Let's Go To Court! - 105: The Mother from Hell & the Kidnapping of Yingying Zhang

Episode Date: January 22, 2020

In the summer of 1984, a small fire broke out along a California highway. A driver pulled off the road to get a closer look at the blaze, but that closer look brought more questions than answers. What the hell was that awful smell? Soon, another driver arrived on the scene. He used a fire extinguisher to put out the flames. Once the smoke cleared, the two drivers made a disturbing discovery -- a burnt human body. Investigators learned that the body belonged to a woman -- and that she’d sustained multiple injuries over her lifetime. But it would take them years to discover who that woman was, and who had tortured her. Then Kristin tells us about a bright, talented young woman whose life was cut short by a total dirtbag. Yingying Zhang was beyond smart. Originally from Nanping, China, she attended one of the nation’s top universities. When it came time to earn her doctorate, she headed off to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She had only been in the United States for a few weeks when she suddenly went missing.  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: “Undercover girlfriend” episode of 20/20 “The Kidnapping and murder of YingyingZhang” entry on wikipedia “Prosecutor: Suspect in Chinese student’s kidnapping discussed ‘ideal victim’” by Kaylee Hartung, Janet DiGiacomo and Darran Simon for CNN.com “In opening statement, attorney admits Brendt Christensen abducted, killed Chinese scholar at University of Illinois,” by Jamie Munks for the Chicago Tribune “Guilty: Brendt Christensen found guilty in Yingying Zhang’s kidnapping, killing,” wandtv.com  In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Mother Knows Best: The Story of Theresa Jimmie Cross” by David Lohr, Crime Library “‘Unbelievable’ Tale Reveals Grisly Crimes” by Richard C. Paddock, Los Angeles Times “Theresa Jimmie Knorr” murderpedia.org “Theresa Knorr” wikipedia.org

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A proud member of Wayne's Auto Group. 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 the kidnapping of Ying Ying Zhang.

And I'll be talking about one hell of a mother. I'm sorry, that's a typo. I meant the mother from hell. Oh! Is that gonna be you, or what's happening? Wow! No, I will be nothing like this mother. Thank you very much. Am I gonna feel really terrible? Okay, yeah, sorry.

Sorry. First of all, thank you to David Lohr at the Crime Library. Oh, we're jumping right in. Oh, I'm sorry. Did you want to say something first? I don't know. I mean, we usually plug the Patreon. That's me throwing on the brakes.

Patreon. We've got one. Check it out. Oh, that's the lamest. Is that what you were going to say? I don't know. I don't know why i lost energy you did you became a puddle of kristin over there we're very full of stromboli yeah okay

we had we had hot wings and then we both ate stromboli i mean we rolled out of the restaurant and into my home and here we are and i'm to plug a Patreon. And evidently it's too much. Okay. Let me just get it out. All blah, blah, blah. No, that's you doing so good. Thanks. You should have a podcast.

Okay, guys. Here's the deal. For $5 a month, you get to listen to bonus episodes. How many do we have at this point? Like seven? We're about, no, six. We're about to put out seven. Okay.

How many more do you want? Eight? All right. Wait a month. We're about, no, six. We're about to put out seven. Okay. How many more do you want? Eight? All right. Wait a month. We've got plenty. Mary Kay Letourneau, the wrongful, good God, I'm falling down here. You really are. There's a really gruesome hammer murder.

There's, you did Timothy McVeigh. I did. You did Jim Carrey's wrongful death lawsuit. Yes. There's some exciting cases on there. We have an unsolved. Oh, that was a good one. That one's a really good one.

That's my favorite one that we have on the Patreon. I'm picking up steam now. My favorite episode, and I can't remember which one this was, was when we talked about who we would have at our ideal dinner party. Do you remember this? I do. And Norman said. He wants to see Hitler in his little shorts and make fun of him.

Yeah, he wanted Adolf Hitler to be there. Hitler in his little shorts and make fun of him. Yeah, he wanted Adolf Hitler to be there. And he wanted Adolf Hitler to take off his pants to see whether he actually had a micropenis. I'm sure that he did. It's not a mystery. Yeah, I'm sure that he did. But what kind of dinner party are you going to where everybody takes off their pants?

Norman's dinner party. To be clear, I only wanted Hitler to take his pants off. Nobody else? How do you think you're going to get Hitler to take his pants off. Nobody else? How do you think you're going to get Hitler to take his pants off when nobody else is taking their pants off? Look, we invited him to a dinner party. He's been dead for years. He should be grateful he's here. The least he can do is show us his dick.

The least he can do is show us his dick. So he shows you his micropenis and then what, Norm? It's huge news. I take a picture. We have confirmation this asshole had a micropen Norm? It's huge news. I take a picture. We have confirmation. This asshole had a micro penis. It's really about embarrassing him. Excellent. Okay.

Well, his actions are bad enough. But okay. Yeah. He probably had a little dong. Anyway, this is a plug for the Patreon. And our second episode in a row that Nazis have come up. I'm sorry. Well, the first one was my fault.

Second one, my fault. I brought him up again. That's right. You know, the political climate is really terrifying. And I guess I've got Nazis on the brain. Anyway, that's the $5 level. If you want to hear bonus episodes, if you want to do the $7 level, you also get a bonus monthly video, which those are really fun. And actually, do you want to tell them what we're doing this month? Yeah, tell them. Yeah. So we are doing another cooking segment. So Kristen made her Midwest recipe, and I'm going to make the Midwest recipe that I grew up on, which is cottage cheese jello salad.

