Let's Go To Court! - 100: Can we get a re-do??

Episode Date: December 18, 2019

Can you believe it? It’s our 100th episode! Holy sexy times! Thank you to everyone who joined us on this perilous journey. We hope you’ll stay with us for many episodes to come. If you don’t, we’ll send a Bob Moss after you. Or maybe a juvenile bigfoot.  In honor of our 100th episode, we are re-doing our very cringe-y first episode! Note: We’re not re-releasing the first episode. We’re completely redoing it. So sit back, relax, and let us tell you for a second time about the crimes that got us interested in lawsuits.  Kristin starts us off with the story of Robert Courtney, a Kansas City pharmacist who was caught diluting cancer drugs. Over the course of several years, Robert diluted everything from chemotherapy drugs to fertility treatments. His horrific crimes affected an estimated 4,200 patients.  Then Brandi tells us about the Tate-LaBianca murders, also known as the Manson Family murders. In the summer of 1969, members of Charles Manson’s cult brutally murdered seven people. They killed five people one night, and two more the next. The crimes were as senseless as they were shocking. And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: “The Toxic Pharmacist,” New York Times Magazine “Jury Awards 2.2B in Courtney Case,” Kansas City Business Journal “Deadly Rx for Greed,” American Greed  “Pharmacist Robert Courtney Admits He Diluted Drugs,” Kansas City Star “Prosecutors Say Greed Drove Pharmacist to Dilute Drugs,” The New York Times “Courtney’s Wife Pleads Guilty to Making False Statement,” Kansas City Business Journal “Pharmacist’s Wife to Give Money to Victim Fund,” Southeast Missourian In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Charles Manson and the Manson Family” by Marilyn Bardsley, The Crime Library “Charles Manson Trial” Famous-Trials.com “Helter Skelter” by Vincent Bugliosi “Tate-LaBianca Murders” wikipedia.org

One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts. I'm Kristen Caruso. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court. On this episode, I'll talk about a terrible pharmacist. And I'll be talking about the Tate-LaBianca murders.

Hmm, who did that? Hmm. Okay. Okay. What the hell are we doing? Yeah. Episode 100! Woohoo! So we are, in light of our 100th episode, Okay. Okay. What the hell are we doing? Yeah. Episode 100. Woo!

So we are, in light of our 100th episode, we are redoing our first episode. Yes. Because, oh my gosh, both of us hear that episode now and we're like, oh, the things we would do differently. Have you listened to it lately? No. I listened to it this week. You did?

Yeah, in preparation for this. Oh. I got to sit. I used preparation H instead. Okay. See, this is terrible. Have we really improved? That's the question to ask.

Obviously not. No, I listened to it. I mean, it's a little cringe. But it's not bad. It's not terrible. But I would have covered my case very differently. And I did. I'm doing it totally differently today. Mine's pretty much the same old thing. Well, good. I'm glad. And I did. I'm doing it totally differently today.

Mine's pretty much the same old thing. Well, good. I'm glad. Because I did a great job. You did so well. Oh, my gosh. It was amazing. Do you remember that award we won for our first episode?

Yes. I have to talk about something before we get into episode 100. OK. I have not been able to stop thinking about your case that you did last week. And I went down a rabbit hole this week. You're kidding me. No. Okay. So you did Jesse Costello. Yes. She had the affair with Ed McMahon. Yeah. And so I started looking up Ed McMahon because I was like, I wonder if he's any relation to the Ed McMahon. Yeah. So I tried to make him related. So he's not, unfortunately. But when I looked up Ed McMahon, Ed McMahon is actually Ed McMahon Jr.

Oh, my God. The Ed McMahon. So for a second there, you were like, yeah, yeah. And he was born in 1923, which would be like. It would add up. The perfect timing. And he grew up in Massachusetts. You, I cannot imagine how thrilled you must have been for that brief period where you're like, I got it.

But no, it's not him. I'm sorry, Brandi. I was so disappointed. Sorry for your loss. And I know so much about Ed McMahon now. Should we talk about how amazing it is to be doing our 100th episode? Yes. Tell the people, Kristen.

I don't even know. It's just, this has been so fun. Oh, so fun. We legitimately have the best time doing this. And it's funny because like I've had people say stuff like, well, you know, it sounds like you guys put in a lot of work and it is a lot of work. But it has always been such a blast. Yeah. Including researching the cases because we're both total weirdos. Exactly.

Exactly. I went and researched Ed McMahon after last week's episode because I needed to know more. But, you know, I'm so glad we started, and I'm so glad we kept with it. And that we're quitting here at episode 100. Goodbye, world. No, it's been amazing. And the fact that, like, from where where we started episode one to where we are now with the patreon and all our supporters it's just amazing yeah it really is we just i i know that i say it every week and kristin makes fun of me but i cannot tell you enough how much we appreciate

your support yeah it just means the world to us i remember when we first started out and you remember like we somehow figured out i And you remember, like, we somehow figured out, I think it was through a bitly link that like someone in France had like clicked on our first episode and was like, Oh my god, France. That's so exciting. Yeah. And then I was like, Oh my gosh, I wonder if we can figure out like how many people are listening. And so I started to kind of try to figure it out. And then it turns out that like there was so little data because there were so few people listening that itunes was like we can't give you any information because that would be being like well steve you know it'd be like violating privacy and that was a very humbling moment it was and here we are today and it's it's really

exciting it's so exciting we know we're not huge but uh you make us feel huge oh my god i spat everywhere thanks for making us feel huge brandy yeah tell me about charles manson i'm not going to because it's episode 100, you asshole. What? It's an even-numbered episode. What? No, I thought we were redoing our first one. Well, it's fine. I can go first if you want me to. But by our

typical standard, you would go first. Oh, is it typical that we redo an episode? God damn it. We are quitting. Fine. Fine. I'm totally not mentally prepared for this at all, but here I go. I'll go first if you want me to. No. Fine. Fine. I'm totally not mentally prepared for this at all. But here I go. I'll go first if you want me to.

No. No. Okay. Well, I get it. Robert Courtney. Folks, I am getting over my cold. I am doing much better. And I am getting over getting my wisdom teeth pulled out of my head.

It kind of sucks. Yeah, I had mine done like, you know. Like a normal person when you were a teenager? Yeah, when I was 15 or 16. Were you that young? Yeah. Oh, my God. I was 16 because I worked at Walgreens, so I would have been 16.

Yeah. Well, good for you. Thank you. I got it done at the tender age of 34. All right. You ready to hear about a terrible man? I am. A terrible local man. Yes. No. Okay. Here we go. Here we go. Part of the charm. Robert Courtney was born in 19522 in hayes kansas i've heard of it this is the part where i really dropped the ball he was born to a woman great i'm sure she had a name

and a man and a man whose name was robert lee courtney oh yeah one of those robert lee was a preacher and he says that robert was an ideal son what the fuck does that mean well i very generous use of the word ideal when the shit hit the fan and i poor robert lee i think when the shit hit the fan much later he was really shocked as a lot of people were and one of the things he said to a reporter was like he was an ideal son okay all right yeah like we never would have seen this coming yeah i got you no not like knowing what i know now i still think he was a great guy robert played the trombone in high school and as far as personalities go this dude was a lot of articles describe him as kind of vanilla but they also kind of mentioned that he struck people as a little odd and i've got to say one of the benefits to coming

back and redoing an old episode that took place in kansas city is like people have said stuff we have a friend mutual friend it's and went to pharmacy school with robert courtney and was like yeah everyone thought he was a total weirdo he was very odd so he's like this super stern very serious yeah straight laced guy okay tons of fun eventually he went to the university of missouri kansas City for pharmacy school. Excellent. What could go wrong? I think for a moment we should acknowledge that we're sitting in a brand new setup for

our 100th episode. This feels so weird. We're really far away from each other. The intimacy is gone. It is gone. No, I mean, like. We've lost that love and feeling. Whoa, that love and feeling.

For our first episode, we were like on top of each other yeah and we had one microphone on a tv tray and we didn't even have laptops we just had pieces of paper our cases were printed out on pieces of paper and here's the thing when i listened back to that you can hear the paper you can hear the paper and also I did this weird thing where I would clap when I talked. Like, for emphasis, I'd be like, and then, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then. I remember, like, it's funny the things you forget. I remember trying to edit that episode and being like, why the hell did I clap so much? I clapped a ton!

Anyway. Anyway, so Norm put us in a new setup today for better audio quality and I hate it. I hope you guys appreciate it because we hate it. That's right.

It's like we're in separate play plans now. Play plans? I'm sorry. I think the wisdom teeth thing. Yeah. My mouth's a little funky. Yeah.

I can smell it from here. I'm sorry. I'm just kidding. You guys, I confess to Brandy that I feel like I can't brush my teeth as well. And now she's taking advantage of my insecurities. Anyway, anyway, back to Robert Courtney. I just clapped. Why are you clapping? He graduated from pharmacy school in 1975 and began

working. And Robert kind of kicked ass as a pharmacist. He began working in Research Medical Tower Pharmacy in Kansas City. And eventually, in 1986, he had the opportunity to buy that pharmacy. And he did. He was the owner of the pharmacy. And boy, oh boy, was it awesome. Way before anyone else was doing it, Robert specialized in mixing intravenous drugs. Did I say that right?

I think you had an extra syllable. No, you guys get it. So he was one of the first pharmacists in Kansas City to give cancer meds in these, like, pre-mixed bags. Doctors loved him for it. Yeah. It made their lives and their staff's lives so much easier. However. Was it great for everyone? We'll see. Robert had a

nice middle class existence. He owned his pharmacy. He was a bit of an innovator in the field. He had a wife and two daughters. He was very involved in his church, Northland Cathedral. In 1990, he made $48,000. Okay. Adjusted for inflation. About $95,000. Yeah. Pretty good. Not bad. God, I really can't talk today.

Did you hear that? Did you hear that pretty good? It was pretty good. Robert was like a cardboard cutout of a suburban dad. The dude was polite, a little on the serious side, but, you know, people liked him. He treated all of his customers with a great deal of respect. A lot of them described him as very gentlemanly. He always had his hair neatly trimmed.

He was one of those. And what? I like neatly trimmed hair. I know you do. You're not going to like this guy. No, I already know I'm not going to like this guy. And he always dressed very professionally, too. But in the early 90s, things started to fall apart.

Robert got divorced, but retained custody of his girls. And he started talking to this retired pharmaceutical sales rep. The rep told him, hey, you can buy these drugs from me for cash. What you do with them is up to you. Shady. Yeah, it doesn't sound great, does it? Doesn't sound good at all. Sounds super illegal, right?

Yep. So, of course, Robert was like, yes, sure. Robert paid the rep cash for drugs and then sold them at his pharmacy at a higher price. It was just a nice little side hustle, Brandy. It was also completely illegal. Yeah. In the meantime, you know, Robert had just divorced his wife. He started to lose some weight.

He was feeling, he was feeling real. Was he going to the gym? I don't know how he did it exactly, but just know that he was very proud of how he was looking at this point. Oh, good. Dropped the LBs. He was as svelte as he could be. So he was like, I know what I want now. A hot young wife.

Darn right. A PYT. A PYT for the young thing. So he reached out to this woman whom he'd known since childhood. We're going to call her Betty. She spoke to the New York Times Magazine on the condition of anonymity. So we'll just go with that. Betty and Robert had known each other for forever.

But now she was living in Detroit. She was a single mom. But she would come to Kansas City to visit Robert. And he would pull out all the stops. He was like, hey, do you want to drive my ex-wife's Jaguar? Go ahead. He'd hand her the keys. And let's go on a date in a horse-drawn carriage, which I know how that sounds, but on the plaza at Christmas time, we all, yeah, there's a horse-drawn carriage. Like, so it's not like, I don't know, it's a thing that everyone's done.

It's a thing that people do. And they're horrible to the horses. Just FYI. Are they really? Yeah. What do they do to them? There's all these petitions to get it stopped because it's just really hard on the horses. And they.

I mean, it does seem, cause it's very busy. Yeah. Yeah. I've never been on one because, well, only recently is it because of the, how. I was going to say I went as a kid. I've never been as a kid. I've never been on one, but I always wanted to go on one until I learned like what horrible conditions the horses are put through. And so then I was like, nope, I'm not going to go on one of those. How about for the holidays, we strap peanut to a sleigh.

Would that make you feel comfortable? No. No, to be hauled around by an old diabetic dog? No. It's okay. We won't do it. So life was grand. They were so in love. Then after two whole months of dating, Robert proposed. Great. That's all you need. Two months. Four carat diamond ring oh she said hell yes yeah of course she did and they immediately began making plans they were going to get married on valentine's day of 1991 so romantic how do you feel about a valentine's day wedding um i don't i don't know um valentine's day doesn't like i've never been that into valent Day, so meh. Yeah. It's kind of a made-up holiday. Ooh, hot takes with Brandy. This year I celebrated Valentine's Day by filing for divorce.

Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. Was it on Valentine's Day? Yeah, I filed for divorce on Valentine's Day. Well, yeah, okay, I'm sorry. Okay. Look where I am now, Kristen. Damn right. Doing A-okay.

So they've got these plans to get married on Valentine's Day, but there was a problem with that. What? Well, they'd have to wait like a couple months. And after Christmas, after Christmas. It wasn't soon enough? It wasn't soon enough. Well, imagine being a fucking psychopath and trying to hide the fact that you're a fucking psychopath from someone. You'd be like, yeah, we need to get married in 10 days from now. That's true. Because you can't let the psychopath show through until... You got them in the bag. In the body bag?

I'm sorry. I realized the second I said in the bag that that was the wrong thing to say. Okay. So Robert's like not wanting to wait. So after Christmas, he was like, hey, let's elope. So they did. Where'd they go? I don't know.

You don't know? All I know is it was a fucking bad call. Yeah. Turns out Robert Courtney was super fun to date. Like the best guy to date, terrible guy to marry. Oh no. He was obsessed with appearances, specifically her appearance. Of course. So, you know, he'd lost this weight and he was like, hey, if I've done this, you know,

you're not going to gain a pound. Oh, Lord. Yeah. When they were hanging around at home, he would get very upset if she dared to wear like sweatpants or some shit. So the rule was. No sweatpants? No.

At all times, Brandy, you had to be dressed perfectly. Nails had to be done. Hair had to be done. Okay. At all times. When I get home from work. Yes. Like the first thing I do is like throw my hair up in a ponytail because it's been down

in my face all day. I just want it out of my face. And then I put on my flannel pajama pants. Yeah. Who wears jeans in their own home? No one. I just like sprawl out on the couch. Just star fishing on the couch.

That's exactly right. So that would not have flown with Robert Courtney, ma'am. And I know you care what his opinion is. I wonder if David's opinions on that will change after we get married. Do you think after we get married, he'll be like, no more of this flannel pants and ponytails. Yep. He's just waiting. Seems just like him.

So, you know, everything had to be perfect. Looks wise. Yeah. And certain other things had to go. She drove a Pontiac Fiero. And Robert was not okay with that a bit. He said, as long as you're married to me, you'll drive a BMW. Oh.

Doesn't seem too bad. No. At one point, he was like, you know, I want you to go find a house for us to live in. And she was like, yeah, OK. So she went and she saw some houses she liked, but he hated them because they were never grand enough. Wow. Which was confusing because Robert Courtney was the king of mixed messages. One minute he'd be like, I'm the king of the world.

I've got more money than God here. Money, money, money, money. He'd be bragging about all the donations he made to his church, which I'm sorry, that's got to be a sin, right? Right. Talking about how they needed all these grand possessions, blah, blah, blah. But then the next minute he'd be like, oh, my parents are always hitting me up for money, which Betty later said, like, I never saw any evidence that his parents were actually

doing it. But it was something he said all the time. Yeah. At one point, I'm wondering if you remember this part from the episode. I think this is terrible. It's all terrible. But here we go. He came up with a way to save some money.

Do you remember? I do. Here was his idea. When they'd go out to a restaurant, he could order an entree. But she couldn't. She could just have some of the food off of his entree. Absolutely not. And that was his money saving scheme.

No. I have a theory on that. What? That was how he was going to ensure she stayed thin. It was less about money and more about control over her figure. I think it's control over everything. Well, yeah, it's definitely control in general. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, maybe. I just think he sounds like a world-class asshole. Yeah. A super douche. A super douche, if you will. Yeah. When did we introduce super douches?

I don't remember when super douche came in. So things went bad in this marriage very quickly and good for her for getting out when she did because she did not like the way he was treating her. At one point, she says that she witnessed him hit his daughter and she was just like, no, nope, I'm out. They had been married for four or five days. Holy shit. And she was like, peace out. I hate you. Oh, my gosh. A few months later, they got an old. Wow. So that had to be humiliating.

But don't worry. Robert learned his lesson. No, he married somebody else super quick right after that. This time she was younger and easier to control. Damn right. There we go. So the lesson was don't date someone your own age who's likely to call you out on your bullshit and actually know a thing or two about the world. So he starts dating

someone younger. And in 1994, he married his third wife, Laura. They eventually had twin boys together. And of course, he had her sign a prenup. Yes. Years went by, Brandy, and things were great. Our poor hero, Robert, had finally found love. And he was such a great guy because he was making bigger donations than ever before to his church. In fact, in 1999, he pledged a million dollars to the church's building fund. Great. And he just had a million dollars laying around, right? Well, you know, he was certainly bringing quite a bit in. Pharmacists are known

for being multimillionaires, so there's nothing sketchy going on here. I think pharmacists make good money. I don't know if they're known for being multimillionaires. That's weird. That's very odd, isn't it um things were obviously going great for him professionally he opened a second pharmacy in merriam kansas it was called okay so when i listened back to the first episode and i'm sorry guys because my my script really hasn't changed much but you were like oh my god yeah because i live in Merriam, Kansas. You ready? Yeah. 8901.

You weren't ready. I wasn't ready. I didn't think you were going to tell me the name of the pharmacy. It was called Courtney's Pharmacy. Oh, well, that's not helpful. No. West 74th Street? Yes.

Is it like a CVS now? I didn't bother Googling it. No, it's at the hospital. You ever been there? To the hospital? Yeah, that's where I was born. Yeah. Wow. So apparently. at the hospital you ever been there to the hospital yeah that's where i was born yeah wow so apparently oh i actually know exactly where this building is there's a lab in here that i

get my blood drawn at sometimes i have seen this pharmacy that is weird this is a medical building on the campus of shawnee mission medical center yes i have there is there's actually a lab in here that i go and get my blood drawn out for when they check my thyroid levels. Do you get your prescriptions filled? I do not. Okay. Where do you think I get my prescriptions filled, Kristen? Walgreens?

Obviously. You fucking love Walgreens. I drank the Kool-Aid when I was 16. I was going to say, like, I mean, the places I worked as a kid, like, limited to, I'm not going back there. TGI Fridays? No, thankGI Fridays, no thank you. No thank you. First of all, neither of those are around anymore.

TGI Fridays? There's no TGI Fridays anywhere here. Yeah, because I worked there and they had to shut down. Yeah, they were like, well, fuck, this one's going under. You're right, Limited 2. Yeah, they closed a long time ago. I think that's Justice now. I think they rebranded as Justice.

And I go there all the time. Yeah, I know. You have all those sweatpants and say justice across the butt and this shirt it's not supposed to be a belly shirt but it is i'm a size 14 and girls so i do want to say one thing about this pharmacy from what i've heard robert was never actually behind the counter there it was just you know he was just the douchebag collecting money. Okay, great. By the early 2000s, he owned $18.7 million in assets. Jeez.

By the 2000s? And then 90, he made $48,000? Mm-hmm. Wow. Something happened. It's quite the upward trajectory he was on. You think he went on like a Tony Robbins conference? That's exactly what it was. He did the yes man thing. The yes man thing. What's that? The fucking movie Yes Man. Oh God, that was a terrible movie. I know it was

a terrible movie, but he said yes to everything and look how well it worked out for him. Do you want to dilute cancer meds? Yes. Do you want to be a psychopath? Yes. Yeah. So, guys, this is basically a lesson for us all. If you dream it, you can do it. Oh, no. Oh, there's nothing wrong with being a pharmacist who's making millions.

That's totally normal. Ask any pharmacist you know. They're all billionaires. I don't think so. So, yeah, he's making great money uh one could say suspiciously great money yeah but things were getting kind of weird because in the late 90s robert courtney despite being this big time pharmacist was developing a terrible reputation with pharmaceutical sales reps one of the reasons that sales reps didn't like Robert Courtney was

because he was super cagey. And I don't know the ins and outs of that field, but my understanding is it would be pretty normal for them to ask him basic questions like, how many of this drug are you selling? You know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he wouldn't tell them. He didn't want to tell them any basic info. The pharmaceutical sales rep who disliked him the most was a man named Daryl Ashley. Daryl worked for Eli Lilly, and he'd known Robert Courtney for quite a while. And in 1998, Daryl somehow figured out that Robert Courtney was selling three times more chemotherapy medication to the doctors in the research medical tower than he was buying from Daryl Ashley.

Yeah, that's a problem. Yeah. How the hell would that be happening? I have a guess. This was obviously very strange. So Daryl alerted his employer and Eli Lilly launched an internal investigation into Robert Courtney. But don't worry.

Don't worry. The investigation turned up jack shit. Yeah. They found zero evidence that Robert Courtney was doing anything illegal, which I would love to know what the hell. What the investigation entailed? Yeah. What's your gut feeling on this?

Yeah. I think it's fine. Okay. Okay. Must be good. But Daryl was no dummy. In the spring of 2001, he was talking to a nurse in Research Medical Tower. You know, he was still feeling like something was up.

So he told her, hey, fun fact. Did you know that Robert Courtney sells three times more chemo drugs than he buys from wholesalers? And the nurse was like, ooh, shit. Yeah. So that nurse went to Dr. Verda Hunter. And the nurse said, hey, I don't know if this is true, but here's what Daryl Ashley just told me. And Verda freaked out. She was an oncologist. And by that point, she'd been using Robert Courtney as her office's pharmacist for years. Wow. And hearing this information made everything click into place. Verda had all these cancer

patients, obviously, who were going through chemo, but no one was improving. And a lot of the people, weirdly, were not having such a tough time with chemo. Yeah. Oh, let's just imagine like the false hope that that gives you. Exactly. Exactly. So they went into this in this episode of American Greed. And one woman who was getting her drugs from Robert Courtney said that after her fourth round of chemo, she felt good. She gets a fifth round. She gets a sixth round. She felt fine.

And just exactly like what you were saying, you're not you wouldn't be suspicious of that. You'd be like, oh my gosh. Yeah. Things are great. Look how, I must be getting better. I must be getting stronger. Yeah. Yeah.

Everyone else is losing their hair. Everyone else is saying they're miserable. I'm, I'm okay. Yeah. Another woman whose husband was getting his medication from Robert Courtney said that her husband didn't have any of the nasty side effects you're supposed to get with chemo. But then he went to another facility where they were doing like more experimental treatment. And then he went through like fucking real chemo. And then, you know, he lost his hair and all that stuff.

So Dr. Verda Hunter had all these patients who weren't experiencing the level of side effects that they should have experienced from chemo. weren't experiencing the level of side effects that they should have experienced from chemo. And then she had this nurse telling her this rumor about Robert Courtney selling a ton of chemo, but only buying a little bit. And Verda was like, I have to do something. Yeah. So she took one of the prescriptions that Robert had filled, and she took it to a lab, and she had them test the drugs. I love this woman. Yeah. When the results came back, they were alarming. The drugs had been diluted. So she called in the motherfucking FBI. Which we always get to this point in certain stories where they're like, and they called the FBI as if there's like a hotline.

A hotline to call in the FBI. I need more info. But anyway, all we get to know is that she called the FBI. She's like 1-800-FBI. Uh-huh. Hello. Something alarming has happened. So the funny thing is.

And then they came to Research Medical Tower and they just went in SWAT style and shot Robert Gordon. I wish they had. God. It's not funny. I'm sorry. He deserves it. Yeah.

I mean, he's a shit human being. Yeah. I'm trying to. He's just. Yeah. He's the worst yeah so the funny thing is that this crime was so horrifying and so like unheard of i mean until this point who would ever suspect a pharmacist of anything besides filling your prescription right that the fbi agents were like there's got to be a logical explanation for this and there was.

Robert Courtney was a shitbag who was diluting drugs. Yeah. So the FBI. I thought you were going to tell us a whole different explanation. No, they really thought there had to be some kind of mistake or, you know, just like they didn't want to jump to that conclusion that, oh, my God, he's taking advantage of the fact that these people are late stage cancer patients who have a chance of dying anyway. And he's diluting their drugs and, you know, making who knows how much.

So the FBI asked Verda to be part of a sting, which was kind of tough because obviously when she got those lab results back the first time, she was like, well, I'm not using Robert Courtney again. Right. So for the sting to work, she had to go back to him and be like, hey, buddy, I'm so sorry I quit you. That was really uncool. Can we put all that behind us? Can you give me some more of your shitty diluted drugs? Right.

