marcus said, They went downtown, and they went to the country club, but then he left out the fact that they went to sweet gum. This is another lie, according to the prosecution. Then Marcus said and told dang near everybody, that including myself, that Clark had drugged them, and for a long time, did not say anything about voluntarily taking the ecstasy. And then it comes out. Oh, yeah. By the way, Marianne and I did take the ecstasy that Clark offered us, and we took it willingly. So the prosecution says, there's another lie. Oh, and also sure, we took it willingly. But I got the biggest dose and Marianne got the second biggest dose and Clark gave himself the lowest dose. And so, Clark did that on purpose. Clark, wanted to be the least affected and have Marianne be more effective but still able to, I don't know, I guess hook up with him. And then Clark gave Marcus the most because he wanted Marcus completely out of it and not able to foil his plan. The prosecution makes the case. Look, none of these lies or changing stories or different statements can be blamed on the dose or type of drug that Marcus was on. Because Marcus had taken everything under the sun. They received statement after statement after statement of all of the different kinds of drugs that Marcus had used, Marcus himself admitted to using all kinds of drugs, he had been found guilty of possession and distribution of several different kinds of drugs. So the prosecution is just just not buying it. They're not going to listen or believe Marcus when he says that any of the ludicrous actions he took or his his lack of memory is affected by drugs, because I guess his tolerance is super high. He's taken every drug under the sun. So there's, there's no effect on him at this point whatsoever.

 

Nikki Simmons  16:21

Did you know of him ever using any type of narcotics drugs, street drugs, anything?

 

Female Speaker 16:28

Yes, I knew that he used cocaine. 

 

Nikki Simmons  16:33

Do you know how he might use it?

 

Female Speaker 16:36

He snorted it and he one time, put it on the end of a cigarette.

 

Female Speaker 16:41

And cocaine took Loritabs.

 

Female Speaker 16:46

I've seen him do cocaine, 

 

Nikki Simmons  16:49

How'd he use it? 

 

Female Speaker  16:51

snort it. And then I've seen him eat Molly, and he just just a pill form.

 

Nikki Simmons  17:00

Have you ever seen him so messed up that he does literally does not have a clue what's going on? 

 

Female Speaker 17:06

No.

 

Penny  17:08

They back this up. They follow this up by saying, look, he can remember everyone's birthday, their phone number, address, I mean people he went to high school with. He's just has this amazing uncanny memory. For all of these details that most of us since we have everything on our phone, we can't remember anything anymore. I dare you to be able to remember one phone number in your phone. And he could tell you everybody's number, their their names, their addresses everything. So they say there's just there's just no way he can have this stellar memory for all of these other extraneous details, and then not be able to tell you the most important things from that night. So if we go back to when law enforcement first arrived, and again, we know most of these things, some of the things that I'm going to talk about will be new to you or we'll be able to talk about evidence that wasn't presented at trial because it was not known in the public at that time. And just a warning that some of these details are graphic in nature. When law enforcement arrived, their demeanor was off. And they experienced all the law enforcement personnel that were there. And even those who came to the scene later said, There's something really, really wrong here. There's something off, there's something wrong, the way they're talking to us the story that they're giving us it just doesn't match the physical findings at the scene, we know primarily that rigor mortis, and liver mortis had settled. And so all those things show that Marianne has been dead for much longer than they're reporting. And if the fundamental facts of the case from the very beginning don't match, hackles go up. Like they said, the hair on the back of their neck stands up, the hair on their arm stands up. People are now suspicious. They're now really hyper aware that things are not what they seem.

 

First Responder 1 19:22

Details are hard to follow, I guess you wanna say. We arrived she was laying in the pool area on the concrete area of the pool. Walked up and noticed a gash on her head, asked what happened, he kind of give me a storyline of what happened and the guy said he'd been out of the woods for 45 minutes. For some reason, come back and just found her in the hot tub. But she was laying probably what 20/25 feet from the hot tub. I asked him about the gash on her head and he said that he dropped her getting her out of the hot tub. When we got her into light gotta got to assessin' her and looked and seen the time the timeline did not fit with the condition I saw. She had the purpling from by the chest up around up around the lowere/upper chest area/neck Her face was, showed pooling of blood already; did have the gash up there, was a little blood oozing from it but it was barely oozing. normally you'd expect an injury like that to be bleeding pretty heavy due to the head injury. Started assessing the face noticed her arms were starting to show some rigor and a lot of rigor especially in the lower extremities where it normally starts first. So determined the timeline was way more than what we've been told because it takes and this depends on all the conditions but several hours for this to start the especially the rigor

 

Law Enforcement 1 21:07

Anything specifically when he was looking at her time other than I know we talked about the rigor and the lividity anything else you noticed about her? Any other bruising?

 

First Responder 1 21:20

Oh, yeah. There was, like, scrapes on her knuckles. Okay. And bruising to her hands and on the knuckles that I thought might be maybe defensive wounds. Also, there were scrapes to her knees, both knees.