Which sounds disgusting. Is actually delicious. I know. It sounds impossible that it could be delicious. But it is. Give them the ingredients. Oh my gosh. Cottage cheese, jello, pineapple, cool whip,

marshmallows. What more do you want? Yeah. If you're feeling frisky, you can put some nuts in there. I was waiting for the nuts. I think so. I don't put nuts in mine, but lots of people put nuts in it. That's like one step too far for me. I do like it with coconut though. Okay. Okay. You wild woman. Yeah. Anyway, that's, um, so we're doing a couple Midwest trash recipes for your enjoyment. But yeah, join us over there. You get logged into the Discord. You get a sticker. You get inducted at the end of an episode.

It's a good time. You forgot to tell them about our autographs. Oh, also, also. As if that's something that's going to draw somebody in. Hold the phone, everybody. You know how you want Jennifer Aniston's autograph. You know how you wish you had like Teddy Rosen. That's the celebrity that you go to?

Jennifer Aniston? You know what? You know what it is? Kyla had a Jennifer Aniston autograph from back in the day. Do you remember? I remember Kyla used to do this. Kyla had a collection of celebrity autographs. She would write celebrities.

Yeah. And they would send their headshot autographed back. Yeah. I think write celebrities. Yeah. And they would send their headshot autographed back. Yeah. I think that's pretty cool. Well, anyway, if you want our autograph, monetary value, $2 million. That's right. All you have to do is sign up at the Supreme Court level on Patreon, which is a hell of a deal.

You know, for $7, you get something worth, what did I just say? $2 million. $2 million. Mine is worth $1,990,000. Okay. Okay. Kristen's is worth $2,000. Thanks a lot, Brandy. No problem. Can I start now? Yeah, please. Oh my God. We're gonna have to cut a ton of that. That was crazy. I loved every second of it. I shouldn't have brought up Hitler's dick. I know. Hindsight's 2020. What can I say say it always seems like a good idea and then this happens that's always the top of my conversation you ever get a lull in a conversation

yeah you know you have like a go-to yeah you got like a checklist you had a go-to topics hitler's weather one sports hitler's micro penis yeah okay Big thank you to David Lohr at the Crime Library. Most of this information comes from an article by him. Also, Wikipedia has a great entry on this case. So here we go. It was July 17th, 1984. The day before my sister Casey was born. My mom was in labor with Casey for like 56 hours.

Oh, God. So she's like in the hospital hoping that kid comes out any time. My God. Well, because of that, I was a C-section baby, so I was beautiful. And Casey looked like an alien. That's nice. Casey was all smushed because she got stuck in there. Well, yeah.

Yeah. And then I was just removed like a tumor. And so I looked like a toddler. As you all recall, I was huge. They called you monster baby. That's right. Okay. July 17th, 1984.

This woman, Mabel Harrison, is driving on California Highway 89, which is somewhere near Lake Tahoe. Lake Tahoe is a large area. So I don't know exactly which part of Lake Tahoe. But anyway, she's driving and she's like driving through a heavily wooded area. And she notices this really bright light coming from the woods. And she's alarmed by this. She thinks that there is a fire, like probably a wildfire in the woods. So she pulls over and she tries to kind of see from where she's at without having to get out of her car, but she can't see enough to be sure

that's what it is. So she gets out of her car and she walks down an embankment to try and get a closer look to be sure before she calls it in or whatever or goes and gets i mean she doesn't have a cell phone it's 1984 so before she goes and reports it to anyone she wants to make sure she's seeing what she's seeing and so she goes down this embankment and as she gets closer to the source of this light this unbelievable stench greets her. And so she doesn't know what it is, but she's sure that there is a fire. And she thinks that maybe there is a body in this fire. Like, I've never smelled a burning body,

but I would guess that if you ever came across that, you would just have an instinct. That you'd know that's what it is. Yeah. Yes. And so she runs back up this embankment and she flags down a truck. This guy, Robert Eden, is driving the truck.

He sees her on the side of the road, waving her arms. He pulls over. She told him what she'd seen, that there was this big fire, that she thought there might be a body in the fire just by the smell, but she's not sure. So he has a fire extinguisher in his truck.

I'm guessing this is like a big semi, would be my guess, because he has a CB radio too. So he grabs a fire extinguisher out of his. I'm guessing this is like a big semi, would be my guess, because he has a CB radio too. So he grabs a fire extinguisher out of his truck and they go off towards the fire. He gets his fire extinguisher. They're trying to put out the flame. And as the fire is getting smaller,

they can see that there is for sure a human body in this fire. And that's when they were like, holy shit, what have we stumbled upon? So they both go back to his truck. They get on the CB radio and they report to authorities or, you know, I don't know how a CB radio works. I don't know if you can directly contact the police or if you have to like contact headquarters and headquarters contacts police. I don't fucking know.

You know, when I use my CB radio. What's your call name? Breaker one. Anyway, emergency crews come and they surround the area. And before long, these two detectives show up and they kind of assess the scene. There's definitely a woman's body in this fire. And the body was very badly burned, but enough of it was intact to be able to tell that the body had breasts. And so it was clear that it was a woman and the left side of the woman's face had been down and so that part was not charred while the rest of the body was and part of her leg was detached because it was so badly burned wow like

they thought maybe that's where the fire had initiated on her body and so like it had burned so much that like it detached a portion of her leg. They picked up more than 30 pieces of evidence, all kinds of like personal items around her. There was a toothbrush, there was a pair of Gloria Vanderbilt jeans. Do you know who Gloria Vanderbilt is? Yeah, Anderson Cooper's mom. Come on, who do you think you're talking to here? Yes. There was a scarf, there was a bra, and then there was like diapers and earrings and all kinds of personal effects, like a lot of them. Like she was in the process of moving? Maybe, or that she had been dumped with some of her belongings. Okay. The body was designated Jane Doe number 4837 slash 84, and she was sent off to the county morgue for an official autopsy. The autopsy

revealed that this woman was somewhere between 18 and 22 years old. She was five foot three and approximately 115 pounds. And she had been through an extreme amount of abuse prior to her death. There were two puncture wounds to her body. They were discovered on her back. There was knife wounds or some kind of Yeah, some kind of like two different puncture wounds, but like they had been inflicted at different times. Oh, there was also these big blackened areas, which signified to them that she had had internal bleeding so that she'd suffered some kind of pretty serious beating and she had died from smoke inhalation. So that meant that she had been alive when she was set on fire.

