123. Jimmy Dale Hudson: The Greensboro Dentist Who Killed His Family

SPEAKER_00 0:15

It's a Saturday in the fall, early 1980s in Chapel Hill. We're talking Carolina Tar Heels Football. If you walked into Canaan Memorial Stadium on a Saturday, you were stepping into what a lot of people now call the golden air of Carolina football. Back then, the stadium looked a lot different. It wasn't all built up like it is today. It felt more open, kind of tucked down into the trees. You had those tall Carolina pines all around it, and the whole place just felt closer, more personal. Fans would start filling in early, some in Carolina blue t-shirts, and although the tradition was fading, some still dressed in blazers and tattoos, especially for home games. And on the field those vintage helmets with the old stair-step Carolina logo. And you could hear the band warming up in the background, coming together piece by piece. Then it would click, and you'd hear Carolina Victory start up, and the people in the stands joined in on Hark the Sound, loud and proud. Before the game, a lot of folks would gather over by the old well. They knew the team was coming through. Players and coaches would walk right past, where you could see them up close. Guys like Lawrence Taylor, just completely changing the game on defense. And on offense, it was all about the run. Most of these games were in the afternoon, no big night setups like now. Just daylight, sun overhead. And around that time, you also started seeing a new version of Ramesses. Not just the live Ram, but someone in a costume out there working the crowd. It wasn't just football to Carolina fans, it was the social bedrock of their lives.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

I'm Darlene, and I'm Melody.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

This is Hard Times and True Crimes.

SPEAKER_02 2:17

I know you've been really busy. Yes. I don't think you know about this. We received an email from a new listener, and it's authored Don Williams. Okay. He has a newsletter subscription to the Vintage Crime Gazette. He messaged us about our update on the Welch episode. The boys on Route 66 were killed. And we had some conversations back and forth, and he featured our update in his newsletter. Cool. Yes, and he said he is now a new listener. He likes our podcast. That's awesome. It really is. And he sent us a copy of the newsletter. You gotta go read it. He actually had featured some stories in there I hadn't heard about. So yeah, we might find leads for some new stuff. But he's also an author and he has a new book coming out this month called Madeline Gets Life about an Oklahoma beauty who got caught up in a sensational murder in New York in 1942. Oh wow. Yeah, so we may want to read that book and cover that story. Yes. So if any of our listeners are interested in the book or would like to sign up for that free newsletter, you can find it at danwilliamsauthor.com. That's his website. Or you could probably just Google Vintage Crime Gazette and you can sign up to get that newsletter. It was actually really fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Cool. I'm looking forward to signing up myself. Yeah. Okay, so I have a story, a local story, but I do need to warn you that this story definitely contains descriptions of violence, including harm to a woman and child. Some of the details are extremely graphic and difficult to hear, but I really think those details are important, not for shock value, but because it speaks to the reality of what happened. Use discretion and skip this episode if you need to.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

At approximately 825 on the evening of March 24th in 1986, officers arrived at an apartment complex called Stones Throw on Farmington Drive across the street from Smith High School on Holden Road in Greensboro, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

Oh I know exactly where that is. Do you do you know the school? I do know the school, yes.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

What they found inside would haunt them. Just inside the front door in the foyer lay a tiny little girl curled up on the ground. She was wearing a pink nightgown and a brown coat, but the gown was almost completely soaked through with blood. The blood had come from her throat, which had been cut all the way back to her spine. In the living room, past an Easter egg dye kit that was scattered, the little girl's mother was lying face up on the floor between a recliner and an old antique bar. She was wearing blue jeans, her legs were sprawled apart, and just like her daughter, her throat had been cut, slashed all the way around her neck, so deep that it also had gone to the spine. There was a handkerchief that was stuffed into the wound and her neck. Police would later say that this was one of the most gruesome crimes that had ever happened in Greensboro. Strangely, the apartment wasn't disheveled, there was no broken furniture, nothing out of place. There was a set of car keys laying at the mother's elbow. The television was on, there were muffins cooling on the counter in the kitchen. On the landing near the stairs, officers would find a blue Oxford shirt with no damage to it. There were no tears, no holes anywhere, there was blood. The officers already knew who they were dealing with. The victims were thirty-six-year-old Katherine Hudson, known to friends and family as Kay, and her three-year-old daughter, Wilma Dale Hudson. Sitting in custody was 38-year-old local dentist, Dr. Jimmy Dale Hudson, Kay's husband and Wilma Dale's father. He arrived at Greensboro Police Headquarters at around 8 p.m. So that had happened relatively quick because they got into the apartment at 8 25. Wow. He had come in to the police department and stopped the first officer that he saw. He told him that they needed to go to his wife's apartment. The two of them had had a bad argument and then she'd attacked him with a knife. He could remember trying to wrestle the knife away from her, but after that everything went blank. The next thing he knew he was standing at the kitchen sink washing blood from his hands, and when he looked around, his wife and daughter were lying on the floor. He believed they were dead. He told the officer his daughter must have gotten in between him and his wife when they were arguing. He thought he must have killed them, but he had no memory of doing it. It had to have been an accident. He explained that he wasn't violent. He'd just been under a lot of stress lately, and he couldn't believe what had happened. He told the officer that he'd been cut during the struggle on his neck, on his hand and his chest. They took him to the hospital, and on the way he asked if anyone had made it to the apartment yet. The officer said he wasn't sure. And Jimmy Dell said, Well, I know what they're gonna find when they get there.

SPEAKER_02 7:43

Was he acting as if he thought they may still be alive and they could be saved, or was he pretty adamant that they were already?

SPEAKER_01 7:51

He said that he thought they were dead.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

Yeah. He was transported to Wesley Long to be checked out, and when he got there, they did find a few scratches on his neck that looked more like fingernail marks than a struggle with a knife. There were some small cuts on his chest. They were pretty superficial. The only thing that required any treatment was a two-inch cut on his left hand along the thumb side of his palm. It took seven stitches to close that up. Other than that, there was a tiny cut on his knuckle that didn't need anything at all. And he did say that his wrist was sore, but there was no visible injuries and it moved just fine, so it wasn't broken. Jimmy Dale Hudson was born in 1948 in Jaken, Georgia, the only child of Waldo Hudson Jr. and Wilma Hudson. His father, Waldo Jr., was 24 years old when he registered for World War II in the draft in October of 1940. He was known to be a hard drinking man. He was an ex-Army sergeant and a World War II veteran. He was a little bit rough around the edges, but he loved his son. He was a really good dad, and Jimmy Dale was close with his dad. There was no evidence he wasn't unkind to his wife or or to him. So Waldo was a peanut farmer, and Jimmy Dale would later recall picking peanuts as a kid, and it just seems like he had a pretty ideal life. Again, he was an only kid. His mother, Wilma Martindale Hudson, was a farmer's wife who also worked outside of the home. But inside the home, everything centered around her only son. She was an indulgent mother. She gave to him, she invested in him, she pushed him to succeed. Academics mattered, and he rose to meet those expectations. Jimmy Dale excelled in everything. And Wilma was proud of him, and so was his father, Waldo. She did run a tight ship. Jimmy wasn't allowed to take part in the kind of activities typical teenage boys were involved in. He wasn't gonna be drinking and smoking and all those things. His life was closely managed by his mother. He went to church, he studied hard, but at the same time, she kept him really close. Really close. In fact, he slept in the bed with her until he was 15 years old.