 

Law Enforcement 1 21:41

Anything with the two guys that seemed maybe a little

 

First Responder 1 21:45

little hinky? Yeah. When when the one had a towel around his waist. I don't know what he had on under that. Well, first place was him telling me that he had dropped her getting her out of the tub. Well, she was I mean, the length of this room from the tub, the hot tub. And there was like a lounge chair there between them. So I mean, why would you drag her that much further? That was inconsistent to me to start with. And then he said, Well, I asked him well, what you know, how long has she been down? And he said, Well, I was, went out in the woods hunting firewood for 45 minutes. To me. I mean, he had no shoes on. To me, I'm not going walking out woods with no shoes that best I could tell towel around his waist and maybe have, you know, if he had a pair shorts on or swim trunks under that. But I just that story just didn't fit.

 

First Responder 2 22:45

I'll hop up in the back of the truck. I look at her and I go, No. He said, I said she's dead Ricky. And he goes, Baby, we still might have to work it. And he said something else. I said no, Ricky, you don't understand, get in the truck. got in the truck. You can see the bruisin' around her neck where the rigor had started going all down to her shoulders. The laceration on her head was jagged. It looked like two separate two jagged marks. And she had bruisin' looked like fightin' defensive wounds. And I pulled the blanket out and she had like, like drag marks on her knees. And I said, Steve, look at her. I said this whole thing is not right. Something's wrong. And Steve got to look at and it didn't make any sense what the boyfriend was saying. Steve said, Okay,

 

Law Enforcement 1 23:47

Any other drag marks on her knees. 

 

First Responder 2 23:51

Yeah, it looks like where maybe she had like some like she was, had abrasions on her knee and on the leg. I cannot remember which one.

 

Law Enforcement 1 24:01

Any other bruising or marks that she had?

 

First Responder 2 24:05

I saw some bruises on her arms. I mean, it looked like from somebody had.

 

Law Enforcement 1 24:10

So possibly like, like grab marks like that grabbed her? 

 

First Responder 2 24:15

Yes.

 

Penny  24:17

Law enforcement said that they witnessed Marcus touching Marianne's body parts inappropriately, I can't see it. Now. You can see that he's touching. And he's definitely in the areas of her private parts. And that is weird. But the extent to which he was doing what they said I can't say so I am not going to say anything about that. Other than there is some really, really, really weird shit going on. And I think that's part of the reason why we can't make sense of it. So back to the number one reason why the prosecution thinks that Marcus strangled her and that's his history of choking women. Some of the women who testified said that they liked it. Some of them said they were the ones that asked for it. Not everyone said they liked it and asked for it. One of the women was definitely traumatized by it. Some of the other women were affected in a negative manner as well, even if they were willing participants in it. And all of those things can be true. Some said that, when he tried it on them, and they asked him to stop he did. One woman said, he told her to shut up and take it. One woman took it didn't say no, and can't stop thinking about it.

 

Nikki Simmons  25:45

You know, I understand, you're saying, Look, we had consensual sex, even though this is these were my feelings wrapped around it. This was the state of mind I had, that that matters. For you. I've had women that say, you know, I wanted this because this was my extracurricular. And I've had women that said the same thing. As you look, I was in a bad place in my life. He was there. I used him, he used me or either I just allowed it to happen because of the bad place I was in. All of that's okay, we're all different. We do get in a bad place. I don't care who you are, you may run to sex and drugs, I may run to food. Either way, it's bad for us. This is the way that I look at it.

 

