Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - Joshua Wade Pt. 1

Episode Date: August 30, 2021

In 1993, a 13-year-old boy was sent to live with his father in Alaska, where he grew into one of the state’s deadliest serial killers. He committed his first murder just a year later — a case that ran cold for well over a decade before a series of confessions revealed more than one ghastly crime.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Due to the graphic nature of this killer's crimes, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of murder, suicide, self-harm, domestic abuse, rape, child abuse, and sexual abuse of children that some people may find disturbing. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. It was a late summer night in 2000. The Northern Lights formed a celestial halo against the inky dark sky, as a white Cadillac cruised along a quiet road in Anchorage, Alaska. The car was packed with four men and one woman, most of them small-time criminals in their

20s. They laughed and hollered as they headed towards a friend's garage to continue their party. Out of nowhere, the vehicle's headlights landed on something in the middle of the road. It was a woman, lying motionless on the asphalt. Before pulling the car to a stop, the driver, 19-year-old Joshua Wade, joked that he was going to hit her. But one of Josh's friends, wasn't amused by his comment. He got out of the car and made sure she was alive. Then he dragged her to the side of the road and left her beside a shed. They all recognized the tiny building.

It was a popular hangout for drug users, sex workers, and the local chapter of the Hells Angels Biker Gang. The woman, Alaska native Della Brown, may have been on her way to or from the shed herself. She'd been out that evening drinking heavily and doing cocaine. To everyone in the car, it seemed like Della just needed a few hours of rest. So, after moving her off the street, the youths continued on their way, looking forward to a fun night ahead.

But as they sped along, Josh couldn't help but stare into the rearview mirror. Through the reflection, he eyed the woman hungrily. He knew he'd be back. Only this time around, he wasn't going to leave Della alive. Hi, I'm Greg Poulson. This is Serial Killers, a Spotify original from Parkast. Every episode, we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. Today we'll delve into the disturbed world of Joshua Wade,

a rage-filled murderer who slew multiple men and women in Anchorage, Alaska. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. Today, we'll look into the abuse, neglect, and drug use. that characterized Josh's childhood. We'll also learn about his crime-filled adolescence and what may have motivated his early acts of violence.

Next time, we'll see how Josh was acquitted for one murder, only to be brought down for another, and how he confessed to more ghastly crimes. We've got all that and more coming up. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter, whether you're hiring for a role or searching for a killer. the hunt can be exhausting. When detectives looked and searched to find any kind of evidence

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Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Bonnie and Clyde, the Lonely Hearts Killers, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. These are infamous criminal duels. But you don't need to break any laws to find your perfect business partner because you have Shopify. It's the comment.

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When most people think of Alaska, images of the state's natural beauty come to mind. Its vast forest landscape may seem like an uncommon refuge in the modern world, a place where a quiet and peaceful life is possible. But these impressions mask the dark realities that many Alaskans live with, including racial violence and high rates of drug abuse and crime. It was this other Alaska, the one beset by social ills that Joshua Wade grew up in, and the harsh environment just might have shaped him into one of the deadly, killers in the state's history.

However, the ruthless murderer didn't always call the far-northern state home. Born in Montana, 1980, Josh spent his early childhood in San Diego, California, with his parents Greg and Catherine and his older sister, Mandy. Before Josh was born, his parents were devout Mormons. Josh's father, who went by the nickname Bubba, was even ordained as an elder. But for reasons unknown, they left the church when Josh was a few years old, and were eventually excommunicated. After that, it appears the young parents

replaced their faith with drugs, alcohol, and partying. Needless to say, life was far from stable. Bubba moved the family to a new state whenever a job opportunity arose, often working as a security guard or bouncer. Then, in 1985, when Joshua's five, the Wade's finally settled in Washington. There, Bubba found his calling as a drug dealer,