Following the autopsy, Jane Doe's fingers were removed so that her fingerprints could be preserved. And they also removed her jaw so that if dental records ever came in, they could identify her by dental records. But that was it. They had really very little to go on as far as identifying this Jane Doe. And they checked like missing persons reports and nothing seemed to match up. And so into some kind of evidence locker, all of this stuff went and that was that for a time. Could they tell? I mean, I know you said that part of her face wasn't burned, but like, so they did tell enough to know like what race she is what she kind of looks yeah so they did make a composite sketch and they did put that out but it got like no response yeah okay yeah so a little less than a year later on june 24th 1985 this guy elmer barber was making

his usual rounds at the martis creek campground which again is near lake tahoe okay and i don't know if he's like a park ranger or just like the guy that runs the campground i which again is near Lake Tahoe. And I don't know if he's like a park ranger or just like the guy that runs the campground. I don't really know what his role is, but he's making the rounds at this campground and he stumbles upon this big cardboard box and he decides he's going to look inside. This was a decision that he would immediately regret. And what he saw in this box would haunt him for the rest of his life. Inside was the decomposing body of a young woman curled up in the fetal position. He called the police immediately and within a couple of hours, like the area was locked down and investigators were everywhere. But the body was in an advanced

stage of decomposition. And again, no positive ID was able to be made. So this victim was dubbed Jane Doe number 6607-85. If you were out for a walk and you saw a cardboard box, would you open it? I'd really want to. I would too. But I don't know if I would. I think I would be like this guy. I would kind of know that maybe I shouldn't. Yeah. But yeah, I'd really want to. Yeah. Yeah. So an autopsy was performed, but with the advanced stage of decomposition, no cause of death was able to be determined. It would be another eight years before authorities would learn the identities of these two Jane Does. Oh, my God.

And another eight years before they would connect the cases. And that's when they would learn that the two Jane Doe victims were, in fact, sisters. All of this would come out thanks to the bravery of their other sister, Terry Knorr. She came forward and shared an unbelievable story of cruelty. The story Terry had to tell was so unbelievable, in fact, that she had on previous occasions years earlier tried to tell the police. Oh no. And they dismissed her believing it to be made up.

Following that interaction with the police. Oh, no. And they dismissed her believing it to be made up. Following that interaction with the police, Terry had attempted to relay this tale of horror that she'd been through to her therapist. And her therapist had dismissed her as well. Again, believing the story was some kind of work of fiction, or at the very least, a very embellished version of her real experiences. Oh, that's so sad. For some time, Terry gave up hope that anyone would believe what she'd been through. And then in October of 1993, she was watching America's Most Wanted. And on this particular episode, none of the cases related to her or what she knew had happened in any way. But for some reason, she really connected to it. And it gave

her hope that someone could believe what she went connected to it. And it gave her hope that someone could believe what she went through. Yeah. And so she called the number on America's Most Wanted, and like relayed the story to them. And they put her in contact with these detectives in the Lake Tahoe area. And they're like, please tell them your story. Yeah, try again. Yeah. And so she called those detectives, and she told them what she knew about these two unidentified Jane does that had been located near the area. And detectives were able to confirm enough details with what she said and what were in these old case files that they thought maybe just maybe she wasn't full of shit. Like, she knows just a little bit too much. Yeah, yeah.

And so they asked her to come in and sit down and tell her whole story in person. And so she did. And they were not prepared for what Terry had to tell them. So it turns out that Terry Knorr was the youngest daughter of Teresa Jimmy Francine Cross Knorr. Well, that's too many names. And the story of Teresa's life was one all its own. Teresa was born on March 12th, 1946. Her father was an assistant cheesemaker in Sacramento.

Never quite made it to cheesemaker, huh? I know, assistant cheesemaker. His name was Jim. So hence the Jimmy for her middle name. One of her middle names. She's got two. And then her mom, Swanee. I don't know. Swanee.

Yeah. S-W-A-N-N-I-E. Worked for some like local lumber company. Teresa had an older sister named Rosemary, who was I think two years older than her. And some older step siblings from a previous marriage of Swanee's. So Swanee had been married, that person that she was married to had some kids, and that man had died. And so somehow, like, even though Swanee was not their legal mother, or whatever, natural mother, they still maintained a relationship with her after their father's death. Okay. So Teresa was very jealous of her older sister, Rosemary. She thought that she got more attention than her. And she just felt like very much in her shadow and very jealous of her and whatever though the family did pretty well they had a small house in sacramento and then they moved out of sacramento to rio linda which i don't know i think it's in

about the same area i'm not really sure but here's the reason that jim never made it to full-on cheesemakers because he was diagnosed with parkinson's disease and so he had to leave his job so this really took a toll on him he felt And so he had to leave his job. So this really took a toll on him. He felt like he wasn't supporting his family. And then Swanee died at a pretty young age. And Teresa was actually with her mother at the time of her death. She just like dropped dead one day, collapsed when they were like at the grocery store or something. And Teresa was with her. So this happened in 1961. So Teresa's like 15 years old. And she already felt like she wasn't close enough to her mom. Her mom favored her older

sister. That was one of the sources of jealousy. And so this had a huge impact on Teresa's life, like her mom just dropping dead, like right there. Turns out she had congestive heart failure. Yeah. And that's why she died. The following Swanee's death, the family was really rocked by it because now Jimmy really felt that he couldn't support the family. Or Jim, I'm sorry. Teresa's middle name is Jimmy. He went by Jim. I don't know why you're getting so confused.

