Criminal - Thin Ice and Unusual Punishments

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

Two years ago, we started making Criminal Plus episodes — behind-the-scenes conversations featuring Phoebe and Criminal co-creator Lauren Spohrer. Today, we’re sharing some of those conversations with you — about everything from Phoebe’s jangly bracelets to the reason a judge ordered a man to watch Bambi. And we’re also sharing a promo code if you’d like to support our work and join our membership program. Use the code “JOINUS” for 20% off of an annual Criminal Plus membership, at thisiscriminal.com/plus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Alright, so I'm going to press record Phoebe, this guy here. Hello, hello. Okay, so Russ, she sounds good? Okay. And we're recording. Okay. Lauren, how long have you wanted to be the host of a True Crime podcast? Two years ago, when Lauren Spore and I started recording bonus episodes for

Criminal Plus subscribers, we were still trying to figure this whole thing out. We started the Criminal Plus membership because we wanted to give you a way to support our work directly and thank you for it with special perks like listening to our shows without ads, coming to special events like trivia nights and live tapings, and getting twice-monthly bonus episodes with me and Lauren. We've had a lot of fun making Criminal Plus episodes over the past two years. We've recorded behind the scenes

during our on-stage live shows and recording trips. We've caught up with past guests and friends of the show, and we've answered lots of your questions along the way. We have big goals this year for Criminal Plus. It's an important part of how we keep our shows going, now that ad sales aren't as dependable as they used to be. And we're hoping that if you aren't already a member, that you might consider becoming one.

If you'd like to support our work, for a limited time you can use the promo code JOINUS for 20% off of an annual membership. Once you sign up for Criminal Plus, you have access to all of our past Criminal Plus episodes. There are now almost 50 of them. Today we're sharing some highlights from those episodes with you. You and I have been making these shows for a really long time now, almost 10 years. All this time, you've had no interest in ever being on the microphone.

That's not true. I've done like, I think there's, I've done like four or five. Remember I did that Raymond Chandler story? Very early on. Mm-hmm. I did one where I talked to my dad about an old 1960s Jacksonville case. Yeah, that was a good episode. Thank you. Do you think that there are people where it's a very clear divide, people who would be very

happy to be on the microphone and people who would not. Do you think you are either a person who likes the mic or doesn't like the mic? I think that you, isn't that why you got a microphone tattoo? That was one of the first jokes I ever told you, that I had a tattoo of a microphone. And remember how long you believed me? Oh, why wouldn't I? And I don't have any tattoos. I was remembering that you, I was remembering your outfit the first time I met you. Do you

remember? I built, I probably, this was 10 years ago. We were both working at The Story with Dick Gordon, which was a national public radio show. We were both producers. And I had been away for a while and I don't know what, I just had taken a break from being a producer. And when I came back, Lauren had begun working as a producer. And for some reason they put us in the same little work area. We had two desks, but it was a cubicle situation. And I didn't know who Lauren was, and I was just really focused on pitching really good stories. And I think I was wearing a blue jean jacket with holes

in the elbows, probably. Just shredded. Shredded. But not on purpose, I mean, out of wear, not on, it wasn't a fashion statement. And probably a pair of blundstones. I think you might have been wearing square-toed fry boots. Yeah. Well, it was... And you were wearing about 65 silver bangle bracelets that went all the way up to your elbow. If you could change one thing about working with me over the past 10 years, would it be my bracelets?

Oh my God. I mean, we spend the amount of time that we spend trying to, you know, like cut out little blips in the audio or like little imperfections. And then the host of the show is wearing an orchestra on her wrist and she shakes it for effect. Like when she asks a question she's like, we'll like use her hands in the studio and it just creates like so much jangling. And I had a really good idea which was we just give her a little sweatband and we wrap it around two times and then she can wear all the bracelets that she want but they'll be snug and she, you completely rejected it. We do have a special guest in the studio today, my father. When Lauren suggested that my father

is here visiting me and so she said well why not have your father come on and that was the idea and then Lauren said I? And that was the idea. And then Lauren said, I'll take care of the questions. Well, I mean, Tony Judge is listener number one. I mean, you've been in the trenches with us since we started this thing. I joined Criminal Plus last week and I even paid. Thank you, Tony. My pleasure.

