Last Podcast On The Left - Episode 614: Pyromania

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

It's gettin' hot in here! Things are heatin' up this week as the boys dive headfirst into the flames and take a look at what it means to be a Pyromaniac with three of the deadliest cases of Pyromania from across the globe. For Live Shows, Merch, and More Visit: www.LastPodcastOnTheLeft.comKevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Last Podcast on the Left ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.

There's no place to escape to. This is the last time. On the left. That's when the cannibalism started. What was that? Natalie and I relax every night by watching our true crime shows, right? You know, and then one we're watch right now is called evil lives here And it's about like bad evil family members that you grew up with yeah, but what I love about this show

Was it a home movie? But they do a thing on the show where they always ask a question To like these devastated people like this show I kind of like it because it's really intense, but they'd show these devastated people and they always go like, huh? Take a look at this picture of this other dead person. What do you think of that? And then they go like cry, they get upset and stuff. But then eventually they always ask the question,

so if you could go back, would you do it all different? And it's like at some point it's like yeah yeah like no one's gonna be like no I'm glad I married the serial murderer well they are but the thing is they always have to say if there's kids involved I was like well I wouldn't because otherwise I wouldn't have little Darlene you put the promise that sometimes little Darlene turns into angry Darlene. It's going to burn down the wall. Just a net negative on the world. Sometimes little Darlene didn't get all the good DNA. Yeah, and if little Darlene didn't exist, maybe it'd have a nice little Timmy.

You know, it's someone else and that Timmy's going to be a lawyer. You know, instead of a fucking... A good lawyer. Yeah, that's right. Who knows? Well yeah, yeah, for a bear. A lawyer for a bear. Please! In Forrest Court. Oh my god, now I have a bear, a lawyer for a bear. Please. In for his court. Oh my God, now I have a new career trajectory.

Just got to go to school. Welcome to the last podcast on the left, ladies and gentlemen. Before we get too far into bear law, my name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with Henry Zabrowski. I'm actually just a part of the Otter Law constituency. And we just said, we're alive and covered in hands. I'm just saying the picnic basket was asking for it. Cause Ed Larson here with the picnic basket defense.

The ham goes to the back. How is your picnic basket defense these days? My god, it's going well, dude. Yeah, it's been wonderful. I've been getting some blankets. I've been put out. You know what? Fuck ants.

All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Pro-bear, anti-ant. Anti-ooh, I guess anti is already, it's already in the word. Yeah. You've done it yourself, haven't you? But I'm going to just say right here at the very top of this pyro any episode I think that it's super important for me to say I think picnics are bullshit. Whoa

Who wants to bring a bunch of cold-ass food in the middle of some feces filled be like patch ass Like you're going out to there's no place in LA that I want to have a picnic Yeah, so I gotta tell it is a good warning for everyone, as a dog owner, don't picnic directly under the tree, because that's where the dogs pee. They pee against the tree and under the tree, so if you're just eating on a big pile of piss. Yeah, welcome to the Pyromaniac episode,

ladies and gentlemen. Ed Larson. As we just went through bear law, dog law, picnic law. Yeah, picnic law, you know, where to avoid the piss at the park. Yes.

Yes, this is our exploration on pyromaniac. Yeah, fire! Hell yeah! Fire! Fire! I am the god of hell fire! And I bring you... Fire!

I want you to burn! Can we play that? No, absolutely not. You can just go yourself and go listen to the crazy world of Arthur Brown. The best song ever. Now the simplest definition of pyromania, or at least the one most people probably use when they think of the subject, is the habitual setting of fires as an act of pleasure. But after dipping into the research, we found that the reasons behind

pyromania are complicated and varied, although there are some unifying factors. According to the DSM-5, pyromania has a fair amount of markers, with the most obvious being the deliberate act of setting a fire on more than one occasion, a fascination or attraction to fire, tension or arousal before the act, and pleasure, gratification, or relief when setting the fire or witnessing the aftermath. This is also a type of crime that has some of my, like, the funniest old-timey looks at your crime. Like, I watched an old documentary called Portrait of an Arsonist that was like, was actually very expensive rental for some reason and I they kind of talk about that term they always throw around the term firebug yeah like the term firebug which like because I guess that's like fairly common within the fire like fighter community yeah they

like bugs the wannabes like they call them fire bugs there are guys that show up around the firehouse that are obsessed with the ladders and the hoses and all the mechanics and stuff. I don't know why. And they then go and they essentially then start becoming like fire fans and hanging out. But they very sillily sort of like refer to them as fire bugs. But they are worse than that.

You ever set fire to an anthill. It's wild You put some lighter fluid in the middle of it Then you light it and it goes out and then when you hit it with a rake it goes on again It's fucking fun. It's pop like little popcorn guys Really against ants here, yeah, Eddie brings up a very good like point Accidentally because they show something like 10% of young men specifically Experiment with fire setting right like there's a difference between there apparently that was raised my hand on that one Got a story coming up later on that one. Oh, yes

Oh yes, but it's very different than pyromaniacs. Very different. And there's also a massive difference between a pyromaniac and your garden variety arsonist. While many arsonists have antisocial personality disorders, one study found that only a quarter of arsonists qualify as pyromaniacs. See, unlike a crooked landlord who's adept at burning down buildings for insurance payouts That's arson. That's arson. Yeah. Pyromaniacs don't set fire for monetary gain, nor do they do it for sociopolitical ideology, the concealment of criminal activity, to express anger or vengeance, to improve one's living circumstances, or as a result of impaired judgment.

Interestingly though, neither do most of them do it for sexual purposes, which I honestly thought was the main motivation before we got into all this research. Rather, in one study that interviewed 1,100 pyromaniacs, only 5% reported a sexual thrill when starting fires. I mean, I would probably lie about that part. thrill when starting fires. Oh, he can't even do a- I gotta go to the bathroom real quick. He can't even roast a marshmallow. People who develop pyromania usually begin as fire watchers. Fans, if you will. And much like a serial killer who gets a job and authority for the power it gives them over other people,

pyromaniacs will often get jobs in the firefighting field so they can be closer to fire and so they can see the consequences of their actions. They definitely try. Yeah. Reportedly, about a hundred firefighters are convicted of arson every year. But not surprisingly, the governing bodies in charge of tracking the causes of fires nationwide, they intentionally refrain from tracking firefighter arson. Instead, these are treated as so-called isolated incidents

yeah it's kind of like in our necrophilia episode a lot of the people involved were EMTs yeah you know but also I find it interesting that they don't they obviously they can't always investigate it because then they'd be looking into themselves yes very difficult for them but it's very similar to what the Postal Service did when all those guys were popping off in the 90s. They kept saying like, no, no, no, no, it's not about how we handle the mail. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, they're just mad about traffic.

It's all the goddamn paper cuts. Those are the worst. But I'm glad you brought that up, Marcus, because these firefighters have had it too good since 9-11. Tell me about it. Yeah. I mean, it's been how many years now?

Almost 25? 25 years! It's over, man! Blank chip time is done! Firefighters, you need to do something else! They did though! Yeah, they take naps and eat spaghetti! The LAFD did extremely good work here.

I'm just kidding, I like to make fun of people who are obviously good. Yes, I like to make fun of people who are obviously good. Yes Yes, thank you to all of our lafd people here in the city who saved us just a couple of months ago It's just after when they sneak in your house try to fuck your wife She's been texting yeah You always think it's a break-in because they've told you to break it and they use it acts Yeah, and there's all kinds of people sneaking in your house to try to fuck your wife. It's not just firefight Get rid of her cell phone honestly, why is she hanging out by the fire station? So much fun. Yeah, the one so beautiful, dangerous. What a fuck

a fireman. Wow, yeah, now you're doing it. Oh no! He's only gay for men in uniform. Typically, firefighter arsonists are white guys with one of two problems. One, they might have a hero syndrome, in which they intentionally create situations in which they can be the savior. Fighter-fighter arsonists, however, can also be in that small percentage of pyromaniacs who get sexual gratification from starting and or containing fires. But while most firefighter-pyros are men, one of the most consequential in recent history was a woman that was in the firefighting

game. In 2002, a Forest Service worker and fire spotter named Terry Barton admitted to intentionally starting a fire at a campground in Colorado solely for the attention. As a consequence, 138,000 acres of land were burned, 113 homes were destroyed, and five firefighters died during what became the largest wildfire in Colorado history. For her part, Terry Barton was sentenced to 18 years in prison, but was released after just six. Getting people for murder and arson is actually extremely difficult. Really? It's interesting because most of them beg off. They all go like, well, it's an impulse problem.

It was an accident. It went out of my control and that's what happened. So what is it, manslaughter then? I mean, not even less than because this is all like 18 years in prison is less than manslaughter. It's not like a drunk driver means to kill a family. No, I mean, sometimes it's a happy accident, but yeah It's mostly what you're shooting to do because you hate families, but this is it's interesting that the attention Like factor. Yeah, it's the most important of all. Yeah that she was doing it for attention

Yeah, do you think they were let her become like one of those prison firefighters? I Actually doubt that she's ever allowed to do it ever again. I doubt she's ever allowed anywhere near a hose except to suck it. Oh, yeah. And that's why firemen become firemen. For the hose. Yeah. Ha ha!

Hey! Come on! That's worth it. E-D-D-I-E-T-U-N-E-S dot com. He will suck dick for money. But before we get into the very human pyromaniacs, Henry has requested that we cover one of history's only alleged bovine fire starters. We've got to give it the death penalty, yo!

I want to see it dead! I want to see it dead by firing squad! This, briefly, is the story of the infamous cow owned by Catherine O'Leary, the cow that supposedly started the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. I heard my mama cry, that night she prayed that night Chicago died. So many great fire songs, right? Yeah. Now the legend is that Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicked over a kerosene lantern which set her barn on fire and that fire spread across Chicago, where it destroyed over 17,000 structures

and killed somewhere around 300 people. Records are spotty. The cow, however, may not be at fault here. What the fuck? While the cow very well may have been involved, Chicago was going to burn eventually, no matter what. The weather was hot that October, the area was going through a drought, fire codes were very loosely enforced, and Chicago was a city built almost entirely out of wood. And it's a windy motherfucker.

