Every Town - Strip Search Scam Alert: The Dangerous Game of Obedience

Episode Date: April 26, 2024

Today we’re headed to Mount Washington in Kentucky for the main story that blew this case wide open, but really these vicious calls happened all around the United States as one sick and twisted individual refined his ability to groom strangers in to do some bad things…things that were not just criminal but went so far beyond what even makes logical sense that they seam unreal. 👀 Watch This Episode On Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/scarymysteries 🎧 Our Other Podcast Scary Mysteries: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ZooEZMoZ421WdsOVJhVkT 💀 Exclusive Videos, Podcasts & Perks: https://www.patreon.com/scarymysteries  👁 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrew.fitzg 👁 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewfitzgerald 👁 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scarymysteriesofficial 🗣 Business Inquiries, questions and comments hit us up at [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you love true crime, grab your favorite mug and pour yourself a dose of creepy true crime every single morning with a morning cup of murder. This short daily show is the perfect podcast to incorporate into your morning routine because in less than 15 minutes, you'll hear about a true crime that took place on a day's date in history. Each day's dark history lesson will kickstart your morning with intriguing tales of murder, abduction, serial killers, cults, and everything in between.

With over 20 million downloads, Morning Cup of Murder has something for every true crime lover. One listener describes the show as a small package with a powerful punch of crime. Another writes that the show is an absolute delight in the morning. Support yourself a piping hot cup of murder every single morning with Morning Cup of Murder. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Everytown has a dark side. Back in the 90s and early 2000s, making prank calls was something younger people did as a way to have a little fun. It was a sort of perfect storm that led to prank calls emerging in the culture.

On one side, you had the creation of Star 8-7, which if you dialed before you made that call, your number wouldn't show up on a caller ID, so no one could trace you. It was before cell phones were widely used or social media even existed, and so you had some friends together and how to share a boy. boredom, one of them was liable to say, let's make some prank calls. And for the most part, these were harmless in terms of long-lasting trauma to the victim on the other end of the line. These calls may have been rude and immature, but at the heart of them, there was no true evil intentions.

If you could just trick that person on the line into believing you were someone other than yourself, you'd get a laugh, and that was it. However, there is a very messed up and disturbing string of prank calls that were made over the course of a decade that went far beyond just looking to get a laugh. These calls were sinister in nature. It led to many regular people doing awful things to one another just because the voice on the other end asked them to do so. They've since become to be known as the strip search phone scams. To this day, the person who made them has never been caught. at least officially.

Hey guys, it's Andrew, and thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Everytown. But today we're headed to Mount Washington and Kentucky for the main story that blew this case wide open. But really, these vicious calls happened all around the United States. He's one sick and twisted individual refined his ability to groom strangers into doing some bad things, things that were not just criminal, but when so far beyond what even makes logical sense that they seem unreal. But all this actually happened, many times over, in fact.

And likely there were other incidents as well that we'll never even know about because the victims were just so embarrassed by what they had done. It's a strange dive into the human psyche that shows the malleable nature of people, no matter how strange the request is in the face of authority. And if you think that something like this could never happen to you, well, the science says, That's just not true. A Mount Washington, Kentucky sits around 20 miles south of Louisville. It is your typical small town, USA type of place,

filled mostly with honest, hardworking everyday Americans. One of them was Donna Summers, manager at the local McDonald's in town. Her days were busy and often hectic. If you've ever worked in the food service industry, then you know that everything moves fast. And her day-to-day Donna was dealing with delicious. deliveries, the reliability or lack thereof of her young staff, and the rushes during breakfast, lunch, and dinner time. Her objective was always to keep things together, moving forward, and just make it through to the next day with the least amount of interference and hassles. Friday, April 9th,

2004 was no different than any other day. That is, until Donna received a phone call. Her office, she picked it up, and on the other end was police officer Scott. He was investigating a theft that had occurred at her restaurant. A customer had been in earlier that day and said that one of the workers, a young white woman with blonde hair, as he described, was the person believed to be responsible for the crime. To Donna, Officer Scott was describing one of her cashiers. 18-year-old Louise Ogborne was working that day. But the reality was that the quote-unquote officer was just describing a generic type of person. In other words, going to any middle of America, fast food restaurant, and chances are there's a young blonde girl working there.