This allowed him to make more money than he had as a bouncer, but it also kicked his drug-fueled lifestyle into high gear. Bubba wasn't the only one who made unhealthy choices. Catherine drank heavily and had multiple affairs. And according to Mandy, their mother couldn't control either of their children. In short, Josh's childhood was lacking in any normal parental support and affection, and it's there that some of his issues might have taken root. Vanessa's going to take over on the psychology here and throughout,

the episode. As a note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or a psychiatrist, but we have done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg. In the journal Handbook of Psychology, forensic psychologist Jay Reid-Malloy describes the correlation between disturbances in parental attachment and criminality. In the context of his study, he found that children who don't feel properly attached to their parents often go on to become criminals. He specifically describes how dismissive and disorganized pathologies of attachment can predict later violent criminal behavior by the children. Poor attachment can even negatively alter the chemistry of young kids' brains. It's likely that more than simple neglect contributed to Josh's developing violent tendencies.

On more than one occasion, the children witnessed their father horribly abusing their mother, often in response to her infidelity. And in 1986, when Josh was six, Catherine became pregnant with another man's child. When Bubba found out, he stuck a gun to her head and kicked her belly right in front of their children. Fortunately, Catherine and her unborn child were unharmed. It seems she also forgave Bubba for the attack and carried the baby to full term. After it was born, she gave the child up for adoption. Mandy and Josh took that decision very hard.

The kids had expected a new addition to the family. Instead, they had no confidence. with their half-sister, and the separation was devastating. But the trauma didn't end there. Months later, Bubba found out his wife was cheating again. This time, he put a gun in Catherine's mouth in front of their kids. Then he forced her to drive him to the man's house, where he savagely beat him in his bed. Interestingly, his ire seems to have been directed at the man's disrespect more than his

wife's betrayal, and that's likely because Bubba had a number of affairs himself. Years later, he defended his attack on his wife's lover. He said, in outrage, somebody dared to screw around with my wife knowing who the hell I am? Unfortunately, there was no sign of life improving for Josh and his sister. After years of marital conflict, domestic abuse, and infidelity, Bubba and Catherine divorced in 1987, when Josh was seven. The kids lived with their mother while Bubba continued to deal drugs.

but being a single mother wasn't easy. Along with working to support them, Catherine struggled with alcoholism, and the kids were often left to fend for themselves. During this tumultuous period, Josh not only witnessed abuse, he also became a victim. From the ages of 5 to 7, Josh claims that he was repeatedly sexually assaulted

by a group of adolescent boys in his neighborhood. It's unclear how much Josh's parents knew about the sexual abuse at the time, but it was never reported, and Josh never received any psychiatric treatment to help him cope with the trauma. Years later, Josh described how he was forced to deal with these horrific events on his own as a seven-year-old child. He said he just tried to bury it, figuring it would eventually go away. But the feelings didn't go away. They spread like poison through his mind and eventually started to spiral out of control.

Even as a child, Josh began acting out violently. Once, he went after his sister with a knife after they'd had a fight. Then in 1990, at the age of 10, Josh attempted to take his own life. It was the first in a series of incidents that landed him in the psychiatric ward to the hospital. It's unclear if Josh was ever diagnosed with a specific mental disorder, but we do know that doctors recommended ongoing treatment. Unfortunately, he never received any. Instead, the following year, Bobba moved to Anchorage, Alaska to work on a fishing boat.

any support he'd been providing his ex-wife disappeared, and Catherine was left to handle the children entirely on her own. Before long, Josh's behavior was uncontrollable. At the age of 12, he began smoking pot, which made him even more erratic. Catherine begged a social worker for assistance, but the help never came, so Josh had to go. In 1993, Catherine sent Josh to live with his father in Anchorage. But the move was both mentally and emotional.

jarring. At 13, Josh was now half a continent away from the two people he'd most depended on, and his problems showed no sign of getting better. Shortly after arriving in Alaska, he was admitted into a psychiatric hospital for mutilating himself. The details of the self-harm are murky. What is clear is that Bubba ignored the doctor's insistence that Josh received prolonged psychiatric care. Instead, the troubled boy returned home with his father, who didn't provide much stability, or support. You see, even though Bubba had initially gone to Alaska for a legitimate job, he quickly fell back into dealing drugs.