Yeah. It truly is City of White Soldiers as well. Well, you know, the Windyy City that's actually a myth. The name Windy City comes from their politicians who blew a lot of hot air. I liked it better the other way! I hate change! Do you think that the cow got sexual gratification? Yeah yeah yeah no cows are known to do that. Did the cow live? God no. No, no, the cow burned. Now, the fire did indeed start at the O'Leary's small dairy business, but it's equally likely

that the fire began when embers from a chimney settled on a stack of hay. It's also equally likely that the fire was started by a border at the O'Leary home. Dennis Pegleg Sullivan! Who may have accidentally lit the hay on fire with a cigarette while drinking and smoking with his friends in the barn. Luckily for the Irish, the cow story won out and to this day, it's still widely believed to be the cause of the fire. No, I'll be the one of the new brave men here in 2025 to blame the Irish

Destroying the beloved first city of Chicago and putting the blame on a cow Oh, you know and not a single Irishman in the room. No, or Rob Rob Oh Connors, but I got the odds sounds Polish. He's Polish Oh Cut it was always does like yeah polish on like Oh kind of it's like The last thing we Chicago heard that night was this guy going Now the female fire watcher who started the Colorado fires She was a rare bird and the pyromaniac community the aforementioned study of 11?

Meetings are gonna be like the aforementioned study of 1100 pyromaniacs found that most were male and 70% were of below average intelligence even Frankenstein's monster new fire bad And as we know canonically homosexual What about the bride of Frankenstein again? He couldn't be with her like she obviously didn't choose him But Frankenstein's monster was also he could make the choice to be with her interesting Yeah, and she's not even in the movie. She's in the end of the film barely in the fucking movie

I made him watch it. He's so mad about that. I'm so mad about that. I couldn't believe it What the fuck why call it that but it is nice cuz then it dresses up like her like who gives a shit She's not in the fucking movie, but Natalie and I then do have an inside joke from that movie because she always goes Henry cuz that's what that lady says to dr. Frankenstein cuz his name's Henry. Oh Very cute is that great? That's what the lady says to Dr. Frankenson because his name's Henry. Henry! It's very cute. Is that great? There are, however, some interesting through lines when it comes to pyromania. While the study of pyromania is not as deep as we'd like it because some in the mental

health field refuse to accept it as a diagnosis, what we do see is that a lot of pyromaniacs share two things childhood abuse and or bullying along with neurodivergence Now this through line was noticed by our head researcher Joel who is himself proudly autistic It's also probably not going to surprise you when I say that LPN as a company is chock full of neurodivergent people as many people company is chock full of neurodivergent people. What? As many people as... What?

Who? Many people in our employ have been diagnosed as having autism spectrum disorder or ASD. Wow. I thought we did the blood purity test. What happened to the purity test? Unfortunately we're all vaccinated. Oh yeah, it's been hard. Yeah.

In fact, I'm going to go ahead and take this opportunity to come out myself as neurodivergent. Sure! Albeit in a different way. See, last fall, my mental disorder was re-diagnosed and I was told, much to my surprise and bewilderment, that I do not have, nor have I ever had, bipolar disorder. Whoa! I spent 20 years treating the wrong condition

because one psychiatrist in Lubbock, Texas fucked up way back in 2006 and all my subsequent mental health professionals just took his word for it until my new guy here in LA finally questioned the original diagnosis. After a lot of testing, I was correctly diagnosed as having severe ADHD, which can sometimes mimic the symptoms of bipolar disorder. The wild emotional dysregulation that comes with severe ADHD can cause anxiety and depression. That would be the depressive side, manic depressive, while the hyper-focus aspect of ADHD can be confused for manic behavior. As such, I've totally changed my treatment, transformed my life for the better in ways

that I'm still discovering every day, but I do want all my bipolar people out there to know that I see you I still support you and I still believe in you more importantly though you should still believe in yourself because you do have the ability to do anything you set your mind to there are people in my family who definitely have bipolar disorder who have done great things throughout their life with treatment. People who are my own inspiration for making my mental health my responsibility. Hmm. But when it comes to pyromania, I can say from personal experience

that neurodivergent disorders can cause far greater problems than just not being able to focus. As a lot of children who develop promaniac also tested positive for ADHD There has there has been quite a bit of people talk about ADHD and that word gets thrown around a lot I think the same thing with all of these various diagnoses. They're thrown around on social media and Nobody we've kind of losing some of the sense of the the heaviness of some of these diagnoses very much So ADHD is not just paying attention. I'm sorry, you just don't have a fucking attention span. There's some of you that just don't have an attention span.

That's fine, it's been destroyed by media. But the rest of it, ADHD can lead to full dissociative like episodes, like all of the same bad stuff that bipolar does. If you're not taking care of it correctly and you're actually diagnosed with it, you can turn into a bit of a firebuck And that's the thing is ADHD is it can be severe enough where it is confused with bipolar disorder I mean, there's a reason why it took 20 years for this diagnosis to get switched over

Yeah, it was beautiful statement Marcus and I too would like to take this moment to come out as part human part picky And I too would like to take this moment to come out as part human part picky Many surgeries to turn my hooves Still enjoy rolling around in my own shit Solving puzzles meant for toddlers, but you know I I think I'm on the path becoming full human Chew apples with your hands tied behind your back? Blah blah blah blah. Oh, yes. Yes, I can see it.

Blah blah blah blah. Speaking of which, Eddie, I gotta talk to you. Our Apple budget at the network is getting out of fucking control. We are gonna need to talk with you about this. I can't afford it myself. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No, while ADHD certainly shows up in pyromaniacs, the neurodivergent disorder that occurs most is Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD, and that brings us to our first big story today. Let's begin with the Australian pyromaniac Brendan Sokolak, whose part in the Black Saturday bushfires of 2009 resulted in the deaths of 11 people.

And yes, the name appears as if it should be pronounced Sok-a-luck or Sok-a-luck, whatever. We watched some old news reports and they all say Sok-a-luck, so if you have any complaints about pronunciation, direct them to the past. I also listened to Brendan Sokolak talk, and he was... He even says it wrong. He doesn't know what they're saying. He goes like, Shosholak. He does this weird thing. He seemed to be under pressure.

Yeah. Now, the Black Saturday bushfires were somewhat similar to what we just went through here in Los Angeles, in that it wasn't just one large fire that devastated the region. But unlike our recent troubles, in which we had four, sometimes five fires going on all at once, the Australians on Black Saturday had to contend with 400 individual fires. I had no idea how bad wildfires were in Australia. My God. Oh yeah, that town, that whole continent's made for burning. It is. During these fires, over 1700 square miles of the Australian state of Victoria burned, resulting in 173 deaths in addition to the destruction of over

3500 buildings and homes. When the sheer destructive power of all 400 fires were calculated, it was said they gave off the equivalent heat of 500 atomic bombs. Geez, fucking Christ. You know, it's crazy too, the way they talk about it, because it really is like, they have a budget. I had no idea it would be like this outside of the United States of America. That wildfires could be as bad elsewhere as they are here because also I let's just say I'm an East Coaster, New Yorker

I've never dealt with anything like this before Yeah, and it wasn't until those LA fires hit that you start to when you were watching the footage of it I guess I never really took it to heart. This shit just jumps Yeah, it just explode like things just explode. And then they go fat. Like you would not be, you would be incredibly surprised how fast that wall of flame will overwhelm you. Yeah, the Australian fire right before COVID

that everyone kind of forgot about because of COVID was like way worse than our fire recently. So much worse. Yeah, and here how it happened was we had two seasons of like like unseasonable rain which caused all these plants to grow and then we went back in a drought which caused all those same plants to die and that's what caught fire. Yeah. Now when survivors later recalled Black Saturday they said that after the air turned blood-red from the heat every breath

felt like sucking on a hair dryer, and some could even feel their skin melting from the heat even if they weren't actively being burnt. The flames were hundreds of feet high, moving across the ground within seconds and surrounding everything. Once the fire reached a house, the windows cracked, fabric burst into flames, the flames would slide underneath doors where they caught clothing and shoes on fire. Those who survived did so by breathing into wet fabric,

laying in shallow creeks or ponds. In one case, a family covered themselves in lily pads and pond slime, all while kangaroos tried to survive by laying down in the water with them. Aw, cute! It is kinda cute. That's where you get the first ever kangaroo man wedding. Which is nice.

But it's illegal. Their love was considered illegal. She was just plowing the hell out of that kangaroo. Yeah, she was. And they got crazy. They got like a bigger pussy than a fucking lady Can't agree. Yeah, man It's not the vagina No, I mean I find this shit fascinating Australia is actually made to be set on fire on a near constant basis.

That's its ecosystem. Due to the frequent wildfires started by lightning strikes that have been going on for millennia, the fauna of Australia has evolved specifically to not only survive fires, but depend on them. Some plant species, for example, won't open their seed pods until the plant is set on fire. But since some plants need fire to propagate, they've also evolved to be highly flammable. And it's just Australia's luck that one of their most common plants, the eucalyptus tree, is also one of the most flammable in the world.

Really? Yes. They're called gasoline trees. No shit. I didn't know that. I bet it smells good They create dense carpets of flammable material that create the fast burning and fast spreading fires That make Australian wildfires so dangerous the oil of the eucalyptus tree also works as an accelerant

Once the fire has sparked creating literal fireballs when the flames reach the trees. The seed pods then open and fall, where they thrive in the freshly burned soil. But because Australia burns so easily, and is in fact a land that is specifically made for burning, Australia has a fairly large arson problem, and when a pyromaniac gets involved, the results can indeed be deadly. Now, interestingly enough, this is exactly why we have such problems with fire in Los Angeles. Because back in the day, in the late 1800s, they planted eucalyptus trees all over Los Angeles. No, shit! So Los Angeles is actually covered in eucalyptus trees and like and going and there was like several different times when they

were used to like because they liked the way they they you know the way they look Yeah, they smell and shit. And so they were planted all over Los Angeles and now that's kind of what's been fucking us Oh, it's all the old eucalyptus trees that are everywhere and they just catch so easily. I learned that from some gardener Everywhere and they just catch so easily I learned that from some gardener That's crazy, I didn't know that dude every single time when we went to Hawaii and they do you know You just learned that everything that you like there is invasive and then he's like destroying everything there and then it seems like It's really rough to kind of just mess with the the planet. Yeah, just throw shit around see what happens It seems to just react in wild ways that you really can't predict Yeah

They thought it was a good idea because it's really good at absorbing wind because they're real bushy and so like the wind was like You know it would hit that and it wouldn't hit you that hard, but you know obviously the wind yeah, that's why I travel Yeah, that's why I travel faster when my pants are down You know cows don't exist in nature? We created cows. What were they before? Yeah, what were the first cows? Orocs. What? That's not real. Yeah, well, they're extinct now. Yeah, they're extinct. We bred them at like way. I learned this on the blind boy podcast. We actually bred Orocs the all the best Orocs the ones that were most docile the ones that had like the best Orocs, the ones that were most docile, the ones that had like the best meat, we bred them into the cows that we have today. Cows as we know them don't exist in nature

at all. That's partly why they're so destructive to the environment. Marcus, stop it. You're driving people crazy. People are having orgasms. They can't focus on the road. They are literally pissing and shitting and coming so much with this information. It's just we have to really be careful What we do here, it's an info hazard Back to Australia now Australian arson squad Back to Australia. Now, Australian arson squad investigators have found that fires in Australia are started mostly in areas of extreme poverty, areas between urban and rural locations, places of high unemployment, and areas with high child abuse and neglect.

