Infamous America - Introducing "Families Who Kill: The Donut Shop Murders" from Wondery

Episode Date: January 4, 2022

In the era of some of the most heinous serial killers of all time, one murderous family went curiously unnoticed: The McCrarys. Led by a psychopathic patriarch and his cunning son-in-law, this Texas clan roamed the country robbing, kidnapping, and killing up to 20 people, most of them taken from donut shops. “Families Who Kill: The Donut Shop Murders” recounts the wild and deeply disturbing story of an unhinged American family and the terrible brutality they unleashed. The podcast features the taped confessions of one of the killers, given when he was serving a life term in Colorado.  Listen Here: http://wondery.fm/DSM_InfamousAmerica  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, infamous listeners, I've got another wild one here from Wondry. If you like true crime, and I know lots of you do, this is a unique one. I've never heard anything like this before. It's called Families Who Kill, the Donut Shop murders. It's a story about the McCrary family who terrorized small-town America, committing murders, robberies, abductions, and general mayhem everywhere they went. It sounds like a story that's tailor-made for Infamous America, doesn't it? The family was laid.

led by Sherman and his son-in-law, Carl, and they targeted people who worked at donut shops. In the podcast, for the first time, you'll hear the details of the crime spree from one of the McCrary's and the detective who tracked them across the country. I'm about to play you a preview of the show, and while you're listening, make sure to follow Families Who Kill on Apple Podcasts or Amazon Music. Or you can binge all six episodes with no commercials when you subscribe to Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts, or the Wondry app. I've gotten serving off this kidnapped kick, and, you know, I don't have to worry about that.

So this particular night, I'm not even thinking, if I'd be even thinking right, I think. I might have hesitated, but I wasn't thinking like I should have been. And it's kind of raining unless, like I say, like I say, I created this situation unconscionously. The store itself sits kind of out.

away. Nothing around is open. I stopped. I went in to get some cigarettes. And the thought struck me when I walked through the door. She was in there by herself. I looked around and there come Sherman through the door. And I just looked around and I pulled out my gut. And she looked and started laughing. I told her, this ain't no toy girl. And she looked a hell a lot younger than she was. I think she was about 25 years old. And at that time, there ain't no way she looked over 25. Well, she was a hippier than the day is long. And she's laughing like, hell.

Now, I told her, now this ain't no toy. She said, I know it's not a toy. She said, you know, she said, when you drove up, she said, I thought in my mind you were going to rob me. And I said, is that right? And so I said, let's not sit around here all night talking about it. then. So she put all the money in a sack, you know, and Sherman tells her, get your coat. She looked around at him and she said, okay. She walked out the door and in the car we got.

Well, I don't know what Sherman was thinking, but this is one of the few times I've ever seen him laugh. I've seen him laugh a few other times, but this ain't no time to be laughing. And it seems he was laughing at the wrong time, but he was laughing going to the car. He said, I don't know. I don't believe it. I just don't believe it. And she just opened the door and jumped in, you know, and we rattled off 90 miles an hour, you know. And she put her hand in her purse.

She comes up with a couple of joints. I don't know, well, what I'll do. Well, she lit up a joint. She's driving along. She's getting higher than a Georgia pine. Sherman's sitting there shaking his head, you know. This is the one time, I think.

that is getting to them because she was so non-concerned about the whole damn thing. And she asked me, you know, she said, you married? I said, no. She asked Sherman, you married? He said, no, he said. So we're driving along and talking, you know, and we're getting near Washington. So we went on across into Washington back up to the other side of Woodland, back up in the mountains.

I don't know. I fully believe I didn't know whether Sherman was thinking about shooting her or not. She was sitting in the car and me and Sherman was out standing out there talking and he said,

what do you think? And I told him, we got to cool it. I think she's cool. I said, she'll go walking off this mountain and ain't nobody going to pay it any attention to her.

He says, that's what I was thinking to. So he said, around there for a few minutes talking and I went to the back seat, I opened the back door. I had my gun and Sherman standing in front of the car and I didn't know he had his gun under his arm and he was just standing there like that and she was standing between us. Sherman looked at me and said, nope, just can't do it. The girls we never talked about it.

He said nothing and rode along in the back into town. You just heard a preview of families who killed the Donuts Shop murder. new episodes are available wherever you listen to podcasts or you can binge the entire series early and ad free when you subscribe to Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app.