SPEAKER_02 10:29

That's a little bit too much.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Yeah. Well, his father slept in a hideaway bed nearby.

SPEAKER_02 10:35

That's weird.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

It's so weird. And I have all kinds of thoughts about that. I had a long argument with Chat GPT because I just noticed that these post-war mothers clung really tightly to their boys, and that a lot of them wound up with mental illnesses. I say that all the time. You hear me talk about it.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

We do a lot of cases that kind of deal with that.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Yes. And I'm fascinated by it. And Chat GPT, I feel like feminist propaganda because it's like you can't blame the mother, you can't blah blah. And I'm just like, but but we do have like data here. Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:18

Sometimes you need to call a spade a spade. Exactly. And there comes a time when indulgence crosses a line into territory that's very unhealthy.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Well, I finally found out there have been multiple books written about it. Okay. So it's definitely a thing. It's not something that I just dreamed up one day. Right. There were like I I found about four or five books. Okay. And but what it says now is now we know that we were blaming women for these problems and Okay. Yeah, and sometimes ChatGPT does kind of go a little woke. Oh, oh, tell me about it. Yeah, I was getting so mad. Anyway, when you do look at that post-war generation, you can sympathize a little bit because these women probably in their younger years, they lost fathers and dads and brothers, and so And husbands. And husbands, and they held their little boys tight. Right. After that, some of them did. Of course, that's not always the case, but it was a lot of the time. And then it was also the Cold War era where you wanted to outturn perfect kids too.

SPEAKER_02 12:26

Right. We're raising a good boy. We're not raising one of those rebellious hippie whatever like you're gonna be an upstanding citizen.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Exactly. So you have a mother who was deeply devoted, almost fearful of losing her son, and indulges him and protects him and literally keeps him close, but also trying to shape him into something and control him and perfect him. Yeah. Does that make sense? And Jimmy was an excellent student. He made both of his parents very proud. And he was respectful to his parents and really loved his parents, both of them. But he had a great relationship with them both. And he seemed contented to please both of his parents. He made good grades, good behavior, and what parents would not be proud of that. Right. In 1963, the family moved to Greensboro, North Carolina. They lived on 12th Street in the White Oak community. Jimmy Dale's father, Waldo, took a job at Cone Mills, one of the largest textile companies in the region. And Wilma started working for Pilot Life Insurance Agency. And Jimmy Dale would attend Page High School. So are you familiar with any of those? Familiar with all of those. My dad lived in Greensboro. Oh I'm yeah, I'm very familiar. Cool. After graduating with honors, his parents wound up being able to put Jimmy Dale through college at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. And that's not cheap.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

In North Carolina, that's a big deal when your kid goes to Carolina.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

It is, yes. And he majored in chemistry and was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa, one of the nation's most prestigious academic honor societies. So he's a high achiever. Oh, he 100% is. And then he went on to the school of dentistry. And he met this beautiful young woman while he was in college named Kay Everett, who was studying to become a dental hygienist. And they really hit it off. I mean, they started spending all of their spare time together. She was a preacher's kid. She was a really good girl. They were just in love. And on December 27th, 1970, the News and Observer came out with this article that read, Miss Catherine Louise Everett was engaged to Jimmy Dale Hudson of Greensboro, son of Mr. and Mrs. Waldo Thomas Hudson Jr. of Greensboro. It's announced by her parents, Reverend and Mrs. Joseph Everett of Greensboro. The bride elect is attending UNC at Chapel Hill. Her fiance is a graduate of UNC at Chapel Hill, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He is presently attending dental school at UNC at Chapel Hill. A January 30th wedding is planned. And then on January 30th, 1971, Jimmy Dale and Kay were married in the chapel of the First Baptist Church by the Reverend E. B. Stewart. Jimmy Dale's father was his best man. Okay, first of all, I think that's really sweet that he had his father as his best man. And that just speaks a lot about how he was very close to his parents. But his dad, he was so nervous when he walked into the church that he forgot he was smoking his cigarette. And then he looks around and realizes it. And so he throws it on the carpet and stomps it out. And they say that that cigarette burn was in the carpet for years and years. Well, that's a great story. Despite that little mishap, it was a beautiful wedding, and the happy couple were just really deeply in love, and their families were both very happy and proud of them. So let me just say this because a lot of really controlling mothers don't want their boys to get married. Nobody's ever good enough. But I don't think that was the case with Wilma. I think she was happy for her son. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

Because those kinds of women can be really rough mother-in-laws.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Yes, they can. After Jimmy Dale graduated from dental school, the couple moved to Robinsville, North Carolina. Do you know where that's at? No, I don't think Robbinsville. Robbinsville. Never heard of that. And there the new Dr. Hudson became the town's first full-time dentist. And in a small community, being the only dentist was a very big deal. And everybody went to him. He was respected. People said he really took the fear out of going to the dentist just by how he talked. And he was just very calm, reassuring, and could make everybody feel at ease. His dental practice brought in enough success that it paid for a brand new home on Sweetwater Road. And within three years, their home was completely paid off. Three years? Three years. Wow. Yeah, that's incredible. And she designed their home and everything. Wow. Yeah. Impulsive. It was a little bit like unusual for the time, which I bet it was beautiful. It was shaped almost like a barn with a small, cozy space downstairs, like a living room. But then their master bedroom was upstairs, and from their bed, the Hudson's could look straight through that big window and see the mountains.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

I bet that was very beautiful. Doesn't that sound gorgeous? Yeah, and then you said it'd be in like the barn. Like we know that's very stylish now. She was before her time.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Yes, she was.

SPEAKER_02 17:54

I would really like to see that house.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Yeah, I bet it was gorgeous. She was very beautiful. I don't know if I've said that, but Kay was beautiful, and I would have loved to have been friends with her. They seemed to be building, or not seemed to, they were building a very comfortable life together. They were buying new furniture, she was redecorating, taking trips, and she kind of held everything together. It was just the two of them, and they were making the most of the lives that their parents had both worked hard to get them. Yeah, so it's very idyllic. When he wasn't working, Jimmy Dale was chasing the things he loved most, which was railroads and Carolina Sports. Okay, good.

SPEAKER_02 18:37

I thought you were gonna say women. Carolina Sports, that tracks.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Yes. One of the bedrooms in their mountain home was wallpapered with trains and devoted to this elaborate model railroad setup. After moving to Greensboro, he even joined a local railroad historical society and made friends with other people who shared that same passion. One summer he spent two weeks traveling and riding all across America, and he would just take off and do that from time to time. Just go on the railroad. You know who that reminds me of? Michael, the wall.