And Robert was like, sure, no problem. I'm mad, but I forgive you. But I'm not. Turn your money down. Yeah. So he filled a bunch of prescriptions, which the FBI tested. And yeah, they were diluted, like big time diluted. On August 13th, 2001, law enforcement swarmed the pharmacy. Robert was super friendly and calm the whole time. They didn't like break windows and like, you know, like when they

swing in. I think that's only in movies. Damn. Do you want me to make it up? Yeah. Okay, they swung in and like, they knocked down all those shelves with all the drugs. Oh yeah, with all the pills on them. And they were like, who cares? They're useless drugs anyway. And people were like, oh!

Excellent. A lot of old ladies were harmed. Yeah. Several old ladies were harmed when the shelves fell down. Which you have to ask, why'd they do it that way? Couldn't they have just walked in? But no, Brandy had to have it this way. Had to have it this way.

Sorry, old ladies. The next day, he was charged with adulteration and misbranding medication. Yeah, you made that same face the last time I said adulteration. It sounds very weird. Yeah. Not cheating. Not the same as adultery. No.

Okay. Robert ended up- Did you look same as adultery. No. Okay. Robert ended up. Did you look up what adulteration is for this episode? No. Hang on. Is that when you like talk down to someone as if they're a child? The action of making something poorer in quality by the addition of another substance. Wow.

Maybe by episode 200, I will be looking up terms that I don't know before putting them into a script. How about that? Excellent. Is that too high a bar? No, I think that's just right where you want it to be. So Robert ended up turning himself in. I mean, turning himself in, they swarmed the pharmacy. So this is unbelievable to me, too.

But it seems like they swarmed the pharmacy and he's allowed to, like, go home for the day. Because, yeah, the next day he was charged. And the next day he... I know, I don't like it either. But before he turned himself in, he dropped off a bag of cash and 100 doses of Prozac for his wife. Excellent. Then he attempted to transfer her $5 million. And they froze his assets.

Okay. Interesting thing. The government did block that. Uh-huh. But $2 million of it somehow got to her before they could block yeah so they usually typically i think well i don't know that's still a lot to let through but typically they only hold a portion of the amount like on a large transaction you've been transferring millions of dollars no i had this happen on a much smaller amount of money oh that's right yeah yeah it was a whole thing i cried at the bank it was You want to talk about it?

No, Kristen, I don't. I'm not over it yet. Okay, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring up... No, I'm just kidding. I sold my car and like when I put my check in, it was a fucking cashier's check and they still held half of my money for like 10 days. Well, a cashier's check.

You can't trust those. That's as good as cash, Kristen. I know. I know. That's what's so funny about it. Like, give me my damn money. I know. And I had a whole plan worked out on getting a new car and it was just, oh, it all worked out in the end. Did you call anyone names? I didn't. I just kept saying, this is so frustrating over and over again. Brandy, you're so sweet.

Well, wasn't the poor girl the big spall? I know. I know. I know. Yeah. She tried to help me. She made some phone calls, but it's very frustrating. Do you understand how frustrating this is? I think I said that about five times. And did she say yes every single time? She said, I really do. Oh. I was like, I don't think you do. Oh, now I feel really bad. I don't think I said that. Okay. Yeah. You probably didn't. Knowing that. I think I was like holding don't think you do oh no i feel really bad i don't think i said that okay yeah you probably didn't knowing i think i was like holding back tears at that point yeah and then you didn't want to talk yeah i was like it's fine i'll figure it out so you had that cashier's check for like two million dollars yeah it was two million dollars but um robert courtney had one for five million dollars anyway i should mention okay so that money that did go through to laura it was

eventually put into a victim's fund so okay like yeah she didn't get to hold on to it yeah she shouldn't yeah do you think she knew though about the scheme yeah there's no evidence to support the idea that she did when she was a victim too okay i'm sorry i've been a real douchebag to victims lately. Like that case you did. I'm still conflicted. I know, but okay. I got to tell you the update on that thing. What's the update? Okay. So you're talking about the Kelsey Barrett case. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. So remember the whole deal was that Crystal Kenny was the girlfriend and she turned the prosecution star witness and got a deal and whatever. And she cleaned up the murder scene. She was the one that

cleaned up the murder scene. And yeah, you were a real dick about her i was and i was like i think she was a victim too and you know tried to get her killed before trial hey by the end of the episode i stopped being a dick but there was a there was a long section in there so do you remember where i told you that the defense filed a motion to try and present an alternate suspect at trial oh my god was it her it was her so they filed that and then never filed the additional paperwork to say who the suspect was going to be they still fucking tried to do it at trial i just read all about this and they still tried to present her as the alternate suspect as the real mastermind behind the whole thing and it got objected and the judge sustained it and so like

they didn't get to do it but that was their plan at fucking trial that's not a bad to try and pin the whole thing on crystal kenny it's not a bad it's not a bad plan she really was a victim i'm sorry you dick okay back to robert court and his wife, who was also a victim. Also a victim. So when he was finally in custody, he was like, hey, hey, guys, I'm going to come clean here. Here's what I did. I have been diluting drugs for months. Years.

Months. Years. Oh, it's just terrible. I've diluted three whole types of medication way more than that and i am just so gosh darn sorry about the 34 people that this has affected hundreds and the fbi was like bullshit tip of the iceberg yeah yeah yeah you've been doing this for a very long time it has affected god knows how many people and you messed with way more than three types of medication. So calm the F down. The question is, why'd you do it?

For money. Well, well, no, Brandy. Also, he was probably like one of those. Oh, I think we talked about this. I think this came up on the, we did this case before. I think he had like one of those angel of death things. i think you're right yeah i think you're absolutely satisfaction out of playing god yeah and i think it shows in the way he would talk to patients and like walk them to their cars and all that stuff he was a big fucking creep yeah you ready for the explanation oh yeah it's totally understandable great we're all gonna get it okay uh so why dilute the potentially life-saving drugs of cancer patients? Well, you see, Robert was in a bit of a pickle.

He'd pledged that million dollars to his church and money was getting tight. So what was he supposed to do? Just not pay it? Yes. The church needed to add on to their building, Brandy. Do you not have a heart? I do have a heart. But do you not enjoy buildings? You know, what's less important or what's more important than a building? People's lives. Oh, well, that's a good take. Obviously, Brandy, the Christian thing to do was to take advantage

of some very sick people. Oh, right. That's what God would want. That's definitely what God wanted. God wants the new fellowship wing on the church. By the way, okay, obviously the church is not to blame at all. I did go to the church's website in their history section. They don't mention Robert Courtney, obviously, but they do mention that they did get that building addition. Oh, it's been completed. Yeah. Not great. Real good. By this point, the story was all over the news. And that's how a lot of people found out what their pharmacist was up to. That is horrifying to me. Yeah. That you could find out that your meds had been tampered with by seeing a news story. It was just too big. It affected so many people that it was like there was no way that they were going to get a hold of everybody. The FBI set up a victim hotline

and they got hundreds of calls a day. In total, 3,000 people called in. People were terrified. They were angry. A person on the episode of American Greed said, my mother has been dead for two years and I was at peace with it. Now it's all up in the air again. On August 23rd, 2001, a grand jury indicted Robert Courtney. He faced 20 felony counts, including tampering with consumer products and adulterating and misbranding drugs, which we now know what adulterating means. That's right. Thanks to you and Google. But he did not face murder charges. Yeah. It would have been too hard to prove.

That's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. It would have tied the case up for so long. Yeah, because you have to. The prosecutors needed a strong enough case against this guy. Yeah. And that's the shitty thing about what he did. He took advantage of people who were very likely to die anyway. So how does the prosecution prove, oh, the reason this person died is because of what he did? Yeah. How do you say

it's not ovarian cancer? Exactly. Well, and additionally, right, they would have to prove malice too. And so they would have to prove that he wasn't doing this just for financial gain. And the death was like an outcome of that. Right right that's malice to do it for financial gain isn't it i think that they would have to prove that he was intentionally trying to kill people to be able to convict him of murder otherwise it'd be like negligent homicide yeah but he should have known that that would kill people he would have known would have known that there could have been a possibility but if he couldn't have known oh yes he could i think it'd be very difficult to prove because you're dealing with people who are already sick.

Yeah, I agree that it would be very difficult to prove first degree murder. Yeah. Because, but to me, it's more like, God, we're getting into some legal terms here. But like proximate cause. Yeah. Like you would have to prove that like he was the reason. Right. And how do you, how do you prove that he was the reason?

Yeah, you don't know. Yeah. You know, he was for sure. Well the reason yeah you don't know yeah you know he was for sure well no you don't he was probably a factor yeah he was a factor yeah but yeah someone it would be it would be impossible to prove murder i bet you could make the case pretty well to the jury but yeah i mean it would be so circumstantial and the defense would have a great time saying these people were already sick. The prosecution has not proven to you that they wouldn't have died without the intervention of Robert Courtney. Get me on that jury. I'll make the leap. Initially, Robert Courtney pled not guilty.

Uh-huh. Which, how can you? Yeah, how? Good God. How? But he eventually changed his plea. In his confession, he admitted that this went far beyond chemo. He admitted to diluting 72 types of medication dating all the way back to 1992.

Wow. And again, that's if we believe that. I mean, who knows? I think one of the things that is super upsetting is, gosh, and I don't want to take away from the cancer patients. I don't mean that at all by this. But he was diluting fertility drugs. Oh, he was diluting all kinds of stuff. And so like people who are going through like the most emotional struggle of their life, like, and they're doing crazy things to their bodies to try and get pregnant.

And like, they're not even getting what they're supposed to get. Like, I just think that that is just such a play on people's emotions. And like, oh, it's just disgusting. You know, what's really funny is the first time we did this, I mentioned so you know, he he diluted all kinds of stuff, stuff for AIDS patients, stuff, you know, all kinds of stuff. And yeah, fertility drugs, too. That first time I the fertility stuff just blew right past me. I was very focused on cancer and AIDS and all that. But yeah, I was thinking about the harm you caused. And it's like, OK, if you were going to Robert Courtney for a certain amount of time, who knows how many couples missed out on their chance to have a child because of this guy? You know, it's not just people who died.

It's people who missed out on something they really wanted. God. Yeah. That's awful. It is. It's awful. So let's talk scope. He does.

Mouthwash? Listerine for me. Or right now that nasty prescription stuff that's right so according to my mom my dental expert always Listerine always go for Listerine really yeah why because it actually disinfects it's so scope is just giving you fresh breath it's not killing any additional germs it's deodorant not antiperspirant that's correct okay okay correct is that why Listerine like burns that's why it burns yeah it's correct. Is that why Listerine like burns the hell out of you? That's why it burns.

Yeah. It's actually disinfecting. Hurts so good. That's right. So potentially, he diluted 98,000 prescriptions from 400 doctors and he affected 4,200 patients. Oh my gosh. I mean, that's why this is one of those things where like, we've had people reach out and be like, oh yeah, I know. The scope was huge. Yeah. We were just talking about this

case with David's family and their grandmother was getting drugs from Robert Courtney. No way. Yeah. Stop. What, what was she? I don't, I know nothing more than that. Damn it, What was she? I don't, I know nothing more than that. Damn it, Brandy. How can you hear that nut ass? What'd she think of him? I literally have said everything that I know, Kristen.

Who are you? Who are you? You just sat there. You heard that and you just. It's just like a quick conversation at Thanksgiving. No, you got to let the Thanksgiving conversations go. Oh yeah, did grandma die from it? Is that the next question I should ask? No, no.

Here's how you do it. Oh gosh you're kidding wow so what was her take on it you go in you tread lightly my friend not is that why she's no longer with us is that how she died did he die fine david david fill us in please i feel like i'm talking to norman right now norman comes home with this shit all the time usually that kills me it does i need all of the information yeah norman comes home with a super intriguing story that is one sentence long and i'm like oh my gosh where's the rest yeah I just ran my full face into the microphone. It's only episode 100. Don't worry. We'll get better.

So Robert Courtney says he did it for the money. Yeah. I don't believe it. No, I don't either. I think he absolutely got satisfaction out of playing God. I think he loved everything about it. I think that's one of the reasons why he gave so much to the church. Yeah.

And I think it's one of the reasons why initially people were like oh my god but he was such a good guy no he was a total fucking weirdo everyone knew he was weird but when you've got this guy who's donating big time to his alumni association donating money to his church then people are like oh he's yeah you know he's he's stern and kind of quiet and he seems like a total super douche, but hey, we like him all right. No, you don't. He's actually pretty normal sometimes. No, he's not. Well, it's like fucking Dennis Rader.

I know, but he wasn't given money. He was just... No, but he was the deacon of his fucking church, and people were like, oh, yeah, he's kind of harsh, you know? He's a real stickler. He kind of killed a dog for no reason. And we did see him with that photo shoot. No. God.