Here in America, we've seen much the same thing. Some of our worst rashes of arson, like how the Bronx burned in 1970s, New York They were perpetrated in some of our nation's poorest and most disadvantaged areas the pyromaniac in the New York City fires By the way, that was David Berkowitz when he was still calling himself the Phantom of the Bronx It's me the thickest ghost you've ever seen With the 38 waist. That's what you like. Subtle.

Sexy. There's nothing wrong with a 38 waist. There's nothing wrong with it. Absolutely not, it's a governor's waist. A mania's pant. But concerning the Black Saturday bushfires, the Australian arson squad fanned out to determine how many of those 400 fires were natural and how many were man-made. One of the fires the arson squad focused upon was in central Gippsland, where a man named

Brendan Sokolak had called the Australian equivalent of 911 to inform authorities about his local bushfire. Now the central Gipsland bushfire was no small event. While it had been just one of 400 fires, it had still killed 11 people. As such, this bushfire was of particular interest to investigators, and they certainly wanted to talk to the man who'd first called it in. investigators, and they certainly wanted to talk to the man who'd first called it in. — Arson is another one of those crimes that's extremely difficult to investigate. — Yes. — It's— — And even harder to prove.

— Oh yeah, because fire destroys everything. And there's so many reasons to burn something. You know, like, is he fine? And there's so many ways that you can burn down. It's very difficult. — Masakalak had no criminal record, but upon questioning, police immediately found his demeanor to be strange and suspicious. And their suspicion only increased when they began asking around the

neighborhood for more information on Brendan. Sokolak had been seen driving around the area slowly, watching the fires burn on Black Saturday, which didn't really surprise anyone because smoke and flames tended to follow Brendan Sokolak wherever he went. I don't know if he fucked his teacher. I was more of the hot part. Hot part, yeah. Oh, sure, sure, sure. I thought you were fucking a teacher. I think about fucking teachers. I mean, if we're going Van Halen, I would say it's more like he caused an eruption.

Oh, I see. Yeah. You really got me. You fucking piece of shit. You fucking piece of shit. Locals also said that Brendan was known to have problems with skulking around town. Hey there, you skulking.

Get back here. I want you walking. Hey there, you skulking! Get back here! I want you walking! Alright, you stand up! That is an Australian thing. Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with a little light skulking. I skulk up to 25 minutes a day. Just to keep me going.

Life skulk. Life skulking. But Brendan was indeed the worst type of skulker, as Brendan was a bit of a pedophile. Not all skulkers are pedophiles, but all pedophiles are skulkers. Brendan was known to stand and stare at children in public and would duck and hide when people noticed him You know Brendan also collected junk and broken cars and would work for hours in his shed Dismantling pieces of wreckage where he would listen very loudly to episodes of Thomas the Tank Engine or Bob the Builder

While making again very loud commentary on the shows to no one in particular Bob full of shit here ain't gonna pass any sort of inspection You know builder. I'll think you're cartoon. Yeah, you think you're gonna climb that train Thomas you fucking idiot You're just a train. I think you can't You know what Thomas I'm thinking you're believing in yourself too much. You've got to stop at your chance to attract. All right, you can't go anywhere. You're a helicopter.

Oh my god, that train has a face. You know, I'd give my left foot if you could convince me that train ain't smiling Cuz let's just say he wasn't an expert mechanic No, he was not no no no he was mostly dismantling things for the scrap metal so he could sell the scrap metal Yes, now by the time of the Black Saturday fires in 2009, Brendan Sokolak was 39 years old, single and unemployed on disability pension after losing his job as a groundskeeper at Monash University. Brendan, like many pyromaniacs, had a hard time keeping a job due to his poor impulse control and behavioral problems.

Brendan, however, was reportedly quite good at his job in the sense that he could keep the grounds. These grounds are right here! They're not going nowhere! They're right here, out of my feet! But people found him irritating. You see the new episode of Time of the Train getting in? That shit's chopped a shark!

I'm sick of this fucking shit, the hour's breaking, some bullshit orange whatever! It's like an orange caboose! What's that? It's like a fucking orange caboose! I'm sick of this fucking shit, they always bring in some bullshit orange, whatever, it's like an orange caboose. What's that shit? They found him irritating for a myriad of reasons, like Brendan's habit of hiding in the bushes so he could jump out to scare his co-workers like spaghetti.

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey's me, we're supposed to buy an engine, tank engine, it scares you from a hundred feet away. I'll do it right close. The bad pranks, however, were not the only reasons why Brendan was fired. He would also follow people and tell them to watch out, because he knew where they lived. He would pass notes to women co-workers, challenging their boyfriends or spouses to duels, and he would express joy at the pain of others, like what a co-worker's loved one died Additionally, Brendan would mow over trash instead of picking it up.

He would stuff food in his pockets at work functions. He would hide things in hard to reach places to infuriate his co-workers. He would make cat noises at people and would mow over golf balls so they would shoot out at just the right trajectory to hit bystanders. I'm good at this job. This is my job. Fuck you! Yeah, they're little, I like the triangle cases because you can't get them at home!

You can only get them at work! I really wish I didn't find them so funny. I mean, I really wish I didn't find them so funny. I know, I know. There's something funny about the golf balls. There's something funny about challenging your boyfriend to a duel. I'd be like, meow!

Just stop. Meow, meow, meow, meow, meow! Hey, you want me to stop right now? You fucking piece of fucking shit! You know, too, his head, it's just if you have to work with him. I could see that. If this is just a funny guy. No, he would also do shit like he would when he had to dig holes, he would like make sure that he was upwind of his coworkers so the dust would blow in their face. You know, it's just it's the most infuriating things like he's trying to make people angry.

And that's all to say that Brendan was more than a bit of a prick. But Brendan also had skills that kept him on the job. He had a photographic memory of the campus, he knew exactly where all the pipes and cables were buried underground, and he was quite capable with computers. But that's all to say that Brendan Sokolak, like many pyromaniacs, most definitely had autism spectrum disorder, or ASD. Now that's definitely not to say that all people with ASD are at risk of becoming pyromaniacs or at risk of becoming destructive in any way But it's a cool thing to maybe hold over your family

But there are definite reasons why ASD and other Neurodivergent disorders like ADHD are so prevalent amongst this section of the population As many of you probably already know, ASD is not a simple, straightforward disorder. ASD manifests itself in a myriad of ways, both positive and negative, like how someone with ASD might be able to draw a perfect map of an area just by walking it, but they might not have the ability to understand tone and inflection when others speak. The problem here is that the symptoms of ASD can be confused with people who are just run-of-the-mill pricks.

And conversely, people with ASD can also be massive dickheads who take pleasure in doing things that hurt or annoy people. So can a lot of people, though. Yeah, so can a lot of people. It's not just ASD, I think a lot of people sometimes just like being jerks. It's pretty much all of Iceland.

Yeah. Looking at you, Q&A, still the rudest. But we had so much fun. We had so much all of Iceland. Looking at you Q&A. Still the rudest. But we had so much fun. We had so much fun in Iceland. But man you guys roasted us. Wow. They're a very blunt people. It's partly why I enjoy

them so much. I enjoy the bluntness of it. Yeah, they're not there to talk to people. You go there to get away people. Yeah. You know? You go there to get away from everyone. You live on a rock that has ice on the top of it and lava directly underneath it. It's the only place in the world where I can go and people aren't like, oh Marcus, why don't you have any tact?

And it's like, no. In Iceland, nobody has it and nobody cares and everyone's just saying whatever they want to say and it's great. You are fat now It's just a fact you are fat enough I know I saw you yesterday, but you're fat or now But that's all to say that ASD is not a monolithic diagnosis in which the same principles can be applied to every person and really They're just like any other group with good people bad people and everything in between contained therein. Is it maybe fair to say that his acting like a prick Brendan Sokolak you mean. Brendan Sokolak was his inability to emotionally

connect with others and that you find that the connection is You all humans must connect to others on some way, right? We are social beast and so on some level when we are kind of dealing with others I wonder if sometimes it's just any reaction then becomes a connection if you can't figure it out Well, actually I can answer that question I mean when it comes to pyromia, it was very rare, if not non-existent in our research, to find a pyromaniac with just ASD. Instead, what we found is that amongst pyromania, ASD is almost always paired with childhood

abuse or extreme bullying. Statistically, autistic people overall are far more likely to be bullied or abused, but because of the nature of the disorder, some people with ASD don't understand why they're being bullied. In some cases, when people with ASD don't understand why they're hated, they give people reasons to hate them. And our subject, Brendan Sokolkolak is a prime example That's very interesting whenever I meet someone who like obviously has severe autism I just try to find out what their thing is whether it's like 80s rock or just rocks You know and you just and you just drill them on that you learn a lot Yeah, and then they feel great and you've learned a lot and you've had a you've had a nice day

Yeah Yeah, and then they feel great and you've learned a lot and you've had a you've had a nice day Yeah, but also the key to pyromaniac on the whole is the attention that you get from the action I feel like that is still like I think we're not for all but All the ones you talk to you start to find out like there's quite a bit of similarities from of the way They talk between Brendan Sarkalak on I was listening to Paul Keller. They actually do have very similar attitudes Yes about it Well Brendan grew up with poor and limited speech. He'd often skip words and sentences even worse He would regularly shit himself well into his teenage years His mother put him in a kid's soccer club to help him make friends. It always helps always helps