Why do I do these cases where all the names are intertwined? Literally, it's like thing for you. It's like you can't do the case unless like the father. I'm like, oh, everybody has different names. Nope, can't do it. No, no, everybody has different names. Nope, can't do it. That's too simple. So Jim goes into this deep depression because now he has no idea how to support his family. He's getting like a small amount of disability. And Parkinson's sucks. Absolutely. Oh, so Teresa's like, fuck this. I'm out of here. And so she just like kind of clings

on to the first man who comes into her life. So she's 15 years old when she meets Clifford Clyde Sanders. Oh God, that sounds made up. What? He's five years older than her. They meet at a mutual friend's house and they immediately click. No. Within a couple of weeks, they're in love. Absolutely not. And talking about marriage. Disgusting. Yeah. She's 15. And he's 20. He's 20. And they have so much in common. That's right. No. That's right. No, they don't. So on September 29th, 1962.

No, no, no. So Teresa's now 16 years old. Oh, well, that's old enough. They get married. And Teresa becomes Teresa Sanders. So one article says she drops out of junior high school, but she's 16. She'd be in regular high school, I would assume.

But she drops out of school high school, but she's 16. She'd be in regular high school, I would assume. But she drops out of school and focuses on her marriage. They move to this little tiny apartment in California. And very quickly, if you would believe it, the marriage starts to go downhill. You're kidding me. Teresa was super possessive, as it turned out, and didn't want Clifford looking at anybody else. It's almost like she was an insecure teenager. Uh, yeah. And so he would kind of act out because of that and she'd get pissed or whatever. Anyway, in 1963, they have their first kid and name him Howard. Howard Clyde. Okay. That's his dad's middle name. And for a while

that seemed to calm things down. They kind of got comfortable as a family. Clifford stayed home a little bit more. And then things transitioned back to the old patterns. Clifford's out all the time. Teresa's pissed because she's at home watching the baby. And it's bad. June 22nd, 1964, they get in this fight and Clifford hits Teresa. Like in the face, I think. I'm not sure. She had been, I guess, like screaming at him and he'd had enough and he hit her. So she calls police and they come and arrest him. But when they went to charge him, she refused to sign the papers. And so they had no choice but to release him and they come home. And I guess for a little bit, things are okay again. Cycle of violence. Yeah. Here we go. Yes. Until two weeks later, July 5th,

1964. Yeah. Finally, Clifford had had enough apparently of the marriage and he packed his bags and he told Teresa he was leaving. He was done. He was out of here. And Teresa picked up a gun and shot him. Oh, wow. Grabbed a rifle, shot him. He fell over, dead. One shot, dead. Holy shit. Yeah. Police show up to the scene they question her and she says i grabbed the gun because he was hitting me and just all of a sudden it went off and she's very upset the rifle's still in the room like the body's laying there in the room body's laying face down which seemed odd to police yeah because wouldn't you have had to shoot someone in the back yeah yeah yeah yeah so hard to hit someone within your backs to them

yeah yeah yeah yeah so hard to hit someone with your backs to them i've tried it many times and so they arrest her and they charge her with the first degree murder of her husband huh she entered a plea of not guilty by reason of self-defense and her trial began in august of 1964 so the district attorney at the time his name was donald dorfman he wanted a first degree conviction he wasn't going to settle for anything less he clearly thought that this was something that she had planned because her whole story when they first came was that he'd come home every day of drinking and was berating her and hitting her and she had no choice but to shoot him and an autopsy determined that he had no alcohol in his system okay so immediately her story doesn't match weird yeah and his bags were packed like they were there

in the house packed it was very clear that he had told her he was leaving uh-huh and that's when she done this well and when you leave an abusive relationship that's when you're most likely to be killed yeah and i think there was a lot of abuse going on well yeah it seems like in this it seems like there was no shortage so in in opening statements, the district attorney says that Teresa murdered her husband in cold blood and then had concocted this whole story of self-defense in order to get herself out of jail. It was like a get out of jail free story. I believe they call that a card. Well, yes. She didn't actually have a card, though, Christian.

Just a great story. actually have a card though, Kristen. Just a great story. But in the prosecution's opinion, the murder had been planned and was committed because Teresa was sure that her husband was having an affair and that he'd finally decided he was done with her and he was leaving. But of course, the defense gets up and says, no, she was acting out of self-defense and bombshell, Teresa's pregnant. So she was protecting her unborn child. Well, okay. You don't think that's a good defense? I mean, I don't see how a pregnancy makes her story more credible. It makes her more sympathetic.

Sure, sure, but okay. Yeah. So the first witness called is the doctor who did the autopsy, and he says that there were no powder burns on the body, so that meant that, like, she hadn't held the gun to him, I guess, and threatened. She had shot him from a distance away. Oh. So it's not like she held the gun and was like, you stop coming towards me or I'll shoot you. So maybe she wasn't in imminent danger. Correct. Okay. And he also said that they had found no alcohol in his system. He said that the bullet had passed through his wrist before it entered his

chest so he had his hands out like in a defensive position uh-huh i've seen true crime shows that doesn't make sense for being shot from behind so no it doesn't yeah unless he was you know hitting her with his back which is what she had originally yes that's exactly right it all makes sense now doesn't it yeah um the police chief uh testified that's a school bus that's a fucking school bus just going balls to the wall up the hill here they gotta drop off these kids they gotta make it in time to see ricky lake right that's exactly right do you remember how we used to race home to see ricky lake we loved it and we'd call each other and talk on the phone while we watched it the police chief got on the stand and he talked about the previous interactions that the two had

had with police and that there were signs that there were abuse in the home but that it had been kind of on both sides it wasn't that theresa was the only victim of abuse she had been abusive towards clifford it seemed seemed, as well. It was a tumultuous environment inside this home. I hate all this because I love black and white stuff. And it's just not. I mean, she's a child, but she murdered him. So, yeah.