He lived in a garbage-strewn trailer and spent much of his time doing business with sex workers and criminals. Meanwhile, Josh continued to smoke marijuana on a regular basis. His eyes were perpetually bloodshot, and his father soon gave up trying to stop him. But that didn't mean Bubba made no attempt to discipline his son. Bubba lived by the Hell's Angel slogan, Treat me good, I'll treat you better, treat me bad, I'll treat you worse. Bubba allegedly applied this principle to his dealings with his son.

According to Josh, his father began withholding food and kicking him out of the house whenever he behaved badly. As a result, the teenager occasionally found himself out on the street scrounging in dumpsters for food. It's important to note here that Bubba denies that he treated his son this way. According to him, Josh would leave home of his own volition, and has suggested that Josh made up these accusations in order to gain sympathy. While there's no way of knowing the truth,

we do know that Josh and his dad had a tumultuous relationship. They were alike in many ways, but opposites in others. Both drank heavily and used drugs, but while Bubba was reportedly a slob, Josh was fastidious about his grooming and surroundings. He took great care of his hair, and later a narrowly cropped beard, and he made his bed and arranged his CDs with military precision. Interestingly, Josh inherited a love of drawing from his father.

He spent hours developing his artistic skills and aspired to be a tattoo artist. But as he got older, the content of his work was cause for concern. Many of Josh's drawings featured troubling sexual imagery. He often drew nude women with oversized breasts in sex. sexually explicit poses. Sometimes he'd adorn them with demon horns or other dark, fanciful traits. He also drew men wielding weapons. Though no one knew it at the time, the drawings were a portent for what was to come.

And as Josh struggled to navigate life in Anchorage, the lines of his perverse urges and dark fantasies began to blur into a disturbing reality. Coming up, Josh begins his cycle of crime. Hi there, it's Carter from Parcast. If you haven't had a chance to check out the riveting true crime series Solved Murders, there's no better time to tune in. Throughout the month of August, Solved Murders is featuring four celebrations that took a turn for the deadly

in a special series we're calling party fowls. From a murder in the New York nightclub scene and the house party gone horribly wrong, to a terrifying evening at the Tate residence and a sex party with sinister results. Go deeper inside Four Affairs remembered for all the wrong reasons. And if you like what you hear with party fowls and want to uncover more of history's most captivating cases, be sure to follow Solved Murders on Spotify. There you'll find a new episode released every Wednesday.

Solved Murders is a Spotify original from Parcast Listen free only on Spotify Pay off your home travel for life drive a Ferrari In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot Machine by Aristocrat Gaming Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package The biggest prize in Yamaba's history

Club Serrano members can earn daily instant prizes And secure a spot in the finale May 29th Don't Pass Go and own it all Only at Yamava celebrating its 40th anniversary You in? Details at yamava.com must be 21-20. Please gamble responsibly. Monopoly is a trademark of Hasbro. Hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion. Now back to the story. In 1993, 13-year-old Josh Wade was sent to live with his father in Anchorage, Alaska. Though Bubba made fleeting attempts to improve things for himself and his son, he couldn't resist the allure of dealing drugs. It's hardly surprising, then, that Bubba struggled to keep his son in line. Josh smoked pot regularly and had a habit.

of drawing disturbing images, and things only got worse as the boy grew older. Before long, Josh was stealing from his father's stash, then selling what he skimmed to make money. He also kept some of the drugs for his own use, fueling his mounting dependence. In all likelihood, this only accelerated his erratic, antisocial conduct. During his adolescent years, Baba had even heard rumors that his son was breaking into people's homes and cutting them with a machete, though how much true. there was to those stories, we don't know. On one occasion, he witnessed Josh threatening one of Bubba's friends.

If he hadn't been there to stop the altercation, the teen might have attacked the man. Interestingly, as we've already mentioned, Bubba was a violent man. He stated in an interview that he had a specific coldness toward other people, which his son seemed to share. He thinks he might have passed on these aggressive tendencies to his son. Bubba may be onto something. In fact, researchers have found distinct genetic component to the psychopathic personality traits exhibited by serial killers.