Officer Scott told Donna that she needed to bring Ogborne into the back room, essentially apprehend her until officers could arrive. He made sure to let Donna know that she was really helping out the police by doing so, and that he and the other officers appreciated it. And Donna, not one who liked to disappoint, was happy she could help. After all, who doesn't want to be a hero? Once in the room, isolate her from the hustle and bustle of the restaurant, playing to Donna's ego and the power she held as a manager. Officer Scott asked her to go a step further. That the reality was that this theft was a minor case, and that right now all officers were too busy with other crimes to come down and deal with the situation. Donna empathize with being busy on the job, and so Scott's request

was simple. He needed Donna to perform a strip search of Louise in order to see what she was hiding on her person. Then take her clothes to her car so that the police could dig into them further once they eventually got the chance to get down there. But in reality, this physical separation of Ogborne from her clothes and presenting them as important evidence

was only implemented so that she couldn't easily put them back on. They wouldn't be right next to her. Over the course of the day, she would ask several times to be allowed to get dressed, but no one allowed that to happen. While Donna wasn't exactly comfortable performing this search, she asked the officer to call her supervisor to see how they should handle this, at which point he explained he had already talked to corporate,

which is why they were doing it this way. Because they too didn't have time to deal with it and needed Donna to they control the situation. Assistant manager Kim Dockery was brought into the room as a witness, and there in the back, Louise removed her clothes one item at a time. Ogborne was confused and scared at this point. Here she was being told by her manager and assistant manager to strip down, that she had committed a crime.

Even though she knew she hadn't done anything, she felt like her job stood in the balance. On top of that, there was a police officer explaining that she could face Siri's jail time as she didn't obey. So reluctantly, she stripped. Everything came off, including her underwear. Donna said she didn't see any store. stolen items and this entire scene unfolded before the security cameras, so it was all caught

on tape. They then gave the poor girl an apron. Officer Scott explained that the investigation wasn't over though, and the dinner rush of patrons was pouring in and Donna and Kim needed to get back to work behind the counter. So Scott asked if they could put someone else in charge that they trusted. They grabbed a young cook, Jason Bradley, from the kitchen, and had him take over the call. He was instructed by Donna to do as the officer told him. He walked into the back room to find his co-worker completely nude except for that apron and immediately didn't want anything to do with this.

He picked up the phone, Officer Scott asked him to remove the apron and tell him what he saw. Jason just put the phone down, walked out of the room. He wasn't taking part in this. Donna needed all her co-workers to be out front, so after that, she reached out to the person she trusted most in this world. her fiance, Walter Nix. He came down, and for the next two and a half hours, he would be back there on the phone as he watched over Louise. At the urging of Officer Scott,

Nix would go on to have Ogborne remove her apron. He coerced her into performing physically exposing acts, including dancing and jumping jacks. As part of the alleged search, Nix escalated his demands, instructing her to engage in invasive actions, display herself to him. He further demanded physical affection, kisses, and sitting on his lap. Upon her resistance, he resorted to physical acts like spanking her until she complied.

All this was done at the instruction of Officer Scott using Nix as if he were his puppet. Ogborne at some point began fearing for her life in this situation that was so surreal. She got to the point where she thought if she didn't comply, her life would be over. Eventually, she was coerced into performing sexual acts on Nix. During brief intervals, when Summers re-entered the office, Ogborne was directed to conceal herself with the apron, adhering to the caller's manipulative instructions. Following Nix's departure, under the guise of compliance with the caller's conditions,

he would go on to tell a friend shortly after that he thought he really messed up. With Nick's gone and the restaurant understaffed, Summers sought a replacement to oversee Ogborn. Thomas Sims, the maintenance worker who was visiting the restaurant, then entered into the fray. Sims, however, just like Jason, outright refused to comply with the caller's commands. At that point, doubts emerged for Summers, prompting her to verify the caller's claims with a superior, which unveiled the call's true deceitful nature. When confronted, Officer Scott just hung up. up the phone, and that was the end of the incident, though it most certainly had a long-lasting

effect on all that was involved. The real police were contacted, and the story revealed was one that everyone found hard to believe, and yet there it was, all caught on camera for them to see. And trying to track down the caller, it was then that they discovered this wasn't the first incident like this to have happened, not by a long shot. Going back 10 years to 1994, there had been a series of these calls being reported all across the United States. They always occurred in small town America. Perhaps the caller felt people there were more easily manipulated. Sometimes they happen at grocery store chains, but mostly they were fast food restaurants.

