Original subtitles

People knew of a guy, John Lawson,

who named himself Pazuzu.

He became a quote/unquote Satanist.

He had followers: the misfits, the outcasts.

He tried to have orgies and manipulate people

into having sex.

People would come to Pazuzu's house because

there was no rules.

There was always black metal blaring

at ear‐shattering volumes.

♪ (Metal) ♪

Police today looking for the bodies of

two local men believed to be missing.

Dude, your house smells like death.

"Oh, yeah. It's just the bodies in the basement."

♪ (Metal) ♪

We got a possible serial killer.

♪ (Metal) ♪

We executed a search warrant.

They didn't find anything.

(gun shot)

Why did all this happen?

How could we have let this happen?

♪

♪

(gun shots)

♪

(sirens)

This community really believe in Satan.

♪

These people really believe in dark forces.

♪

They're waiting for the apocalypse and

they believe in a very tactile battle

between the forces of good and evil.

(crowd chatter)

Between the Devil and God and his angels.

♪

♪

My name is Chad Nance, and I am the Editor in Chief

of the Camel City Dispatch.

♪

The Dispatch is a local news blog I founded with my wife,

here in Winston‐Salem, in 2012.

Ever since Pazuzu was arrested,

I've been trying to get past the rumors and the

sensationalist headlines to get to the real story

behind this man, his crimes, his victims,

and how this could have happened in our community.

What I'm finding is that this story's not just about murder.

It's much bigger than that.

♪

No one really knows how many crimes have taken place.

I mean, the investigation's still not over.

♪

There could be more victims.

♪

Where I kind of made an emotional connection

with the story, honestly, is the story of Josh.

♪

What often happens in the sensationalism is that

we have headlines that say, "Satan! Satan! Satan!"

And we don't understand a story like

Josh Wetzler and his family.

♪

The guy could've been me.

♪

I went through so much.

Our lives have just been,

been very complicated by this.

And, thinking about what happened...

And then, just being part of a story that's so...

fantastic, and, and dark, and terrible.

And I think sometimes, you know,

how did I end up in the middle of this story?

♪

My name is Stacey Carter.

Josh and I were together for six years.

Josh and I met in 1999

in Olympia, Washington,

when I was traveling out west.

I was twenty‐five. He was twenty‐two.

So he was a little bit younger.

I wasn't super outgoing, and being with Josh

was so much fun because he knew everybody within

a very short time, and was much more outgoing.

We got a van and traveled the country.

He really preferred the company of people

who are outside of the mainstream.

I loved his passion for life.

I loved his dedication and commitment

to his sense of right.

Josh was beautiful.

I remember seeing him sleeping after I'd first met him

and just thinking he had the most beautiful face that

I ever seen. So there was that, too.

♪

Josh grew up in Virginia, and he took

horseback riding lessons and loved horses, loved animals.

He never said no to a stray dog.

That was one of the things that brought us together and

kept us together, was that common vision...

And that connection with horses.

♪

Well, we bought land and our plan was

to build a training center.

♪

He wanted to bring horses in for rehabilitation.

And so, we had this dream and this vision of the farm.

♪

And then, when she got pregnant,

they settled down, bought a small farm that

they were gonna turn into a horse farm,

got screwed by a bank, you know,

right before all the loan companies and everything

started to fail.

And, Josh's life starts going downhill there.

(thunder)

♪

So, we lost the farm in 2008,

and since then, I've been working for other people,

trading work for rent, but not getting paid.

♪

Our dream that we shared involved having a farm,

and having our business, and you know,

we, we trusted the banks, the mortgage brokers.

They said, "Oh, I'm going to help you,"

and what they really did was convince us to do something

that destroyed us.

♪

He ends up with a home that he can't afford and

it gets foreclosed on.

His wife leaves him because he got desperate and

he started thinking about selling drugs.

I mean, it was pretty benign stuff like weed and mushrooms,

but his wife didn't want his child

around that sort of thing.

She still loved him, she still cared about him,

but she had to leave.

♪

He was the love of my life, you know.

I think that we would have worked out our differences.

I feel like together we could have accomplished so much.

But, his house was searched and raided by police.

He had gotten a package of psychedelic mushrooms

delivered through the mail.

Because it was sent through the mail,

it was considered a felony.

It was front page news in his little town.