Dennis Rader's scary as shit. Oh, yes. The time you covered his case, I crawled out of my skin and just left the room. Goodbye. I'm sorry. I'm not even done with this. In December of 2002, U.S. District Court Judge Orte Smith said, Your crimes are a shock to the conscience of a nation.

You alone have changed the way a nation thinks about pharmacists, the way the nation thinks about prescription medication, the way a nation thinks about those institutions we trusted blindly. Robert Courtney was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison. Think about that for a moment, what that judge said. Have you ever gotten your prescription from your pharmacist and like checked what that pill is to make sure that it is what it's supposed to be? Never.

Never once? You just take it? Yeah. Yeah. I take thyroid medication every day and I go and i pick up my prescription and i take whatever the fuck is in that bottle without even a thought and i take my flintstone gummies i don't know if i'm getting fred or wilma or what i just eat them no yeah you you trust your pharmacist yes funny enough i think you trust your pharmacist almost

more than you trust your doctor because almost more than you trust your doctor. Yes. For whatever your doctor says, you go and you like do some Googling. I'd like a second opinion here. But no, when a pharmacist hands you your prescription, you just take it. Yeah, it's like it doesn't occur to us that something could go wrong. Yeah, that there's any room for error or fraud. Welcome to paranoia, folks. You know, we declared we were going to flip off every pharmacist.

I know we did. So then came the civil suits. Do you remember I was so embarrassed when we covered this case? Because like in the beginning, it was going to be all like criminal trials. And then I realized that we had no criminal trial for this case. Anyway, my how things have changed. Yeah, we love the civil suits. We're all loosey goosey now. That's right. Especially you. Wow. That hurt my mouth. When you said wow? Yeah. Did you stretch it too much? You blew out a stitch? No, I don't think I blew out a stitch. i don't think i blew out a stitch i don't know just sometimes the air hits

it yeah oh anyway you still off straws you're not supposed to use straws yeah i'm not doing straws i'm very paranoid yeah i'm also not smoking right how long till you are allowed to use straws again i don't know but do you know how hard it is for me? Do you know how much I love straws? And by the way, guys, I do. She's this reusable straw. She cares about the planet. Wow. Do you want to tell them what I did at lunch? Oh, my gosh. We went to a place. This is very upsetting. They had ketchup packets and not like just a jar. And so we got. Okay. First of all, it's not a jar. Nobody has a jar of ketchup. Okay. A bottle. There were no bottles of ketchup. Okay. Okay. And so we brought over some packets to the table. We finished up. There was a packet left. Norm got ready to throw

it away. And Kristen goes, no, you can't throw that away. You got to put that back. And Norm and I were like, you can't put the ketchup packet back after it's been on our table and we've all fingered it. Okay. Well, we didn't like finger bang it. I mean, we just picked it up. We had all touched that ketchup packet. You would not put that ketchup packet back. How do you think the ketchup packets get into the container out in the restaurant?

By someone who touches it. Yeah. Who has not just been eating a brisket sandwich or whatever the fuck Norm had. Okay. It looked delicious. Look, bottom line. Bottom line. We all had shit all over our hands.

So they convinced me that, yeah, you're not supposed to put it back. Okay. So Kristen was like, I was like, yeah, you can take it home with you, but you cannot put it back. And Kristen was like, fine. I'm taking it home with me. And she put it in her purse. Listen, guys, when the planet keeps on spinning, you can thank me because I took home one ketchup packet.

So anyway, civil suits. Some sources say there were 300 of them. Some say 400. But the one most people remember is Georgia Hayes civil suit. Yeah. Do you remember when I fucked up her quote? I know. And I laughed for 10 minutes. I know. I feel like that remember when I fucked up her quote? I know. And then I laughed for 10 minutes.

I know. I feel like that's when we got the personality of the podcast down. So she had ovarian cancer and an oncologist testified that because of the diluted medication, I keep saying diluted as in like that medication was so wrong. Georgia received from Robert Courtney. She probably missed her best chance to cure the cancer. She would likely die of ovarian cancer. At the time, Georgia Hayes said, here we go.

Can I do it? Yes. Have I learned a damn thing? If I had my wish, they would paint all of our faces on his cell block wall so that when he goes to sleep at night, we are the last thing he sees. And when he wakes up in the morning, we are the last thing he sees. And when he wakes up in the morning, we are the first thing he sees. Nailed it. You know what has changed from episode one to episode 100? You learned how to read. Hooked on phonics work for me. No. So back then, when I had somebody's quote, I would just paste it in as it was written yeah but when i looked back on that

script for this one and like changed some things around i was like oh there needs to be a comma there you edited the quote without adding or taking away any meaning just making it so that it was possible for me to read it out last god damn we are professionals now the jury awarded georgia hayes 2.2 billion dollars oh my gosh but it was symbolic yeah all of robert courtney's assets had been seized and georgia knew going into it that she wouldn't see any money from the case but people weren't just mad at robert courtney they were mad at eli lilly and bristol myers squibb too people thought that the pharmaceutical companies should have known or maybe they did know that robert courtney was you know maybe they didn't know that he was diluting drugs but they should have known something was fucking up

should have known yeah they should there should be some kind of checks and balances that are like okay he's only purchasing this much but he's selling this much well it's like how did daryl ashley have it figured out but you guys didn't yeah did Daryl Ashley have it figured out? But you guys didn't. Yeah. Did Daryl Ashley get a medal? I hope he got a fucking medal. I hope he got a giant medal. And it was like so heavy that they pinned it on him and he fell over. Dr. Hunter got awarded, which she absolutely should have.

Yeah, I mean, she did. She did the most. She did. Both of those companies reached a settlement with the victims. They, of course, denied any responsibility and they never faced charges. But Eli Lilly settled for $48 million and Bristol Myers Squibb settled for $24 million. Where are they now? Dr. Hunter is still an oncologist

and goes by Dr. Verda Hunter Hicks. So I guess she got married. By the way, we've had people message us and say she's a great doctor. So I don't know if you're in the area. She's not in Kansas City anymore, I think. She's a little outside the city oh okay i i did some creepy googling excellent anyway hang on you stalked her facebook page no oh wait she's still in kansas city missouri hey if you need a new doctor well she's an oncologist oh right okay well just like oh

yeah where's your pcp yeah okay well don't don't go to her for a wellness check, but you know. Georgia Hayes, who was awarded the $2.2 billion in the civil suit, has died. All of the eight patients who were named in the criminal case have died. One of the FBI agents who worked the case quit the FBI to become a pharmacist. Wow. That's nuts. And in 2003, a little while after Robert Courtney went to prison, his wife, Laura, pled guilty to making a false statement to federal agents.

So this all stemmed back to the bag of cash that Robert gave her. Apparently, Robert gave that bag to his father with the instruction that he give the money to Laura. But when federal agents asked her if she knew of her father-in-law having any money for her, she denied knowing anything about it. She was sentenced to one day of unsupervised probation. Great. I don't know what the fuck unsupervised probation is. We still don't. Still don't know. You gonna Google it? Yeah, I am. Okay. Unsupervised probation means you agree to not get into trouble during your probationary period. Of one day? But there's no probation officer for you to see on a regular basis, nor to pop in on you to see

if you're keeping to curfew, living where you state you were going to, etc. Okay. In our first episode, I said that sounds like my life. That's any adult's life. Yes. That's ridiculous. That is stupid. As for Robert Courtney, I don't know if you remember this. Yeah. Do you remember your big question during the first episode? Where is he? Yeah, you wanted to know.

You were obsessed with the idea of what prison is he in. Yeah. He is in Big Spring, Texas. Oh, never heard of it. His earliest possible release date is 2027. That's not that far away. No, it's not. I don't know if I should admit this. So we might cut this out. I read his dad's obituary. And you know how it'll say like he has survived by blah, blah, blah. So like Susie of Olathe, Karen of Lenexa. And it said, and Robert of Texas.

Things that don't go into an obituary. So, yeah, that's a terribly disturbing story. This broke when we were in high school and I was obsessed. Yeah. I remember it so clearly. Yeah. Well, I thought there was a criminal trial, so I don't remember it so clearly. But, you know, still.

Do you mind if I go and get some ibuprofen? Go ahead. Yeah. And pop a hydrocodone if you want. I do want. You should. Yeah. You have a prescription, Kristen.

Okay, I'm going to stop. We're going to stop here. Brandy and I just talked about hydrocodone. So I got some hydrocodone for my wisdom teeth. But I've been really scared to take it because I know how addictive they can be. And before before I had my wisdom teeth taken out, my mom was like, oh, I hated the feeling of that pain medication. And Norman was also like, oh, yeah, I really didn't like it. Well, I took it. And I was like, oh, my God, I feel so real. And I was like, shit, I see how people

get addicted to this. So now I'm afraid to take any damn thing right yeah anyway I told you the same thing when I had my thyroid surgery I remember laying like in the living room with an ice pack on and having taken my hydrocodone and just like laying there and being like this is the most comfortable I've ever been in my entire life yes I can absolutely see how people get hooked on that stuff it's terrifying it scares the shit out of me because for the longest time I was like I just don't get it i don't understand why all these people are addicted to all these pills and then i take one and i'm like oh this is nice okay let me go get my okay my stuff all right are you ready to talk about someone else with a god complex

you are such a freak about this man i am i have an unhealthy obsession with charles manson and i'm not afraid to admit it okay so obviously this is charles manson the remix oh god okay so sources on this are doug. Linder with Famous Trials, of course. Love you. Chef's kiss to him. And then there's also a really great article. I think we should give him an actual kiss.

We should. What if we could get him to come on here? Oh my God, I'd freak out. I would die. What if he thought we were idiots? He probably would. Yeah, and I'd be like, you know what? Who am I to question Douglas O. Linder?

And then also there's a great article on the crime library by Marilyn Bardsley that puts this like in a great chronological order for me. And also. What a shock that you looked into the crime library, huh? No kidding, right? And then also, of course, Helter Skelter, the book by Vincent Bugliosi that I read when I was 12 and I've read many times. Is it your annual beach read?

I love it. Everyone else is Leanne Moriarty or Ellen Hildebrand and you're there with Helter Skelter. Helter Skelter. Put it in like a Fifty Shades of Grey book jacket. In the late night hours of August 8th, 1969, into the early morning hours of August 9, several people in Benedict Canyon above Beverly Hills heard things, things of concern, but no one was quite sure what it was. The Kotz family, who lived some hundred yards from the home of Hollywood couples Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski

thought they heard gunshots coming from the direction of the Tate Polanski home around 12 30 or 1 in the morning they listened for further signs of distress and upon hearing nothing they went to bed around that same time a man who was supervising a camp out about a mile down the canyon heard what he thought was a scream, followed by a plea. Oh, God, no, please don't. Oh, God, no, don't, don't. The man drove around a bit looking for the source of the cries, but sounds carry in the canyon, and he was unable to tell where they were coming from. Finding nothing unusual, he returned to the campsite.

Somewhere between 2 and 3 a.m., a neighbor in the canyon awoke to their dogs barking like a lot, like going crazy in the backyard. The man got up to check it out, but found nothing out of the norm and returned to bed. Then sometime after 4, a private security guard in the area was patrolling when he heard gunshots. He called his headquarters, who then called in the disturbance to the LAPD. And reportedly, when the LAPD took the call, they said, I hope we don't have a murder. We just had a woman screaming call in that area. Wait, did they say that to the person who called in? Yeah. Oh, that's weird. That's an overshare, don't you think? Well, so the call in was coming from a security company,

so maybe they wouldn't have done that, you know, with like a normal person. Gotcha. But nothing would come of those calls that night. In fact fact it wouldn't be until the next morning that a housekeeper would show up to work and discover the source of all the mayhem that had been heard that night winifred chapman arrived at the gate at 10050 cielo drive you can look it up it doesn't exist anymore the house has been demolished it will show up if you search it, though. You can see the house. 1-0-0-5-0. Cielo Drive. It's a beautiful house.

It was demolished in 1994. Oh, yeah. There is a house that has been rebuilt there, but they actually readdressed it. And so it's got a different address now. I don't blame you. Not at all. Yeah. And actually, so they built this like Italian style mansion there and it has not sold.

Like I believe to this day it stands empty because no one wants to live on that property. Wow. One article that I read said that no agent will list the property because of its history. Yeah. But this happened in 1969. The property didn't get torn down until 1994. So I know at one point like Trent Reznor rented the house and recorded an album there. Like. How was that? Who's Trent Reznor rented the house and recorded an album there.