Penny  26:29

None of these are positive outcomes, and reflect well, on the sexual acts and exploits of Marcus Lillard. The prosecution put on these women and acknowledge that they did not want to do so that it was necessary to prove the case. And that they were willing to put these women through this because they wanted to do it for Marianne. And many of the women expressed that they also wanted to do this for her to testify for her and for her family. You know, one thing I want to say. Ex wives and ex husbands in court is never pretty, it's never going to be good. Here's the thing. Marcus's ex wife had no reason to lie about what Marcus said. He was the one who called her. She didn't go out of her way, to impugn him or say bad things about him, he called her. And in fact, most of what her testimony said Marcus reported to her on the phone was backed up by him either saying the exact same thing to other people that night or his own testimony. And so we have to believe her, we have to believe what she said. And that he told her those things that night. Witness A also had no reason to lie about what happened to her. Marcus has a different story about their interactions, and the sexual acts that they engaged with each other as far as details or number of times, things like that. All of this taken together. The prosecution is saying Marcus and Marianne met at his dad's house, and then they went downtown, and they went out for drinks. And they had a little bit of food. And they stopped by sweet gum, and they got the mural. And they stopped at the Mexican restaurant and got some soup. They stopped at at least two different stores to buy alcohol. They went to Clark's house which is on the way home to where they were going to be staying that night at Marcus's dad's house. They had some drinks, they had some food. They maybe read some tarot cards. They played some music. They played some musical instruments. Marcus went swimming. Marcus and Marianne got naked and when the hot tub I don't know about you, but I had a hard time believing they had sex in that hot tub. But that's what the prosecution says. But then once I learned that there was a report of Marcus having sex with another woman in that same hot tub on a different night. I changed my mind that maybe they did have sex in that hot tub that night. Again, Marcus says they did not the prosecution says they absolutely did. And the only reason why there is no DNA is because her body was in the hot tub for too long. They also say or Marcus didn't finish and they make this argument Because when Marcus was texting with one of the other 404 B witnesses, he had asked her, please get some Molly And when she said no, he said get Viagra from your daddy for me lol. They are definitely challenging Marcus's manhood here. And I'll be honest with you, I wondered if they were trying to goad him into taking the stand by challenging his manhood by making it clear that they were not buying any of the things that he said almost as a challenge to say, Oh, if you think you can do better, come on the stand and tell us. The prosecution's trying to say that due to Marcus Lillard significant history of choking, that, even if you believe he was significantly impaired by drugs or alcohol, that him it would almost be his instinct to participate in that act or engage in the act of choking during sex, if he was that messed up. That's not directly what they said. But that is my understanding of what they were trying to imply. And in the closing argument, the prosecution says that she was dead when Marcus Lillard went into the woods, or at least he thought she was dead. So he went into the woods, to create a cover story, that he was not there, when she died. And then Marcus either buried himself or laid down on top of a pile of ants, some way exposed his body to these fire ants, and then let them devour him. When he returned, she wasn't dead after all. And then all of the other things that Marcus said happened took place. He took her out of the hot tub, and he dropped her on the pool deck, and then he swam her to the other side. And maybe they did CPR there. But then they brought her back to the other end of the pool where the diving board is just to the side of the hot tub. He has a history of choking women, he lies, he abuses and uses drugs. And all of those things combined show, according to the prosecution, and some other people's testimony and witness statements, some of which were not introduced into court, and Marcus Lillard strangled Marianne Shockley and caused her death. That's the main primary reasons why those people believe that he should have been found guilty. And some of those reasons and also the evidence factors into why the judge said that he actually was guilty and revoked his probation. But the prosecution also has to negate the alternate suspect, Clark Heindel. And whether his committing suicide on the scene is an indication of his guilt. It is possible that, like they said, he was just a very sad man who had lost his son, and been through a lot in his life and just didn't want to deal with it anymore.

 

33:46

What gets me and then I try to figure out, you know, about the psychiatrist, and from what I understand, either his son or his daughter died when he was 69 years old. And I think he was a pillar of the community. And he knew that he was going to sit in jail for a couple years until this went to trial. And I don't think that him killing himself was an admission of guilt. I think that he was old and he already had some personal issues, and he just didn't want to sit in a jail cell. And plus, he didn't want his name to be dragged. You know, ran a pillar of the community. He just didn't want the humiliation and the shame go with it. I don't think it was an admission of guilt. I think they were both doing it. I don't know what the hell they were doing in a hot tub in a storm. That's the only thing that I'm like, did they kill her and then they tried to put our body in the hot tub to like heat it back up. I don't I don't understand what they were doing because it was storming bad that night. I mean, I lost power at my house.

 

Penny  34:36

There's still a lot of questions that we don't have the answers to and maybe we're never going to have the answers to. One thing's for sure, Marcus had a type. The witnesses that were brought forth, that doesn't it mean that everyone that he dated or hooked up with. They were going through some things they were going through  the worst moments of their life the lowest moments of their life. Not everyone fell for Marcus. Some people saw him for a different kind of person. Marcus had a system, a routine a circuit. He sold them cars or drugs, or met them downtown. Or friended them on Facebook. He took them for a ride on his motorcycle. He took him to his house on sweet gum. He took them to the RV by the pond, the pond house.

 

Female Speaker  35:40

Okay, so there's the hill, there's the pond. 

 

Nikki Simmons  

Okay, so it's the pond is different place. So I'm familiar with sweet gum and the hill and the pond is a different, okay. I'm with you now, I'm tracking. 

 

Female Speaker  

He has weird names. 

 

Nikki Simmons  

Well, maybe I am familiar with them. And so I'm trying. I'm trying to put the pieces together. So we'll just say at the pond.

 

Penny  36:02

For a moment, Marcus won't be taking anyone anywhere. And I hope he gets the help that he needs. I hope it also gives the women who chose to be with Marcus, to choose themselves to know that they are worth more than to be treated like that. It's not too late for you. You still have a chance. In the next episode, which will be our final episode of season two. We will talk about why Marcus Lillard was found not guilty, and show what evidence there is to cast doubt on his guilt.

 

Join Patreon at patreon.com/bloodtown for early access and bonus content. Or leave a rating or review on Apple podcasts, Good Pods or Spotify. You can visit our website www.bloodtownpodcast.com or follow us on Facebook or Instagram @bloodtownpodcast and on Twitter @bloodtownpod