Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers, and I'm Brett.

And today's story is one I kind of happened on while I was working on something completely different.

And it's one of those cases that seems kind of open and shut.

But it turns out it is anything but this is the story of Father Patrick Ryan.

It's late morning on December 22nd, 1981 in Odessa, Texas, and a housekeeper from the

Sandin Sage Motel is making her rounds. She knocks on the door of room 126.

No answer. So she puts her key in the lock and pushes the door open.

And what she sees as soon as that door swings open nearly knocks her off her feet.

The room is completely trash. There is blood everywhere, and most disturbing of all, there

is a man, a dead man lying right in the middle of the room.

She runs to the manager's office, screaming for him to call for help, and within minutes,

officers are on the scene.

Now I'm not sure anything could have prepared these officers for the gruesome scene that they

are about to walk into.

Like I said, everything is covered in blood. And when I say everything, we're talking

the walls, the floor, the furniture. It is everywhere.

And the man is lying face down on the floor in a pool of blood.

And his hands have been tightly bound behind his back, either with a sock or a pillowcase

depending on the source material that you read.

Now he's totally naked, and he's been beaten so severely that his face is swollen, and

his features are distorted.

When they look closely, they notice that he has scratches on his arms, and another long

...