Fiery crash’s DARK SECRET revealed in a… Taco Bell?

in the fall of 2004 an undercover police officer in Texas was standing in line inside of a fast food restaurant when he turned around to scan the room now he acted like he was just kind of nonchalantly looking around kind of people watching the way people do when they're waiting in lines but he really wasn't doing that in reality what he was doing was taking a quick glimpse of two people eating by the window inside of this restaurant that he had been following all day that day but when he took this quick glimpse of these

two people he noticed something totally bizarre that he had not caught earlier in the day and as soon as he saw it the hairs in the back of his neck stood up and almost unconsciously he reached down and put his hand on his concealed gun underneath his shirt and then he tapped his partner who was also undercover right next to him and then the two of them walked straight over to the two people but before we get into that story if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious delivered in story format then you

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[Music] foreign [Music] on the evening of June 17 2004 a 21 year old woman named Molly Daniels pulled into the driveway of her little home that she shared with her husband and two kids in Suburban Texas it had been a long day for Molly at the home remodeling business where she worked as a receptionist and so now that she was home the last thing she wanted to do was go inside and make dinner for her family and so after turning off her car Molly just sat there in the driveway for a couple of minutes just

zoned out looking out the window but eventually she kind of snapped out of it she gathered up her things she got out of the car and she made her way up to the front door and as soon as she stepped into her home that bad mood she was feeling from work was wiped away and replaced with happiness because the first thing she heard the second she was in her home was the sound of her four-year-old son Caleb hysterically laughing and so Molly walked into the back room and she found her son along with her husband

clay rolling around on the ground tickling each other and next to of them was their one-year-old daughter sitting on the rug laughing as well and clapping and watching along and so as soon as Molly walked into the room clay who was underneath Caleb stopped for a second and grinned up at Molly Molly smiled back and then clay and Caleb went back to wrestling and the one-year-old continued to laugh and play along and so Molly suddenly felt so content with her life it was so incredible to have a family of her own and so with a

big smile on her face now she headed off into the kitchen to make dinner life had been tough financially for the Daniels family recently the city where they lived called Leander was located just north of Austin Texas and it was getting more and more expensive every single year clay who was two years older than Molly he was 23 he was a mechanic but he had been out of work for months and so he had just been staying home with the kids as for Molly she had her job as a receptionist but it paid very little

and so ultimately the family was just barely scraping by but despite the fine financial hardship they were under Molly was so thankful that she had a husband in clay that was so good with their kids especially Caleb the four-year-old son because Caleb was actually Molly's son from a previous relationship and she was worried that maybe clay wouldn't necessarily treat him like his own but clay had totally stepped up to the plate and become Caleb's father and Caleb definitely viewed clay as his dad and so that relationship was as close as if they were biologically related

and so Molly just felt so grateful for that that evening the family sat down and had dinner together and then afterwards Molly and Clay got the kids off to bed and then Molly and Clay stayed up and watched TV together but after a while Molly said she was tired and she was gonna go to bed clay said he'd be staying up for a bit longer and so the couple kissed said good night and Molly made her way upstairs at around 10 45 PM that night so about 15 minutes after Molly went upstairs she was laying

in bed drifting off to sleep when she heard the sound of their front door open and then shot and then she heard the sound of their car being turned on and leaving the driveway now this was not a big deal for Molly because earlier that night clay had mentioned kind of offhandedly that he wanted to go see his mom that night that he might swing over there and say hello he had a couple of paperback books that he wanted to give her and so Molly knew there was a chance he could be doing that and

so she assumed that had to be what she was hearing and so she forgot about it and fell asleep the next morning when Molly woke up at 6am she rolled over and she saw clay was not in bed with her now she wasn't immediately alarmed by this because it wasn't unusual for clay to get up really early and so Molly climbed out of bed she made her way over to the window and she looked down at the driveway expecting to see their car back meaning clay would be downstairs somewhere but she looked in the driveway

there was no car and so suddenly feeling kind of panicked Molly went downstairs and looked around the house clay wasn't there and so she picked up the phone and she called Clay's mother and when Clay's mother picked up Molly said hey is clay with you he said he was stopping by last night I heard him leave is he with you and Clay's mother would say no he's not here and in fact I didn't even know he was going to be stopping by last night I haven't heard from him the drive from Molly and Clay's house