They always followed the same pattern, the same as the incident that took place at the McDonald's in Kentucky where the man pretended to be an officer of the law and someone who had power over them. There were varying degrees of success in these incidents, I guess, if you want to call it that. And sometimes people would hang up almost immediately, and sometimes people just obeyed. In that 10-year span, more than 20 strip-scam calls were placed, though those are just the ones that were reported. And chances are there are many more where the victims realized at some point that they were being scammed and, at a sheer embarrassment, kept it to themselves.

though how far those situations went and how many happened is anyone's guess. But because these incidents were all so out of the norm and similar, it is all believed to have been the work of one single man. On August 4th of 1994, a man called a McDonald's in Saybrook Township, Ohio, pretending to be a cop explaining that a customer's purse was stolen from the restaurant. They then told two minor females that the manager was going to strip search them. Three calls, just like this, happened in 1995. One in Devils Lake, North Dakota, one in Fallon, Nevada, and another in Starkville, Mississippi.

In that case, a sheriff's deputy called up a pizza hut, saying that an employee had stolen money from the restaurant. The manager was brought in and had a strip search, one of the young workers. In January 20th, 1999, a 17-year-old female employee had a Burger King, had her naked behind slapped by a man. after he was instructed to do so by a caller. In Blackfoot, Idaho, in December of 99, a local pizza shop got a call from Officer Davis of the Blackfoot PD. He said that a 16-year-old employee was accused of stealing a customer's purse. Officer Davis instructed the manager to conduct a strip search, which they did. Officer Davis had the man describe exactly what it was he was looking at in great detail.

In that case, a 22-year-old employee happened to walk in on the scene while it was taking place. I grabbed the phone and berated Officer Davis, and so he just hung up. And on and on, the calls went. In all these cases, it seems the people involved either comply and take it as far as they're asked to, or they recognize it's a problem right away, and don't listen to a random man's voice over the telephone, even if they are a police officer. So, what type of person are you? Sure you're saying you'd never do it, but if you asked all these people the same question before

their incidents took place, they'd say the same thing. Maybe there's a part of these managers that actually enjoyed doing what they were told. Submissive tendencies, I believe it's called. Perhaps they're simply just not all that intelligent. Can't tell a scam from a real call. Whatever the exact reason, it's going to vary from person. person to person, but you'd be surprised at what people will do when faced with the perceived threat of authority.

The most just comply, do as they're told, not wanting to rock the boat. There's been a lot of tests and data to back this up. The Milgram Shock Experiment, for example, from 1961, set out to see just how far a person would go and obeying instructions that involved harming another person. They had a wide range of people from all different backgrounds come in, They would be paired off with another individual in order to conduct the experiment. One would be the teacher, the person in charge of inflicting pain, and the other, the learner, the one receiving the pain.

They drew straws to see who would get each role, only it was rigged. The learner was a paid actor, which meant that each teacher is always the real person in the experiment. Essentially, the learner had to recall words from a list, and each time they were wrong, the teacher was instructed to give them an electric shock. The shocks range from 15 volts, which is mild, to 450 volts, which could actually cause death. The learner, who was an actor, was never actually harmed, but the teacher thought they were and could hear them screaming in pain each time they gave a wrong answer. And under the guidance of being told simply that they must continue with the experiment

and get the learner to give the correct answer, 65% of the participants ramped up to 450 volts, knowing they might seriously harm the learners, if not kill them. And every single one of the participants, at least went over 300 volts. The Stanford Prison Experiment is another one where regular people were split into two factions, guards and prisoners. The only objective being to not let the prisoners escape. And over the course of a week, the guards gradually became more brutal to inmates.