Yeah, when a kid's having a hard time making friends, it's a competitive sports sports Yeah, that's usually what kids who have a hard time making friends, sports is always the best thing for them. It definitely doesn't heighten all of those issues. You definitely don't put them right in the middle of all the kids who are most likely to bully others. Oh yeah. And they're all on a track of trying to do shit. And never mind if you're just some fat idiot who's arrived to be the catcher of the team. And you think it's cause Goldberg was the fucking like the funny guy on the team and that's your function And then all these kids are now starting to take the sport super seriously And now they're turning on you when you were the fucking mascot. Yeah

Yeah, usually the kids on the team really hate you when you're the one that's making them bad Yes, it tends to make things worse. Yes, it flipped like over a summer. It was like one summer I was the most popular kid on the team and then the next summer they were like, oh you're bad at baseball. Yeah, no, no, I was bad at football in my senior year and like my entire, I ended up, the entire town like could barely disguise their contempt for me. Like just because like I was, I was like, I want to like, a writer. Yeah, I'm a broadcaster I broke my leg last year. I missed my junior year. I'm behind. Why are you putting me in its safety? I'm so much a better running back

But Billy Joe in its safety or Jason, but it's good running back running backs political position. Yeah. Yeah, that was a very good running back Well Brendan Speaking of someone who's definitely nah who is a pyromaniac unlike Marcus. Yes. Unlike. Yes. I did great in football. They loved me Well, I mean Brendan when he was put in a soccer it just meant the kids could kick him without repercussions Yeah All they all while they called him veggie or spastic. And Brendan's bullying only got worse when he reached high school, when the other kids, in their disgustingly Australian way

that we've learned about in our Snowtown series, all these kids decided that Brendan was a target for their bodily fluids. Mmm. One fellow teenager smeared Brendan with human feces, while others wiped snot on his clothes, coughed on him, and spat in his hair. I read a thing about, I guess Shaq used to do a hazing thing to rookies. Shaquille O'Neal? Yeah, where he used to shit in a bucket for like months and then on some level That's a big bucket.

Full of Shaq's dupes. That's a trough. Yeah, dude. I was just like thinking about that and you all laugh and stuff and there was like watching this thing and I was like First of all that so you kept a bucket of your shit in your house Just to pour on some new probably in the locker room. I guess but you kept this shit Just cuz like you're a superstar. You're a multi-millionaire leader of the team exactly this could have been in college No, it was it while he was on the like the Lakers. Oh really yeah But that's the thing if you're that rich you can have a shit room in your house. Yeah, I guess you can have a shit guy

Love Shaxx, that's a great I just find it weird hanging out with your own shit all day. Men are weird. Boys are weird. Shaq doesn't live in a two bedroom apartment. We don't know what he does. He definitely doesn't live in a two bedroom apartment. No, he has a multi-med. He has a very low-key. I'm just saying men are gross.

And then horseplay amongst boys is horrible. Locker rooms are very scary plays. I very much liked being with the girls. Now eventually... You shouldn't be with the girls. Now eventually... You shouldn't be in the girls' locker room though. Oh, they invited me in. My wig and well placed. Oh, Gurnal definitely convinces the girls that I am ready to give massages.

Eventually Brendan Sokolak's parents just gave up and pulled him out of school in the 11th grade. The intense bullying he endured, however, left lasting scars that contributed to his pyromania. Because from what Joel found, there is the possibility of creating a monster when extreme bullying and childhood abuse meets ASD. Additionally, after Brendan was fired from his groundskeeping job, he may have been in the throes of a neurodivergent

symptom called rejection sensory dysphoria, in which a person is emotionally or psychically affected to an excessive degree after being left out, or told that they aren't allowed in a place where they feel like they belong. And pyromaniac episodes very often happen after a giant emotional change and shift. Very much so. Sometimes people with RSD become people pleasers or perfectionists to avoid being excluded or treated badly for fucking up in any way whatsoever, but others, like Brendan, go in the entirely opposite direction by acting out destructively. See, in the months before the Black Saturday bushfire, neighbors noticed that Brendan had been setting

larger and larger fires in his yard. And when a neighbor expressed concern over a gigantic bonfire that Brendan had lit by himself on New Year's Eve, Brendan didn't even acknowledge that the neighbor was talking to him. This all came in the year after Brendan had been fired from his job, which was very much a situation in which Brendan was told he wasn't allowed in a place where he thought he belonged. I keep the ground! The ground's there, and you're gonna tell me you're gonna keep the ground for me? The man who keeps the ground?

I'm gonna set on fire! Now one of the activities that those with ASD and ADHD engage in is something called stemming, which is a physical action that helps the individual deal with sensory overload. For me, I now recognize that chain smoking used to be my main stem. These days I play with plasticine clay if I'm at home, I play with coins in my pockets if I'm in public, or I obsessively chew nicotine gum no matter what's going on you sure that's not just your crippling addiction to nicotine well that's the thing it's actually connected oh yeah people with ADHD are actually far more likely to be

addicted to nicotine it's the stimulant yeah I like playing with this rat that there you go you're stimming mm-hmm honestly I mostly clean my guns. Every time I'm nervous, I just clean my guns. For others though, stimming can be far more harmful, manifesting as hair pulling, skin picking, or in the case of pyromaniacs, starting fires. See, stimming is a way to calm yourself down, and many pyromaniacs describe the act of starting a fire as something that alleviates a build-up of internal tension. I also loved setting fires when I was a kid and was in fact almost arrested when I was 13 for lighting a dumpster on fire at my brother's track meet on the campus of South Plains College in

Love Land, Texas because I was so incredibly mind-numbingly bored and that boredom was causing anxiety. You're also calling out for attention. It's about like, I know my brother's bigger, stronger, more handsome than me, he's more loved than me. I'm gonna set this fire because then you're all gonna come look at Marcus because Marcus needs some attention. Oh no, it wasn't about that at all. Just to watch it burn, right?

Yeah, I loved being left alone. No, no, no, it was, yeah, me and a friend of mine, we were just wandering around and we saw a dumpster and I was like, hey, why don't we light it on fire? Like that could be like a lot of fun if we just lit that thing on fire, let's light that thing on fire. And then we decided to light it on fire and the fire didn't really work out. And so like we went across the street to this tennis court where there was some tennis balls, we started throwing tennis balls at each other.

And then we heard a big boom, which was an aerosol can exploding because the dumpster had very much lit on fire. And then while we were staring at it, that's when we got caught. Ah, a buddy of mine lit a tennis ball on fire, threw it in the yard across the street and the whole yard caught fire. That was awesome. That's very frightening. I didn't do any of this, Rob. Rob is sitting there being like, I can't believe these men. I have not, I have never set up public fire. I'm very lucky that Florida is as moist as it is. I've never set a fire. I'm very lucky I grew up in like a wet period in West Texas, like where it was raining all

the time. I would have grown up in the last 20 years. Wow. Yeah, you really could have killed some people. We used to go behind Publix and steal all the pallets of wood that you know that they would just leave outside then we bring Them in the middle of the woods and have giant a bonfire. Yeah different. I went to many bonfires Yeah bonfires are different than just like hey, I want to set that thing on fire and let's go We would put like random shit in it. Oh my god right after Christmas. We love lighting up over trees

Yeah, that was the best bonfire of the year god, right after Christmas, we lighten up everyone's trees. Yeah. That was always the best bonfire of the year. Like January, we all lit our Christmas trees on fire. But one asshole wouldn't take the ornaments off, and so it was a fucking lot of smoke, a lot of weird plastic. Plastic, yeah. Oh my god. Our lives are just fucking so weird.

We're very lucky. Life from North Lake. Now, Brendan Sokolak was certainly autistic, but intellectually, Brendan was said to have the mental capacity of an eight-year-old. Brendan, however, was also more clever than he let on, and he could also be extremely manipulative if he wanted to be. See, as I said earlier, Brendan was a perfectly capable person, but he was known to play up his disabilities if it suited his needs. He would froth at the mouth, or he would use a mentally disabled voice so people would underestimate him. He'd also use it to

get out of trouble at work. As such, Brendan began playing up his disability very soon after his arrest for one of the Black Saturday bushfires, because I think it may have taken him a bit to remember that the fire he'd started had killed 11 people. Yes, and the way they talked about it too is that he really, it's just because he did not, he truly did not grasp that there was consequences. Like, and there, that's what they kind of tried to get them on legally. All these guys, they all just kind of be like, I never thought the fire would

consume half the city. And it's like, because you, you weren't doing that. You were following an extreme lack of impulse control that caused you to set a bunch of fires. Now, after investigators spoke with his neighbors and discovered Brendan's penchant for fires and skulking, it was decided that there was enough circumstantial evidence to arrest Brendan for starting the fatal bushfire that he himself had called in to emergency services.

Now Brendan didn't get nervous or anxious like most people do when they get arrested, nor did he react when he was read his rights. But outside of his non-reaction, Brendan was reportedly carrying relatively normal conversations with the police who arrested him. He actively tried to negotiate with the police officer to say, hey, can you just tell people that I found the fire and that I'm a hero? But during his videotaped intake,

when Brendan knew people were watching, he suddenly became more disabled by slurring his speech and pretending like he didn't understand what he was being told once the camera was off however Brendan would drop the slur stop drooling and return to the relatively normal way of conversating that he'd engaged in before it's a great move it is I just want to say to all you husbands out there. They know now Time you try to do something I've tried to do that just act comatose Yeah, oh, yeah, you know in the hopes that maybe she just go away and yeah forget about it, but guess what that wife She's there. Yeah, yeah, and she knows that you know how to do better. Especially if you run like a business

She's just like well then your business should be taken from you and Your life should end and you should not in terms of your career should end it You should just become a simpleton that lives as a drifter Yeah, if you were incapable of doing this and you could use that again because I'm when I used to have to ride the Greyhound Bus all the time. I would like while they're loading on the bus I'd get in, you know, and I grab a seat and then I you know There was a seat open next to me. I would just like pretend to like chew on my lips and shit Oh, yeah, and like be all weird and crazy

Nobody would sit next to me and then it worked you know the skill of acting sick Yes, the key on a bus if you want to sit by yourself you go And then as soon as the bus takes off, you're normal. Yep. Eventually, Brendan did take credit for starting the fire, but he maintained that the whole thing was just a big misunderstanding. He said that he'd been smoking a cigarette while driving down a gravel road, and the bumpiness was causing his car to shake. The ember of his cigarette popped off amidst the bumps, so Brendan, still driving, used

a piece of paper to gather up the ember, which he then threwst the bumps. So Brendan, still driving, used a piece of paper to gather up the ember, which he then threw out the window. The paper then ignited, and when Brendan looked in his rear view, he saw the massive bushfire and called emergency services. Never use a piece of paper to pick up a cherry from a cigarette. Yeah.