Teresa actually took the stand in her own defense. And she cried and told the jury that she had been a victim of lots of physical abuse and claimed that her husband was a violent alcoholic. The defense called a psychologist of some sort that had examined Teresa following the incident and said that she had signs of anxiety disorder, that she was very remorseful and that she was frightened. She seemed genuinely frightened by her husband and what this would mean for the rest of her life. Yeah. And so during closing arguments, which took place in September of 1964, the prosecution basically said the same thing

that they had said during opening, that Teresa had murdered her husband in cold blood out of jealousy. He said, this is clearly premeditated first degree murder. Not every murderer can look like the witch in Snow White. She's 18 and pregnant, but that doesn't overcome the fact that she maliciously shot and killed her husband without provocation. The jury deliberated for one hour and 45 minutes. What do you think they found?

I have no idea. They acquitted her. Wow. They found her not guilty. Yeah. And the prosecutor was like, so pissed about it. He could not believe that that's what they came back with. So during her trial and everything, Teresa's baby, Howard, had been sent to live with family and her custody had basically been revoked. Yeah.

After her acquittal, she regained custody of her son and she moved in with some family friends. At this time, she's now like four months pregnant and she has to figure out how to support these two kids. Yeah. And so she started the only place she knew how to start, which was to go find another man to take care of her. She's what, 18 years old. She's a high school dropout. Yeah. And so she started hanging out at like the American Legion Hall. And it was there that she met this man who I can't believe this is his name, but this is what the article says. His name's Estelle. I never heard of a man named Estelle. Yeah, I haven't either. Yeah. His name's Estelle Lee Thornsberry. So I don't know. And he was this army veteran who had had some kind of swimming accident that left him in a wheelchair. And he was a super nice guy,

seemed pretty well off. And so Teresa didn't seem to mind his disability. And so the two became close very quickly. She ended up giving birth to her baby that she was pregnant with and named her Sheila. And this guy, Estelle really took to that baby and took care of it as if it was his own, even though obviously he knew he wasn't the father or anything like that. And so the family all moved in together. And Estelle was by all accounts, deeply in love with Teresa and Teresa was not in love with him. And it became a point of contention in their relationship because Estelle really felt like he was being treated as a babysitter and a housekeeper rather than a love interest. Yeah. And so one day he comes home, I guess, and he finds Teresa in bed with his best friend. Yeah.

And so he made Teresa move out and she moved in with some friends. So that was the end of that relationship. That sucks. Oh, yeah. But she very quickly moved on to another relationship. This time with this guy named Robert Knorr. Her poor kids. Oh, yeah.

So she's got two at this time. Just wait. There's more coming. So she meets this guy, Robert Knorr. He's in the Marines, they start dating, she gets pregnant right away, and they get married because he's being shipped off to Vietnam. It's 1966. So we're right in the middle of, you know, the war in Vietnam. And so he gets sent off. And he's only there a short time when he's out on patrol and he's shot. He's struck in the shoulder with a bullet. But it wasn't a serious injury.

He recovered pretty quickly and they put him back into the jungle. It was like, okay, let's give you a couple stitches. Great. You get a couple ice cream cones. Here you go. You're back on patrol. But it's just like a couple weeks later, he's out on patrol in the jungle again and he's shot again.

This time he's shot in the side, but for some reason it like barely penetrates his skin it's just like a little flesh wound really yes and so he gets another stay in the hospital but then they're like okay great you know a couple days in the hospital you're doing great again we're gonna put you right back out there so now a couple months go by no no does no, no. Does he get shot again? He is walking across a bridge when it all of a sudden blows up. Oh. This time shrapnel like went through his arm, went through his leg. This was a pretty serious injuries this time. And they were like, okay, probably enough close calls with you because he actually did survive this. But this time he gets released from his, his infantry duty and he gets sent back to the United States. So I'm sorry, I guess they did not marry before he went to Vietnam because they marry when

he comes back. Okay. But at that point, Teresa's seven months pregnant with their child. So they drive to Nevada, get married. And this was Robert's first marriage and he was all in. And this is Teresa's now second marriage, like, you know, third serious relationship. They move to Sacramento, get this apartment, and then another baby is born. Another girl, now Teresa's third child.

And she names this one Suzanne with an E. S-U-E-S-A-N. Oh. I've never seen Susan spelled that way. No. Yeah, I don't think that's correct. Stay in school. Yeah.

So she welcomes Suzanne in 1966. And then three months later, she's pregnant again. 1967, she has a son that they name William. So that's her fourth child. Not much longer down the road, Teresa would give birth to her fifth child. Oh, God, that just sounds awful. In December of 1968. And she names that one Robert.

Can you imagine being pregnant that many times? Which is, it's just so confusing because Robert is William's middle name. And it's also the dad's first name. There's too many names. You and I are stuck on two very different things. You're stuck on the fact that she's now, what, like 22 and has five kids? Yes, and she's been pregnant, oh God. Oh, she's been non-stop pregnant.

There's been no gaps in these pregnancies. Which sounds terrible. I know. I know. Maybe she just didn't want to give up the maternity pants. I mean, you love yours. I do love the maternity pants, but I don't think I want to. Yeah, I don't think this nonstop pregnancy is going to be for me.