In a 2001 article in the Journal of Personality Disorders, psychiatrist Michael H. Stone examined the psychological factors that contribute to serial murder. Dr. Stone attributes up to 50% of the tendency towards psychopathic and schizoid personality traits to genetic variation. Such characteristics may, therefore, be passed from parent to child, simply wait to way to for the perfect storm of environmental factors to bring them to their full expression. Of course, Josh wasn't the only way child to experience trauma during their childhood. His sister Mandy had similarly witnessed their parents' toxic behavior, but grew up making radically different choices.

Based on Dr. Stone's theory, it would seem Mandy didn't inherit the same personality traits as Josh. Whatever the case, Bubba's violent behaviors paled in comparison to those committed by his son. Just a year after arriving in Alaska, 14-year-old Josh committed his first cold-blooded murder. On May 11, 1994, Josh roamed the streets alone, carrying one of his father's handguns with him for protection. Bubba had apparently refused to feed him for several days, so he was likely hungry and afraid. That night, he encountered 38-year-old John Michael Martin outside of a village in restaurant. Martin was a local who was unemployed and lived with schizophrenia. Despite these hardships, he spent a lot of time on the streets helping people in need.

So when he saw Josh on his own, Martin probably encouraged the young man to follow him, perhaps to show him a safe place to stay for the night. At first, it appears Josh obliged, and the two walked down a bike path. But Josh didn't trust the man. In fact, he thought Martin was a creep, so during their stroll, Josh fell a few paces behind. and pulled out his father's gun. Then he shot Martin in the back of the head. Martin's corpse was discovered the next day,

but investigators had no lead on who might have committed the Census Act, and the case quickly went cold. It should be noted here that Martin's murder might not have been a cold-blooded execution. Josh's sister Mandy believed that the incident was merely a response to the circumstances Josh found himself in. Although there's no evidence that Martin never threatened Josh, the shooting might have been an overzealous act of self-defense

by a scared 14-year-old forced to live out on the streets. Even still, the attack fits within a larger trend of aggressive and predatory behavior, often against innocent and helpless victims. In the following years, Josh committed a series of sex-related crimes. In 1996, while staying at a motel with his father, 16-year-old Josh was caught dangling a camera from a window. He was attempting to spy on the woman staying beneath them. When the woman called the police,

Josh told officers that he'd been investigating a strange sound coming from her room. As implausible as this explanation sounds, he was let off with a warning, but that didn't put a stop to his voyeurism. According to Bubba, his son had a habit of breaking into people's houses at night to watch them sleep. Even more troubling, later that year, he was accused of sexually abusing a sick.

six-year-old girl will call Amanda. Josh used to make a little extra money by babysitting Amanda when her mother was out, but he also used the opportunity to act on his predatory fantasies. On several occasions, he snuck into Amanda's room while she was sleeping. Too scared to move, the little girl pretended to be asleep while Josh sexually assaulted her. In the days following the attacks, Amanda kept quiet, but Josh didn't. He couldn't resist making cryptic remarks to Amanda's mother about the little girl's nightmares. It was strange and didn't make sense until Amanda started acting oddly.

At one point, Amanda nervously asked her mother if Josh was going to babysit her again and made a reference to feeling a tongue in the night. She also scribbled over a drawing Josh had left in the house and wrote the word no about a dozen times on the artwork. Soon enough, the horrifying truth emerged when Amanda told her. her mother about what happened. The girl's mother was ready to go to the police, but Josh's father intervened. The hulking drug dealer intimidated the girl's mother into not pressing charges.