That seems like the first thing you don't do. Yeah. Right? I'll always be haunted by one time, we were shooting late for A to Z back in the day, A to M. A to M, man, please. And we were coming through Topanga Canyon and they have these signs everywhere that say, don't smoke, don't throw cigarettes out

because it's try land. And I was half asleep, it was two o'clock in the morning, this was when I was smoking cigarettes. I was driving and I was smoking, didn't even think about it. I threw the cigarette out the window and I went, I went oh fuck and I pull the car all the way around And I go and I'm walking through the brush This like 2 30 in the morning looking for the cigarette trying to make sure it didn't set anything on I'm like walking around I was like oh god. Oh fuck. Oh fuck

And then I remember having to go to a hotel room because that's where we're staying we're staying on this side of town And I went into the hotel and just like watching the news all night. People like, please don't, please don't let me up for down the entire Pacific palaces. No, it turns out no, it was just a, some a dick head with an open fire pit. Yep. Yeah. Remember when we almost a lit a Adam's apartment building on fire during foot dollmaker. Oh, I remember. Yeah. We put like four candles in the same cup And then they all just like ignited together and produced this giant flame and then we hit it with water. Yeah, it was a fucking mess It was a real close one. It really was. Yeah.

Everyone would have died in that house. Wow, a lot of near misses today. You know what? It really is amazing. That's the thing. Life's full of near misses until it's not. It kind of just makes my like skin both crawl and tingle thinking about it. Life's full of near misses until it's not. It kind of just makes my skin both crawl and tingle thinking about it. Now to me, Brendan's excuse sounds like utter horse shit, but Brendan's lawyer, a woman with the incredibly Australian name of Selena McCrickard, thought differently.

Selena McCrickard! At any all. differently. See we know that the intellectually disabled and people with mental disorders they get framed for crimes they didn't commit quite frequently and they often confess to those crimes because they think if they just admit to it the cops will leave them alone and they'll be sent home and the cops actually lie to people and tell them this that's what happened with Jesse Miss Kelly in the West Memphis three you just tell tell us what you did and you can go home. And we'll get you out of here.

Now, I could be wrong here, but in the many false confession stories I've read, people who falsely confess to crimes usually confess to the crimes instead of trying to make up an excuse like Brendan did. But Brendan's lawyer, Selena McCrickard, believed that Brendan had been pressured into taking the blame for the brush fire, because admittedly the only pieces of evidence were his call to emergency services, his reputation as a fire bug, and his half confession to being the Mr. Bean of Australian wildfires. He also lived right next to the ex- I think it's called the, I forget what it's called, the term of where the fire starts.

There's a good term where he lived close to one of the starting of where the fire starts. There's a term where he lived close to one of the starting points of the fire, and then he also was the first person to report the fire. Yeah. So, I don't know. I'm not gonna say that he did it, but he did it. Isn't that nice? Yeah, that is nice.

I'm not a judge. There was, however, one more piece to this story. Yeah. See, as I said earlier, Brendan was the worst kind of skulker and when police searched his home computer They found not only lots of photos of firefighters fighting fires, which is great We I remember when you were researching 9-eleven them spending your whole fucking computer. Just you thought you think I just saved You know, there really weren't that many fires

There was one big one Really weren't that many fires there was one big one More many pictures of the firefighters fighting fires I see I'm squared up not really They had to well it was so high up. How are they gonna squirt it? Yeah, shoot it up They were they were inside amen. They were inside squirting. I would do better Where was the water? They found copious amounts of child pornography on Brindon's computer That's a bit of a smoking gun

Not necessarily for pyromaniac but for pedophilia For child pornography Does it make you look innocent? I'm not a pyromaniac! I just want to have sex with this baby. That's all.

Additionally, when investigators looked deeper into Brendan's past, they found that he had been a volunteer firefighter in the late 80s. He had, however, been kicked out for dishonest conduct, meaning he'd started several fires that he and his fellow volunteers would then have to put out. He's job creating. Yes. But once Brendan's trial came around, it didn't seem like he was all that worried about prison. He would often fake falling asleep, then startle himself awake because he thought it was funny.

It is. Objectively. That's one of my favorite bits. And that was in addition to the times he'd take loud sips of water in court and let out an audible after each one. He's a bad guy. It is great. You don't do that.

I do that at home sometimes for fun. Oh, I know you do it. No, you've done it in my presence. Man, and ever since I was a kid, every time I bend down or sit down, I just go, ah! Now I just do it naturally. Now it just happens. Yeah. Now, Brendan went on the stand himself and repeated his story about starting the fire

with a cigarette. But the fire experts who also testified said that the blaze in Brendan's neighborhood, the one that killed 11 people, did not start with a cigarette. So either Brendan was lying about how the fire started or had falsely confessed. But also, I mean, when you do look at his story, technically it wasn't a cigarette that started it. It was a piece of paper that was lit on fire by a cigarette emperor. But in the end, I think it was probably the child pornography on Brendan's computer that

pushed this whole caper over the edge. No way! Yeah, it seemed to color the defense. As far as whether he started the fire or not. The child pornography, yes, definitely has an effect. But in the end, because of his disabilities, he was given a lenient sentence of 17 years and nine months in a maximum security prison for intellectually disabled prisoners.

He was, however, released just last year after serving only 14 years on the condition that he live at least 80 kilometers from the town where he was convicted of starting a fire that killed 11 people. Yeah. Now he's going to take a highway. He'll never do that.

He'll never set a fire again. They should have banished him to Badavia's graveyard. Yeah. You now live in Sea World. No, he's a, uh, he's an interesting character because I will see how it like rolls out because it seems like pyromaniac is a fairly impulse driven crime. So we'll see what happens. Oh, it's, I think it's very much an impulse driven crime. Oh, yeah. Now, Brendan Sokolak didn't have his life together at all, but that's not the case for all pyromaniacs.

For example, one of the most prolific pyromaniacs in American history held a job in advertising, but began a six-month arson spree while going through a particularly rough divorce. That man was Paul Keller, who was 27 years old at the time. Paul Keller is one of those guys that when he's one of those like early 90s 27 going on 49. Oh yeah. He looks like a full on adult and let's just say I'm just gonna clear up a couple things. He got the job in advertising because his dad that was his dad's company and he gave him something to do. Yeah. Because Paul Keller was an absolute utter baby maniac he showed up at the house he tortured the entire family throughout his entire

childhood he was violent uncontrollable they couldn't know what he would beat everyone he beat his mother he beat his father I had a feeling and they and Paul Keller though but he'd always be like you know people don't understand me yeah you know that's what he sees he'd say you know, I'm like, I'm not a bad, well, I'm kind of a bad guy, but I'm not a criminal. I'm not a criminal. I just set fires. What he was doing is, he says that he was checking the firefighters' abilities to do their jobs, and he was also checking to see if their new equipment was up to par. So in late 1992 and early 1993, Keller set 76 fires causing $30 million in property damage. This was all in Seattle, Washington.

Somewhat of a purist, Keller would only start fires on the outside of buildings without using accelerants. Keller would drive around aimlessly until he would see cardboard or other flammable material near a building. Then he would say to himself, set in this fire, that's a no-brainer. And he set these fires because people were stupid for leaving the flammable material available. If that house didn't want me to set fire to it, why was it dressed that way? You know, he was a unrepentant, like, he was very impulsive but his thing really was his fascination with firefighter technology

and firefighters in general. What he would say all the time was he's like yeah I just kind of like I said I said that on fire so a piece of fiberglass there and I said on fire because I wanted to see if the new C-19 flow system really can come around and really zip zaps up this whole thing. I'm not a pyromaniac I am a stress tester for the Seattle Fire Department That's what his whole schtick was. Yeah, you figured Seattle with the rain would be fine. No, you fires go Yeah, and Seattle it's more of a drizzle than a constant rain Yeah, yeah, I view it like a like a like a drip. Yeah, it's like a it's like a moist like a drip It's like a condensation. It's a moist town. Yeah. Yeah. I hate when you say the word drip and when you say moist

The portrait that Keller presented to the world was one of a devout Lutheran who loved singing in the choir, loved listening to gospel music. But in private, Keller was an alcoholic pothead who actually burned down several Lutheran churches. The church burning, however, was not even close to Keller's biggest crime. On September 22, 1992, Paul Keller set a retirement home on fire and killed three little old ladies named Mary, Adeline, and Bertha. After a composite sketch, after a composite sketch was The fires come just be like no I wait for the food things

They die here After a composite sketch was released of the perpetrator Keller's own father recognized him and turned him into the police from what it sounds like from what you were saying Seems like he was waiting for an excuse if you look at the honestly there was a there's two documentaries one was in that Evil Lives Here show that covered this guy. Another one was, it was called Portrait of an Arsonist. His father is the most sad man you've ever met. He's crying. He's crying. He's so upset that it was his son.

And also, you very rarely see it too, with the father giving up the son, because largely they would come and try to cover up the crimes as we've seen with every other criminal family that we've seen with every other criminal family that we've seen but he the Paul Keller was just such a He was filled with rage and he set fires. He also did really believe he was correct Yeah, he believed he was correct and he was a he did not he still does not understand why he was in jail

Yeah Keller was soon after found guilty of 32 counts of arson and was sentenced to 99 years in prison for his crimes and is eligible for parole in the far-flung year of 2079. And they tried to diagnose him with ASD and he wouldn't do the testing because again, his whole thing is, I'm not autistic. I am just a devoted fan of cataloging firefighting equipment, firefighting techniques, firefighter locations and fire. And he knew each station. I only have an encyclopedic knowledge of everything firefighting.