The inmates just took the punishment, becoming totally submissive, even though none of it was real. In other words, why would they allow it to continue when it's all just an experiment? The general conclusion to these and other experiments like it is simply that people actually like to follow orders given by perceived authority. That obedience is actually ingrained in the very fabric of who we are. which actually makes sense from a survival and evolutionary standpoint. I think back to when we were just hunters and gatherers. In order to survive, you needed to be with a group of people. It was impossible to do everything on your own.

And in order to work together, there has to be some form of hierarchy. For that to work, people need to fall in line, hence our obedient nature. And getting back to the incident in Mount Washington and how it all played out, out. During the investigation initially, the police believed that the call was made from a payphone near the McDonald's, allowing the caller to observe both the police station nearby and the restaurant. However, it was later discovered that the call actually came from a supermarket pay phone in Panama City, Florida. By tracing the call made with an AT&T phone card, the police focused their investigation on Walmart, the primary seller of these cards, and contacted Panama

City authorities for assistance. The investigation then gave Omenum when they located surveillance footage showing the individual who purchased the exact phone card used in the Mount Washington call. The footage from Panama City showed the buyer dressed in a correctional officer's uniform from Corrections Corporation of America, a private security company. Ultimately, they were able to identify the man as David R. Stewart, a married correctional officer with five children as the suspect. Despite Stewart's denial of ever purchasing a phone card, even though it was caught on tape, police found evidence in his home, including a phone card, linked to calls to nine restaurants over the previous year, and paraphernalia, suggesting a fascination with law enforcement roles.

Stewart was extradited to Kentucky to face charges of impersonating a police officer and solicitation of sodomy, facing up to 15 years if convicted. However, on October, October 31st of 2006, he was acquitted due to the lack of direct evidence, such as a voice recording. Despite his acquittal, Stewart remains the number one suspect in many of the calls all around the country. And after his arrest and trial, wouldn't you know it, the calls abruptly stopped and have never happened again. The night of the Mount Washington incident had Donna Summers reviewing the video footage with police. With a clear head now, she couldn't believe. what she had done and was profoundly affected and apologetic. It was also the first time she watched

her fiancé in the distressing footage and what he had done with Ogborne. She immediately broke off the engagement with him after that. Ogborne herself went through years of therapy after the incident which still affects her to this day. And Nix himself received five years in jail after the prolonged experience he was part of in the back of that McDonald's. Now whether it was a steward who made the calls or not, technically, we don't know for sure. While it's beyond messed up with the caller did in these situations, you can sort of understand the motivation. Above anything else, it really comes down to power, feeling godlike and having the ability to make people do things you tell them to. Occupations, like a police officer, tend to attract those with

a desire to be in charge. And sometimes they can't get it anywhere else but in that profession. For someone like Stewart, he had a security guard who desperately wanted to be a police officer and in charge, so you could see how he made his way to calling up stores, pretending to be exactly what he wanted to be, and doing what he did. The prank calls have definitely gone out of style nowadays, but human nature will always exist, which means there will never not be predators looking to take advantage of people who will obey. The means to accomplishing this has just changed now, as technology. continues to evolve. It truly is something for all of us to be aware of, because we're teetering

on the edge of having our lives flipped upside down every single day. And we, of course, think it will never happen us, that we're smarter than that, and yet we all get calls from unknown numbers, emails looking for our password information, and behind each one of those is a chance for it to actually happen. Some scammers want money, mothers want your data, and some just want access to a young person's photos. Whatever it is, it's all about power. Stay vigilant out there and remember, just because someone says something is urgent

and that you need to listen to them, it doesn't make it so. So that's it for this week's episode of Everytown. Hope you all enjoyed it. If you like this podcast, we're putting out, there's a lot more content we have for you to listen to. Go check out our other podcast called Scary Mysteries. and for exclusive podcasts each and every week, plus other perks.

But check us out at patreon.com slash scary mysteries, where we get into some even darker content. Thanks for tuning in today. Remember to come back next week for another episode for with scary, strange, and mysterious stories. Because you never know. Maybe your town will be next.