216: The Wellnitz Family Murders

Southern Fried True Crime

Erica Kelley

True Crime, Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 10.5K Ratings

🗓️ 24 May 2024

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For nearly a decade, the Wellnitz family murders haunted the small town of Columbia, Kentucky. The tight knit community had no clue why these good people were mercilessly executed in their own home. They were known for their thriving veterinary clinic and their kind hearts. But someone had been viciously murdered the family and even though investigators were pretty sure they knew who did it, the case went cold. It took ten years and heroic undercover work to get justice for the Wellnitz family.

Hosted and produced by Erica Kelley
Researched and written by Andrea Marshbank
Additional writing by Erica Kelley
Edited and Mixed by Brandon Schexnayder & Erica Kelley
Original Graphic Art by Coley Horner
Original Music by Rob Harrison of Gamma Radio
Suggested by Dana Schmidt

Sources: https://www.southernfriedtruecrime.com/wellnitz-family

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Southern Fried True Crime covers cases that are not suitable for young listeners, and there may also be some explicit language used.
0:17.0	Listener discretion is advised.
0:19.0	In the early 1980s, Dana King was a little girl who liked horses in the small town of Columbia, Kentucky.
0:32.0	When a new family, the Wellnitz's, moved nearby, Dana was intrigued. She was
0:40.0	overjoyed when she learned that the father of the family, Joe Wellnuts, was a veterinarian,
0:47.2	and that he and his wife Beth were going to open their own vet clinic.
0:52.4	Dana later said they were kind they were loving and they were fun
0:56.6	to be around. She also remembered how Beth let her help wash their pony. Beth had always been so kind to her.
1:07.0	Over the years, Dana ended up doing a lot of odd jobs for the wellness family and their vet practice.
1:14.0	And when she grew up, Dana married a veterinarian.
1:17.0	Many years later, she and her husband would come to own what was once the wellness family's veterinary practice.
1:27.0	Joe and Beth Wellness were long since gone.
1:31.0	The wellness story had ended in tragedy.
1:39.6	Welcome to episode 216, the Wellniz family murders.
1:43.6	Beth Wellnuts, was born Elizabeth Ann Preston on May 1st, 1952 to Leonard and Mary Preston in Lexington, Kentucky.
2:01.0	She had two brothers. Beth's parents met at the University of Kentucky.
2:05.7	Her mother was studying to be an English teacher and her father was a college
2:10.6	football player. By 1943, Mary and Leonard were married. For the rest of their
2:16.8	lives, Beth's parents would be avid University Kentucky sports fans. During the Korean War, the family moved all over the world. They lived in Japan, Germany, Philadelphia, Fort Knox, and
2:36.6	Louisville. Then around 1966, Leonard was seriously injured in the line of duty.
2:45.0	At the time, he was stationed in North Korea.
2:48.3	Following that, Leonard retired from the military, and when Beth was around six years old the
	...

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