Like, who's Trent Reznor? Yeah. Oh, well, I'm sorry. Nine inch nails. Oh, OK. I'm more of a Swifty. OK, so anyway, Winifred Chapman shows up at the house a little after 8 a.m. on Saturday, August 9th. Immediately, Winifred noticed what looked like a fallen telephone line was hanging over the gate. She made a note to herself to check the phone when she got inside

and then pushed the button and the gate opened. As Winifred made her way up to the sprawling home, she noticed an unfamiliar white Rambler parked in the driveway, which is like an older car. Not that old at the time, but old now. She didn't think much of it, though. Winifred was the housekeeper of Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski. Sharon was a beautiful Hollywood actress, and Polanski was a well-known movie director. This summer, Polanski had been off in Europe working on a movie, so Sharon, lonely and very pregnant, had taken to entertaining herself by having friends over for, like, impromptu dinner parties and sleepovers quite regularly. So seeing some car she didn't recognize in the driveway was not right. She was like a friend of a friend has shown up. Yes, exactly. So when Winifred gets up to the house, she digs out like key that's in like a hidey hole somewhere by the door. She goes in

through the back door. And once she was inside, she picked up the phone to check it. And sure enough, it was out. That wire that she had seen the phone to check it. And sure enough, it was out. That wire that she had seen was definitely the telephone wire. And there was no phone service to the house. So she's walking through the house and she noticed that the front door was open. So she had walked around kind of the side of the house and come in the back entrance. So she hadn't seen the front of the house. And so as she gets into the living room, she noticed that the front doors open.

And then there's like red stuff everywhere, like splashed all over the place. And so she's like, takes a second. She's trying to just like figure out what the fuck she's seeing. And then she walks over to the door, looks out of it. And she saw pools of blood. Oh, like on the walkway. And then she saw a body on the front lawn. She screams. She runs back through the house, down the driveway,

and she runs past the other side of the Rambler that had been parked there and sees now for the first time that there is a body inside the car. She screams again. She runs over to the neighbor's house, the Kotz, that I mentioned earlier. She bangs on their door, but they're not home. So she runs to the next house. And, like, this is a very nice neighborhood, huge, big property. So the next house is, you know, even further away. So it's not your next door neighbor here. And so she runs like down

the canyon to the next neighbor's house, she gets in and she calls the police and she's crying hysterically. The police arrive at the scene, they secure the scene and they walk up and they first check the car. And sure enough, there's a teenage boy slumped over, covered in blood. Another couple officers arrive and they get up to the house and they're trying to figure out what the best way to secure the scene is because they don't have any idea like what the situation is. Right. They don't know if there's people in the house. They don't know how many dead people there are so far there's been reports that there are two bodies but who knows what else there is and so they kind of do like a perimeter check they check the other cars that are on the property and then they see in the like this beautifully manicured lawn they see two bodies there's the body of a male in his 30s and the body of a woman in her 20s.

And they are just covered in blood. So much so that the woman is in like a white dressing gown, like a white nightgown. Yeah, yeah. And it is red from blood. It is, you cannot tell that it was once white. So they circle the house and they find an open window. And so two of the officers go in through the open window and the other officer goes around to the front door so that they can then come and let him in and they can clear the scene altogether. Once they do that, they get in and they notice that there's something written on the front door in blood.

The word pig is written on the front door. Once they get inside, they kind of assess the scene. They see that there are in the living room a young woman who is very pregnant lying on the floor she's blood all over her and a rope around her neck that rope then extends over a ceiling rafter down and is attached to another man in the room who is also dead and drenched in blood so at this point they were telling this story so differently than you. Oh, yeah, I skipped all of this. I gave just like a very quick. Yeah, the murders on the first the first time I did this. Yes. So they at this point have two bodies inside the house and three

bodies outside the house. So they're checking the rest of the scene, they find nobody else. But as they're searching, they hear a voice, they can't figure out where it's coming from. And then they hear a dog. And so they're trying to figure out where the voice and the dog are coming from. And they finally trace it to a caretaker's house at the back of the property. They go back there, they like bust in the door. And there's this young man, William Gerritsen, who's just like hanging out in the caretaker's house. He's the caretaker of the property. And they immediately place him under arrest. Yeah. And he's like, what? What the hell's going on? They're like, everybody else on this fucking property is dead and you're here. Like, obviously you had something to do with it. Oh, so they arrest him and move on.

Yeah. Securing this. Yeah. Eventually, all of the victims of the massacre at Sharon Tate's home So they arrest him and move on with securing the scene. Eventually, all of the victims of the massacre at Sharon Tate's home were identified. The young man in the car was a teenager named Stephen Parent, who had come to visit William Garrison, the caretaker. The two victims found outside the house were Abigail Folger and her, every article calls him her lover, which I hate. I hate that too. Yes. God. Wojciech Frykowski. In the living room, the woman was Sharon Tate and the man was her good friend, Jay Sebring. A.22 caliber gun had killed, shot Steve Parent, Jay Sebring, and Wojciech Frykowski. Guns don't kill people. Yes. Of the five victims all but steve parent had been stabbed repeatedly

and additionally jay sebring and freikowski had been hit in the head okay i'm gonna tell you how each person died and it's terrible okay so sharon was killed with five stab wounds to her chest and back that penetrated her heart, lungs, and liver. An additional 11 stab wounds were non-fatal. So she was stabbed a total of 16 times. Her son that she was pregnant with, who she had named Paul Richard Polanski, died when she died.

She was like almost nine months pregnant. And so had someone found her soon enough, the baby likely could have survived. But yeah, it's so sad. Abigail Folger, she was the heir to like the Folgers. Yeah, coffee. She was Sharon's friend. They were very close friends. She was 25 years old when she died. She had led a very comfortable life, but she had given back dedicating her life to social work. Like she did all kinds of social work around the Los Angeles area. It was like she's a social worker or no, she did like a philanthropist, not a philanthropist, but a lot of like community outreach and stuff like that.

OK, yeah. She was stabbed 28 times. Good God. Wojciech Frykowski was a longtime friend of Roman Polanski's. He was from Poland, just like Roman Polanski was. And he had met Abigail Folger through Sharon. And he had fought hard for his life. In all, it took two gunshot wounds, 13 blows to the head with a blunt object,

and 51 stab wounds to end his life. Oh my God. Yeah. Jay Sebring was a hairstylist to the stars. And he was Sharon Tate's former flame. Among his clients were Frank Sinatra, Paul Newman, and Steve McQueen. Wow. He was known as quite the ladies' man, and he and Sharon had remained close even after she ended their relationship to be with Roman Polanski.

Jay Sebring was murdered with one gunshot wound and seven stab wounds. The youngest victim was Stephen Parent. He was an 18-year-old kid who happened to be visiting the house at Cielo Drive that night to see the caretaker to try and sell him a radio. Oh, shit. He had just graduated high school and he was getting ready to go to college and he was working all these odd jobs over the summer so that he wouldn't have to work when he went to college. And one of them was like buying radios and fixing them and then selling them. God, that's tragic. Yeah, he was shot four times as he was driving down the driveway to leave the residence. So whoever had done this that night just happened to get to the property as he was getting ready to leave and shot him and killed him. That's terrible. Immediately rumors spread about these murders. It was a satanic ritual.

Did you hear that all the victims had black hoods on? It was a drug deal gone wrong. You know how those Hollywood types are. It was a hit by the Polish secret police. What is Roman Polanski really up to in Europe this summer? Polish secret police. Yes. Like, these are the rumors that were spreading all around the country, really.

But the police had little to go on. Their only suspect was the lone survivor of the massacre, the caretaker. He told the police that he'd been up late, you know, most of the night listening to music, playing with his dog, and then he'd gone to sleep and he hadn't heard anything. They didn't believe him. Naturally. Yeah. How could you believe that?

Yeah. How could you not hear anything? People all over the canyon heard things. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That very night, though, two more gruesome murders would take place. And if the police could connect them, it just might point them in the direction of the real suspects. The bodies at the Tate home are found on Saturday morning.

So that Saturday night, Lino and Rosemary LaBianca, along with Rosemary's 21-year-old daughter, Susan Struthers, returned from a vacation, their speedboat in tow. Lino and Rosemary dropped Susan off at her apartment and stopped to get a newspaper, then arrived home at 3301 Waverly Drive. Oh, I had to shut down my computer because it's such a piece of shit. Oh, God. Yeah, I was trying to act real cool about the fact that my computer just totally shut down. So you can't really see it anyway. Oh, okay.

There's like bushes. So they arrive home at 3301 Waverly Drive, which is in the Los Feliz area of LA. So they arrive home somewhere between 1 and 2 a.m. It actually wasn't until the next day that anybody would find out that anything was amiss with the LaBiancas. It was Sunday night around 8.30 when Frank Struthers, Rosemary's son by a previous marriage, got a ride home from a camping trip. What the fuck is that? Is Norman printing something? Scared the shit out of me.

What in the hell? That was the sound of a document that I tried to print three days ago. Restarting your computer really fresh into that. Yeah. Excellent. Great. Okay. So it's like 830 Sunday evening.

Frank, Rosemary's son from previous marriage gets dropped off at the house in Los Feliz. He immediately is concerned that something is up because the family speedboat is still in the driveway. And that is not like Lino to do at all. Like he immediately puts that puppy in the garage. He's very particular about how he stores stuff. And he's like, that's super weird that it would still be attached to the car, still be in the driveway. Right. Then as Frank walks towards the house, he notices that all the window shades are down. Again, something his parents never did. During the daytime, I guess, never closed the shades.

Rarely had them closed in the evening. So he was like, something's for sure up. So he gets the door and he knocks on the door instead of just, I don't know, using a key to go in or anything like that. And he gets no answer. So he leaves the house. He goes to a pay phone and he calls the house. And again, no one answers. Calls a couple times. he gets no answer. So he leaves the house, he goes to a pay phone, and he calls the house. And again, no one answers, calls a couple times, there's no answer. Finally, he gets in touch with his sister. So remember, they had dropped his sister off at

her own apartment the day before, right? So she's like, Okay, yeah, that's definitely odd. I did see him last night. Like, I don't know what's up. And so she gets her boyfriend and they come and they meet Frank at their parents' house. Frank and the boyfriend go around the back of the house and they find the back door open. And so the back door walks like right into the kitchen. And so the three of them all walk into the kitchen. And then they tell Susan to wait there in the kitchen while they walk through the rest of the house. As soon as they walk into the living room, they see Lino lying on the floor in his pajamas.

He has a pillow like over his head and there's a cord wrapped around his neck. And his pajama shirt is pulled up. So his stomach is exposed. And there is like something clearly like carved in his skin. And then there's like a serving fork like stabbed into his torso sticking out of his. So they immediately like run out of the house. They call the police from a neighbor's house and an ambulance comes and police come. And so Lino had been like restrained with the leather tie, his hands were behind his back. And then the cord around his neck was like the

cord from a big lamp had been tied tightly around his neck was like the cord from a big lamp. It had been tied tightly around his neck. There was a pillowcase over his head that was drenched in blood. And the thing that was carved in his stomach was the word war. In the master bedroom, the police found Rosemary. She was on the floor. Her nightgown was up over her head. She also had a pillowcase over her head and a lamp cord tied around her neck and she was obviously dead as well in this house they found words in three different places written in blood one of them said death to pigs that was on the living room wall on another living room wall there was the word rise written in blood and then in the kitchen on the refrigerator door helter skelter was written

in blood i have a question yes when you say written in blood. I have a question. Yes. When you say written in blood, do you mean like with a finger? Or do you mean like... I think I mean like... So I've seen the pictures of it. And what it looks like to me is like a cloth has been dipped in blood and then done like that. I don't know why I needed to know, but I had to know. Yeah. So it looks to me like, yeah, they've taken some kind of fabric, dipped it in blood, and then done it like that. Yeah. Okay. The LaBiancas were very well respected people. Lino was a businessman. His father was like the founder of this grocery store chain. And Lino had followed in his footsteps, gone into the

family business. And he was very well respected. He didn't appear to have any enemies. An autopsy revealed that he had been stabbed 26 times. And then he had had that, his stomach carved into. Rosemary, his wife, was a 38-year-old woman who had made just an amazing life for herself. She had been orphaned as a child and then was adopted when she was 12. She had worked her entire life as like a car hop and a waitress. So she'd married young and then had a couple kids and then got divorced. And then in 1958, she was working as a waitress when she met Lino. She had made a huge business for herself. She opened this boutique and then she did like all of her own investments and she left an estate of 2.6

million dollars behind wow yeah adjusted for inflation mate i don't know you didn't no brandy i can do it real quick though okay it's funny i changed very little about my script like the one thing i changed was i found out where robert courtney was in prison and I adjusted for inflation. $18.4 million adjusted for inflation. Yeah. Almost what Robert Courtney had in assets. Yeah. So Rosemary had been stabbed 41 times. Oh my God.