Yeah. And so he's like that where it was all about this fantasy, but I believe that Paul Keller needs to stay in jail. Yeah. I think that Paul Keller is one of those where he's not a Brendan Sackalock where he's, I think Brendan Sackalock was quite disabled. Yeah. I think he was halfway there.

He knew, he had a foot outside, but he kind of, he still was jacked up. Where it's like this dude, he knows way more than what he's showing. Cause you know what would be like, I blacked out, I was getting drunk, I blame all this in the pot, in the booze, but then he'd show up at one of the scenes of the fires and he'd tell them every single moment of the night.

And he knew every single thing. And then he'd do the same thing. I don't remember until he showed up at the building. It's like oh, yeah I went up to this side and went like this the the flames are about this high. Yes, it's like well He loved it. No music video. He made was amazing. Oh reverse Mohawk Oh dancing in the sewers and stuff get away get away get away get away now. No, no fire start Start up. That's right Wow

Prodigy he was a prodigy. Yeah, that guy died. Yep. Really? Yeah fire Wow, no actually suicide Suicide by fire I'll... Suicide by fire? No, actually by ice. Now for our last pyromaniac today. Yay! This guy fucking terrifies me.

We're gonna go all the way back to the 1970s when a teenager named Peter Dinsdale terrorized the Yorkshire port town of Hull over the course of six years with fires that killed 26 people. Now Peter Dinsdale was dealt a bad hand from the beginning, born with a defect that caused him to limp and hold his right arm across his chest. So he was literally dealt a bad hand You know, I actually didn't I didn't think about the pun when I wrote that that pun was unintentional

I want everyone to know that the pun the pun was unintentional a hundred percent no intention behind that pun You gotta believe me. You gotta believe something wrong with the hand the hands not bad it's just it's not at the let's not like the other hand it's unintentional Dinsdale was referred to as the freak by his own mother who sent him to live with his grandmother at the age of three now the children of Yorkshire were no kinder than Dinsdale's mother. Definitely not I can't imagine a child from Yorkshire having anything but cruel thoughts Yeah, this is the land of Fred and Rose West. This is the land of Peter Sutcliffe. Like it's it's it is a

It's a cruel land. It's like they tried to name it hell, but their horrible accents made it home. Yeah, Yorkshire is the reason like that. That's the reason why, like England loses all rights to like make fun of America. Hey, you got one, too. Yeah, you have one, too. You have your own little America right in the middle of your country. Now, because of Peter's low self-esteem and quiet demeanor, he quickly earned the nickname of Daft Peter and was bullied mercilessly for his disabilities.

But unlike Brendan Sokolak, who waited until his thirties to act out, Peter Dinsdale's pyromania started at a young age. Before Dinsdale even reached his teenage years, he'd started a fire in a timber yard and had confessed to setting a shopping mall on fire, a fire that caused tens of thousands of dollars in damages. By the time Peter was a teenager, he was bouncing between jobs, working on construction sites, worked at the local pig market. Wink wink. It's just a pig ax like a man And incredibly he got you I will never fucking understand why people give guys like this jobs as babysitters

You know why Dean also was a babysitter from what I've heard from people with kids Is that like you get so desperate to leave the house? Yeah at some point you couldn't even care less who's there? Yeah get so desperate to leave the house yeah at some point you couldn't even care less who's there yeah I think that you leave with anyone I mean you know what the regular fucking Nancy canceled I'm sorry this is a guy that I met his name is cyclone that's all I know him he seems like a nice guy we got to go to dinner all right we're going out we're gonna have one night out! My babysitter was Mel Brooks. Whoa! Yeah, not in real life. The VHS.

Yeah, of course. Yeah. Mine was Evil Dead. They didn't know that was my babysitter, but eh, he was. Hey. Now partly, Peter gained the Daft nickname because he would do things that seemed very odd. Like the time he brought a child home

that he was supposed to be babysitting. He told people that the child was his son, even though the child was obviously of a different race. It's just that real different genes come to the top. But some people thought that Peter's daftness may have been an act, something that Dinsdale turned on and off when it suited him, just like Brendan Sokolak did. Reportedly, Dinsdale would tell people that they would never guess what he'd been up to, which to me meant that he was very aware of the power of his pyromania. If you ever say those terms to me, Marcus, I know for a fact it's that you're setting fires. You would never guess what I've been up to.

That's never gonna be good. No, it's never gonna be good. It's never gonna be good. It's always gonna be starting. And not always gonna be starting fires, but it's gonna be good. You'd never guess what I've been getting into. Even though Peter Dinsdale wasn't the brightest person in general, he was able to get away with arson and murder for six years for three simple reasons. Firstly, he only set fires in

poor neighborhoods and those fires only killed poor people, which as we know results in cursory investigations at best. Marcus, please, roasted persons. But the other side of that coin is that the people in Dinsdale's neighborhood knew that he was at the very least setting fires, even if they didn't know he was setting the deadly ones. But Dinsdale was not reported for the longest time because the locals distrusted and hated the police. And again, fire starting and firebug activity was kind of seen as harmless boy stuff. Yeah. But mostly, Dinsdale evaded capture because he was one of those people who are really

good at one thing. And when it comes to arson, Dinsdale knew how to make the fires look accidental, at least at first glance. As such, the only fire he set that was ruled arson at the time was the one that got him caught. It's like Ed with Connect Four. Yeah. I hear you're like incredible at connect for can't be big

I don't know understand like that's the closest I'd say to that you'd be on the spectrum Yeah, the fact that you see everything in just four circles fours and fours and lines and yeah I don't know why I'm so good at it For I once beat this guy 45 times in a row and it made him insane five times in a row and it made him insane. Yeah, it was like wild. I remember when he used to bring it out. He used to bring it out at the creek. And he used to just play people all night, connect four.

And people would just go like, I don't understand. And you just sat there like a silent prodigy, just like. Click, click, click, click. You ever do it for money? No, no, I don't gamble. Yeah, oh yeah, that's right. That's not gambling, dude. That's sport. If there was like a prize in like a contest, I would do that.

We should set it up. Sure, but then you'd have to beat me. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, and if you win, you get the money and then you bring it back in the company. All right, great. Set it up. All right, sounds good. Beat Ed at Connect 4 coming 2026. God, that'd be awesome. Now Dinsdale had always been a truly dangerous individual

as his first murder by arson was committed when he was just 12 years old. And it's important to remember that all of the arsons I'm gonna talk about, he did before he was the age of 20. That he was a teenager during all of this. It's a young man's game. Yeah, I suppose so. Yeah, you don't see any like 75 year olds,

like pyromaniacs. New ones. Yeah, new ones, yeah. Yeah, they always end up catching themselves on fire by at least 40. You know what, it's the suspenders. Super flammable. Well, in 1973, Dinsdale set fire to a house

belonging to a family called the Elleringtons, who had a disabled six-year-old boy who rode the bus to school with Peter. By the time the Elleringtons smelled smoke shortly before 7am, the flames were already too powerful and their child died in his room. When Dinsdale confessed the crime after his arrest and was asked for his motivation, he said he'd done it for no real reason at all. Now do you think he was trying to kill the people or do you think he was just trying to set fires? It's unclear. It's very actually very unclear with Dinsdale but he did almost he mostly

focused on setting fires when people were at home so I think he loved the fires and I think he also liked the fact that people died in the fires. But it's interesting because they all, every one of them have said vaguely the same thing that the impulse, they swear that the impulse to start the fire has nothing to do with the outcome of the fire. They're all just like, I just set fires. Yeah, but Dinsdale also tended to set fires at homes You know people are home and specifically families. I just cuz it's funny here. I'm everybody screaming and so I understand that I get that Like the idea of watching a whole neighborhood burn. It's I get it if you know everyone's home though. That is that is murder

Yeah, that's definitely murder and as we'll go through it. There's definitely there's absolute definite murders here, okay As we'll go through it, there's definite, there's absolute definite murders here. Okay, good. Yeah, so the ambiguity will disappear soon enough. Great. No child porn in this one? No. Now, a few months after his first fatal fire, Peter went out one night and spent the evening walking around with a can of his favorite accelerant, paraffin oil, which is a highly

flammable substance used in cosmetics See like some pyromaniacs Peter had a physical feeling Associated with his urges and he claimed that when his fingers began to tingle That was his sign that the location he'd come upon was the one were setting a fire would give him the most pleasure sign diabetes Tingle in fingers. I'm gonna be careful take on toes I feel like also just lose the fingers if you just do so you're saying if you would have cut off all his fingers He wouldn't be setting any more fire. Wait a second. Does this come from the hand?

The bad hand I think it just was all of his fingers But what if all of this wasn't up and he didn't have a bad hand is just that his arm was like he had that Hold it evil Where it all started it's the bad hand well it definitely explains the tingles Every time he went to the hand it was like shut another fuck shut another fire Don't you want to shit another fire? So you believe that his hand was possessed? Yeah? Natalie she gets really concerned Don't you want to shake another fire? So you believe that his hand was possessed? Yeah! Do you ever do that? I do that with Natalie, she gets really concerned.

I've been doing this kind of funny thing where sometimes if I say something really upsetting, she gets upset in the car if I say like an angry thing. So what I've been doing is I say it through my hand instead of saying it out loud, and then it kind of cuts some of the heat. Oh, you mean when you're yelling at like other drivers? Yeah, yeah. Natalie says she's super scared Literally do it cuz I think it's funny and she like, you know, it makes it more real

Like a lot of intention behind it she said something like legitimately like please stop with the hand talking and I was just like But why it's funny and she's like, I just feel like you're you're gonna escape into it It's like but why it's funny and she's like I just feel like you're you're gonna escape into it. Yeah By the way looking this up right now paraffin oil is only 1699 a gallon on Amazon Really not bad at all. You can start your pyromaniac journey in 48 hours. Thanks to Jeff Bezos And this wonderful world we live in today. It's a great big beautiful tomorrow. Now, as it happened on the night of his second murder by fire, Peter's preteen fingers began to tingle as he walked by the house of a 72-year-old hermit with gangrenous legs named Arthur Smith,

who had no relation whatsoever to Peter Dinsdale. Are we sure that's not Smythe? I think it's Smith. It's British Smith. Yeah, British Smith. Yeah, it's the old British spelling. Not smelling, spelling. Old British smelling is an entirely different show. Man, it was old British smelling.