to Clay's mother's house was 40 miles of twisting fairly dangerous highway now clay regularly made this trip to and from his mother's house and so Molly was never that worse worried about him going on this 40-mile stretch but suddenly without saying it both Molly and Clay's mother were thinking the same thing did Clay get into a car accident last night on the drive to his mother's house and so at some point Clay's mom on the phone tells Molly to stay calm stay at the house with your kids I'm gonna get in the car I'm gonna

drive the route that clay would have taken back to you and we'll see if we can find him and then as soon as the two women hung up Clay's mother ran to her car she jumped inside she turned it on she peeled out of the driveway and began speeding those 40 miles back towards clay and Molly's house and she had only gotten about halfway along this trip went up ahead she saw all these flashing blue and white lights she saw crime scene tape across the whole Road this was a section of the highway that was

heavily forested on either side and she could see traffic was backed up very far on the other end and as well on her side and so of course Clay's mother is thinking this is my son he's been an accident right here and so she pulls over to the side of the road she throws it in park she gets out and runs to the nearest police officer and begins frantically asking them what's happened here what's happened and as she's talking to the officer she notices behind him there's all this smoke coming up from the forest there's

a fire down in the forest and so she's craning her neck to look down and see what it is and the officer tried to stop her but finally she pushed past him and she looked and she saw there was a car on fire that clearly had flown off the road and so in a total panic she begins asking the officer do you know who it is is it my son is it clay the officer told her to please calm down we have no idea whose carve this is we're trying to figure it out the fire

department hasn't even put the fire out yet we don't know enough to tell you anything but at this point Clay's mother could not wait any longer for answers and so she turned around she ran back to her car she hopped in it and she made her way around this big police barricade and sped the rest of the way to Clay and Molly's house and there she picked up Molly she drove her back and when they got there both women are totally hysterical but they run right up to the police tape and they look down in

the direction of where this fire had been which now had been put out there was just smoke coming off of this car frame that had been totally burned out and immediately when Molly looked down there she recognized the car or I should say she recognized the shape of the car because the fire had totally eviscerated the car but Molly she was seeing the frame was about the right size and she was seeing that strewn around this burned out car where all these paperback books that have been burned up partially in this fire and she knew

that clay had likely been on his way to his mother's house with all these paperback books inside of the vehicle and so she knew this had to be clay and at the same time that Molly is having this horrible realization the fire department down below was able to actually get into the burned out vehicle they opened up the door and they found right away there was a body in the driver's seat and so between the size eyes of the body all the paperback books that Molly said you know that would be something clay would have

along with several other personal effects that were found inside of the car like Clay's prized Harley-Davidson pin that he always wore in his hat it was obvious that this was Clay when words spread about Clay's death Molly's neighbors and friends in Leander jumped into action people loved Molly in Leander she was this very sweet very kind woman who was a little bit socially awkward but they had found ever since she had married clay she had really found some more confidence and just seemed happier and so it was totally devastating to see clay be pulled from

her life like that and so very quickly the community in Leander raised a thousand dollars and they gave it to Molly and her kids and then also neighbors began dropping off food and stocking their fridge with groceries and even though Molly couldn't even eat she was so grief stricken from the loss of clay she still very much appreciated the effort that people were making to comfort her but as the community rallied around Molly and her kids to get them through this difficult time the police were starting to ask some questions about how exactly this crash

that had killed clay actually happened because there were some Oddities about the scene of the accident the biggest being there were no skid marks on the road which meant clay had not hit the brakes before swerving off the road and crashing down in the trees below and secondly they didn't really understand how the fire that had started after this crash had gotten so incredibly hot that it basically had completely melted away every part of the vehicle save for the frame and also Clay's body had been totally destroyed I mean the authorities had seen fires after

car accidents but nothing like this this looked very unique and so investigators started to wonder if they were really dealing with a car accident or if this was a murder and on June 22nd just four days after clay was found investigator would learn from the crime lab that their suspicions had been correct foreign we did a merch drop last year and the gear was awesome we were so happy with it but the shipping times were ridiculously long we had big shipping issues we actually had to shut down that merch drop early to deal with those

issues well we fixed those issues and so shipping will no longer be an issue for us now or in the future and so as a token of our appreciation for you all in putting up with the shipping issues in the first drop we've decided to do a massive sale for context this sale is going to lose US money but it's the only way to do it because you all deserve it you're awesome thank you as of this video's release shop mrballand.com is officially back open for business and everything signature flannels hoodies hats Bells Canyon t-shirts