Six of those stab wounds independently were enough to end her life. So I mentioned as one of the source materials on this is the book Helter Skelter. So I mentioned one of the source materials on this is the book Helter Skelter. So I use that as a source. Also, both sources that I pulled from the crime library. Use that as a source too.

Yes, they all use it. So they talk about in this article on Crime Library about how the prosecutor, Vincent Bugliosi, talks about how there was a huge failure

of communication from all the different police departments involved in this case and that there was lots of errors made and that's why it took so long to solve because this thing would sit for months before they would make any real headway on it because they did not connect the cases yeah the tate murder was not connected to the la bianca murder for months, despite the obvious connections of the words written in blood and the abundance of stab wounds. I remember when you first mentioned, back to episode one, you said that they didn't connect the cases. Yeah. But that's so unbelievable now to know

that there were words written on both crime scenes. I mean, how common is that? Exactly. The words written in blood and then that there's the same words written like pig was written at both places. Yes. And then when you're talking about such overkill with the amount of stab wounds, that's present in both crime scenes. Yes. Not only that, there was a third murder that had happened prior to both of these. But they already had someone arrested for sitting in custody. And in that case, there had been stuff written in blood on the walls of that.

And they didn't connect it to that case. So in that case, that was the murder of Gary Hinman. So that had happened on July 31st, my dad's birthday. So in that case, this guy, Gary Hinman, he was a music teacher. And he had been killed in his own home. And political piggy had been written in his blood on the wall. And then like, I think like a paw print was made because we'll learn later that this was all supposed to start a race war. Yeah. Anyway.

And it did. It did not. And Hinman had been stabbed to death as well. So when this paw print was made in blood, the person who made it left behind some form of palm print or something like that. Of course, to make that, you have to use your own hand. Exactly. And so they were actually able to track that case pretty quickly to this guy, Bobby Beausoleil. He was arrested. And so was this woman who helped him murder Gary Henman, Susan Atkins. So they were tracked down through some work by the LAPD to being members of this family that was living on this movie ranch just outside of L.A.

So this was Charles Manson's family. So they're arrested before any of this other stuff happens. But the case is not connected. And the reason for that is because there's all kinds of different independent agencies investigating these cases and nobody would talk to anybody because the lines of jurisdiction weren't clear and nobody wanted to give their case over to anybody else. And so some of them are being investigated by the LAPD.

Some of them are being investigated by the sheriff's department. And so it was a pissing match. It 100% was. And so it wouldn't be until November that these cases are connected. And they have one of the key players in custody that entire time. Susan Atkins was the person who was present for all three murders. That is so frustrating. Isn't that so frustrating? I feel like if there's a lesson to be learned from murderers here, it's like go county to county, go to a different state.

Yes. They're never going to work together. So while they're not paying attention to how much these cases have in common, they're trying to pin this on the caretaker. They give him a polygraph and he passes with flying colors and they're like, well, fuck, it's not this guy.

Was he just a heavy sleeper? In Helter Skelter, he talks about how one point like he had turned his music up really loud and he thought he heard something. And so he turned it down and he was like listening and he thought he might have heard somebody walk towards his place. And he actually thought he saw like his door handle start to turn. Oh, my God. And then it stopped and he didn't hear anything else. And so he'd just gone to bed. Wow.

Yeah. He legitimately didn't hear anything or slept through the whole thing. That guy is the luckiest guy on earth. No shit. So they clear him. And now they're looking into Roman Polanski. Like, did he plan this? Was this like a hit?

You know, he was whatever. And Polanski is, first first of all he's devastated by the loss of his wife and his child he says that they're trying to put together all these theories like maybe it was a drug deal gone wrong that's one of their big theories at first and he's like absolutely not sharon took no drugs before her pregnancy and she absolutely wouldn't touch anything during her pregnancy i would pour her a glass of wine and she wouldn't touch it. This is 1969. Yeah. When everybody's drinking and smoking while they're pregnant.

Eating all the deli meat. Yeah. So one month after the murders, the investigation has gone nowhere. And so Roman Polanski, along with some of his Hollywood friends, including Peter Sellers, Yul Brynner, and Warren Beatty, put together a notice in the newspaper for a $25,000 reward. Roman Polanski and friends of the Polanski family offered to pay $25,000 to the person or persons who furnish information leading to the arrest and conviction of the murderer or murderers of Sharon Tate, her unborn child, and the other four victims. So that's like, you know, a month after the murders.

Somewhere in September of 1969, so that's right around a month after the murders, is 10-year-old boys playing in Sherman Oaks. And he comes across this revolver. Sherman Oaks is the name of the neighborhood? Sherman Oaks, California. It's an area of California. Wow.

I'm from the Midwest. And he comes across this like weird revolver. It's called a.22 caliber high standard longhorn revolver. And this is a rare gun. You don't know anything. It's a rare gun. It's a weird handgun. It's got like a really long muzzle on it.

I don't know. It's a weird looking gun. Yeah, neither one of us know shit about guns. No. So the gun was dirty and rusty, but it had a broken grip, handle grip. And one of the things that they had found at the scene at the Tate home was pieces of a broken gun grip. Well, no gun was there and they knew a gun had been used and that a 22 caliber gun had been used. So he like carefully gets it and takes it to his dad and his dad turns it into the LAPD and they're like, okay, great.

We'll put it into evidence. Well, around that same time, a different section of the LAPD decides that a 22 caliber handgun with a broken grip was used in the Tate murders and they send out a flyer, like an inter-office flyer about this handgun. Meanwhile, this gun has been turned in days earlier and it's just sitting in an evidence locker and nobody ever connects it to it. Oh, they don't know their ass from their elbow. No, at all. So the LAPD has the gun used in the murders in their evidence locker and nobody knows about it. At the same time,

they're like, I wish we could find that gun. We wish we could find this gun. Yes. Finally, at some point in October, someone at the LAPD talks to someone at the sheriff's office, like their buddies. And they're like, hey, I think there's a chance these Tate LaBianca murders might be related. And so somebody else is like, yeah, you know, there was that other murder, that Hinman murder, where we think, you know, there was that other murder, that Hinman murder, where we think, you know that there's some similarities there. So they get to talking and they decide to go to Spahn Ranch, because that's where they know that the Manson family is living. And they know that the person they have in custody, Bobby Beausoleil, who's been

charged in the Gary Hinman murder, they know that's who he was associating with. So they go there. They talk to a bunch of people at the Spahn Ranch, including the 17 year old girl who is Bobby's girlfriend. And she says, yeah, Bobby and Susan Atkins went to Hinman's house. They were supposed to get money from him. The family kind of knew him. They'd, you know, done some stuff with him before and they knew he had money. And so the idea was to just like go and get him to give them money. Well, he didn't do it. And they ended up like torturing him for three days before they murdered him. Oh, yeah. And they held him captive in his own home. And then they finally killed him. And so this girlfriend tells him that, yeah, Susan bragged about this after they did it. She also talked about this other fight that she got into with a man where she stabbed some man in the leg several times.

Well, so now these officers are like putting it together that they have Bobby in custody. They also have Susan in custody. And so they're like, not a minute too soon. I don't know. Does that sound? That doesn't sound the same, though. Gary Hinman wasn't stabbed in the leg multiple times. Like, maybe these aren't connected.

And so it almost falls apart. Oh, my gosh. But somebody in the back of their mind is like, well, yeah, Gary Hinman wasn't stabbed multiple times in the leg. But Wojciech Frykowski was. So in the meantime, Susan Atkins is being held at the Sybil Brand Institute, which is like the women's detention home in LA. So she shares a room with this woman, Ronnie Howard, and this other woman named Virginia Graham. And Susan Atkins won't shut her fucking mouth. She's like a nut job. She's talking all the time. She sings, she dances. And then one day, she really gets talking about everything.

And then one day, she really gets talking about everything. And she confesses to everything. So they talk about why she's in there. Like, so Ronnie and Virginia are like, so what are you doing in here? And she's like, oh, I'm in for first degree murder. And they're like, did you do it? And she's like, sure. Oh, my God. And she tells them all about the Gary Hinman murder and how they think that Bobby Beausoleil

did it. But really, she's the one that did all the stabbing. Bobby just held him. Oh, wow. And then she talks about her lover, Charlie, Charlie Manson, and how he's Jesus Christ and how he is going to lead his people to a hole in the earth in Death Valley. And he's going to grow a whole civilization down there. And she tells them all about Helter Skelter.

And so they're like, come again? And she's like, oh, yeah, Charlie knows that we have to save civilizations. We did these murders. And she tells them all about the Tate murders and the LaBianca murders and how they did them to start a race war, and how they did the murders and made it look like Black Panthers did it. So they would start a race war and civilization as they knew it would end. Oh, my God, all that would be left. This is the most ridiculous thing. All that would be left after this race war would civilization as they knew it would end. Oh my god, all that would be left. This is the most ridiculous thing. All that would be left after this race war would be they called not my words, I promise. Yeah, it would be all that would be left would be blackie. And they wouldn't know

how to handle the world. And so up would come Charles Manson civilization who had been hiding out in the hole in the desert, and they would get to take over the world and take it back. From their hole in the desert. From their hole in the desert. These people legit every day went out on dune buggies in the desert looking for the hole in the earth for where they would go to survive the end of the world and then come out when... That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. Yes. Charles Manson had all these theories about how the Beatles were sending him messages. And Helter Skelter comes from a Beatles song. It's about a fucking playground ride. Or was it?

Was it about a race war? Yeah, it's clearly about a race war. Anyway, so she tells these women all about these murders. And at first they're like, this girl's a fucking lunatic. Well, yeah. And then the girls are like these women virginia and ronnie are like thinking about it and they got like a couple of tidbits of information from susan like asked a couple more questions to see like if her story

would stay the same and virginia had knowledge of what the house at cielo drive looked like she had actually been there before weird yes And so she got her to give some details about the house. And she was like, oh, you've been in there too. Oh my gosh. And that led to Susan telling her exactly what happened that night. So this is what Susan said. Susan said she and a group of people that were sent there by Charlie, there were four of them all together, three girls and a guy. Got to the house. They got to the gate.

They cut the telephone wires. They went inside. They saw the car coming down the driveway. They stopped it. Inside was a teenage boy. They shot him four times and killed him because he had seen them. That kid wouldn't have known what he saw. No.

Just let him go. I mean, don't do any of this. Next. Just go to your hole in the desert and exactly fuck off they go up to the house they make entry through like a side window and they break off in different directions susan walks down the hallway she walks past like the room where abigail fulger is and she just like waves at her she walks by and this was super common for people just to stop come in and out of the house so susan likeaved, not knowing who she was. And Susan kept down, down the hallway

and went to Sharon Tate's room. And there on the bed was Sharon Tate sitting with Jay Sebring. They were talking and she tied them up and brought them to the living room. And then at that point, all hell broke loose. She and the others started stabbing and killing everybody. And Wojciech Frykowski and Abigail Folger ran out onto the yard and they killed them. That's why they were stabbed so many times because they had tried to escape. And then Sharon Tate was the last to be killed. And as Susan described this, oh, it's terrible. She said, Sharon was begging. She said, please don't kill me. Please don't kill me. I don't want to die. I want to my baby i want to have my baby and susan said i just looked at sharon right in the eye and said look bitch i don't care about you oh i don't care if you're gonna have a baby

you'd better be ready you're gonna die and i don't feel anything about it oh my god susan at that point recounted about how she stabbed sharon how she'd gotten her blood all over her and how she tasted it and it felt like tasting life these girls are like scared shitless at this point because it's clear that this is not just some bullshit that this woman is telling. And so they're like, how could you, how could you do that? And so she's like, you guys don't understand. I thought you understood. I loved her. And in order for me to kill her, I was killing part of myself when I killed her what the fuck I was freeing her

no no and then she talks them through the Tate LaBianca murders and how Charlie was upset about what the mess they had made

at the Tate home the night before and so he had actually come to the LaBianca home that night and he was the one who had tied up Lino and Rosemary

and then told them how they needed to kill them so by mess he meant like people escaping out into the lawn. Yes, and how that could have gone very badly. And yes, and how people could have heard. And wow, how terrible would that have been if people survived?

Yeah, exactly. So after all of this comes out, Virginia ends up getting like transferred to a different place. They both are begging to have phone access to call the LAPD. And they're getting shut down every time they are asked. Like they can't phone access to call the LAPD and they're getting shut down every time they are asked. Like they can't get a call to the LAPD. They're both trying to report this. Finally. Why were they being shut down? I don't know. Nobody would listen to them. Nobody believed anything they were saying. People thought they were full of shit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So finally in November, like November 15th, 16th, one of them gets a call. And finally, on November 17th, LAPD homicide detectives come to the Sybil Brand Institute and they sit down with Ronnie and they're like, okay, tell us what you know. And so she tells them everything she knows, everything that Susan Atkins told them. And they're like, holy fucking shit, we've just hit a goldmine. She knows everything. This is legit. Yeah. These murders are connected. Holy shit.