SPEAKER_02 19:15

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Because he'll do that. He's very fascinated with trains and he'll go for little weekend trips.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

And that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Sometimes they'll go together, and sometimes he'll go by himself. Yeah. So he also loved the North Carolina Tar Hills, and that love ran pretty deep. The walls of his dental office were covered in Tar Hill, everything, and he had memorabilia all around his office. And at home, he had another room dedicated to Carolina.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

I'm not surprised.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

On the weekends, the Hudson's would make the six-hour drive to Chapel Hill just to watch the team play. Oh wow. Jimmy Dale followed them on the road just as often as he possibly could. He even went all the way to Oklahoma once for a game. And Kay, she was supportive. She took care of their home. She helped him. She kept the books for his business. She was his dental assistant. She was just a very supportive wife. And I think I'm trying to find a way. So he he had a mother who kept everything together, and then now he had a wife who kept everything together. Okay. Because he was a guy that liked excitement. He liked to do things. He liked to go places. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 20:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

And so she was just for him a great fit.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

Like a good help meet because she was able to she organized the things so that he had the freedom to do all of that. 100%, yes.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

And she didn't try to change him. For the most part, she was genuinely happy to let him have his passions, to build his train rooms, chase Carolina games, and immerse himself in the things that he loved while she quietly, kind of in the background, held things together. In Robinsville, instead of gravitating towards the town's more prominent or higher up circles, Jimmy Dale's closest friends were two furniture factory workers. One guy was named Carringer and the other was Huel Smith. And they bonded over their love of Carolina sports. Okay. Smith would later say it actually surprised him at first that someone as educated and prominent as Jimmy Dale would even want to hang out with them. But the more he got to know him, the more it made sense because Jimmy Dale wasn't raised with a silver spoon, and those friendships were just more natural to him. Jimmy Dale loved to share that part of his life with them too. He'd get them tickets to Carolina football games and take them along. He was also a member of the Rams Club, which was a group of rich donors. And so one time he invited Smith and Carringer to this cocktail party in the stadium. Field house before a game. Yeah, and they were saying there's these well-dressed men and these stylish women, just a completely different world than what they were used to. And they said they knew that they did not belong.

SPEAKER_03 22:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

They're these like country boys, and they're just in this. Yeah, it was very different.

SPEAKER_02 22:19

So they got to experience something that they m likely would not have.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Absolutely. And it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. But they were surprised at how easily Jimmy Dale fit in there, though. He knew everybody. After games, he'd head down to the locker rooms and greet the coaches and players like old friends. He even introduced Carringer and Smith to Tar Heel greats like Amos Lawrence and Lawrence Taylor. It went beyond fandom. Jimmy Dale would carry players' bags. Sometimes he would even fix their teeth. Oh wow. Yeah. Ernie Williamson, the executive director of the Rams Club, said he got at least a couple of phone calls a week, wanting updates on recruits and just any inside details connected to the team. He said Jimmy Dale wasn't the biggest donor of the Rams Club, but he was a consistent, generous donor. Right. But again, for all of his passions, Kay didn't seem to resent them. She went to games with him and even joined him on his steam ride trips as often as she could. He he liked it when she came, sometimes insisted that she come, and other times he would just pick up and go on his own. The only thing she ever complained about was that he was a big-time pack rat. And she did not like that. In 1973, Jimmy Dale's father passed away, and the family had a tombstone placed for him, but later the cemetery replaced all the veterans' markers. And so their original stone, I guess it was going to be trashed. Instead of letting it go, Jimmy Dale actually brought it home and put it in the backyard.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

Oh wow, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

He was sad, like it was hard on him when his dad died.

SPEAKER_02 24:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

He was, like I said, really close to his dad. And he wasn't that old, I want to say. I didn't write it down, but I believe he was in his fifties. Oh, that's kind of young. Yeah. Actually, that's very young. Five years later, in December of 1978, his mother Wilma would pass away. And his death hit her very hard, hard enough that he just couldn't handle it. Kay kind of had to step up and take care of the funeral arrangements, the details, her belongings, her estate, because Jimmy Joe, he was kind of like angry. You've been around people when they kind of go through a depression. Well, that grief cycle, I'm sure. And so she just had to step up and do what had to be done. She loved him. I but I feel like that could be stressful. He might have been an emotional husband. Okay. And thankfully I don't know what that's like. But I but I see other women who they have very emotional husbands, and I'm like, I I would rather be the toxic male.

unknown 25:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:08

You know what I'm talking about, don't I don't have yeah, I don't have an emotional husband either, but I know exactly what you mean.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

So that next year in 1979, the couple decided to move. When getting ready to sell their house, the realtor came and saw Jimmy Dale's dad's headstone and panicked.

SPEAKER_02 25:25

She's like, we're gonna have to move this. Oh my gosh, is there a body? She probably thought, yeah, she probably thought he was somebody was buried back there.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

He thought it was hilarious. And he said, No, it's just a conversation piece and explained what happened. He actually said that his mother wanted it brought there, didn't want it thrown away. It's still a little odd, but okay. It's odd for sure. In 1979, the Hudson's moved to Oak Ridge. You know where that's at? Yeah. I did not know where that was at, but it's apparently this quiet little community in Guildford County. Yeah, I have a friend that lives there now. Okay. It's just what northwest of Greensboro. Around that same time, Dr. Jimmy Dale Hudson joined Dr. Rogers in a dental practice on Walter Reed Drive in Greensboro. And from the outside, everything just looked perfect. He had a successful career, a nice home, an active social life. Kay was pursuing her master's. Jimmy Dale described her as a driven perfectionist. So she was getting it done. He didn't really love the idea of her working outside the home either. He liked for her to take care of him. Okay. So he didn't forbid it. I do know that a lot of the work that she did up until that point was for him. But within a year, Jimmy Dale would go from an associate at the dental practice to becoming a partner. So that's you know, pretty good. But still for Kay, something was missing. They didn't have any children. I was gonna say she's probably bored being at home and not having kids. She was not able to conceive. Yeah. And she wanted a child, and she just had this longing to be a mother. She ended up getting involved in the Children's Home Society of North Carolina. Oh, that is a great organization, too. It is. I know several people who have adopted children through them. And in April of 1983, the Hudson's adopted a baby girl that they named Wilma Dale Hudson.

SPEAKER_02 27:23

Oh, what a cute name.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

I know. So it was after his mother and him.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

And they were just the ideal parents. They were well educated, financially stable, they were established. They even had a friend with the Guildford County Department of Social Services who helped coach them just kind of on the questions they were going to be asked during the process and how to present themselves, and it worked. Their baby was beautiful. She did have a few health problems, respiratory problems, ear infections, sore throats, and she needed attention. But Kay was more than happy to give it to her. Yeah, and she had the time. So she poured herself into being a mother. More and more of her time, her energy, and her focus shifted towards her daughter. I think Jimmy Dale had been content and comfortable with the life he and Kay had before. And bringing a baby into their lives was a very big adjustment for him. Okay. Yeah. Kay had always been a nurturer, but for years Jimmy Dale had been the center of that attention. Soul focus. Yeah. Now there's this baby who needed her, literally needed her for survival. And that shift was just really difficult for him. And it's it is like that for some men. I do hear a lot of men complain about how their wives start ignoring. I'm I'm like, she's only one person. No, no.

SPEAKER_02 28:53

So I'll just get over it.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

I don't have any compassion for that. I'm like, but yeah. He complained that they never had any time alone anymore. He even asked a friend, how do you have a marriage and a child at the same time?