He knew that prison would ruin Josh's already troubled life. But one didn't need a crystal ball to see what kind of man Josh was developing into. Had Bubba taken the incident more seriously at the time, he might have realized how telling his son's sexual tendencies were. In their seminal work on serial killers for the FBI's behavioral sciences unit, agents Robert Ressler and John Douglas, along with psychologists Ann W. Burgess and Ralph D'Agostino reported 10 traits commonly found in such criminals. One of the characteristics focuses on sexual proclivities, including voyeurism and a precocious and abiding interest in

deviant sexuality. Josh's sexual abuse of a young girl, combined with his hobbes, of spying on people in bed and his sexually explicit drawings provided ample clues that the young man was a violent predator in the making. And that's not all Josh was fixated on. He was obsessed with the film, Bases of Death, an underground video that circulated widely in the 1990s. The film is a parade of actual footage of people dying in horrifying ways. But soon, watching a movie wasn't enough for Josh.

He wanted to see these grisly images in front of his own bloodshot eyes. Through the rest of his teen years, Josh built a rap sheet that included multiple felonies related to drugs and weapons. When he was 16, he was arrested for stealing a car. In the vehicle, police found a significant amount of cocaine and a loaded semi-automatic weapon. Later, he was charged with armed robbery, a crime he committed in retaliation for receiving some bad LSD. He attempted other robberies as well, and one of them led to his second murder. In 1999, when he was 19, Josh attempted to rob a motel in Fairview, a small town an hour outside of Anchorage. But Henry Angtowash Rook, the motel's 30-year-old maintenance

worker, got in the way. A struggling suit, and Josh beat and strangled the man to death. Like his earlier victim, John Michael Martin, Aung To Wash Rook lived with an undisclosed mental illness. This seems to indicate a developing pattern. Josh was choosing vulnerable subjects. And once again, he got away with the crime. There was nothing investigators could use to tie anyone to the murder, so the case went cold. And it's entirely possible that this emboldened Josh to kill again. And again. In June of 1999, 26-year-old Vera Hapoff's body was pulled out of an Anchorage Creek bed. After examining her corpse, investigators found evidence of foul play and deemed the death a homicide. Two months later, city police found the murdered body of 45-year-old Annie Mann by the side of a road.

They didn't disclose how she'd been killed. Then, in September, a 38-year-old mother of three named Michelle Foster Butler was stabbed to death in a neighborhood on the south side of town. Anchorage was seeing an epidemic of murders of vulnerable women. Two of the victims, Vera and Annie, were Alaska natives, and both were intoxicated at the time of their deaths. Michelle was the only exception. She was black and was completely sober when she was killed. It's important to note that these murders remain unsolved, and police have never named any suspects. However, based on what we know, it strongly believed that Josh was responsible for all three crimes.

That said, if Josh did murder these women, his career as a serial killer would, was well underway. And just before his 20th birthday, he was about to commit his most brutal crime yet. Coming up, Josh stumbles upon the victim of his dreams. Now back to the story. On the last night of August, 2000, 20-year-old Josh Wade was hanging out with his friends

at a garage owned by an acquaintance of theirs. They often went there to drink beer and whiskey while intermittently working on cars. That evening, Josh's buddies, 19-year-old Dwayne Clevenger, 21-year-old Jesse Ackman, and 20-year-old Timothy Romeo Beckett were transferring an engine from one vehicle to another. The job was arduous and was going to take them most of the night. But while working on the car, they realized they were out of provisions, eager to replenish their stash, the foursome, along with Dwayne's girlfriend, piled into a white

catalack. On their way back, they encountered 33-year-old Della Brown, passed out in the middle of the road. Before stopping the car, Josh joked that he would run her over. But instead, Dwayne got out and dragged Della off the road, leaving her beside a nearby shed. The crew then drove back to the garage where they kept on drinking as Dwayne and Romeo worked on the engine. It should have been a pleasant evening all around, but Josh seemed distracted. A little while later, he told his friends that he was heading back out to the shed on foot. He said he wanted to see if the woman they left there had any cash on her. At this point, the others didn't think much of it.