So they move her to like segregation so that she is like safe. Right, right. And the very next day, Vincent Pugliosi is assigned to the case because they're going to move forward with charges. At this point, they've got everybody on the case in custody except for Charles Tex Watson because he went back to Texas and so they have to extradite him. But this is not an easy case because first of all, Bugliosi has enough. He can prove who did the actual murders. That's fine. That's the easy part. But he has to prove Charles Manson's dominance over the group. Yeah.

And that Charles Manson had the power to make these people do these murders, even though he was not directly involved. Yeah. So initially they go to Susan Atkins and they're like, we'll give you a deal. And she wants immunity. And they're like, nope, absolutely not. Yeah, you're a fucking murderer.

Absolutely not. But we will spare you the death penalty if you become our star witness. And so she agrees. She's going to be their star witness. She actually goes and testifies before a grand jury and gives all of the gory details that she told the women at the Institute. And the judge and the grand jury like sit there like in silence after they hear all of these details.

It took the grand jury 20 minutes to hand down indictments after hearing her testimony. But it would fall apart because Susan Atkins renewed her loyalty to Charles Manson after the grand jury testimony. Shut up. Yeah. So they decide they're going to try the three women. So it's Patricia Krenwegel, Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten, and Charles Manson. They're all going to be tried together. Tex Watson has to be tried separately because he's fighting extradition. He's out there in Texas

being a real dick and he won't come back and face the music. Yeah. So they have another person who was present that night, both nights, but had no hand in the actual murders. Her name is Linda Kasabian. So she had been the getaway driver. They had chosen her because she had a valid driver's license. Right. Like I mentioned, she was present both nights. They offered her immunity to testify at trial, which initially people were really upset about. But while she was present, she never entered either

home and had, by all accounts, no hand in any of the murders. But she didn't do anything to stop them either. Yeah, yeah. She wasn't great, but no, she wasn't the worst. She wasn't the worst, but they wouldn't likely have been able to convict Charles Manson without her testimony. Right. She was the big key in showing what his dominance was, what his power was over the rest of the family. Yeah. They did find some physical evidence, like Patricia Kernwinkle's handprint was found in Sharon Tate's home. They were able to tie the gun.

They finally fucking realized that they had the gun in their own evidence locker. After all of this information about the arrests come out, the father of the kid who found it called the LAPD. Oh, my God. You're kidding me was that the gun and they're like what gun and he's like i turned in a gun and they're like listen mister you know we don't keep guns that long we throw them into the ocean after a while no and he's like are you fucking kidding me like i think this is the murder weapon in the largest murder case in this state's recent history.

And I handed it to you. Yes. What do you mean? And the guy who talks to her on the phone goes, listen, mister, we can't check out every citizen report of a gun we find. Wow. He's like, it's the fucking murder weapon. So they do finally track it down. And so they do have.

Did they have to do a deep dive into the literal ocean? Right. Into the. Yes. Finally track it down. And so they do have. Did they have to do a deep dive into the literal ocean? Right, into the, yes. The trial officially began in June of 1970 with Vincent Bugliosi prosecuting and Judge Charles Older presiding. He sequestered the jury and he told them that it would be a long one, but it was to protect them from harassment and prevent their being exposed to trial publicity. So it's for their own protection, really. And Judge Older was actually given a bodyguard

and his home was protected round the clock by police presence. Wow. Because the Manson family was capable of so much. And they were scary as fuck, yeah. They were camping out at the courthouse constantly. They were harassing media. They were harassing witnesses. They were doing all kinds of crazy shit.

And it was scary as fuck. 12 jurors were selected, five women and seven men, ranging in age from 25 to 73. In his opening statement, Bugliosi said that Manson was a vagrant wanderer, a frustrated musician, and someone who would refer to himself as Jesus Christ.

Oh, okay. Yeah. He said he was a killer who cleverly masqueraded behind the common image of a hippie, one of being peace and love. But he was a megalomaniac who coupled his insatiable thirst for power with an intense obsession for violent death.

So he boiled the motive down to this case as really Charles Manson being a frustrated musician. He had been told that he could make it as a musician. He'd lived with Dennis Wilson for a while. When you know somebody who's in the music scene, they know a lot of people and they're like, oh yeah, I'll hook you up. I'll hook you up. So he had met this guy, Terry Melcher. Terry Melcher was a music producer and Doris Day's son. Oh, wow. And one time resident of Cielo Drive. Whoa. Yes.

Like he had lived there for a long time. Like Charles Manson had gone there and visited him there. Basically, Vincent Bugliosi said this was the ridiculous act of someone who was frustrated that he hadn't made it in the music business. Wow. Yeah. They said that's why he picked that house. He knew Terry Melcher no longer lived there, but they knew the house and they wanted to send a message. Yeah. Yeah. Do you know anything about his music? Yeah, I've heard some of it. It's very folksy.

Really? Yeah, it's not very good. Well, clearly. Yeah. You can hear it like it's on the internet. Okay. Yeah. One that you for sure could cease to exist. If you googled that you could for sure listen to that one. So he lays that all out. And he's like, the big deal is that he has to prove that Charles Manson had the power to order these women to order these people to commit these murders without actually raising a hand himself. Because that's the big defense is that Charles Manson never killed anybody directly himself. big defense is that Charles Manson never killed anybody directly himself. This is just one example of the control of the family, even during the trial, they did anything that they could to harass potential witnesses or halt the trial if they could. One instance of this was Barbara Hoyt. Barbara Hoyt was supposed to be a witness for the prosecution. She was a family member. She had lived on the ranch. And she was threatened that if she testified at trial, she and her actual family would be killed. So before she was to testify, somehow, the Manson family lured her to Hawaii, one of the girls got her to go to Hawaii with her.

And then while she was there, she was given a lethal dose of LSD. She almost died. Somehow someone found her. They got her to the hospital and doctors saved her life. You are kidding me. No. They would go to whatever means they could to try and keep people from testifying. Linda Kasabian had to be kept in protective custody the entire time.

Sure, yeah. The control that Manson had over the girls was crazy too. Susan Atkins, she recanted all of her testimony, said she'd made it all up. None of it was true after all of that testimony that she'd given to the grand jury. And of course, you know, at one point, Charles Manson carved an X into his forehead.

So all three girls carved Xs into their foreheads. And then one day, Charles Manson shaved his head. And so all three girls shaved their heads. And one day he wore pink. And then the next day, they wore pink. Yes. Judge Older was terrified of Charles Manson. Well, yeah, he should have been. Yeah. Charles Manson would just make direct eye contact with him and just stare him down. At one point, Charles Manson got mad about something and he like jumped up like from a seated position. This guy, I have not mentioned this. I know I mentioned this the last time I covered this case. Charles Manson is tiny. He's five foot two. Yeah. He's seated behind the defense table in the courtroom from a seated position. He somehow jumps up like a fucking spider monkey and leaps at the judge and yells, someone

should cut your head off. And at that point, as he's leaping towards the judge, like through the courtroom, all three girls stand up and start chanting in Latin. It's like a fucking mess like from that day forward the judge older reportedly carried a gun under his robe because he was so terrified that something was going to happen after 22 weeks of testimony good god the prosecution rested and it was time for the defense to do their part so the judge is, he talks to the defense. He's like, okay, you know, the court jurors call your first witness. And the defense attorney stood up and they said, thank

you, your honor, the defense rests. The courtroom was stunned. Yeah. And the girls jumped up from their seated positions, like stood there and shouted in court that they wanted to testify. The judge like shuts the court down. He gets everybody to shut up. He pulls all the defense attorneys back into chambers. And he's like, what the fuck is going on here? And Leslie Van Houten's attorney, Ronald Hughes, he says while he's in chambers with the judge, I refuse to take part in any proceeding

where I am forced to push a client out the window. So he's like, these women are going to try and testify and take the fall for Charles Manson. And I'm not going to let it happen. Because at this point, they are still swearing their allegiance to him. They will do anything to try and keep him out of jail. Yeah. That's so hard, though, for the attorneys, because, mean oh god it's like do you serve what is in your client's best interest or what your client thinks is in their best interest right exactly oh yeah like two days after this that lawyer ronald hughes leslie van houten's lawyer disappeared i remember this yes so after i remember this i listened to this two days ago. After the trial

was over, his body was found wedged between two boulders in Ventura County, California. And later, one of the Manson family members admitted that the Manson family had murdered him. Of course they did. Yeah. Did anyone ever go to jail for that? Or is it just no, it's never they were never nothing was ever prosecuted that's awful finally like they move forward the defense is not going to let the girls testify but charles manson decides that he wants to testify he's on the stand for hours and he makes all these big statements and blah blah i read them all last time i'm not going to read them this time he sounds like a fucking nut job it was creepy it's so creepy and something that biliosi said is that this guy, so Charles

Manson had spent more than half of his life in prison. He'd never had any kind of actual education, but somehow he spoke really eloquently and he sounded educated. And it was so clear to see that he could stand in front of a group of people and get them to believe what he wanted them to believe. group of people and get them to believe what he wanted them to believe. He was so charming, so charismatic, that just seeing that would show what power he had over. Well, and everything was someone else's fault. I mean, that's what the testimony was. It was like, this is your fault. He brought up the Vietnam War. Like, I mean, blame anything and everybody but him. Yeah. Finally, on January 15th, 1971, seven months after the beginning of the trial, the jury

began deliberations. They deliberated for nine fucking days. I don't know what they could have talked about for nine days. The only thing I can think is if they don't know that they can pin enough on Charles. Or are we brave enough to convict them? I didn't even think about that. Yeah. That would be terrifying. I think it would be terrifying. Think if fucking Charlie Manson was like staring you down. I'd be like, I don't know. He seems like a good guy. Yes. Yeah. That'd be really scary. Yeah. Ultimately, they convicted all of them. And on March 29th, 1971, the penalty phase began and they recommended the death sentence for all of the defendants.

So Charles Manson, Patricia Crenwinkel, Susan Atkins and Leslie Van Houten were all sentenced to death. Upon delivering those sentences, Judge Older said, You know? Yeah. Okay. I mean, I think he makes a fair point. At that point, the judge shook the hands of each juror. And he said, if it were within the power of a trial judge to award a medal of honor to jurors, believe me, I would bestow an award to each of you.

I can't imagine having to be a juror on a case like that. Well, first of all, the length alone of that case. I mean, that's a real chunk of your life. Yeah. And then to be part of one that's that high profile. Later, Bobby Beausoleil, Charles Manson, and Tex Watson were convicted on the murders of Gary Hinman. And then Tex Watson was also convicted on the murders for the Tate Law Bianca murders. In Helter Skelter, Bugliosi wrote, it had been the longest murder trial in American history lasting nine and a half months, the most expensive to date costing approximately $1 million

and the most highly publicized and the jury had been sequestered for 225 days longer than any jury before it. The trial transcript alone ran 209 volumes, 31,716 pages, and approximately 8 million words. Wow. Isn't that nuts? You know what's funny is it's not as expensive as I thought it would be. Right, yeah. But just the amount of time that everyone had to take. And I agree, they did deserve medals. I mean, at the very least. In 1972, the California Supreme Court abolished the death penalty. So all of the defendant's sentences were commuted to life sentences. Where are they now? So Susan Atkins had some kind of epiphany in jail and found Jesus.

Wait, she'd already found Jesus. Her name was Charlene. Yeah, Charlene's name found Jesus. Wait, she'd already found Jesus. Yeah, and she said that a grand light came to her one day and told her that she'd been forgiven for all that she'd done. In 2008, after multiple parole denials, Atkins filed for a compassionate release due to terminal brain cancer. And her request was denied. I think this is super interesting. So Buguleosi actually argued in favor of her release saying that her medical care cost more to the state than like releasing her wood. And at that point, she was going to die anyway. So they might as well just release her. But they denied it. And she died in prison on September 29, 2009. Patricia Kornwinkel is

currently the longest incarcerated female inmate in the California penal system. She has been denied parole 14 times, but she has shown remorse. In 1994, she did an interview and said, I wake up every day knowing that I am the destroyer of the most precious thing, which is life. And I do that because that's what I deserve. What I deserve is to wake up every morning and know that. Her next parole hearing will be held in 2022 and she will be 74 years old. Wow. Leslie Van Houten's first degree murder conviction in the Tate-LaBianca trial was actually overturned

in appellate court in 1976 because of what happened to her attorney. So they said that Judge Older erred in not granting a mistrial specifically for her when her attorney disappeared. granting a mistrial specifically for her when her attorney disappeared. So her conviction was overturned. She was reconvicted in 1978, and she was sentenced to life in prison. She was actually granted parole by the parole board in 2016, but it was blocked by then Governor Jerry Brown. And then again in 2018, the parole board recommended she should be released. And this time, the governor, who was a new governor, blocked it again.