SPEAKER_02 29:08

Well, people have been doing that since the beginning of time.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

Right. I mean, you may not get to go on six-day train rides together. Right. But you just do what you what you have to do. You suck it up. He would say that he wanted her, but at the same time, he was afraid of being a father for the first time. Adopting a baby was a milestone that you would think would have brought the two closer together. But the Hudson's marriage was pulling apart in several different directions at one time. Jimmy Dale believed Kay was pulling away. They were fighting more and more. At one point, Jimmy Dale even asked her to choose between him or Will Madale. What? He wanted her to take the baby back to the children's home. No.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

Oh goodness.

SPEAKER_01 29:57

And I don't know if he meant it. Because I don't think he was a bad father all the time. And I think there were moments. I know that there were good times because I've just read enough to know that. But I think I think he was a big titty baby. I don't know what else to say.

SPEAKER_02 30:12

I think like when Truly selfish.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Yes. Yeah, to the core. But after 15 years of marriage, Kay was like kind of just done with being manipulated and done with this codependency thing. She was focused on her daughter and completing her she well, she had actually just completed her master's degree in business administration. She taught college part-time, but she had just taken a new job at Moses Cone Memorial Hospital. Meanwhile, in December of 1985, just before Christmas, the stability they had built through Jimmy's career had started to crack because his dental partners told him that they wanted him out of the practice and gone. What was that about? Absenteeism? Like he was gone a lot from work and I think doing shoddy work. Okay. And we'll get into why that could have been. And then by January of 1986, he was no longer a partner at all and was reduced to working temporary positions at other local offices, which I'm sure that was pretty humbling. Then on March 7th, 1986, everything came to a head. Jimmy Dale actually came home to an empty house. Kay was gone. She left him a note and told him she had taken Wilma Dale and moved out, and that she had already contacted an attorney. She didn't want him to know where she was at because she knew already that he was going to try everything to try to find her. And he did. He actually called the police and said that he was looking for his wife, that she was having mental health issues. He faked a heart attack trying to get her to like come to him. He tried calling again and again and again, but she was not going to engage with him. When he finally did get through to her, she was like, Read the letter.

SPEAKER_02 32:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

Read the letter.

SPEAKER_02 32:09

These toxic traits are coming out now. He's really showing his real self.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 32:14

Which she had probably been seeing for years.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

Right.

SPEAKER_02 32:17

But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

But he was able to hide these things pretty well from the outside for sure. Because she was good at keeping things in too. Yeah. So six days later, on March 13th, the two of them met and signed a formal separation agreement. That agreement laid everything out. Who got what? Jimmy Dale would keep the house, most of the vehicles, his stock, his model railroad collection. Kay would walk away with her share of she got money from a savings account, which was a good amount of money. Part of his retirement, and she remained the beneficiary on a$300,000 life insurance policy. She also, there was some underdeveloped land at Ocean Isle. Kay also got custody of Wilma Dale. Jimmy Dale was given an every other weekend visitation, but it came with the condition that before he could see his daughter, his psychiatrist, John Edwards, had to certify that he was mentally and physically able.

SPEAKER_02 33:24

And I am curious how that went too, because did he even want to see this child every other weekend? He did.

SPEAKER_01 33:31

Okay. He cried. He did. And like that's what I'm saying. I don't think he was always a horrible father. And I think she really felt bad. I know she did. I mean, we'll we'll hear in her own words. I know that she felt bad. She was not trying to ruin his life. Okay. She just wanted out. So before any of it was finalized, Kay actually went to speak with his psychiatrist herself, and his name was John Edwards. She just asked him to please help Jimmy Dale. She said that he needed help, that after losing the dental practice, he had even talked about mass murder. She said that she was afraid that he might hurt himself and even her parents, because of course it's always the parents' fault when the wife leaves. But she did not worry that he would hurt her. She said that her husband had no history of violence at all, and she didn't believe that he would harm her or Wilma Dell. But she did make it clear that she was done with the marriage. There was no going back. She described Jimmy Dale as a man who needed constant validation. She said he had girlfriends on the side for years for the sake of his ego, that he could not handle her independence and resented their daughter. She believed he saw her as a threat to his happiness. Kay said that all those years that she had been the one holding everything together. She pushed him through dental school. She designed their home. She managed their finances. She managed the finances of his practice. She carried the weight of their entire life. And she told Edwards, you know, she'd been angry with her husband for years, but she was really afraid that if she left him, he would spiral and become suicidal. And so she stayed. But she just could not do it anymore. She did say that when she finally did leave, she took his pistol with her, you know, just in case.

SPEAKER_02 35:30

I'd be willing to bet anytime she ever mentioned anything about leaving, he was threatening that to try to manipulate her.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

I think he probably emotionally manipulated her a lot. I think he would probably be like cold and distant when he was mad and he would it was all about him.

SPEAKER_02 35:48

Yeah. Mind games though.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

Yes. So in the note she wrote to Jimmy Dale, you can hear that she cares. This is what she said. She told him, I have loved you for 17 years, but I cannot continue to watch you in pain. And then she warned him, if ever you feel like hurting yourself or hurting someone else, remember life is precious and it's not yours to take. She made one thing clear that she did still care about him. And she said, That's why I'm not there. She compared their marriage to gangrene, that it was rotten and that it was spreading and beyond saving. And she said the only way to survive it was amputation, which is really ironic that you know how everything happened. But that's how she saw it. But Jimmy Dale did not. He saw that she had betrayed him. His wife had just earned her master's degree. She was stepping into this new job at Moses Cone, moving forward, building a life while his life was collapsing. After everything he had done for her, all of those years, after putting her through school, she was kicking him while he was down. And he just felt like she was a cold, calculated woman. This case is multifaceted. There were several things going on because she believed that he had also forced her to choose between him or her child, and in the end, she was going to choose her daughter. She has to choose her daughter. After he she had left that first time. And anyway, he left the country on a vacation. He went to either Mexico or somewhere in South America, somewhere. When he came back, he was determined to win his family back. He went to therapy as promised, where his psychiatrist made lots of notes about you know his personality. There was concern there for sure. He said that he'd visited the grave of his father and that his father told him that he had been wrong and he needed to make things right with Kay. And I think that Jimmy Dale was really hopeful and trying to hold on. I think she'd always given it into him. And I think that he felt like she was going to again.

SPEAKER_02 38:08

Yeah, because because he could make all these promises about I'll change, I'll be different. It'll be I wanna I'll it'll be different from here on out. He's probably done that before. Yep. And she knows it might change for a little while, and then it's back to the same old, and he's thinking he can get her back doing that again.

SPEAKER_01 38:26

Yes. And she he also was saying, you know, like he had found God and that the Lord had spoken to him, and just he was just making a lot of promises, but which men will do when they're trying to get back with their partners. Oh my gosh, yes. But uh some women threaten to leave all the time, you know what I mean? That's just what they do, they get mad and they threaten, and then some women don't threaten it, but when they do it, they're done.

SPEAKER_02 38:53

Yeah, they like it, there is no second chance. Right, it's done. It's yeah, final.