(Laughs)

♪

That really kind of changed everything for him.

He lost his clients and his hoof‐trimming business.

He was searching hard, but with a felony on his record,

nobody would give him a job.

So again, the drug war takes out another guy.

Once you've gotten out of jail,

we beat 'em down economically to the point

that they have to turn back to crime to try to

function in a society that demands a certain amount of,

you know, economic promise. It becomes hard.

♪

He was struggling.

Um...

You know, for whatever reason,

he ended up in the same circle as Pazuzu.

♪

We would cut ourselves and each other.

Maybe drink the blood of a bird or so.

Human beings would pop a squat in the corner.

The dogs might eat it.

There was people naked, like it was nothing.

You know, just, all around having a good time.

♪

♪

So, it's the mid 1990s around the Winston‐Salem suburbs.

People knew of a guy called John Lawson...

Who named himself Pazuzu.

Pazuzu had done everything he could to make himself

seem scary to the people in town.

He was trying to freak people out.

He claimed to sacrifice animals.

He claimed to be able to control the weather.

He had filed his teeth down with a dremel tool and

he had tattoos printed all over his face.

He became Winston‐Salem's own

Manson‐esque icon of depravity,

and he created a following of

disaffected youth desperate for an escape.

♪

Pazuzu had followers, more or less.

I was certainly one of them.

We were these people who were intrigued by this

free atmosphere that he built around himself.

Are you done now? Can I move?

Yes.

I kind of look at Winston‐Salem as sort of a black hole.

There's a lot of people go down some pretty dark paths

in this town, myself included.

(sniffles)

♪

My legal name is Nathan Anderson.

I've been in and out of recovery the past couple years,

but I relapsed last summer.

♪

I was a straight‐A student, all my years growing up,

all through high school.

I had basically a full ride to Wake Forest University

when I left.

♪

My entire life, really, has been defined

by entertainment: movies, books,

television shows, video games.

By stories.

♪

And, when I found drugs, it was just like the,

the next best thing, the next great story, I guess.

You know, it just made me feel good and I didn't have

to worry about how boring, or shitty the world was.

♪

Pazuzu, to this day, is the best story.

(sirens)

He had, if you will, a twisted sort of charisma.

You know, and it's the kind of charisma that's

not going to appeal to everyone,

but certain minds are drawn in by that.

The misfits, the outcasts, "crazy people", um...

People living on the edge, I guess,

or people who wanted to live on the edge.

I never really considered that there might be

a little more to that...

Until I started hearing these rumors and these

stories about bodies and murder and stuff.

♪

When I first met him, we mainly just hung out and

chilled around and whatnot, you know,

maybe did a little bit of heroin every now and again.

You know, just a shit‐ton of drinking,

and cut ourselves and each other,

you know, maybe drink the blood of a bird or so.

You know, just all around having a good time.

♪

My name's David Adams.

I am an old friend of Pazuzu's.

I've known him for a little over a decade, and...

We used to get into some shit.

♪

People would come to Pazuzu's house because

they knew it was free rein.

There was no rules, no anything that

you had to abide by.

You could piss in his carpet,

you could smash a TV, you could...

Hit somebody in the head with a beer bottle,

you could throw a knife at his wall.

It just didn't matter.

♪

You knock on the door and immediately you hear a

shit‐ton of dogs barking.

(dogs barking)

And then, Pazuzu answers the door.

You're greeted with the smell of just...

Ammonia and urea.

It just smells like straight urine.

♪

And, and rotting matter, you know,

greets you as soon as that door is opened.

♪

He was crazy‐looking enough, you know,

with the long ratty‐ass dreadlocks and

all his teeth filed down to a point.

Which, later come to find out,

he did high as hell on meth one day.

♪

There was always black metal blaring at

ungodly ear‐shattering volumes.

There was always glass getting smashed,

people fighting.

(dogs barking)

There was just like, dirt, and shit,

and like, nasty.

♪

People would get so drunk there that human beings

would just pop a squat in the corner and take a crap,

and god knows when it would get cleaned up,

or the dogs might eat it, or whatever.

(dogs barking)

(crowd chatter)

You walked into his kitchen, it was just like

any other kitchen until he opened up his dishwasher.

When he opened up his dishwasher,

it was filled with serious weapons.

(laughs)

(dogs barking & crowd chatter)

There was people naked like it was nothing.