Robert worked in some kind of capacity with the military for a while, but then his injuries that he had sustained led to him having to leave. He was put on like a burial escort. So he would often have to leave like at no notice and go transport a body to wherever it was being, you know, whatever. And so she hated this job. And she accused him all the time of not really being at work and going out and having all these affairs and all this. I'm just her kind of her classic MO. And because he wasn't there, she began to take out her anger on her children. Oh, whenever she would get angry, she'd like make them

sit on the floor. And if they moved like an inch, including even like blinked, she'd become so angry with them that she'd slap them or hit them or punch them. And if that didn't work, she would lock them in the closet, just whatever to release her anger, take it out on something. By June of 1969, like Robert had had enough. He's tired of always being accused of having an affair. He's tired of Teresa's mood swings. And he sees the way that she's treating the children. And so he's out of there. He leaves everyone behind. He doesn't take his kids with him. Nothing. He just takes off and leaves. They reconcile a short time later, but that was a very short reconciliation. And again, he's out of there. A year after that, Teresa files for divorce. And this is her second divorce. And

it's presided over by the same judge who presided over her murder trial. Oh, God, that's weird. Yeah. I guess this is her first divorce because her first husband died. Yeah, there's no divorce. Yeah, there's no divorce there. So it's the same judge who presided over her murder trial that presides over this divorce hearing. And he grants a divorce. And then while they were going through this divorce, Teresa finds out that she's pregnant again. She's pregnant with their sixth child. They divorce anyway. And in 1970, she gives birth to her sixth child, a daughter that she names Teresa, after herself.

Sure. And young Teresa goes by the name Terry. Okay. For a while, Robert tried to keep in contact with his children, but Teresa made that very difficult for him. So eventually he gives up and starts a new life. I don't love that, but okay. I have no doubt that Teresa made it very difficult for him though. But yeah.

Yeah. You have to fight for your children. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Of course, you have to fight for your children. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Of course, Teresa did not stay single for long. She married a guy who worked on the railroad and they moved to Sacramento, another house in Sacramento. They're just moving all over Sacramento at this point. A lot of people thought that they were the perfect family, you know, six kids, husband with a good job at the railroad. But again, Teresa starts treating this new husband,

his name's Ronald, very much like she treated Estelle, where she's going out and partying all the time and he's left at home to take care of the kids. Let me guess, he didn't love it. He did not. He became convinced that she was having an affair and he filed for divorce in 1972. And again, the same judge presided over the divorce hearing. So they get divorced. And now Teresa is just living it up. She's single and ready to mingle. She's hanging out at the American Legion Hall.

And here she meets another dude. I don't know. What is she, 22 by this point? 23? She meets this 59-year-old guy named Chet Harris. Wait, 59? Yeah, 59. Oh, gross.

Yeah. Oh, no. She has packed a lot of life into her short time on Earth. She sure has. So Chet Harris is a copy editor at the Sacramento Union. Yes. And they hit it off. And in August of 1976, they got married three days after they first met.

Oh, good God. What is wrong with people have they heard trust no one right were the big dog shirts out then or was that in the 90s right so here's what happens when you marry someone you've known for three days it goes great and you're married for the rest you don't know fucking shit about them and as soon as they move in together she finds out oh oh he's super old um he's old and his number one hobby is taking photos of naked women he's got photos of naked women all over his bedroom and he wants theresa to pose for these pictures and she says no and so very quickly the marriage is very bad except that chet really hits it off with theresa's daughters what do you mean i i think i fatherly okay they spent a lot of time together working on jigsaw puzzles and

talking about mythology as far as this article mentions and nothing i found mentioned anything different it wasn't anything it was just like a father-daughter relationship what the daughters had really not had all of these men are coming in and out of their lives for short periods of time. And so they connect pretty well, especially Susan connected very well with Chet. But Teresa doesn't like that. Why? Because why would he spend more attention on them than he's giving her? So she becomes jealous. This whole thing is grossing me out. Yeah. Thanks a lot. You're welcome. You're welcome. So two months into that marriage, Teresa files for divorce.

And yet again, the same judge presides over the divorce hearing. And this would be like his last court appearance. He retired like right after that. I've seen this lady, seen her murder trial and 16 divorces. I am done. I've seen this lady, seen her murder trial and 16 divorces. I am done. So following this divorce, Teresa's behavior really changed. She started drinking a lot.

Her behavior became very volatile. She put on a bunch of weight. Her daughters were getting older by this point. And they were like kind of blossoming into these like beautiful young women. And Teresa became very jealous of her daughters. And so she began taking out her anger and frustrations about her own life on her daughter. She started beating them. She would force feed them macaroni and cheese until they would literally collapse in hopes of like making them gain weight so they'd be less attractive. Oh, God, it's terrible. Yeah,

just was super abusive. She pulled the children out of school. She didn't want anybody coming to the house. She canceled the phone service because she didn't want anybody calling the house. They lived in like this apartment and neighbors said that the house smelled of urine and that they never saw the kids without their mother and that they feared something was going on. But But you know, it was none of their business. It was, you know, you don't you don't stick your nose where it doesn't belong kind of thing. And so nobody spoke up. Nobody said anything. You've got these six kids who aren't going to school, they're not being educated, they're being pretty much held in an apartment all the time. And

they're being horribly abused by their mother. At some point, when the kids became older, she didn't have as much physical strength over them. She would enlist the other kids to help with the abuse. Oh, like she'd make two of her sons hold down one of the girls while she beat her. It was terrible. Yeah. One of the kids later said, and this was Robert, he said that when he was growing up and shows like the Brady Bunch would be on TV, he hated it because he did not believe that anybody's life was really like that. And he didn't know how anybody could watch that and think did not believe that anybody's life was really like that. And he didn't know how anybody could watch that and think that that was what anybody's life was like. And he said

he grew up in an insane asylum. But the worst part is that he didn't know that's what he was growing up in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It just continued to escalate. Teresa's abuse got worse and worse until one day she was like, so drunk that she starts throwing steak knives at the children she grabs terry by the arm under one instance and pulls a 22 caliber gun out and holds it to her head oh threatening to pull the trigger oh it was too much somehow she gets it in her head that this guy chet harris her most recent husband has turned turned Susan into a witch. Oh, great. And so she's really like lost it at this point. Yeah, of course. She has no grasp on reality at all.