SPEAKER_01 38:59

Right. Now he did call Kay and he he told her he really missed Wilma Dell. He wanted to see her, wanted to spend the day with her, and Kay agreed that that would be okay. And so he did. He picked her up and spent the day with her, and they had a good day together. When he brought her back, he and Kay talked for a while, and then Kay told him that he needed to go because she had to get ready and make dinner. And according to Jimmy Dale, he fell apart, he became hysterical, and Wilma Dale ran over to him and started hugging him, and he was just kissing her and hugging her, and he claimed that Kay got really mad at that point and started screaming at him, and she slapped him twice and could come at him with a knife. That's where his memory stopped until he turned around and saw Kay and Wilma Dale lying on the floor, and he believed they were gone at that point. He didn't call for help. Instead, he walked out, got into his car, and just drove around the area. He said that he contemplated taking his own life by shooting himself, but couldn't go through with it. I believe that's probably true because when the police searched his car, they did find a handgun in there. I think that probably was his intention. But it's don't surprise me that he wasn't able to go through with it. Right, me either. Eventually he made his way to the police station. Dr. Aldo Mell examined him in the Guildford County Jail. He believed that Jimmy Dale was probably suffering from atypical psychosis because he was just saying crazy stuff. And because of that, he recommended a full psychiatric evaluation and wanted him to be transferred over to Dorothy Dix Hospital for further observation. Dr. Bob Rollins, which was the clinical director of the forensic unit at Dorothy Dix, evaluated him through March and through April of 1986. And his diagnosis was a mix of personality disorders with narcissistic and dependent features. In plain terms, Jimmy Dale had deep-rooted personality issues. He was self-centered, emotionally needy, and he had a strong dependence on his wife, his mother before that, and he could not see past his self and his own feelings. But Dr. Rollins did say Jimmy Dale was legally sane. He said that at the time of the murders, Jimmy Dale, he believed, was able to tell the difference from right and wrong. He also said Jimmy Dale was not suffering from a brief reactive psychosis when the killings happened. So while his mental and emotional condition was clearly part of the case, the state's position was that he understood what he was doing and knew it was wrong. And he determined that Jimmy Dale was competent to stand trial. So by May of 1986, he was indicted on two counts of first-degree murder. One for Kay and one for Wilma Dale. In the year that followed, friends of the couple just really struggled to make sense of what had happened. Many of them believed there had to have been some kind of psychotic break because the Jimmy Dale they knew it just did not match the crime. They described him as calm, controlled, someone who never even raised his voice, let alone showed any real anger. You know, they had friends that played on an adult softball league with him, and they were saying, you know, other people would be cussing and mad, and he just never really let stuff get to him. One friend of Kay's recalled a phone call after Kay had left. She said that Jimmy Dale had called her and he was just desperate and heartbroken. She said he just really wanted his family back and she felt sorry for him. But again, like I mentioned before, there was no indication that Jimmy Dale was always cruel, you know, or that he was mean to his daughter all the time.

SPEAKER_02 43:28

I don't think that's so there was not a history of domestic violence or anything of that nature.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

No, and I think it's probably more moments of distance and bitterness, you know, followed by moments of guilt where he probably overcorrected with affection and attention. From Kay's perspective, I feel like it had to have been normal enough that she felt comfortable allowing him to be alone with Wilma Dell.

SPEAKER_02 43:52

Yeah, that's been the question in my mind this whole time is like I would if if she was that afraid of him and what he might do, What made her allow that?

SPEAKER_01 44:02

Well, she told the psychiatrist that that he would not hurt those two. She was concerned he might hurt her parents or himself.

SPEAKER_02 44:10

But what I don't understand about that is i if you're worried about that, how can you not consider the fact that well, how can you be so adamant that he wouldn't hurt you or your child when you think he's talked about mass murder or he might hurt my parents?

SPEAKER_01 44:24

I don't believe she I don't think she would have let her go if she had for one second thought that he was capable of it.

SPEAKER_02 44:31

So so the real lesson here is even if you don't think that, obviously people are capable of it.

SPEAKER_01 44:37

Yeah. Definitely. Especially when people are just not themselves. He obviously was going through some stuff at that particular moment. He had just lost his job, which was unlike him.

SPEAKER_03 44:49

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 44:50

He was making all of these crazy threats.

SPEAKER_02 44:53

The gap between her not thinking that he would hurt her or the daughter to the brutality of that murder that you described at the beginning. That's a that's just such a big gap. I'm like, either she was totally blind to some of this and still maybe manipulated in some ways, or he really did have some kind of psychotic break. Although I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 45:15

Yeah, we'll we'll wait and cover the rest. Yeah, we'll talk about all of that. The case went to trial a year after the murders in March of 1987. Jimmy Dale was fighting for his life because the prosecution was seeking the death penalty in the case of Wilma Dale.

SPEAKER_02 45:33

Okay, if he does not get the death penalty, I'm gonna be upset.

SPEAKER_01 45:38

During the trial, the jury heard about the private life of Jimmy Dale Hudson in uncomfortable detail. One of the key moments came when a Greensboro police detective read a statement Jimmy had given the night of the killings. Jimmy admitted that over the years he had been involved with multiple women, six or seven different affairs. His wife Kay had only found out about a few of them. He claimed he'd stopped that behavior in August of 1985, but then later admitted that just a few weeks before the murders, Kay had found letters in his briefcase. So that was probably part of her leaving as well.

SPEAKER_02 46:20

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:21

That he had written to other women. And at least one of them was recent. So again, that's why I say this case is so multifaceted because I don't think she left for just one reason. Jimmy Dale also admitted that these relationships were carefully hidden. He avoided seeing women locally because of his reputation in the Greensboro community. The prosecution brought all of this up to challenge Jimmy Dale's credibility, especially his claim that he'd stopped those affairs because they wanted he w they wanted the jury to see a pattern that he he's not truthful.

SPEAKER_02 46:58

Right.

SPEAKER_01 46:59

He is manipulative, he knows what he's doing, he knows how to conceal stuff and hide stuff. But the court later decided that testimony crossed the line. In North Carolina, you're not allowed to use someone's sexual behavior to attack their character or truthfulness unless it directly proves something relevant to the case.

SPEAKER_02 47:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 47:20

And in this case, much of what was brought up the court considered improper. I can get that though. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:28

Because it it doesn't have any bearing on the fact that he killed his wife and child.

SPEAKER_01 47:32

But to me, I think it could be a motive for why she left, which could have led to that.

SPEAKER_02 47:38

It could be a motive for why she I mean, I think it was a motive for one of part of why she left. But I can see why they would say it doesn't have any bearing on the fact of what he did. Yeah. Like it doesn't prove that he's gonna kill his wife and kid. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:52

No, and and from that perspective, for sure, there are many cheating men who don't think.

SPEAKER_02 47:58

So I guess that's why they didn't.