He tried to have orgies,

and tried to manipulate people into having sex,

and doing whatever they wanted to do.

(crowd chatter)

You can do whatever the you want.

Nobody's pointing their finger at me;

nobody's judging me.

It was just free rein.

You know, it's like this mad place where you can

act out your darkest and sickest fantasies,

to no judgement.

And actually, I can see the appeal for a generation here

who is having a hard time even finding a job,

you know, the idea that you can go somewhere

judgement‐free with no pressure on you,

somebody's gonna give you drugs and let you behave

however you want, there's an appeal to that.

♪

He loved filth. Like, he believed

it gave him like some type of weird power.

Everything on the surface was...

It was ugly, and it was nasty,

but it was fun, it was cool, it was,

you know, intoxicating, just like drugs.

♪

He was basically like a Charles Manson of Clemmons.

♪

I'm Sylvia Lebeau.

I'm related to the situation just by being at

the wrong place at the wrong time.

He had this thing called "fiancées".

He had several women followers:

Dixie...

Krystal...

Amber.

And he called them his "fiancées".

That term has always stuck with me, "fiancées".

♪

He had this sense of power.

The power of fear; that's where I think

Pazuzu derived most of his power from.

Pazuzu would tell me all these crazy stories about,

you know, hurting and maiming people.

I'd look at him and just be like, "Okay, buddy.

Sure you did. You sure do."

(birds chirping)

Pazuzu, I just felt like he wasn't going anywhere.

He was just kind of a shit bag, you know.

You know, he just, like, sat around his house

all the time, never wanted to do anything positive.

I feel like I was stuck in a crossroads.

A lot of my friends, my peers were, like,

getting off on heroin and stuff like that.

I just wanted to get away from,

just like the drugs in Winston‐Salem and

get away from Pazuzu.

I got my GED when I was sixteen...

Went in the military.

♪

I was a gunner in Iraq.

Pazuzu would call me all the time on the phone.

He's like, "You kill anyone?"

And he wanted to know if I killed anyone in Iraq.

I've seen what the world really is like.

It's like, in a war, dude,

nobody's right or wrong in a war.

Nobody's good or evil in war.

It's just a different side, you know.

(exhales)

But, Pazuzu...

He was highly evil.

♪

He had to come up with money to pay for his probation.

Really, the only avenues left to him were

selling weed and mushrooms.

And they look on his jacket, and he's got a felony thing.

They go, "Oh, this guy wandered off".

I heard a rumor that Josh had been murdered and

buried in Pazuzu's backyard.

♪

♪

Once you get a drug charge in America,

your opportunities have been removed from you.

♪

We have a serious problem in this nation

about how we stigmatize felons,

particularly first‐time felons, like Josh.

You have to take away the morality and you have to

take away the judgement.

You have to understand him as a human being and the

decisions that he made that led him to Pazuzu.

♪

He had to come up with money to pay for his probation.

Really, the only avenues left to him were

selling weed and mushrooms.

He was driven further and further away from society.

♪

Last time I saw Josh was in July 2009.

I came home one Friday and he was there and

Jared was so excited to see his dad.

You know, I kind of stayed out of the way and

let him hang out there at the farm.

That weekend, I had some friends come over and

we had a cookout.

And, and Josh made us all pizzas and we all just,

we had a really good time. We had a lot of fun.

He left on good terms, and then after that... nothing.

♪

Sometimes I wouldn't hear from him and

I didn't have a phone number.

I didn't have any way to get in touch with him.

♪

Jared wanted to know where his dad was.

I just told him that, you know,

he'd gone away somewhere. We hadn't heard from him.

And honestly, I thought that.

♪

I thought that he wasn't contacting me 'cause

I would tell his probation officer where he was.

♪

So, I thought he was hiding from us.

♪

Josh's probation officer kept calling me, and so,

I assumed that they were looking for him,

but they weren't.

It's like that cliché of the kid in school who gets in trouble

in 5th grade, and they write on his permanent record,

"problem child", right.

That's what happened with Josh when he got drug charges.

♪

His mom really became alarmed

when he didn't call on her birthday.

It was so odd that Christmas would pass and

he wouldn't contact Jared.

♪

When Stacey did eventually go to the law enforcement

about Josh, they told her that they had found Josh's car

seven months before with the keys in the ignition,

sitting in a parking lot.