They all had criminal records of their own. Romeo was even the leader of a street gang called the Good Boys Treses Sureños, which had committed a series of crimes under his leadership. All that to say, pickpocketing and intoxicated woman was nothing to them. If Josh wanted to rob the woman and come back with extra beer money, so much the better. Of course, his friends didn't know his true intentions. When Josh reached her, he dragged Della's unconscious body into the shed and shut the door behind them. As he looked her over, it's possible that images from his erotic drawings flashed through his head,

mingling with horrific scenes from the faces of death video. Soon enough, desire built within him, mixing with a certain amount of rage. Because while Josh was known to be attracted to older women, He also harbored a deep irrational prejudice against Alaska natives. Josh was far from alone in his prejudice toward Alaska natives. The problem was, and continues to be, widespread and intractable. As a group, Alaska natives experienced twice the poverty rate of white Americans and have a lower rate of educational attainment than almost all other races.

According to a 2019 report by Patrick Button and Brigham Walker of Tulane, University, the long history of racism against Alaska natives persist today. In the past, they were subjected to colonialization and racial massacres, while today they experience systemic employment and housing discrimination. These lamentable traditions also manifest in violence against native people, especially women. According to a 2016 report by the Violence Policy Center, Alaska is the most dangerous state in the U.S. for women of any race. Another study by the National Institute of Justice

shows that the problem is far worse for Native women. That same study reported that more than 50% of Native women in Alaska have been victims of sexual violence at some point in their lives. And almost 40% claimed to have experienced violence in that year alone. That's almost twice the rate for non-Hispanic white women. Unfortunately, Della was part. of that statistic. Her mother gave birth to her at the age of 18 after being raped. Della was then raised by a family friend whose husband sexually abused her when she was a child. She had her own

daughter at 15 and sent the little girl to live in her family's ancestral home, but the guilt of giving up her baby never left her. Della tried to drown the hurt with alcohol and other drugs, fearing between periods of sobriety and unrestrained consumption. When she was sober, friends and family reported that she was kind and loving. But when her addiction took over, she often found herself getting in loud, drunken fights with her boyfriend Rudy. The man who was twice her age continued the cycle of abuse. The previous year, Della had been hospitalized after a particularly vicious beating at Rudy's hands. At the hospital, she told a social worker that Rudy had strangled her and threatened to kill her if she told anyone. Things got so bad that by the fateful night of

August 31, 2000, Della hadn't returned to Rudy's trailer in days. Instead, she went on an alcohol and cocaine-fueled bender, resulting in her car being impounded. Della was clearly at a low point, but nothing in her life could prepare her for what was about to happen. Josh loomed over Della in the shed as she teetered on the brink of consciousness. But unlike what he told his friends, Josh wasn't just there to pocket her cat. In fact, he began kicking her body, laughing as she moaned incoherently. But the novelty soon wore off, and Josh bent down beside Della and reached into her pocket

looking for cash. Instead, he felt something warm and wet. When Josh realized it was urine, he flew into a rage. He continued to kick and beat Della. Then he pulled a small knife from his pocket, intending to slit her throat. But first he decided to take some practice strokes. He pulled her pants down and began hacking at her legs. He then raised the knife to her neck, but the blade proved too dull,

so he took a scrap of fabric and started to strangle her. In the midst of all this, Della drifted back into consciousness and tried to fight him off. Frustrated by how difficult it was proving to kill Della, Josh gave up. He took off and walked back to the garage to meet his friends and told them about his unsuccessful attempts to murder the woman. At first, his friends didn't believe a word he said. Josh had a reputation for bragging, and they thought he must be exaggerating.

So none of them intervened when Josh suddenly announced that he was heading back to the shed to finish what he'd started. It's possible that Josh was anxious to finish the job in case Della reported him, or maybe he just wanted to kill for the thrill of it. Whatever the reasons, he didn't bother with his dull blade this time. Instead, he picked up a rock and began pounding it against Della's head.