I hope. He told me that and I did go on the sign up list to see if he had actually signed up. And had I? Yeah, yeah. I'm on the list. Well, it's a good time to talk to you, Tony, because Phoebe recently dusted off one of your many eclectic presents to her. Dusted off.

Well, so we recently visited a practice, a rehearsal for the really terrible orchestra of the triangle. And when we were thinking about doing the story, Katie Bishop, our supervising producer, said, we'll do interviews in the studio, but then it would be really great if you, Phoebe, could go to a rehearsal. And because the orchestra is made up of non-professionals, it's okay that you don't really know how to play an instrument." And she said, but what do you have, do you have an instrument? And I said, well, I have a couple.

And I have a couple because over the years, my father has given me a number of instruments, rather unprompted, I would say. There was the mandolin for my 30th birthday. Yeah, what ever happened to the mandolin? I don't know. I don't know either. And then a couple years ago, there was the clarinet, the used clarinet that I think you got at Jerry's Music Shop in South Hadley?

Probably so, yes. What, Tony, what was your thought process there? You know, I wonder. I guess I always imagined that Phoebe would add to her glories by becoming an accomplished musician as well. One more arrow in the quiver. Just in her mid-30s, pick that up. Yeah. Maybe it was that I wished to become an accomplished musician,

but wasn't foolish enough to imagine I would, so I got some small kick out of buying her the clarinet and the mandolin and whatever else over the years we've acquired for our own orchestra, which has yet to make its concert debut. Oh, this will be a family band. Well, I'd hope so. And this is the first I'm hearing of it. Right.

That changes everything. That makes perfect sense. So, I took this clarinet to the really terrible orchestra rehearsal. And the most shocking thing about, I was, I mean, it was not shocking how badly I played, but that I played so badly that even at the really terrible orchestra rehearsal, it was not shocking how badly I played, but that I played so badly that even at the really terrible orchestra rehearsal, it was hard for me to find anyone to sit next to. Because even I just, I was at the lowest level of accomplishment on the clarinet. Did you feel like people who, you needed to sit with someone who was as bad as you?

Oh, I would have sat next to anyone. Oh, I see. I mean, I wasn't discriminating. I mean, just anyone who would have had me. I mean, there was only one clarinet section. So, you know, my options weren't that great. And then, so I was trying to play the, I'm bad, but I've never been worse.

And Susanna Roberson, our producer, was there also with me, who was really actually shining on the flute, which she picked right back up. And she was taking pictures and videos, and we'll post some, I think you can see the attempt at me playing the clarinet. But then our producer, Lily Clark, was looking at some of the videos and said,

Phoebe, I think the reed's on backwards. It's like playing a violin with no bow. You can't really do it. So that was the first mistake. Lauren, I was trying to find a pitch this morning. We have our pitch meetings on Wednesdays. We're recording this on Monday. And I am always looking for pitches, but I was looking for a pitch this morning and I came across a story which seemed incredible to me. Would you like to hear about it?

Okay. In January, there was a mother and son, teenage son and their dog near a lake, frozen lake. The dog falls in. The mother and son are desperately trying to get the dog out. The teenage son, courageous, gets onto the ice to try to help the dog get out of the hole. My heart is racing. This is very scary. This is a lake that's frozen over.

Yeah. The dog fell through the ice. Yeah, in Indiana. Then the son also falls through the ice. To help his dog out of the ice, falls in. The mother comes screaming. And here's the amazing thing. The house that's closest to this pond lake is the home of a professional jump roper. Double Dutch champion. He says, I know what to do. I've got jump ropes. He brings two

16 foot long jump ropes, runs out. The sun is screaming, I'm drowning. I didn't make that up for dramatic effect. That is what the, this man ties the jump ropes together, gets a wide stance. Cause remember, this is PSA, if you ever need to go on thin ice, distribute your body weight, go wide, lay down, do not just try to walk out, you're stripping your body, gets out, shimmies out with his jump ropes, throws the jump ropes out, and the son and the dog are able to pull themselves with the man's help out of the ice with the jump ropes. And the dog are able to pull themselves with the man's help out of the ice with jump ropes.