And they had never contacted her about it.

♪

Had I known, I would have been suspicious that

something had happened to him.

I would have reported him missing much earlier on.

You know, I feel like if a car's found missing that the

family of the owner should be contacted,

so, you know, that was something that

I think could have been handled better.

♪

They look on his jacket and he's got a felony thing.

They go, "Oh, this guy wandered off.

This guy's a cliché.

He doesn't care about his family.

He's off getting high somewhere."

You know, and he's real easy to write off.

You're not gonna put a lot of police resources into that.

When you don't have police resources,

because they don't deem those people important enough

to spend resources on them.

♪

I was there hanging out and Paz told me,

"Hey, I got a person in my basement."

He starts bragging about how he had the body covered

with cat litter and bleach to keep the smell down.

They cut off his extremities:

his arms and his legs, and his penis.

And they buried him in pieces.

♪

North Carolina's in the Bible Belt.

It's God's country.

One of the reasons there was so much hype around Pazuzu,

and a big part of Pazuzu's infamy in the local underworld,

and the myth he was able to build up around himself,

was a direct response to the evangelical

Christian fervor of this community.

♪

I do believe in the devil.

The devil preys on the weak.

Winston‐Salem was full of weak people.

I was a preacher's daughter.

I was heavily involved in church...

Doing the Lord's work.

When I first met Pazuzu, he told me

that he was the gatekeeper of Hell.

(dogs barking)

The first time I met them, I drove Amber ‐ or Bubbles ‐

and Pazuzu home.

When I saw their front door,

that's when I knew something was highly wrong.

I didn't want to be there. I wanted to leave immediately,

but they asked me to stay and watch a home video of theirs.

The video was of Pazuzu and Bubbles dancing around naked.

Bubbles lying on a bed in one scene,

doing inappropriate things to herself.

♪

I knew the video made me nauseous.

It was intense.

♪

Pazuzu, in one shot, had a knife...

And a... bloody bandana on his head.

♪

Apparently, it was Josh's bandana,

from what I was told by everyone that hung out with him.

They had trapped him in a basement...

And they had starved him for days.

And, either before or after they shot him,

they cut off his extremities:

his arms and his legs, and his penis.

And they buried him in pieces.

Krystal was proud to tell everyone she knew

that she was involved.

♪

He had spoken to me on several occasions that

he had killed homeless people and

done a whole bunch of other people really badly,

shot a few people, stabbed a few people.

There was never any proof, to my knowledge,

of any of these things happening.

♪

You know, I just thought that he was trying to look cool.

I was there hanging out and Paz told me,

"Hey, I got a person in my basement".

"Okay, cool. Whatever, dude."

(laughs) "It's not my problem."

I was told, "If a person comes out of the basement,

don't let him go."

No one ever made a sound, no one ever knocked on a door.

No one ever did anything.

I was told that there was a person in the basement.

I said, "Sure, if they come out of the basement,

I'll make sure they don't leave,"

clearly thinking that they're full of shit.

♪

Pazuzu looked at me, grabbed a very large knife.

It was more or less a sword, but, ah...

He said, "I've done something."

He didn't say what he had done.

He said, "You're gonna help me dig this hole

or I'm gonna kill you."

♪

When I first heard about the murder,

my father was hanging out with Krystal Matlock,

another female that was involved.

♪

My name is Terina Billings and I was the first person

to come forward to the police in the Pazuzu Algarad case.

♪

Krystal Matlock, she invited Pazuzu

and his girlfriend over.

And so, everybody was having a good time drinking.

A few hours later, he starts bragging about

how he shot a guy six times with a shotgun,

and how he had the body downstairs in the basement,

covered with cat litter and bleach to keep the smell down.

And we all thought he was lying 'cause he was drunk

and we were like, he's crazy.

♪

The day after the party, my father had left with

Krystal Matlock and they came back a few hours later and

had Pazuzu's mother, Cynthia, with them.

My dad had cut‐off jean shorts on,

he had dirt all over him, and he didn't have the

t‐shirt on that he had that morning.

He had no shirt.

I tried to ask questions. He wouldn't answer me, and...

Cynthia just, there was something going on at her house.

She just needed to get back right away.

So, they left, and when they left,

I followed behind them, followed them to the house.

