MRN Top 10 Videos: Courthouse videos, along with three interviews, most popular among viewers

December 30, 2024 | By Muddy River News

| Illustration by Aspen Gengenbacher

Videos of sentencings or related to criminal actions were among the most popular on Muddy River TV+ in 2024, but interviews with controversial figures like Riley Gaines, Steve Homan and Kenzie Vallee also grabbed the interest of viewers.

The top videos on Muddy River News in 2024, as determined by MRN analytics:

1. Calling the case an “unmitigated tragedy,” Judge Michael Atterberry sentenced Travis Wiley, who was found guilty in November for the first-degree murder of Engle’s infant daughter, Airyana Hoffman, to 35 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections. As he did throughout the trial, Wiley said he was not guilty during his statement of allocution. “Not a day goes by, not a second, that I don’t think about it,” he said. “I maintain my innocence.”

2. Ashley Conrad and Brittany Boll interviewed Kenzie Vallee on Club Muddy. Vallee participates on OnlyFans, a website that allows influencers to monetize their content (occasionally pornographic) like TikTok or Instagram. MRN didn’t show graphic content or get into great detail about what Vallee does on OnlyFans, but a discussion is held because MRN supports the First Amendment and hates censorship.

3. Brittany Boll and Randy Phillips took viewers to O’Shea’s in Quincy to talk about the great breakfast, lunch and dinner specials on this installment of Taste of the Town.

4. Hannibal attorney Tyler White is escorted down the stairs of the Marion County Courthouse in Hannibal, Mo., by two troopers from the Missouri State Highway Patrol on Friday morning. White eventually had his law license suspended by the Missouri Supreme Court.

5. An eight-woman, four-man jury found Austin Rodhouse guilty of all 19 felony charges after more than four hours of deliberations on Nov. 8. Judge Charles H.W. Burch set Jan. 15 as the date for Rodhouse’s sentencing. Rodhouse’s crimes ranged from aggravated domestic battery, criminal sexual assault involving force, predatory criminal sexual assault of a child, aggravated criminal sexual assault, child pornography and indecent solicitation of an adult.

6. Riley Gaines spoke to a local crowd at Hannibal-LaGrange University in January and visited with Muddy River News’ Megan Duncan. Director of The Riley Gaines Center at the Leadership Institute, Gaines is becoming a leading national voice in preserving women’s sports for biological females. She traveled around the country in 2024 with her ‘Speak Louder’ campus tour.

7. A Quincy man charged with four felonies in correction with a shooting in July in the TJ Maxx parking lot at the Prairie Crossing Shopping Center made his first appearance in Adams County Circuit Court. Ryan Schuenke, the attorney for Alan C. Pacheco, 21, said his client was acting in self-defense. Pacheco was scheduled to go to trial in December, but the trick was stricken from the docket. Pacheco was placed on house arrest and ordered to have GPS monitoring. He’s due to be in court in January.

8. Ashley Conrad and Brittany Boll got their wish as the outspoken Steve Homan joined Club Muddy in September. Before Homan came on the set, Bob Gough joined Brittany and Ashley to talk about the controversial Quincy Catholic Schools reorganization plan.

9. A one-vehicle crash near the Marblehead exit on I-172 sent two Hannibal teens to the hospital and stopped traffic on the highway for 90 minutes on New Year’s Eve. A Dodge truck driven by Carter L. Doran of Hannibal was traveling northbound on 172 when the truck swerved and hit the concrete median barrier near Mile Marker 3. The truck then overturned. A female passenger, Diamond L. Culp, of Hannibal was in the truck.

10. Bryan Paden accepted a guilty plea to an aggravated battery charge and was sentenced in March to eight years in the Illinois Department of Corrections. The incident in question occurred at the Harrison Pub, 1701 Harrison, in the early morning hours on Jan. 29, 2023. The Quincy Police Department officers and Adams County EMS personnel found an unconscious male lying on the ground outside of Harrison Pub. The unconscious male, later to be identified as Jason Summers, 41, Quincy, was transported to Blessing Hospital by ambulance and later placed in a medically induced coma in the intensive care unit.