In September of 2019, Leslie Van Houten appealed this decision, but her appeal was denied and she remains in prison. So parole board has actually recommended release for her multiple times, and it has been blocked by the governor every time. Okay, I know you're not going to know the exact ages of all these women when the crime occurred, or when they committed the crime. But do you know approximately? Yeah, like 18 or 19.

Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. That's really young. Yep. Charles Manson never took any responsibility for any murders or showed any remorse.

He was denied parole for the 12th and final time in 2012. His last few parole hearings he didn't even attend. He died of natural causes on November 19th, 2017, one week after his 83rd birthday. Wow. Mm-hmm. That's my favorite case. The man's family murders. That was so well told.

You did such a good job. Thank you. Thank you. It was so good. Yeah. So the first time I told it, I didn't talk about the actual murders at all. I went straight to the trial and really just talked all about the trial. Yeah, yeah.

And, like, I think it's important to hear about what happened to the victim. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We were still trying to figure out what this podcast was. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. We still are.

Oh, yeah. We do not have it figured out yet. Okay, so at that time, you were really stuck on like how you felt like if you'd been around in that time, you would have been sucked into it. Yes. I think that if I would have fucking Charles Manson preached to me, I would have believed every word he said. I would have been one of those girls. Really? Most of Susan Atkins came from a great family, very well to do. And she was sucked right up into his nonsense you think you would

have heard hey brandy there's a race war i probably i think i i hopefully would be too smart to believe that yes i was gonna say i really don't think you could be sucked in but i'm a very big supporter when people have unique ideas and so that's my fear that's where i think that i could get sucked and i'd be like yeah i mean those are some really forward thinking ideas you have there. Like I'm really into supporting people's ideas. That's where I think not. But I do think I'm smart enough that I would question things. Right. As you went around trying to find the bottomless pit, you'd be like, I don't know that we're going to find it. We're finding it, guys. Wow. Well, should we tell the people what we're planning

to do for the end of this episode yeah so you know lately at the end of each episode norman goes on to our discord oh should i grab norman yeah grab norman real quick where should i grab him oh giggity hey norman we're ready for you you want to tell people what you did norm what'd you do norm what did you do i went on the lgtc discord what's that um you know i don't know what is that kristen brandy you and i are sharing a mic can you make brandy say it brandy what is the discord so the discord is like a 90s chat room that we have if you sign up for our Patreon. So if you sign up at the $5 or $7 level, you get access to the Discord. It's so fun.

It's like all of the other patrons in there. And then Kristen and Norm and I are all in there. Our moms are in there. Our moms are in there. Yeah. It's really a great time. DP occasionally pops in to make fun of us. That's right. Or show off his sweet Photoshop skills. Oh my gosh. Yeah, more on that later. occasionally pops in to make fun of us that's right um and also office sweet photoshop skills

oh my gosh yeah more on that later but there's also bonus episodes and at seven dollar level you get inducted and you get a sticker okay so what'd you do in the discord norm so i asked your listeners their favorite memories of the let's go to Court podcast. Oh my gosh. There's a lot. This was the most responses we've ever gotten. Ooh, 12 whole responses. This is a ton. So this is their favorite episode or what they associate the podcast with, just everything. So I'm just going to go through.

Okay, awesome. You guys can react. Okay. Kay Burns says, I started listening to this podcast around the time my son was born, and it helped me so much with postpartum depression, and now it is associated with him, so it will always hold a special place in my heart. Oh my gosh.

That's amazing. That makes me want to cry. I know. Sylvia says, you guys got me through so many hours filing invoices this summer and doing homework during the school year. Thank you for making me look like an idiot by laughing so much at the podcast at work. You're welcome, Sylvia. Anytime.

Fiery One says, my favorite memory is how you all have taken dairy accessories to heart. Yes. Fiery One is our resident dairy expert. Yeah, he works in the dairy field and one time in our discord he said something about dairy accessories and we were like what the fuck is that when like a cow wears the heart of the ocean necklace or anyway turns out it's yogurt cheese it's you know yeah all that it's now you know gp weight says my water breaking during the Bob Moss episode. Yes. Yes.

That's one of my favorite things that somebody's ever told us. I know. I know that. How cool is that? Yes. And then she named her child Brandy. That's right. Her child's named Brandy now, and it's a boy.

So. I don't believe that. No, it's not true. No, his name's really Max. Gadriel says, the pants lawsuit. Oh. Oh, yes. Just dying with laughter the whole way through roy pants 182 you know okay that that episode holds like a special place in my heart because that summer was when i spent the summer in iowa and it was eight weeks away from you both yeah

it was really hard yeah and we recorded a ton of stuff beforehand. I mean, we just like killed ourselves trying to get stuff done. And so the episodes would come out and we were away from each other. And I remember like walking through Iowa and like listening to us and just like missing you. And anyway, that is such a good case. Yeah. That dry cleaner was a dick. Yeah, that dry cleaner was a dick. No, Roy Pants was a dick. I'm just kidding. Becky says, when Brandy and Kristen get distracted by something totally unrelated, cheese, a dog outside, etc.

This is how I know you're my people. That describes us perfectly. I don't think we've ever gotten distracted by anything. Oh, really? Yeah, no side stories here. Never. Just the facts, man. That's right.

Patrick says, it was a juvenile. Yes. That's my favorite case you've ever done. I laughed so fucking hard at that case. There have been so many times when we've started crying laughing. Yes. The sausage brunch. Oh.

Bob Moss. That was almost the end of me. bob moss juvenile bigfoot nipple plier oh my god yes oh we have fun chris lee says i was blown away to learn that in abraham lincoln's day you could just go to the white house and meet with the president what my god let's go talk to trump about this resident canadian mark says sitting here at 100 episodes did you ever feel this could have been a reality uh no yeah what did what were our expectations i don't know what our expectations were, but we're like 12 people will listen to it and we'll do it until it's not fun anymore. Yeah.

I think we'll do it until it's not fun anymore. Yeah. Sums it up. Yeah. We just, we had this idea. We thought it'd be cool. We had a blast. Like the first time we recorded an episode, I remember Norman afterward, you came up to

me and you were like, wow, you two sounded like you were having so much fun. And yeah, it's just been awesome. It has been. Every time. B. Barsina says, Kerberm. Oh, yeah. Had me in stitches. Herb Kerber.

Kerber. Herb. Kerber. Herb Kerber. Let's see oh tiff and i says brandy's story about the creepy guy who took pictures of her fondling a balloon oh god yeah it's terrible oh i still have nightmares about that she says i don't remember what episode that was but i was driving back all night from taking my daughter out of state for a concert and it kept me company and i immediately subscribed and have looked forward to wednesdays ever since

so you're a creepy balloon boy so that was the cannibal cop episode what's the cannibal cop episode that was a really good episode because you and i thought about it we did fight to the death to the death yeah i'm a ghost don't say that when i'm making kelly says being able to share your guys humor with my boyfriend and friends listening to the podcast while i'm cozied up in bed getting ready to sleep learning so much about so many interesting and fascinating cases i always look forward to each and every episode you guys put out because you all have just a sweet relationship with one another and getting

to listen in on you guys just being yourselves has been such a treat. What if it was all fake? What if we hated each other? Oh my god. Paid actors? Yeah. That's what I love. Those boy bands that were put together. Put together, yes. Mormon is Lou Pearlman.

I think it would have come out by now if we were not real friends do you remember that person on facebook this was a long time ago and they asked like hey now that you guys have been doing the podcast for a while do you consider yourselves real friends rather than just acquaintances and it like, how the hell do you think we met? We met in fifth grade. By the way, the very, I actually missed one. The very first reply, or sorry, one of the first replies, Anna says, my favorite story is of your darling wife shitting herself in the car.

Oh, yeah. It's a great story and a great memory poor peanut cried the whole time poor me i shat myself do you have any idea how much dignity you lose shitting yourself on the side of the highway when kristin first brought up sausage brunch like it was the most everyday known thing in the world my husband and i looked at each other and we're like what the fuck is she talking about so glad brandy was also completely confused and called her out that's a good one and we're gonna make it for our december video right that's right i'm so excited neo black mage says hands down creamy boy got me

it still does to this day you're welcome it's kind of it's kind of caught on like yeah we definitely call cream soda creamy boys it's one of those things sometimes the nickname is too good like yeah when norman and i were first dating and i introduced him to peanut norman called her the nut and i was like please stop yeah please stop because that's going to catch on yeah what do we call her now the nut and what do we call cream soda now creamy boys gotta get a creamy boy those are awesome there's a ton more but i think yeah we'll get on and just yeah it's starting to feel like we're masturbating. I know. It's gotten very self-indulgent here. Probably 100 episodes. It's a big deal.

You both should be proud. Thank you, Norm. And as 50% owner, you should also be proud. You should be 50% proud. I'm very proud of my ladies. Hey, ladies. Thank you, Norm. We appreciate you.

Thank you, everyone who took the to to send in a fun memory those were awesome those really were hey should we do inductions let's do some inductions but first what the hell are you talking about i'm talking about the supreme court now that's where you're like oh right oh right boy oh boy thank you to everyone who has joined the Supreme Court lately. Let's do some inductions. We are still doing favorite TV shows. Are you ready? No, of course I'm not, Christine.

Oh, jeez. I'm almost there. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold up. Wait a minute. Okay.

I am there. Remember, to get inducted into the Supreme Court, all you have to do is sign up for our Patreon at the $7 level. You get inducted, you get a sticker, you get a card, you get bonus videos, you get bonus episodes, you get to get in the discord, you get case updates. I mean, the list goes on and on. That's literally all of them, but it was a long list. Really took it out of you, huh? It sure did. I'm out of breath. Kristen, what should people do for this week's inductions?

For this week's inductions? God, I just snapped. Damn it. Okay. For this week's inductions, the next time you're talking to someone, clap randomly for emphasis. If you're being recorded, even better. Even better.

Patrick. Scrubs. Ensign Mazer. Star Trek The Next Generation. Ashley. The. Scrubs. Ensign Mazer. Star Trek The Next Generation. Ashley. The Mindy Project. Miriam. Seinfeld.

Natalie. The OA. It's just so, so special and my heart is still broken from Netflix not renewing it. I've never heard of it. Oh yeah, I've heard of it. I haven't seen it. It's like a sci-fi thingy. Oh yeah, that explains it.

Beth. The Office. I haven't seen it. It's like a sci-fi thingy. Oh, yeah, that explains it. Beth. The Office. Morgan Kelly. Veronica Mars. Jess Smith. Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Julia Sola. Law and Order.

Original recipe, not SVU. Hey, wow, Julia. That's only my favorite brand. Welcome to the Supreme Court. You do the thing this time. Man, I really gave you a complex, didn't I? I just said it the one time. I just made fun of you one time.

You do the thing. Oh my gosh, you guys. Thank you so much. Wow, now you're trying to do my voice. I mean, I guess it's cool that you guys signed up for the Patreon or whatever. Like we care. Yeah. Yeah.

Ask us if we care. Ask us if we care. Ask us if we care. Ask us if we even care if you find us on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, YouTube. You know, sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. If you're into that kind of thing, which we totally are not.

We've always been very cool, guys. So your support means nothing. Nothing. No, it means everything. We love it so much. Thank you, guys. We've always been very cool, guys. So your support means nothing. No, it means everything. We love it so much. Thank you, guys. We appreciate it very much. Thank you so much. Please be sure to join us next week.

When we'll be experts. I'm sorry. It's the 100th fucking episode, Kristen. I blame you. The way you said it was like your delivery was very unusual. When we'll be experts on two whole new topics. Podcast adjourned! And now for a note about our process. I read a bunch of stuff, then regurgitate it all back up

in my very limited vocabulary. And I copy and paste from the best sources on the web and sometimes Wikipedia. So we owe a huge thank you to the real experts. For this episode, I got my info from an episode of American Greed, New York Times Magazine, the Kansas City Business Journal, and Wikipedia. And I got my info from an article for the Crime Library by Marilyn Bardsley, FamousTrials.com, Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi, and Wikipedia. For a full list of our sources, visit lgtcpodcast.com. Any errors are, of course, ours, but please don't take our word for it. Go read their stuff.