They pulled into the garage and my dad came,

saw me pull up in the front.

And he runs across the yard to the road and just

told me to get the hell out of there.

And, the way he said it, I just,

I listened and I left.

My father, he didn't open up to me at first in the beginning,

but my best friend, he did open up to her and

tell her everything that happened as far as

Pazuzu chopping up the body, burying it in the backyard.

There were other people there at the time,

but I don't know their names.

It was very hard to go to the police.

But, I thought, what if that was my brother

buried in somebody's backyard?

I would want somebody to come forward and say something.

♪

They met us at the Yadkin County park.

I was sitting in the car with a detective and

he asked me names of the people that I knew that

were involved, so I told him Krystal Matlock was one,

Allen Billings ‐ my father.

Pazuzu Algarad, I called him a caveman

'cause that's what he looked like to me.

I didn't know his name at that time.

(sirens)

And what did the Forsyth County Sheriff's Department

do with that information?

Well from what I've heard,

they went to Pazuzu's house, knocked on the door and

straight up told him that there had been reports of murder and

bodies buried in the backyard.

When asked if the reports were true,

Pazuzu said no.

When they asked if they could search his house,

he said no again.

So the officer left.

Now, why would the police do that?

♪

♪

My name is Brad Stanley.

On average, Forsyth County Sheriff's Office,

in the, in those areas, we have two,

maybe three homicides a year.

We had information previously to go to the

residents through our local Crime Stoppers program,

where they don't have to identify themselves.

Unfortunately, just those tips are not enough,

many times, to develop probable cause.

♪

So, you're back in 2009, you've got multiple reports

that Pazuzu has killed and put someone in his backyard.

You have the Winston‐Salem Police Department

with Josh's car and with Crime Stoppers' tips

referring to a "Tazuzu". I mean, it's ridiculous.

Everybody in the community knows this guy.

He's absolutely‐‐ He's even become an urban legend,

or a suburban legend,

and nobody's doing anything about it.

♪

God put me on drugs to help Stacey.

When I saw him, I was like, oh my God,

his dad was murdered by this guy that I happen to know.

♪

chirping)

I think God put me on drugs,

and God put me where I was,

to help Stacey find out what happened to her boyfriend.

♪

I was at a party with a friend I worked with,

and I was doing mushrooms and hula‐hooping, and...

having a lot of fun.

There was like a liquor luge there.

And, it was really fun.

And it was like, two, three in the morning.

She said that she had to take me home.

♪

So, we were driving down Silas Creek Parkway,

and we were just talking, and...

I happened to mention Pazuzu supposedly killed this guy

named Josh, and she was like, "What?"

♪

Her face turned shocked. It was just shock, and surprise,

and just like I had uncovered a mystery for her.

And, she said, "You need to meet my friend Stacey".

♪

So, we concocted the plan that I would get a

voice recording of information on how Josh died,

or was murdered.

'Cause, like I said, they were very proud

of what they did and what they were.

I went with my phone to record any information I could.

♪

There were several people that spoke up on the voice recording.

♪

But, the main voice was Nate.

I started laughing and said,

"Is it true that Pazuzu actually killed people?"

And, Nate looked at me and said,

"Well, yeah," like it was common knowledge.

♪

He said, yeah, he had killed people.

♪

I went to the Sheriff's Department with a

voice recording and my personal knowledge of who was

involved in the murders and told them what I knew.

♪

I know I looked crazy, but they didn't take

anything I said seriously.

♪

I traveled down to Salisbury to see Stacey.

♪

I come to this farm and the farm is pretty.

There's horses everywhere, and it's just like a

set up for like a beautiful movie.

We get there and I'm meeting Stacey, "Hi, Stacey".

I see this boy, and I'm like,

oh, okay, there's a kid here.

♪

And then I see him walk in front of me,

and then it hit me...

His dad was murdered.

His dad is buried in the back of someone's yard.

And I have this huge breakthrough story.

♪

So many emotions ran through my mind when I saw him.

Thinking, oh my God, his dad was murdered

by this guy that I happen to know.

♪

I think she feared for her life.

"We murdered a guy. We shot him in the head.

If you don't help us bury him,

we're gonna ing slit your throat,

then we're gonna bury you with him."

"You're gonna think I'm crazy,

but I think my son's father is buried

in a guy's backyard."