SPEAKER_01 47:59

Yes. Yep. But it didn't really change the outcome because Jimmy Dell never denied the murders. His entire defense rested on the claim that he was legally insane at the time of the murders. The defense called Dr. John Edwards, which was the doctor that Kay had reached out to when she was worried about her husband, along with Dr. Solwyn Rose and Dr. Donald Fiddler. They all came to the conclusion and testified that at the time of the murders, Jimmy Dale was unable to distinguish right from wrong, and that he was suffering from a reactive psychosis, pretty much a break in reality. Dr. Rose told the jury straight up Jimmy Dale was not some cold blooded killer like the prosecution was trying to make him out to be. He said he was a wimp, a frantic, childlike man. Rose explained that all the inconsistencies, the contradictions, that wasn't proof that he was a liar. He said that it was what you'd expect from someone in a psychotic episode. According to Rose, when Kay rejected him, anger, you know, took over, like something in him broke. He told the jury that with mental illness, it's normal to misremember, to forget, to twist things. And he believed Jimmy Dell's version of events wasn't a lie. It was coming from a mind that wasn't processing correctly. Rose said that psychosis came from an unhealthy, desperate dependency on his wife, and it was pathetic. He was a self-centered man who could not see his wife as her own person, who couldn't understand her needs, only his own. He said Jimmy Dale was a paranoid man, believing everything happened to him. It was like some kind of a plot. Nothing was ever his fault. And I I agree with a lot of what he said in that too. Then there was Dr. Aldo Mel, the doctor who saw him days after the murder at the Guilford County Jail. And he testified that what he saw was a man in the middle of a psychotic meltdown. He said Jimmy Dale was disorganized, he was paranoid, delusional, that he kept saying, you know, they love me. Why can't I go be with them? I just want to be with them. I just want to die. He said that they had called him, the deputies had, because they were worried that he might try to kill himself. And he still remembered just how agitated Jimmy Dale was. But the prosecution pushed back on that. They pointed out that just hours after the murders, when police first encountered him, he wasn't frantic at all. He was calm, he was logical, he was rational. And they agreed that if Dr. Mel had seen that version of Jimmy Dale, his diagnosis would have looked very different. Now, you could argue that he was in shock after those murders. And of course, the defense did bring that up too. And then the state brought in their rebuttal witness, which was Dr. Bob Rollins from Dorothy Adicks. And he came in pretty strong. He told the jury that Jimmy Dale Hudson was not insane. He was just a selfish, manipulative man, unwilling to take responsibility for anything that he had done. He said, plain and simple, you can have a mental disorder and still be fully responsible for your actions. And in his opinion, Jimmy Dale was. He said, What really set this off was not psychosis, it was rejection. That's what I believe. That that rejection was enough to send him into a violent rage. The doctor he talked to some of Jimmy Dale's friends, some family, and other psychiatrists. As an only child raised by older parents, that he was too close to. Met his wife at church. They were both virgins when they got married. But Rollins said Jimmy Dale was oblivious to other people. Their needs didn't really even register to him because everything had always centered around him. Even his marriage had for most of that time. And he just could not take responsibility. You know, he said it took 15 years for him to realize how dependent he was on his wife. It took three years for him to realize he hadn't been a good father. And by that time, it was too late for him to fix things. But according to investigators and testimony, there's this whole other side to him that did not match that clean cut image at all. They found loads of pornography and explicit letters between him, other women, and other men. They found lots of medicine. They said he could have ran a pharmaceutical company out of his house.

SPEAKER_02 53:11

Oh, you know what? That might have something to do with him losing that job as a dentist. That's what I was gonna say. He might have been prescribing or getting his own medicine.

SPEAKER_01 53:21

There were reports, you know, there were reports of him taking this heavy medication. At home, he was controlling, but at the same time completely dependent and unable to function without Kay. He wouldn't help around the house. He would disappear on long trips by himself. Well, part of that was going to see other women, and part of it was just going to do whatever the crap he wanted to do.

SPEAKER_02 53:44

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 53:44

He also had made advances towards other women, even Kay's sister. Wow. So see now there's this the truth comes out.

SPEAKER_02 53:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:52

You start to see this whole other hidden, hidden sign. A close friend said he had never failed at anything in his life. So when his marriage and dental practice started collapsing, he could not handle it. And yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_02 54:08

And see his his parents probably never let him fail. Right. It is important to let your children fail at some things and not constantly p bail them out of every little thing.

SPEAKER_01 54:20

Don't don't bail them out. Let them suffer the consequences. It's good for them. Yes. Let them, yeah. Oh my gosh. Rollins told the jury there was bound to be trouble when that happened.

SPEAKER_03 54:33

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 54:34

When he started failing. Then things got even more uncomfortable in court because Jimmy Dale started claiming that his wife had been involved in swinging. But the prosecution had receipts. And they were like, Well, we had these letters where you were complaining to people that you couldn't get her to participate in swinging. So it was almost like he was just trying to make her look bad.

SPEAKER_02 54:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:56

Like when they found all that pornography, he was like, Yeah, that stuff me and her looked at together. I do not believe it.

SPEAKER_02 55:03

I don't either.

SPEAKER_01 55:04

Then they pressed him about all those letters that he had written, you know, to other women and to men. He admitted that he did write them, that he had thought about having bisexual experiences, but claimed that it never really happened. And when they asked the question everybody was waiting for, did you kill your wife and child? He just broke down and started sobbing and said he never hated them. He couldn't believe anyone would even ask him that. He told the court he had never deliberately hurt anybody in his life. But by that point, the jury had heard two completely different versions of the same man. One, you know, broken, out of touch with reality, this other selfish, spiraling, and fully responsible guy. And so now it was up to them to decide which was true. Questioning Jimmy Dale was difficult because he couldn't remember. Right. Oh, how convenient. Right. But he did remember Kay coming at him with a knife.

SPEAKER_02 56:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:12

Except that the shirt he was wearing that night, there were no cuts, no holes, no damage. You know, you wouldn't have that if someone were slashing and stabbing at you. Right. And then there was the blood, because remember he was saying that Wilma Dell got in between him and his wife. There was none of Kay's blood near Wilma Dale.

SPEAKER_02 56:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 56:32

And none of Wilma Dale's near Kay. They were not even in the same room.

SPEAKER_02 56:36

Okay. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 56:37

Which completely blows up his story that the daughter got in between that struggle. Gosh, so the implications of that are horrible. The prosecution leaned into that hard. They used photographs, very graphic ones, to walk the jury through exactly what happened in that apartment. And then they compared that to the injuries that Jimmy Dale claimed he got from his knife welding wife. Doctors said the marks on his neck were likely from fingernails, not a knife. The cuts on his hands and chest were shallow, like more like slashes. Like they actually believed they were self-inflicted to make it look like a struggle. Emergency room doctors at Wesley Long Hospital testified that when Jimmy Dale came in, he was calm. He showed no emotion. He'd never even once asked about his wife or his daughter. He knew.

SPEAKER_02 57:33

Yeah, he knew.