And honestly, Susan starts to play on that a little bit. And she's like, yeah, maybe he did. Maybe I am a witch. You know, well, I mean, yeah, don't come near me. I'm a witch. Yeah, yeah. So Teresa's convinced that Susan is a witch and that she is hexing her and putting curses

on her that are causing her to gain weight and be less attractive and all this stuff. Yes. Like this is seriously what she thinks is happening. I think that's why we've all gained weight is because someone put a curse on us. That's exactly right. And so Susan, she's like playing on this. She's like, yeah, he totally did. And one day he's going to initiate me into this cult and I'm going to be a child of

Satan and yeah and so the abuse just continues to one point like Susan can't take it anymore and she runs away from home so she's gone for a few days but she gets picked up by a truancy officer and they take her to like a psychiatric ward which is kind of I guess what happens with runaways and so they're asking her you know know, what made her do this? And she tells them about everything that's been going on in her house. So they call her mother and her mother claims that none of it's true. Oh, God. And that she's made it all up.

Uh-huh. And who do they believe? They believe her and they release her back to her mother's care. And so Teresa's fucking pissed. That's terrible. Number one, Susan has run away. And number two, she has told somebody about what's been going on inside their home. So she for the next several weeks, anytime Susan goes to bed, she gets handcuffed to her bed. Susan gets like the worst beating of her life.

When she gets home, Teresa puts on these leather gloves and beats the shit out of Susan with them. And then she forces all of the other kids to do the same. And Robert recalled later that he hit her and he tried to just give the illusion that he hit her. And Teresa saw and made him hit her again harder. Yeah. Because he tried to go easy on her. Yeah. Finally, like she broke Susan to the point that Susan was no longer making any jokes or claims about witchcraft. She wasn't trying to leave anymore. And so she finally didn't get handcuffed anymore. But something happened one day where Teresa just like went off the handles over nothing. And she shot Susan. She shot her with that same 22 caliber pistol that she'd held to Terry's head, shot her right in the chest. And Susan just blood poured

out of her chest. She fell to the floor. Teresa called in two of her boys and had them pick her up and carry her to the bathtub. And she left her there to die. Only Susan didn't die. You're kidding. Without any kind of medical intervention at all, she somehow survived being shot in the chest by her mother. Oh, my God. The bullet never exited the body, so it was lodged in her body somewhere. Uh-huh.

And she somehow made some kind of crazy recovery. It took a couple of months. But yeah, she recovered from being shot in the chest by her own fucking mother. At some point, things seemed to calm down a bit after that. Like maybe Teresa was like, holy fucking shit, I shouldn't shoot my children. But in July of 1984, Teresa got it in her head again that Susan was doing something. Susan was threatening her in some way. Susan was making her gain weight. The force feeding her macaroni and cheese wasn't working. And she stabbed her in the back with a pair of

scissors. Oh, God. So we're up to July of 1984 now. And you remember that Jane Doe, number one, had puncture wounds in her back. The wound wasn't necessarily life threatening. However, without getting any medical attention, it took a very long time to like, she was basically like septic. Yeah, at this point, she was very sick. And somehow during all of this, when she's like septic, and just filled with infection, most likely likely she asks her mother to please let her move out she just wants to move out she'll go to alaska she won't ever contact the family again just let her leave and she must got theresa on a good day i guess because theresa

agrees under one condition that she lets her cut the bullet out of her body because that could be evidence used against her down the road. And so Susan agrees. So Teresa gives her daughter like some kind of capsules. They're called Melaril capsules. I never heard of them. She gives her that and a bunch of alcohol. And it basically makes Susan pass out unconscious. And then she gives Susan's 15-year-old brother, Robert, an X-Acto knife.

Oh. And tells him to cut the bullet out. Oh, my God. And so Robert cuts open his sister's back and starts digging around. And finally, he finds the bullet and gets it out. And... Really? Yeah.

He gets the bullet out. Where was he in President Garfield's day? Right. Oh, my God. No kidding. So the next day, Susan comes to. She's in terrible pain, obviously. She's had her back slit open and somebody's been digging around in there for a bullet.

Teresa starts giving her some kind of antibiotics and ibuprofen, but nothing's working. Remember, she's already sick from this stab wound. And now she has this other thing going on. Eventually, her eyes turn yellow. She's like lost control of all of her faculties. Yeah, of course. And at this point, they notice that there's these large black spots on her back that indicate internal bleeding. So on July 16th, 1984, Susan's barely clinging to life.

And so Teresa makes a decision not to call for medical attention to save her daughter's life or anything like that instead she duct taped Susan's mouth closed and binds her arms and legs and then she this story is where did you even find this it's fucking terrible it's the worst story ever why did you do this I don't know why are you like this why are you laughing she bags up all of her belongings into a trash bag. And she orders her sons, Bill and Robert, to put Susan in the car along with her belongings. They drive out into the mountains of Lake Tahoe somewhere. They dump her body.

Teresa comes with them. She douses everything in lighter fluid, sets it on fire, and they take off and never look back. Great. Yeah. Don't make this face. You're the one who did this. I know. You inflicted this upon all of us. It's so bad. So now it's spring 1985 and things just aren't going great for Teresa. Did some witch make her gain more weight? That's right. I hate that. So she decides that she needs to supplement her what are you laughing about there are just so

many weight loss infomercials and stuff like you're picturing that as a witch hex you and cause you to gain weight i mean we just had wings and stromboli, so I'm thinking a witch. That must be a witch. So in spring of 1985, Teresa decides that she somehow needs to supplement her income because she's just not bringing in enough money to support her now five children. What was she doing to begin with? It says that she had a state-assisted income, so I don't know if she was on disability or something like that. So what did she do? Did she go get a part-time job at the grocery store? No. She sent out her 20 year old daughter, Sheila, to work the streets as a sex worker. Great. Uh huh. So Sheila initially was like totally against this, refused to do it. And then eventually her mother beat her so much that she just gave in and did it. Yeah. She was bringing home like hundreds of dollars a week to her mother for the sex work that she was doing.