When the rock became too unwieldy, he grabbed a shovel and kept going. It appears the ferocity of the attack awoke something in Josh. He found himself intensely aroused. Despite this, he had enough presence of mind not to leave any physical evidence behind. So he made another trip back to the garage. This time, his shirt was covered in Della's blood, which he told his friends, was spaghetti sauce. Then he asked if either of his buddies had a condom, and one of them gave him one. He rushed back to the shed, where he raped Della. At some point, the last bit of life spilled

from her body, but that didn't stop Josh from continuing his assault. When he was done, he stood up and lit a match, holding it out to get a better look at his handiwork. When the match was nearly burnt out, he flicked it onto Della's face. He repeated the procedure, several more times, singing her eyelids and hair. Eventually, he returned to the garage to pick up his dad's Cadillac and head home. Interestingly, when he got to the trailer a little after midnight, he told his father that he'd killed someone. At this point, Bubba was drunk, so he wasn't inclined to believe what he was hearing. Like Josh's friends, Bubba knew his son had a tendency to talk big,

but in spite of his disbelief, he gave Josh some useful advice. He said that if the person was still alive, he should call an ambulance. And if not, he'd better make sure no one could tell he was at the scene of the crime. With that in mind, Josh rushed back to the shed. The first order of business was the rock he'd used to bludgeon Della. He took the rock and threw it in a nearby lake. Then he headed back to the garage where his friends were still hanging out. Josh's friends, Jesse, Dwayne, and Romeo were there, along with an 18-year-old named

Danny Troxel. The guys were all drunk from a long evening of beer and whiskey, so it wasn't hard for Josh to convince Danny to walk with him to a nearby payphone. Obviously, Josh couldn't turn back time to stop his friends from knowing where he'd been, but he could try something else. As they walked, he led Danny to the shed and made him look into the dark room. When his eyes fell upon Della's maimed body, Danny stumbled back, speechless. Danny began trembling from the cold. Danny began trembling from the cold and the shock. So Josh handed him his bloodstained hoodie to wear. Then Josh warned him that he couldn't tell anyone what he had seen. Still stunned, Danny promised to keep his mouth shut. When the two returned to the garage, Josh approached Romeo and got him to go for a drive.

Once again, Josh made sure to stop at the shed, and this time he collected the snow shovel he'd used to beat his victim. From his seat in the back of the car, Romeo could make out a woman's legs on the floor of the shed, but he couldn't see the whole scene. He didn't need to. When Josh returned, he tossed the shovel onto Romeo's lap, telling him coldly that he'd just used it to kill someone. It appears Josh hoped that involving Danny and Romeo would make them less likely to report the incident to the police. He'd already told them what he'd done, but now they were implicated in covering up the crime. The tactic worked, at least initially.

Sure, Danny and Romeo were spooked, but they both had their own troubles with the police, and the last thing they wanted to do was draw any suspicion to themselves. So, for the time being, Josh was confident that he'd gotten away with another murder. However, in the days that followed, it seems he got a bit too chatty, and soon the police were knocking at his door, intent on putting the killer away for good. Thanks again for tuning it to serial killers. We'll be back soon with part two of Joshua Wade's story. Next time, we'll find out how police and prosecutors botched the case against Josh

and how he went looking for a new victim. For more information on Joshua Wade, amongst the many sources we used, we found Ice and Bone, tracking an Alaskan serial killer by Monte Francis, extremely helpful in our research. You can find more episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. We'll see you next time. Have a killer week. Serial Killers is a Spotify original from Parcast.

Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler, sound design by Juan Borda, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Tred Williamson, Carly Madden, and Bruce Kitovich. This episode of Serial Killers was written by Greg Beam, with writing assistance by Jane O. and Joel Callan, fact-checking by Cheyenne Lopez, and research by Brian Petrus and Chelsea Wood.

Serial Killers stars Greg Poulson and Vanessa Richardson. Hi listeners, it's Carter. Here's a quick reminder to check out the Solved Murders four-part special party fowls. Every Wednesday in August, take a closer look at four celebrations that ended in horrific fashion. Follow the Spotify original from Parcast, Solved Murders. Listen free only on Spotify. Want to hear something spooky? Some monster.

It reminded me of Bigfoot. Monsters Among Us is a weekly podcast featuring true stories of the paranormal. One of the boys started to exhibit demonic possession. Stories straight from the witnesses' mouths themselves. Something very snake-like lifted its head out of the water. Hosted by me, your guide, Derek Hayes. Somehow I lost eight whole hours. Listen now on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.