posters all of it are 50 off until supplies run out so again go to shop mrballand.com and get your official Mr ball and merchandise 50 off right now until supplies run out thank you [Music] it would turn out there was lighter fluid found all over the front seat of the car so that was the reason the fire had gotten so big and then during the autopsy Clay's lungs showed that he had not ever inhaled any soot meaning he was dead when the fire started and so very likely clay was murdered and the car accident was

staged and interestingly when words started to get out in town that Clay's death seemed suspicious and that maybe he was murdered it turned out nobody was surprised because even though Molly adored clay and thought he was a great father most other people in Leander hated him he was known around town to be this totally short-tempered guy who would just pick fights with people out of the blue in fact at Clay's own funeral his literal best friend stood up to eulogize him and during this he said I think honestly the world is a better place without

clay and so investigators began looking into Clay's background round to see if they could find connections with people that might have a grudge or some reason to be mad at clay who might want to do him harm and very quickly investigators found something just 10 days before clay was found he had pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a seven-year-old girl but the sentence he received was incredibly light he was given 30 days in jail which he had not served yet and probation now the father of the victim the seven-year-old girl was absolutely Furious about Clay's light

sentence and in fact just a couple of days before clay died the father threatened to kill clay so investigators quickly tracked down this father then they brought him in for questioning but very quickly this father made it clear to police that yes he hated clay yes he had threatened to kill clay but no he had nothing to do with what happened to Clay and the father had an alibi to back that up and so after confirming his alibi by the police somewhat reluctantly allowed the father to leave even though to a lot of them he

just really seemed like the slam dunk primary suspect but he couldn't have been and so with him out of the picture the police were kind of back to the drawing board and so they decided they would actually go talk to Molly and see if maybe she could shed some light on who else might have wanted to hurt clay now in their previous conversations with Molly police found her to be incredibly polite and also at the same time very very upset about the death of her husband but this time when investigators showed up at Molly's house

and she brought them into her kitchen where they sat down to talk it was like the police got a totally different Molly and it happened as soon as they asked her you know hey who do you think could have hurt your husband it was like Molly suddenly became impatient she didn't have time for these questions and finally she just said you know what I think clay was depressed because he had that prison sentence that was coming up that he didn't want to serve and so probably Lee he just killed himself I think that's what happened

and so now I need you guys to leave and so the officers didn't make a fuss they didn't fight Molly on this they just got up they left but once they were back out in their car they looked at each other and they both agreed that Molly's behavior was very suspicious and it made them think you know maybe she actually knows more about what happened to Clay and she's kind of trying to cover it up and make the police go away and over the next couple of weeks as police began investigating Molly they discovered quite

a bit of evidence that made them even more suspicious of her for one thing there was Clay's 110 000 life insurance policy that Molly was entitled to and Molly had apparently been calling the insurance company nearly non-stop every day trying to get them to wire that payment as soon as possible and Molly apparently was telling people in town how excited she was about getting that money also police learned after talking to Molly's neighbors that Molly was starting to date again already just three weeks after her husband has died she's out there on the dating scene

even bringing home one of her boyfriends and having him live with her two kids and according to Molly's babysitter this new boyfriend that was coming into the house was really upsetting Caleb the four-year-old who had been so close with Clay the babysitter would say that Caleb who normally was a very mellow child back when clay was still alive was now very violent and emotional and periodically he would just stop look up into the sky and scream I love you Daddy but when the babysitter brought this up to Molly and said really you should get your

son some help here Molly got angry and said Caleb was fine it was none of her business and then she slammed the door on the babysitter but despite how suspicious Molly now seemed there wasn't any real evidence that actually linked her to Clay's death and so finally in the fall of 2004 so several months after Clay's death and still the police have not figured out who killed him or how he died and how he wound up in this Inferno by the side of the road they decided to kind of reinvigorate this investigation into Mali they

really wanted to find evidence that she was involved in Clay's death and so they decided to put a surveillance team on Mali 24 7. and at first the undercover police would report that Molly's behavior was incredibly routine she basically did the same things every single day she got up she got the kids out the door she went to work afterwards she picked her kids up from the babysitter she went home she fed her kids and then they all went to bed and they did it all again the next day the only deviation from her schedule

