In 2002, Madison McGhee’s father, John Cornelius ‘J.C.’ McGhee was murdered in chilly blood within the doorway of his house. Madison was simply six years previous on the time, however, many years later, she began asking questions on his mysterious homicide – and turning the highlight on her family and the police to untangle a shady internet of ‘coincidences’ and conspiracies. Now returning for a second series of her gripping podcast, Ice Cold Case, Madison, 29, shares her story with GLAMOUR – and reveals why she’s trusting instinct to search out her father’s killer.
I vividly keep in mind the second I discovered my father had been murdered. I might at all times been instructed that he died of a coronary heart assault. However aged 16, once I went to go to my household on my dad’s facet, the reality got here out.
I hadn’t seen my grandmother in 10 years, across the identical time my father, her son, had died. The go to had gone nicely and, after leaving the home, I turned to wave goodbye to my cousin, Omar, who was stood outdoors on the entrance porch. I’d solely ever met my father’s nephew as soon as earlier than – at my dad’s funeral – however, in that cut up second, seeing him once more felt like taking a punch to the abdomen; it bodily knocked the wind out of me. I used to be struggling to breathe and though I could not – and nonetheless cannot – clarify it, I knew in my intestine that one thing was incorrect.
All I may take into consideration was my dad. I couldn’t shake this sinister feeling that had washed over me and I used to be desperately making an attempt to piece all of it collectively. It was right here, on the driveway of my grandmother’s home, that my mum needed to lastly inform me the reality: my dad had been murdered, shot at point-blank vary in his personal doorway – and his killer had by no means been discovered.
Within the years that adopted, a pure curiosity gripped me and I started exploring the circumstances of his demise. I requested the official report from the police investigation – a bungled case that has by no means been closed, nor introduced a single suspect to trial – fanning the paperwork out ceremoniously on the ground in entrance of me, making an attempt to suit items of an unattainable jigsaw collectively.
Because the story unfolded, I began to study some uncomfortable truths about my dad – a person who was a identified drug vendor, person, and police informant – but I nonetheless felt fiercely that he deserved higher. The extra I learn, the extra I wanted to search out out for myself what had actually occurred to him, and why. Was the case botched as a result of he was Black? The Belmont County police pressure was comprised predominantly of white officers 22 years in the past, and an absence of range would have created bias, intentional or not. Did my dad’s custody battle along with his ex, Deneen, play a job within the homicide? Or may the truth that he’d knowledgeable on his family members to guard himself from jail maintain the important thing? I went again by way of the household tree, contacting cousins and aunts I had no relationship with to unearth new info. However the extra folks I spoke to, the extra shocked I used to be to find a plethora of theories surrounding my father’s homicide. Sadly, none appeared noble or upstanding.
In response to the recordsdata, the day my father died went one thing like this: Omar, who lived subsequent door to my dad, reported a break-in at round 6am that morning. Three or 4 guys broke in, tied up my dad’s sister and Omar’s girlfriend, then spent half-hour ransacking the home for cash. They had been particularly in search of a secure, and in some way wound up at my dad’s home with Omar in tow – a element that instantly stood out as odd to me whereas I used to be ploughing by way of the pages. Why was he nonetheless there? Why was he the one one not tied up?