SPEAKER_01 57:35

Then came the forensic evidence. Hair from Jimmy Dale was found on Wilma Dale. On her clothes, on her body, as if it had been ripped out. Oh, oh. Oh. But none of his hair was found on Kay. None of Kay's hair was found on Wilma Dale. So they were not in the same proximity. Every hair found on the butcher knife belonged to Wilma Dale. And those hairs had been cut. And then the physical layout of the crime told its own story. Like I said, the bodies were not close together. They're in different rooms almost 30 feet apart. In the apartment itself, there were no signs of this kind of violent struggle that he described. Then came one of the hardest moments in the courtroom when Wilma Dell's coat was brought into evidence. Her grandfather got up, Kay's dad, and just walked out. He was crying. Inside her little coat, there was a little toy car and a Valentine's Day card. The autopsy photos made everything worse. Not just the knife wounds, but the bruising Kay had been beaten as well. And they ended up finding a rolling pin with blood on it, too, in a drawer. So that little girl witnessed something horrific. And then the defense tries to humanize him. His attorney, Thomas Manning, showed this family photo of Jimmy Dale and Wilma Dale together. She was smiling, dressed in a little UNC Chapel Hill cheerleader outfit. And Jimmy Dale just broke down in tears, crying. He said that her adoption was one of the most important moments in his life. And for a second, you could kind of feel the room shift a little bit. But the prosecution, this assistant district attorney, his name was Rick Geeson, he stood up and held up this love letter that Jimmy Dale had written to this other woman just three days after Wilma Dale came to their home. And in it, he talked about these nude fit photos that she had sent him and how he used it in his dental office for disgusting purposes. And Greason pointed to that picture of his daughter and said, Now you tell the jury what you were doing just three days after this little girl came into your life. And then he pressed them harder and he said, Why did you kill your wife? And Jimmy Dill cried and he's like, I can't explain it. And he said, Well, do the best you can. And he's like, I can't explain why the whole thing happened, why I was swinging at Kay with that knife. And then he said, You mean you can't explain why you cut her head off?

unknown 1:00:28

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:28

And then of course the defense jumped up in the objection. Of course. And it was sustained, but you know, damage was done. That's right, too late. Greason, yeah, leaned in and again though, and he said, Tell this jury why you were swinging that knife. And when Jimmy Dell didn't answer, he said, The fact of the matter is you're not going to tell the jury why you were swinging the knife, and you never will. But they had another move, the prosecution. They called a rebuttal witness, totally unexpected. And this was Roger McQueen. McQueen had spent 23 years behind bars serving life for the 1974 murders of two prostitutes. But inside the prison, he had built a reputation for helping other inmates understand the legal system. So he was very smart. Okay. Yeah. And he had helped hundreds of convicted felons defend themselves. But he had never testified against another inmate. Okay. So while waiting for trial at the Maury prison, Jimmy Dale had kept things very vague. He told the other inmates he was being charged with killing his wife, but he never mentioned his daughter. Then one day out of nowhere, he approached McQueen and asked for a private meeting. And that's when everything kind of changed according to McQueen. Jimmy Dale admitted that he had killed Wilma Dale as well. And he said, Well, how long did you wait before you killed your daughter? And Jimmy Dale said about 15 to 20 minutes. And McQueen said he told him that does sound like premeditation.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:13

McQueen testified that Jimmy Dale told him Wilma Dale had been present when Kay was killed, that she was crying, screaming, and he told her to go to her room and got her to go in there at one point, but she kept coming back out.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:28

Oh, that poor baby.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:29

At one point he held her and comforted her to calm her down before cutting her throat.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:35

Oh gosh, that is just horrendous. That poor, poor baby. I can't even.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:43

No, I can't either. McQueen said Jimmy Dale told him I had to make it fit. He even pointed out that the child wasn't really his. And he asked McQueen not to let the other inmates find out about that. Yeah, because he knew what would happen. Exactly. McQueen described the time that they'd spent together in the law library. He said Jimmy Dale never once mentioned being attacked by his wife with a knife. He talked about an argument, but never a violent struggle like the one he described in court. He openly admitted killing his wife, but claimed it wasn't his intent when he went to see her. Jimmy Dale was focused on strategy, so he kept asking about the insanity defense in North Carolina, how it worked, how often it succeeded. He asked about plea bargains, top defense attorneys, what it takes to prove first degree murder. He even requested a psychology today magazine, and he was trying to figure out how to pick a jury that would not impose a death penalty. He wanted to know what made a crime heinous, what aggravating factors could lead to execution. And according to McQueen, his biggest focus was premeditation. McQueen said he was really struck by how intelligent Jimmy Dale was. He said he in his words, he said Mr. Hudson is extremely bright. He was able to grasp what took me years to learn. He said Jimmy Dale was constantly researching, asking questions. McQueen said he was really just shocked, though, by the murder of the child. He said it shocked him and he still wasn't over it. Now the defense, of course, tried to rip him a new one because they suggested that McQueen had an agenda. They pointed out that his decision to cooperate came right after his own federal appeal had failed. But the prosecution argued McQueen had nothing to gain and everything to lose, that by testifying he was literally putting his own life at risk inside prison. McQueen admitted he did agree to talk with prosecutors, but he said he never intended to testify. He said he didn't even realize how far it was going to go. And when it came to bringing it all together, the prosecutor Rick Greason did not hold back. He told the jury to picture that three-year-old little girl watching her father nearly take her mother's head off and then suffering the same fate herself. He said the terror she experienced was the kind of psychological horror no one should ever live through. He then brought it back to the point that after Kay was dead, all Jimmy Dale had to do was not kill his daughter. That was the decision in front of him, and he didn't make it. Instead, he sat there and thought about it for 15 to 20 minutes before mercilessly picking up his daughter and killing her. He called it what it was. He said that it was wicked, it was barbaric and cowardly. The prosecution also made Something else very clear. They said Wilma Dell was not just a victim, she was a witness. A bright little girl who would have told exactly what happened in that apartment, and they believe that's why she had to be killed, because her story would have destroyed his. Then it all came down to what every capital case comes down to weighing it out. What were the aggravating factors versus the mitigating ones? The prosecution laid out two key aggravating factors that the crime was especially heinous, atrocious, and cruel, and that the murder of Wilma Dale was a continuation of another felony attack on with the attack on Kay. But the defense pushed back. They reminded the jury Jimmy Dale had no prior criminal record, that he was under extreme mental and emotional disturbance, that he had tried in some way to make things right afterwards because he actually signed everything with the exception of like$103,000, everything else he signed over to Kay's family. They said he had acknowledged wrongdoing, that he'd been a good student, a successful dentist, a devoted son, but he was a man shaped by an overprotective mother who simply could not handle his life falling apart. But the prosecution wasn't moved. They were like, We're gonna like bash his parents for trying to be the best parents they could be. Yeah. For sending him to school, for loving him, for not letting him drink and smoke.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:40

And telling him there are better things out there. And Greason told the jury, do not even consider that settlement, because there is no such thing as restitution here. He said, You cannot buy your way out of this. And he made one thing clear. Will Madele had nothing to do with any of that. So whatever he signed over, whatever he gave after the fact, it was too late. And then came the big day. After several hours of deliberation, the jury came back, but with questions. They asked for transcripts from the psychiatrist. They asked for the judge to go back over the legal definitions of voluntary and involuntary manslaughter, lesser charges. And then finally, after 13 hours of deliberation, they came back with a verdict. On April 11th, 1987, Jimmy Dale Hudson was found guilty of the first degree murder and the death of his three-year-old daughter Wilma Dale, and then a second degree murder and the death of his wife Kay. But he pled out on that one.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:48