This is some fake Charles Manson shit.

♪

♪

With all the sensationalism surrounding the Pazuzu story

up to this point, what I looked and saw was,

Josh Wetzler and Stacey.

A guy who's been taken away from his mother,

taken away from his son.

All these people's lives are forever disrupted and changed.

He's left a hole.

♪

A fellow like Josh with a felony drug conviction,

is just written off by society, by police.

You know, but there are people that love him.

♪

You know, when I heard that he was,

Josh was buried in Pazuzu's backyard,

I didn't know who that was or anything like that.

And I went to the police and I told 'em, I said,

"You're gonna think I'm crazy,

but I think my son's father is buried in," you know,

"this guy's backyard in Clemmons," and then,

it turns out the officer didn't think I was crazy

'cause he had heard rumors of that already.

(sirens)

We executed a search warrant at

2749 Knob Hill Drive

in Clemmons, North Carolina.

♪

Our investigators, again,

acted on as much information as they had at that time.

There was no evidence that we were able to find

based on the information.

We were told that they had gotten cadaver dogs and

they had done a search of the yard,

and that they found nothing.

♪

I really did not know what to think 'cause I was

so sure that Josh was there in Pazuzu's yard.

When they didn't find him,

I wasn't sure anymore what had happened.

(sirens)

They sealed the search warrants.

Now, that's not unusual for an ongoing investigation,

but I'm starting to think that there's something about

this case that the sheriffs don't want us to know about.

They're being tight‐lipped.

I've been reaching out to them,

but no one is willing to go on the record.

♪

Even though I didn't have any evidence of

what had happened to Josh,

Jared needed some answers.

I told Jared that we're pretty sure that his father had died.

♪

What passed over his face was like this look of relief.

And, it hit me that like, for a child,

a parent dying was way easier to accept

than being abandoned, you know.

It was almost like when he thought his dad abandoned him,

that was harder for him to understand.

♪

♪ (menacing) ♪

Even with the Sheriff's silence and all the unanswered

questions, I know there are a number of people

inside of Pazuzu's circle who know exactly what happened.

I started actually hanging out with Pazuzu on a regular basis.

I started dating this girl, Dixie.

♪

She was intrigued with him and his girlfriend, Amber...

or, Bubbles, as we called her.

She became real close with them very fast and

we started going over to his house to hang out.

(crickets)

She walked out onto their back porch with me one night

and pointed out the backyard.

She was like, "Do you ever stop and think

why the ground is so uneven out here?"

She was basically implying that, you know,

he had killed a lot of people,

or that there were a lot of bodies buried in that backyard.

♪

She actually divulged that she helped,

I think, rebury a body.

I think she feared for her life,

being so close to them.

As I'm coming back from Iraq,

coming back from my deployment,

like Fort Lewis, Washington...

I call her and she says, "I'm part of the Family".

I'm like, "What the are you talking about,

'part of the Family'?"

Like, now I know something happened.

You know, this doesn't make sense.

Like, this is weird. You know, this is like Charles‐‐

fake Charles Manson shit, you know.

I was scared for her protection and her life.

I bought a plane ticket for like two days later,

you know, and as soon as she got off the plane,

she was a different person, completely different person.

♪

We're riding from the airport,

she tells me the whole story.

She tells me that Amber calls her,

she goes to the front door.

And she said, "We murdered a guy. We shot him in the head.

If you don't help us bury him, we're gonna slit your throat

and we're gonna bury you with him".

Amber and her dragged the body out in the backyard and

they started digging the hole,

tried to push him in this hole and the hole was too shallow.

♪

Part of his knee's still sticking out of the dirt,

so they put a tarp over him, and she took a picture of it.

♪

That's how I know all this shit.

This is how I know that there is a dead body in the backyard.

♪

So, what the do I do?

♪

His aura is very intoxicating.

You just feel free and powerful in his presence.

Like, I keep thinking about it, thinking about it.

Like, it sat there rotting in my brain for years,

and years, and years, that there's a body in the yard.

They actually showed up to his house,

SWAT Team, like, battle rattle,

like, they're ready to rock.

You would be hard pressed to be inside the house and

not think that the person who lived there

was capable of about anything.

He's like, "Let's kill him right now.

We'll get away with it."

They shot him in his head and he fell dead.

They murdered my son.