was periodically she would go out after work to run some errands like go to the grocery store but then on December 3rd so six months after clay was found Molly would finally break her routine on that day Molly on her way home from work made a pit stop in this parking lot near several local stores so she parked her car she got out but then instead of walking into one of these stores to run an errand or something she walked to a dark colored Mustang that was parked in the parking lot as well and a

guy was driving it the sky the cop didn't recognize with dark hair Molly walked up to him and began talking to the sky through the window and then at some point Molly began very suspiciously looking over her shoulder like she was trying to see if anyone was watching her and then she walked around and climbed into the Mustang with the sky she shut the door and then the two of them drove off together and so the undercover police officer followed after them and eventually the Mustang containing Molly and this guy pulled into the parking lot

of a Taco Bell a fast food restaurant and so they stopped they got out and the undercover officer watched as the two of them casually walked inside of the Taco Bell they ordered some food and they sat down by the window to eat and so by this point the undercover officer he's not seen anything incriminating happening here but what he's seeing is such a break from her routine that it just seemed really suspicious and he wanted to go inside and have a look and so he called for backup from another undercover officer who was part

of the surveillance team he came into the parking lot and then the two of them these two officers who are wearing plain civilian clothes they both got out of their unmarked vehicles and they casually walked into the Taco Bell and they got in line to order food and as they were standing in line one of the undercover officers casually turned around in line and very nonchalantly scanned the room like he was looking at nothing in particular but in reality what he was doing was taking a quick Glimpse at Molly in the sky she was with

and when the officer took this quick Glimpse he noticed something very strange about the guy that Molly was sitting with something that the officer hadn't seen before but now that he was up close he could see it and as soon as he saw this strange thing the officer tapped on his partner's shoulder like all right we're doing something here The officer reached down put his hand on his concealed gun underneath his shirt and then he walked across the restaurant not even pretending to be undercover at this point he's basically giving away that he's a cop

he Strode right over to their table and when he stopped in front of them Molly and the guy she was with both looked up at him in Surprise and the officer just stared down at the guy not at Molly just at the guy the strange thing the officer had caught when he looked over at the guy was that he recognized him this was someone he knew personally from being in law enforcement in the area this guy was Clay Daniels Molly's supposedly dead husband he had just clearly dyed his blonde hair black it would turn out

Molly and Clay had staged his death in order to keep him from having to serve that prison sentence for the sexual assault charge and so they could collect on the 110 000 life insurance policy the body that was found inside of the burned out car was obviously not Clay's it was the body of an 81 year old woman who clay had dug up from some isolated Cemetery thrown inside of his vehicle and then pushed his vehicle off the road and lit on fire with lighter fluid and so that was why there was no skid marks

up on the road because again this was not a car accident it was staged and so after clay and Molly staged Clay's death it actually worked people really believed that clay had died they were questioning how he died but nobody really thought it wasn't clay and so their plan was working but after three weeks of being apart with Clay kind of hanging out by himself away from the town clay and Molly just couldn't stand to be apart any longer and so clay dyed his blonde hair black that was the only thing he did to disguise

his identity and then he just moved back into the home with Molly and the kids and so that was the new boyfriend that neighbors were seeing Molly with she was not actually going out on New dates she was just back with clay and Clay's stepson Caleb the four-year-old he immediately recognized that his father was back even though he had black hair but Molly and Clay had convinced the little boy that clay was not really clay Instead This was the new boyfriend Jake this is very likely why Caleb had begun acting out he was old enough

to understand that something wasn't right but not old enough to understand that his parents were lying to him it's unclear why Molly and Clay who lived together shamelessly decided to have this weird Rendezvous in the parking lot inside of Clay's Mustang and then go to Taco Bell and eat together but regardless it was this secret Meetup that ultimately led to them getting caught Molly and Clay were both charged with insurance fraud and they both pled guilty Molly was sentenced to 20 years in prison and Clay was sentenced to 30 years in prison plus 20 more

years for probation violations Mali has since been paroled while Clay is still in jail [Music] so that's gonna do it if you got something out of today's episode be sure to check out our podcast called the Mr Ballin podcast where we have hundreds more stories just like this one except many of them are only available on the podcast again it's called the Mr Ballin podcast and it's available exclusively on Amazon music