And the dog? Jump ropes. What if this man had not been a professional? She's taking no further questions. Jump roper. Wow, when you're a professional jump roper. Who knew there was such a thing? I'm picturing the kind with a rope with the pieces of plastic, but that's probably not

what you use at his level. Yeah, these were ropes. I don't think that they had. I know exactly what you're talking about. Wow. That's amazing. Yes. Both, his name is David Fisher. He's a professional rope jumper and performer. He was given the first ever, the highest civilian honor in Westfield, Indiana for his courageous actions. He was given a joint citizen award, life-saving citizen award with the teenager who he pulled out because the teenager was also courageous trying to get the dog out.

Wow. Isn't that- That's really wild. Yeah. And also I didn't realize how scary it seemed to fall through the ice. I also think- I didn't know that you're supposed to distribute your weight or lie down. Oh, Lauren, of course.

I grew up in Florida. I've never, this is a fear I've never really considered. I was reading about a story a couple weeks ago that I'd never heard about before. And I was so interested in the story. It was so odd in so many ways that I feel like I want to know more about it. But I also, Lauren, have you ever heard about a woman named Teresita Basa? Have we pitched this before? I don't remember.

I think maybe, but I don't know. It was totally brand new to me. I was looking for a story pitch and I came across this and I just thought, what is this story? It's so, Dereceda Bassa was a respiratory therapist in Chicago at Edgewater Hospital. What decade are we in? In the 70s. Okay. She had moved to the US from the Philippines, from Manila. When she was in her 30s to study music at Indiana University,

she played piano, she got her degree there and wanted to find a job in the music industry, didn't. So she decided that she would get her PhD and at the same time, she'd be a respiratory therapist to support herself. So she was working on her PhD in music at Loyola University, which is not so far from Edgewater Hospital. Edgewater Hospital is interesting because it was opened in 1929 and when the hospital was opened, this was a boutique hospital. You know, it had a pool, it had a solarium. It was kind of where you went if you wanted white glove service. You know, Frank Sinatra would go there and use it more like a hotel than a hospital. What was it called?

Edgewater Hospital. So Teresita Basa is working at Edgewater Hospital as a respiratory therapist. And on February 21, 1977, she was 48. She left work around 5.30 and went home. And at around 7.30, her friend, her colleague, a woman named Ruth Loeb called her to check in. And Teresita Basa answered the phone and said she had a male visitor, someone visiting her, but she didn't say who was visiting her. Are you saying, as male visitor, someone visiting her, but she didn't say who was visiting her. Are you saying as male visitor mean date? She didn't say. She just, you know, Ruth Lowe reported that she said she had a male visitor there.

That's all we know. Later that night, the fire department is called because residents have reported seeing smoke coming out from Teresita Boss's apartment. When the firefighters arrived, the janitor in the building let them into the apartment. They entered the apartment and they found the fire kind of mainly coming from the bedroom. And they found Teresita Basa lying underneath a pile of clothing that was kind of smoldering. And when they lifted the clothing off, they found that she had a butcher's knife in her chest and she had no clothes on. And her body's kind of covered with a mattress also. She was clearly dead. They

took her and did an autopsy and during that autopsy, they found that the knife in her chest had killed her, but they didn't find any signs of rape or sexual assault. So the police are, you know, now they don't have many clues or leads, so they start an investigation. One of the things they do have is they had a note that was in Teresita Boss's handwriting and on it it said, get theater tickets for AS. And so they started asking friends and family who AS was, but no one knew. That didn't ring a bell to anyone who they knew that Teresita Basa was spending time with or would be buying tickets

for. But they did know that Ruth Loeb had talked to Teresita Bossa that night and said that there was a male visitor there with her. And the police were like, well, could this be AS? But they didn't really know. They started an investigation. No leads were coming, dead ends, and the case kind of went cold. But then six months later, a doctor named Jose Chua, I think that's how you pronounce it, was interviewed by the police. And he was interviewed by the police because he had reached out because his wife had started

having these dreams, these trances about Teresita Basa. They worked together. they were colleagues. He said that one day she got up from a living room chair and went into the bedroom and he kind of followed her and he saw her lying on the bed staring into space. And he asked her if anything was wrong and he said she replied in a voice that wasn't hers. This is a medical doctor. Yeah and so he told police that that she in this different voice said you know something like doctor I need your help the man who murdered me is still out there.