Who's the gangrene? Yep. Even so, Dinsdale climbed in through the window, covered the room where Arthur was sleeping in paraffin oil and Set the old man on fire before leaving through the front door the investigation However deemed a faulty oil heater as the cause of the fatal fire About two weeks after the Smith fire Peter broke into the home of a man named David Brewer and lit his house on fire while Brewer

was in the bathroom. Oh no, not while- don't kill me while I'm taking this shit. Yeah. What would you prefer? On my knees with a gun in my mouth, cause I've led the revolution to this point. That sounds nice. That's not gonna happen though. No.

No, it's gonna be diabetes. When Brewer returned to his living room, the flames were already large enough to catch his clothes on fire. He ran outside screaming and subsequently died from his burns, but the fire was blamed on Brewer drying his clothes too close to the fireplace. Had to have been. In this case, however, Brewer and Dinsdale did have a connection. Prior to the fire, Dinsdale, who was just 13 at the time, he had put himself in the middle of an argument between Brewer and a neighborhood boy who kept pet pigeons. For some reason, Peter offered to kill the boy's pigeons, by supposed to end the argument.

But for this comment, Brewer threatened to punch Dinsdale if he did so. A couple of days later, Dinsdale set the fire that killed Brewer, then strangled the boys' pigeons to death a couple of weeks after that. Finally, a pyromaniac I don't relate to. Yeah. Hahaha. Pigeons gotta be, I mean like, I guess they're easy to kill, but it's gotta be a rough afternoon. Yeah, just killing a bunch of pigeons, strangling the pigeons, yeah.

No, it's gonna be a rough afternoon. He's a bad guy. They should have sick Mike Tyson on this motherfucker. Oh wow, it would have... If Mike Tyson punched a little British boy, he'd explode. Like, his skin would just separate from his bones. Just separate from his bones. Laughter Now Peter Dinsdale settled down on killing people with fire for a while after the Brewer murder.

But after staying quiet for a year, Dinsdale's fingers began tingling as he walked by the home of an 82 year old widow named Elizabeth Rochaar. Peter later admitted that he'd snuck into the widow's house through the cat door and set the old lady's bed on fire while she was sleeping, causing eventual death by smoke inhalation. Upon discovering that the fire started in the bed, though, investigators chalked up the incident to the widow falling asleep while smoking, despite the fact that the widow's family told them that the widow did not smoke. Yeah, but she's smoking now, right? I'm sorry, I'm sorry everybody.

Firefighter humor! It just got him. But since the widow wasn't important enough, no further investigation was done, and Peter was free to continue killing. Now like a lot of killers, Dinsdale started off strong, but tried to tamp

down his urges after the initial spree. Two and a half years went by without a fatal house fire started by Dinsdale, but eventually the desire won out. On June 3rd, 1976, Peter, now age 16, snuck into a house where an old lady was babysitting her grandchildren. The woman had just put her infant grandson to bed upstairs when Peter doused the cupboard under the stairs with paraffin oil and set it on fire. The baby was trapped and died in the flames. Now Peter set another fire about six months later that killed another baby, but his most murderous fire came just three days after the murder of that second baby when Dinsdale set fire to a retirement home.

Peter later said that he was riding his bike around Hull while carrying a bottle of paraffin oil, looking specifically for a large house to burn. He came across Winsley Lodge, the retirement home, where he broke a window, poured oil on the floor, set it on fire, and rode away. Eleven old men burned to death in this fire, but again, arson was not suspected. Instead, the fire was blamed on a plumber who was working with a blowtorch in the boiler room. This fire, however, is the one that Dinsdale may have just confessed to without actually doing it, as his disabled arm would have made carrying a bottle of paraffin oil while riding

his bike quite difficult. But for me, that's a little infantilizing, because disabled people find ways to make it work every single day. Yeah, backpack. Yeah. Yeah, he's sent multiple, he's done many fires. Many, many fires. So he has, and he's traveled on his bike before

Yes, no way that that's the one that he just couldn't do also You see someone riding around the bike with a big gallon of oil ask him some questions Stop covering my grandmother in oil Unless you're gonna fuck the hell out of her and honestly I hope that you do because she deserves that grandma hasn't been lubed up She hasn't had one of those big booty like lube days in a long time. So please have your way with her Keep going with this. I'm just saying this sometimes you gotta get especially the wider the butt the more oil you slap on there And you're slapping it back and forth like blue puddles oil on there. Mm-hmm. It's fun to do

Is paraffin oil a good lubricant? Only if you're looking to set her on fire afterwards and I'm not. I'm looking to move on. Yeah. You're just looking to make sure that your grandmother is sexually satisfied. All I want is for some man to dig up my grandmother and have sex with her bones so that maybe that cunt could smile. Marcus? From there, Dinsdale set fire after fire, burning a swath of murderous destruction across the Yorkshire town of Hull. The targets were chosen randomly, anytime Peter got the tingling in his fingers. And all the fires were blamed on anything but arson.

While he certainly started many fires by breaking into homes, Dinsdale also took to squirting paraffin oil through the mail slots before shoving in pieces of paper that he'd lit on fire to ignite the flame. In one case, a mail slot fire resulted in an explosion that killed four people a mother and her three children But the fire was blamed on the kids playing with the container of lighter fluid that had been on a shelf near the front door These fucking a whole cops suck. Yeah, like I mean I count what it's like Oh, we just live in the most flammable town ever There was at one point there was like four within like two months.

Yeah. Where like all these people were dying in these horrible fires and it's like well yeah. They can't figure it out. It's hard to figure out of arson and also I think it just comes to truly once you if you look too hard and I found out you missed this throughout all of these crimes then you are even more fucked as a police officer So they legitimately just decided to kind of be like maybe this will end Yeah, I feel like there's a little bit of like, you know, these firebugs they go in and out They kill 20 30 people and then they stop this kid's like one of the most prolific serial killers We've ever covered right? This man's like a terrorist. Yeah, he's he's up there

He's actually one of the most prolific killers in British history crazy crazy and did it by and I honestly can see why Pyromania works for people that have these issues and where the weight works for like people that have this style of personality disorders where they are legitimately like a small little action leads to a lot of attention And the first time arson was ever suspected in a fire started by Peter Dinsdale was when he burned down his 10th house by again using the mail slot This fire resulted in the deaths of three young siblings by the surname of Hasty, and all of them took about two weeks in the burn unit to die.

But because the Hasty fire was a lot more chaotic and couldn't be blamed on anything else other than arson, a detective superintendent named Ronald Sager decided that a full investigation was finally warranted. Upon arriving at the scene, DS Sager noticed matches near the front door's mail slot, and he smelled the distinctive scent of paraffin oil. Later, it was discovered that Dinsdale had poured several liters of paraffin oil throughout the hasty house,

and it started the fire through the mail slot. You could say that it was hastily set. Correct! You would be correct! You would be very, very correct in that. The lightbulb moment, however, came when Sager discovered upon questioning neighbors that the Hasties were not a well-liked family. The father, Tommy Hasty, was a career petty criminal, and the eldest hasty boy, one of

the victims in the fire, fifteen years old old he had also begun a life of crime almost worse though were the two youngest hasty siblings aged 12 and 8 who were actually kind of little terrorists in the neighborhood true agents of chaos it's throw rocks at old people they'd piss through mail slots they They shit on doorsteps They would rob local children of their pocket money. I say set them on fire The Lerkin is it's you know, this is beyond layer like I don't know cuz the Lerkin that's Australian Lerkin's to me seem a little more like Lerkin's don't throw rocks at old ladies A Lerkin's heart still sings a song of freedom. Yeah.

Isn't it crazy though? It kills a bunch of nice people. They don't investigate it, but he kills three assholes. And they're like, I think this is murder. Yeah, because he started to see like, oh, there's motive here. Like everyone hated the hasty family. DS Seger couldn't find anyone in the neighborhood that didn't have at least like some sort of grudge against at least one member of the family. The mother had even received a threatening letter about a month

before the fire written on a piece of cardboard cut from a cereal box. It read quote, a family of fucking rubbish we all hate you you don't live on an island Devil's Island but I'm not kidding but I promised you a bomb and by hell I'm not kidding. So why don't you just flip what you've got the chance? We can't get you out normally then we'll bastard well bomb you out and it's too good for you But when they analyzed the handwriting in the note, it was sent by a little old lady who lived up the street Yeah, I did this a bunch. This ain't the first time. I'm going out and I'm caught locking. She harassed me by cardboard.

You know, it's fucking real. You mean it when you rip open a cereal box and you just start moving at the inside of it. You fucking ruckus. You're fucking fucking rubbish. And I know all of our Yorkshire listeners right now are just saying, yep, that's Yorkshire. No, it's my grandmother. This woman, like everyone else, hated the Hasty family, and had shoved the letter into their mailbox herself to save the cost of a stamp. Yeah, I wrote it. Yeah, I did it.

But if all were gonna kid him, I'll do it with a gun. Hahaha! Since Arson was suspected, and since the Hasty family were such characters, their triple funeral was a mass media event. In front of the cameras, their mother addressed the neighborhood and shouted, quote, It was one of you bastards! One of you in this street is the murderer! The 70s in England.

But the road to Peter Dinsdale getting caught for the crime is a bit of a winding one and damn near accidental. See, after six months with no leads, police received an anonymous tip from a man who said he saw three young guys running near the hasty home on the night of the fire. The young men had jumped into a distinctive car, a Rover 2000, which was identified as being similar to a car that was often seen in the part of Hull where the male sex workers plied their trade. As it turned out, Peter Dinsdale had decided to make a little money by giving hand jobs,

and he just happened to be in the area when DS Sager decided to round up all the male sex workers to see what he could see. By this point, however, Peter Dinsdale was no longer going by his given name. His mother had married a man with the surname of Lee, and since Peter was a big fan of Bruce Lee, he legally changed his name to Bruce George Peter Lee. He was now asking people to call him by his legal name, which was Bruce Lee. British! That's the difference. Don't confuse me with the real Bruce Lee, because he's a movie actor. Me, I'm just a British boy. That's why my full name is Bruce John George Ringo Peter Lee Smyth.