I'm surprised they let him plead out on that.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:50

They almost let him plead out on both of them.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:52

What?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:53

Yes. Thank God. They actually withdrew it.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:56

That would have been a miscarriage of justice.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:59

Yes, it would.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:00

Honestly, I think anything less than the death penalty is a miscarriage of justice. But tell me what happened.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:06

Well, the same jury spared him the death penalty. What? Even in Wilma Dell's murder, which I'm very surprised about. But the prosecutor, Rick Greason, stood by the decision to seek the death penalty. Good for him. He said it was worth the risk. Even knowing the jury could have found him not guilty by reason of insanity. He said you cannot have a system where a man walks into court who's white, educated, wealthy, and somehow avoids facing the full weight of a capital trial. He said that if they had not prosecuted that case the way that they did, how could they prosecute any others?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:42

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:43

He said not taking this case to a jury would have been spineless. And after the verdict, Jimmy Dale turned to his in-laws, crying, shaking, and he said, I know how much you love that little girl. I know how much you love Kay. I know I was involved. He said he just didn't understand what happened. He asked them for their forgiveness, but of course he stopped short of taking full responsibility.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:11

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:12

He again said he had never hurt anybody deliberately in his life. He said he loved Kay and he loved Wilma Dale and he would think about them for the rest of his life. And I hope he does. His defense attorney said that they believed he should have been found not guilty by reason of insanity. But failing that, they were very grateful that the jury had spared his life. His aunt said she was thankful that now he would have time to repent and turn his life over to God.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:42

No, there's that.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:44

And Kay's parents, they were thankful too, but they were thankful for Roger McQueen because they believed his testimony was a big part of what led to his conviction. So this is crazy. He's, you know, two years pass. And then in 1989, Jimmy Dale filed a lawsuit against a man named Nicholas Williamson, a business professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Now during the murder trial, there was no evidence proving that Kay had ever had an affair with anybody, much less Williamson, but investigators did find a suitcase belonging to him in her home the night of the murders. And that was enough for Jimmy Dale to build a whole new narrative. In this lawsuit, he claimed that he and Kay had been happily married until she was enticed into a personal and sexual relationship with Williamson. The lawsuit never even clearly states like when it supposedly started before or after the separation, but it did say that Kay had enrolled in the MBA program at UNCG back in January of 1982. At the time, Williamson was on the graduate business faculty. According to the lawsuit, he became her professor, advisor, and mentor. And Jimmy Dale claimed that Williamson exchanged favors for sex, things like grades, a scholarship, even helping her secure a teaching position after graduation. Jimmy Dale said he encouraged her to go back to school. He paid for her tuition, paid for her expenses right up until January of 1986. And then just a couple of months later is when she left without warning, when she had a new degree, a new job, and a new life. And this is hard to say out loud because it's just unfathomable, but he claimed that this adulterous relationship caused the collapse of his marriage and ultimately led to the deaths of Kay and Wilma Dell. And he lost his wife and daughter, his dental practice, his license, and his freedom, all because his marriage was destroyed by Williamson. Now there had already been extensive testimony that Jimmy Dale himself had for sure had multiple affairs and kept boxes of explicit photos and letters documenting his own infidelity. So how does his mind even work? Classic narcissist. Yes, shifting the blame. Of course, the lawsuit was dismissed. But today, Jimmy Dale Hudson is still alive. He is 79 years old, housed right here in Randolph County Correctional Center, a minimum security facility here in Ashboro. If you talk to him today, you would see a sweet, bubbly old man who loves to talk about the Lord and Carolina football. He'll tell you he's a lifelong Christian and a one-time felon. He's likable and funny. He talks about wanting simple things like going to football games, fishing, sitting in church. He talks about wanting to serve his church. He is affiliated with the church here, which I'm not going to say what it is because they're not doing anything wrong by, you know, we're supposed to go into the prisons and minister. He still does not openly talk about his daughter though, but he'll almost matter-of-factly tell you that he's there for killing his wife. He had money, he had education, he had everything. If he had just let his wife leave, then he could have continued with these other women, he could have practiced dentistry, he had plenty of money. He could have gone to his Carolina games whenever he wanted. He could have had a relationship with his daughter if he wanted one. He could have just he could have had everything. That one decision cost everything. And you know, maybe he has found the Lord. I hope he has. But I believe repentance is truth and ownership, it's naming what you did without hiding behind excuses and blame. And I hate that I don't have more information about Kay and Wilma Dell because everything is about him, even in this story.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:11

I felt like you had a lot of information about her.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:14

I really hope so because I don't want this to be his story. You know, they mattered. Kay's father called her his princess. He said that she was the sweetest, most understanding soul in the world. And everything we know about her from this story supports that. She was deeply loved, and I believe that her kindness and patience and caring nature was the very thing that kept her in that marriage for 17 years, you know, trying understanding, holding on until she just couldn't anymore. And I think having Wilma Dell helped her see her husband for who he really was.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:51

Absolutely. Wow. Well, I have a couple of thoughts. Yes, please share them. One is a clarification question. Did you say that uh they found a suitcase belonging to that man in her apartment? Yes. That night? Yes. Okay. I would bet you anything that he found that suitcase, thought she was seeing somebody else, and that's what prompted the the murder. Yeah, yeah. I thought the same thing after I found that out. Yep. And then also, how do you think what do you think about this whole idea of a psychotic break? Oh, I think you're crazy if you kill somebody. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:30

But do I think he did not understand the difference between right and wrong? Absolutely not. He knew what he was doing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:37

He I think he was prompted by rage about finding the suitcase. I don't think that was premeditated. No, once it was done, and once Wilma Dale had seen it, and he had to sit there for 15 or 20 minutes and think about it, he starts thinking about what his best chances are of getting away with it. He probably then decided the best bet is to just go with the psychosis.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:00

100%. And I think the truest version that we got from him is what he said to the McQueen guy. He said, Yeah, I didn't go over there intending to do that. There was an argument that happened, but it was 100% premeditated with Wilma Dell.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:17

My other thought, because funny enough, the case that I'm researching now, the guy says almost the same thing, that they got into an argument, and then he doesn't really remember what happened until he all of a sudden looked at what he had done and realized I have done a horrible thing, but he just doesn't really remember doing it. And I'm like, hmm, I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:41

But he didn't black out when he killed Wilma Dell.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:45

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:46

So maybe the second degree thing with with his wife, maybe that was an okay call. But with Wilma Dell, he made a conscious the evidence proves that.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:58

Yeah. Regardless, at the end of the day, I do think he should have gotten the death penalty. But even though he didn't, he obviously will face justice in the afterlife. But it does make me think, you know, I know we call everybody here a narcissist. I feel like we say that every week. Well he is a narcissist.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:12

He was he was diagnosed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:15

Okay. I do feel like we say that every week. We do. But but I what that makes me think of is basically if you get down to the root of it all, the root of all of that is self centeredness. Yes. And James 3 16 says for where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every evil practice. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Those were some hard times. Yes, they were.