We love odd stories here at Criminal. They're our favorite types of stories. And over the past 10 years, I would say maybe once every eight months, six months. Someone will post a story or pitch an idea about, I don't know what to call them besides unusual sentences. So this is oftentimes someone who's committed maybe even a misdemeanor crime. And instead of getting just regular community service or probation, a judge somewhere around the country will hand out what I would call kind of a wild sentence. So headline grabbing, a headline grabbing sentence. So for example, one of these that I think someone pitched was that there was a judge

in Missouri who ordered a 29 year old man to watch the movie Bambi. The saddest movie of all time. Once a month. Once a month, he was behind bars, but he had to watch Bambi once a month after he was charged with illegally poaching a deer. I don't know that you could pay me to watch it again. Like, I find it so sad and upsetting. I mean, I don't think I've ever seen it.

But instead of just sending him to more jail time, the judge said, you're going to go, but I'm also going to make you watch Bambi once a month after this man illegally shot. There was another one came up a couple of years ago. This was a woman in Cleveland who decided that she would swerve around a school bus. She was just in a rush. She swerved around a school bus, went up onto a sidewalk to pass the bus full of children.

The judge, as her punishment, made her stand at an intersection holding a sign that said, only an idiot drives on the sidewalk to avoid a school bus. She had to stand there holding that sign after she refused to publicly apologize for what she did. So the judge was going to make her publicly. He was going to shame her. Yeah. And so she had to wear this sign from 745 to 845 for a couple of days on white poster board in all capital letters.

And I believe 745 to 845, I mean, that is kind of a school bus tie. She also had to pay $250. What else? I mean, they just keep coming. Okay, there was a judge who sentenced people who were making too much noise to listening to Barry Manilow. I like that.

You seem like a Barry Manilow fan. I don't even, I couldn't even tell you what Barry Manilow, I wouldn't know that music. Tell me how you feel about this one. A Texas woman was convicted of neglecting two horses. Yeah, get ready. She was sentenced to 30 days in jail. The judge in Harris County in Texas stipulated that along with the 30 days in jail, the first

three days of her jail sentence, she would only be given a diet of bread and water as a punishment for the way that she treated her horses. What do you think? I have a lot of questions. What about the one about the landlord who made the guy, the judge made the landlord live in his own falling apart building? I mean, it's, I didn't, the interesting thing to me is that I didn't actually know that this was allowed, that these unorthodox sentences could be handed down by judges, that they

had that power. Right. What are the limits? I'm dying to know. Um, there have been people who have questioned these sentences that they are, that they violate the eighth amendment, kind of cruel and unusual punishment. And there was a case where a man challenged, so he was convicted of stealing mail. And he was ordered to stand outside a post office wearing a sign that said, it's funny, these are like very medieval type of punishments, wearing a sign that said, I stole

mail, this is my punishment. And this guy was trying to challenge this punishment under four, apparently four amendments of the constitution, including the cruel and unusual punishment provision and the Sentencing Reform Act. but a federal circuit court of appeals upheld the punishment and he did have to stand outside saying, I stole mail, this is my punishment. It's cruel and unusual that he would have to wear the sign that said, I stole mail. Right. Which the argument could be for the woman who had to wear the idiot sign. There are so many interesting cases of these unusual wild sentences. They come up often at Criminal.

We talk every time we see a new one, we bring it up with the group. But there was one case that really kind of piqued our interest. It definitely took me by surprise. Reeves Wiedemann wrote about this for Grub Street. He agreed to come on and talk to us a little bit about this odd Chipotle incident. So this was about a year and a half ago, September 2023, a woman walked into Chipotle to pick up dinner for her daughter. She ordered her bowl and was not happy with the bowl. As many of us who've been to Chipotle before, sometimes they don't give you as much of one ingredient with the bowl as many of us who've been to Chipotle before. Sometimes they

don't give you as much of one ingredient or the other as you want. Most of us move on with our day. But she got very upset, made them remake the bowl, and eventually got so upset and angry with so upset and angry with the burrito bowl itself, with the interaction with the Chipotle employees, that she threw the burrito bowl at the woman who was working the register. That's a bit of our latest episode of Criminal Plus. If you sign up now, you'll see it near the top of your podcast feed,

and you'll get to hear about the very unusual sentence the woman who threw the burrito bowl received. Plus, we hear from a judge who's known for giving out unusual sentences. You can hear all of our Criminal Plus episodes right now by signing up at thisiscriminal.com slash plus. You can use the promo code JOINUS for 20% off an annual membership. Thanks very much for your support.