If you really loved Bruce Lee, it would have became water, not fire. It's a good point. It's a good joke. It's a good Bruce Lee joke. Yeah. And I also think that this points towards Peter Dinsdale being actually a little more clever than he let on because it's Difficult to legally change your name. Yeah, it's a pain in your ass. It's so difficult. Yeah Now Diaz Sager was pretty desperate by this point. I don't know I've met a lot of dumbass people with like, you know vanity plates and stuff Like it's super easy to get sometimes. Yeah, that's that. It's what you put your energy towards. I guess so.

Now, Diaz Sager was pretty desperate by this point. So his plan was to just bring a bunch of male sex workers and gay kids down to the station where he'd accuse them of being the arsonist in the hopes that one might confess or give information. Really, you just throw it. It's like it's like it's horrible. It's just thrown out. See what they do. Some will say something. I's like it's fucking it's horrible. Just throwing it. I was like see what they do Try to get out of here

Well, I mean DS Sager didn't even think that Peter Dinsdale aka Bruce Lee. Hi y'all Was even a suspect when he brought him in but when DS Sager accused Dinsdale of being the arsonist just to see what would happen, Dinsdale looked at Sager and simply told him, didn't mean to kill anybody. Peter went on to say that he had set the fire to get back at the eldest hasty son because he owed Peter money for a hand job. That's why man, you always fucking get that money before they come. Yeah, damn, get the money up front. Up front.

Yeah. Peter also said he had a crush on the eldest hasty sister and had been rejected, while all the hasty children had mocked Peter for being educationally subnormal, as the British put it. Do you think that she rejected him because he was jerking off her brother? I just feel like things are getting complicated. Jerking off the brother, that was a secret thing. That was a job.

That was his job. That's just what he does for a living as a child. Alright, he's a lover of women. And fire. Now Peter was sticking to the story that he was only trying to scare the hasties. But when the news broke of Dinsdale's arrest, a local came forward and said she recognized Peter as the teenager who started a fire at her house by squirting paraffin oil through her mail slot.

She actually survived. She was pregnant at the time. Sounds like a British euphemism Yeah, that's just a big one. It's the big knob. Cover it in oil! That's what I imagined when you were covering the grandma's butt with oil. I understand. I also gotta say, British pornography is horrible. About British pornography is that I'm actually very, you know, I'm fine with it, whatever. It's just the Oh, and I'm giving to you love. It's the British guys go, oh, oh guys go oh oh oh now we're getting in there

now we're getting in the gizzards. Oh, comments completion. Now I'm stabbing your muffins. It's also business like. Yeah, yeah, very good then. All right, well we're done every guy's named Tony yes me Tony Gribbins I'm all empty now bugger off I gotta have my gravy you're nothing but

fruit and cake well confronted with the accusation that he had squirted paraffin oil through a woman's mail slot, Peter confessed, saying he did it because someone he knew didn't like this woman. And when Diaz Sager pressed Peter further, the floodgates opened and Peter eventually confessed to 30 fires that killed 26 people. Now Diaz-Segur was a little skeptical because most cops are skeptical when someone confesses to the murders of over two dozen people, especially when those murders had never been investigated as murders.

So Diaz-Segur took Dinsdale out on a tour of Hull. Diaz-Segur was quite surprised when Dinsdale was able to direct the car to each and every fire he started. And I find it really interesting again because they all say they black out, they don't remember, and it's so impulsive. It's this truly impulsive thing, but it's each one's, I mean, pardon the pun, but it's seared into their memory. Yeah. This really would have been a great finale for the British office. It just set the paper mill on fire. It's really going up, right? Yeah, really going.

Well, as it would later come out, quite a few locals knew that Peter Dinsdale had a habit of starting fires, but their hatred and fear towards the police outweighed their sense of civic duty, and they therefore never reported him until after he was arrested. Once Peter was put on trial, he pled not guilty to 26 counts of murder, but guilty to 26 counts of manslaughter on grounds of diminished responsibility. This made Peter Dinsdale, AKA Bruce Lee, one of the most prolific murderers in British history,

but he was soon overshadowed by another Yorkshire monster. God damn it! Right around the time Peter Dinsdale put in his plea, another Peter, Peter Sutcliffe, was arrested for the infamous and far more salacious Yorkshire Ripper murders, which pushed Peter Dinsdale off the front page. Dinsdale had double the numbers.

He did have double the numbers, but... It wasn't as flashy. That's the thing. His victims were really depressing. He killed a bunch of old ladies and babies and families and old men. He set them on fire. He set them on fire. And it's really disturbing and weird.

But with Peter Sutcliffe, you know, he killed mostly, he killed women. Yeah, sex workers. He killed a lot of sex workers. He killed a couple of like teenagers that weren't sex workers. But for the most part, yeah, people can, people are much more comfortable reading about murders when the victims are people they can't imagine, when they can't picture them, when they can say even subconsciously they deserved it. Dinsdale was a sex worker.

You know what he was. He was. Hi, he's trying to do it all. I'm a sex player. I had a good time. Yeah, I was sex player Now there was some suspicion around Peter Densdale's actual guilt here as some believed that his Intellectual and physical disabilities would have made it impossible for him to be as cat-like as he claimed to be During some of these murders. I however think that Densdale like certain serial killers was just very good at exactly one thing Which was starting fatal house fires that didn't look exactly like arson. It doesn't take quite a lot. Honestly. It doesn't take that much planning

It's mostly just well these days. It's far. I mean in the 70s. It was pretty easy these days It's very very difficult. It's very very difficult Yeah, I mean we fear it like we knew who started like how the Palisades fire started before the Palisades fire was even out. Oh yeah, it's entirely different. It's just that it's still just not that difficult to set fire to something. And it's because the insurance companies. Yeah, they really couldn't figure out how the fires get started. To make sure that they don't pay people.

They really get to the bottom. Additionally, when DS Sager was criticized in the media for allegedly manipulating Peter's confessions to fit unsolved arson cases, Sager sued for libel and was able to prove in court that he did nothing of the sort and therefore won his case. As a result, Peter Dinsdale, aka Bruce Lee, was ultimately put in a mental hospital indefinitely. Since the mid-80s, however, Dinsdale has been declaring that he is totally innocent of all arsons and all murders, but during correspondence with D.S. Sager after his incarceration, Dinsdale made a sinister statement. He said, quote,

My master is fire. I am devoted to fire, and I despise people So while Peter Dinsdale may not have committed all of the murders to which he confessed It seems fairly certain that he was still one of the most dangerous teenage pyromaniacs to ever exist and therefore One of the most dangerous teenagers in British history and that's saying something that really is British teenagers are awful scared of them Terrified nothing almost you know It's even scarier was when we were Dublin and remember when Edwin Marcus and I walked on the street and all these other these Young boys started going Yankee

Yankee like following us down the street so fright you got to start jerking off Adam next time Talk their language Amazing episode yeah, that's yeah, that's I mean that's our short study on pyromaniacs We've actually we're actually working on an episode in which we're gonna cover a single pyromaniac in Detail a really insane guy, but yeah, this is just a nice little nice little appetizer for you So there's like a worse one. Yes, there's the worst one of all that's yeah. Well, I don't know Peter Dinsdale 26 I think yeah I know I believe in yeah Paul Keller

They already don't know exactly how many lives were not were attached to him like how many people he accidentally killed down And so, you know, we never really know and then who knows the really most Prolific arsonist might be out there. He might not have even gotten arrested. Is this a call to action? And then if he isn't out there, that means that slot isn't taken yet. We're looking at you, teenagers. Because you need to make the world the world you want to be in. No, you don't.

You really don't. You really don't. There doesn't need to be, no, no, absolutely not. No, you cannot. All you have to do is $60.99 a gallon for paraffin oil, thanks to Jeff Bezos. Nope, nope, nope, not, not, not, not, not encouraging pyromaniac in any way whatsoever.

I'm just encouraging people to have ambition. Ambition is fine. Yes. Reach for the stars because sometimes if you miss, you set fire to a bunch of old people. We all know that stars are made of fire. And we brought it all back around. Patreon.com slash Last Podcasts and The Left is where you can see video episodes of every single podcast we do.

You can also watch side stories for free on YouTube. And while you're on the Patreon, you can also catch the last stream on the left every single Tuesday live at 6pm PSD 9pm ESD. And you can interact with us on the chat and you can see a lot of shit that we're not allowed to put on YouTube you can also follow us on the socials at LP on the left tick tock and Instagram And come see us on tour. That's right. Detroit is our next one That's gonna be on April 18th on in at the Masonic if you be unbelievable, dude And you haven't been there yet

I believe it's one of my favorite venues in the country Masonic is insane. It's cool to be it's cool to just be in the building. The stage is awesome The rooms great and Detroit is fucking in the Detroit fans are fucking insane. I bet yes Yes, you're gonna we're gonna have a fucking blast. I'm very excited to be in Detroit. I will say this time though, if you do take acid before the Detroit show, like the guy last time did, remember that there are other people in the room with you and that you are not listening to the podcast

alone in your house. And I know that we're there jiggling in front of you. Just remember that when you're on acid, it's not just you. Yeah, yeah. And so don't try to start having a conversation with Henry in the middle of the show. I think it's one of the- it's a good advice in general is every time you take a hallucinogen and you start to flip out, just remind yourself, I'm on acid. Yeah.

Sina actually- I'll always remember that lesson. Sina taught me that where it's like, that's how you avoid all freak outs is just remember I have chosen this I'm on a drug. It will end. Yeah, it might end in 13 hours There's always drinking yourself to sleep So remember that we also got a little tip from Henry's brows We also got a whole bunch new dates on the website. So make sure you check that out We're booked for the rest of the year come check us out on tour I guess on the left comm check it out. They'd come see if we're coming to a town near you or your town

Or not. Yeah, maybe not fucking get in a car. All right, you lazy piece of shit Fucking get on a plane. plane yes statistically most people listening were not coming to your town yes but you can come at any point whatever town we're gonna come in on on in about hells it no game hell Arthur Brown I want you to burn! D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d- Podcast on the left and Spring Hill Jack coffee or rising from the rubble with the new brew Butterfly dudes blue-eye blend Nothing to do with any moth based entity. Don't even think about it. This is a butterfly, dude Don't mind the blue eyes. He's just Caucasian

Our new proprietary roast might seem eerily similar, but don't let your tongue deceive you. It's a Butterfly Dude Roast. This is the Butterfly Dude's Blue-Eye Blend. Entirely delicious, and not just the same beans. Butterfly Dude's Blue-Eye Blend, from the cocoon to your room.