Only it had one small negative impact that Teresa had not seen. It gave Sheila a taste of freedom. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I mean, probably not great freedom, but freedom. Freedom nonetheless. Yeah. Yeah.

So in May of 1985,esa kind of picks up on this that she was maybe getting a little too cocky feeling a little too free and so now she has to concoct some reason to start abusing sheila more than she already has been so she tells sheila that she's believes that she's pregnant and that she also has an stD that she has brought home. And now Teresa got it from the toilet seat. Yeah. Okay. Because we all know that's how STDs are contracted. So Sheila denies all of this. She says, I'm not pregnant. I don't have an STD. You know, I don't know what's going on with your junk, but my junk's fine. And Sheila is beaten badly for disagreeing with her mother. And then she is locked in a tiny coat closet next to the bathroom. It was reportedly like just excruciatingly hot in this closet.

And Teresa forbid any of her other children giving anything to Sheila. Like water or anything. No water, no food, nothing. She didn't want anything until Sheila confessed that yes, she was pregnant. And yes, she had an STD. She was not allowed to come out of that closet. And so this is kind of the way the witch trials went, right? I mean, yeah, exactly. So if you say you're a witch, we won't drown you. No, what was it? If you're a normal human woman, you will drown in this water. That's exactly right. Yeah. Great. Yeah.

So Sheila does eventually say, yes, I'm pregnant. And yes, I have STD. Sure. Just to try and get out of the closet. I gave you that toilet STD. But by this time, Teresa doesn't believe her. Now she thinks she's lying and just trying to appease her. And so she continues to lock her in the closet. So she's been locked in there and released and locked in there and released.

And this time she's been in there for three days. It's June 21 1985. She's been in there for three days straight with no food, no water. The family hears a large thump. Yeah, from the closet. Yeah. But Teresa doesn't let anybody open the closet. Three more days go by. Oh, God, suddenly there's a smell coming from the closet. And so they open it. And sure enough, there's Sheila's decomposing body curled up in the fetal position inside this closet. The thump that they had heard was her trying to like climb up on a shelf in there to get some kind of relief. I'm guessing getting something. Something. She was desperate.

Desperate for something. She was probably delirious. Yeah, I'm sure that's exactly it. And the shelf had collapsed and then she'd stayed in that position and died so of course theresa reacts just as any mother would when she finds her daughter dead in this closet and she grabs a cardboard box and tells her sons to put the body in the box she has them loaded into the car and they drive it out to someplace near lake Tahoe and they dump it in a field. And that box, as we know, was discovered by that poor man, Elmer Barber, only hours after

they had dumped it. Wow, that's weird. Yeah. I mean, so they must have dropped her in a pretty conspicuous spot. So following Sheila's death, Teresa became very paranoid that someone was going to find out what she was up to. And she was concerned that this closet where Sheila had died now contained a bunch of evidence that could be used against her. Sure. And so they continue to live there for a couple months after this. But Teresa's paranoia just continued to grow and grow.

And finally, one night in September, Teresa packed up all of the family's belongings and told Terry, her youngest daughter, that she needed to of the family's belongings and told Terry, her youngest daughter, that she needed to set the house on fire. But they lived in an apartment. And so Terry did, as she was asked, she used lighter fluid. She doused the floors of the apartment in lighter fluid, struck a match, and then climbed out a window and off the family went. Only, as I mentioned, they lived in an apartment building. A neighbor smelled the smoke very quickly. Thank God. Fire crews immediately got there, put out the fire. They could have killed so many people. Oh, they could have killed so many people.

Yes, they put out the fire. There's very little damage. Investigators know immediately that this blaze had been intentionally set. Yeah, of course. But they didn't know they were investigating a murder scene. And so none of that stuff was really caught. Nothing in the closet. Like, the closet wasn't damaged at all.

Terry obviously didn't follow directions very well. She didn't start the fire in the closet, which she probably should have. But maybe she maybe she. Yeah. Maybe that was intentional. Yeah. You're probably right. The one who eventually tells.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the family essentially at this point goes into hiding and Teresa's children are done with her at this point. They all leave her with the exception of 19-year-old Robert. They all go their own ways. Even Terry, who's 16 years old, decides she cannot live another minute with her mother.

She won't let her mother tell her what to do anymore. So she takes... I'm shocked that they were able to leave. I know. Yeah. She must have lost a lot of control when they were no longer in that apartment. She had to have. Yeah.

Because under no other circumstances would she have She had to have. Yeah. Because under no other circumstances would she have allowed that to happen? Yeah. So Terry's only 16, but she takes Sheila's ID, who Sheila was 21. So she is able to get a job under Sheila's identity and all of this stuff and find some way to take care of herself. Anything was better than staying with her mother. Yeah. So they all go different ways, except for, as I mentioned, 19 year old Robert stayed by his mother's side, and he and Teresa settled in Las Vegas. But by November of 1991, things were not going well for Robert and Teresa, they didn't have any money. They were really desperate. And so Robert one day went into this little bar in Las Vegas pulled out a gun, and no one really

knows exactly what happened because there were no witnesses. But somehow the bartender ended up dead after this interaction. And Robert was arrested and charged with murder. And he was convicted and sentenced to 16 years in jail. Only 16? I know. So it had to have been, he had to have been found guilty of second degree murder or something. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm guessing because they couldn't prove exactly what went on inside that bar. Yeah. So when this happens, Teresa gets very paranoid again because of all the attention that this brings to like the family name and someone's going to figure out where she is. And so she moves to Salt Lake City. And that's when, you know, a little bit of time passes. Terry finally gets somebody to listen to her story.

Now we're up to November 4th, 1993. So Terry's told her story. Finally, someone believes she's gotten all of this out in the open. These two Jane Does have been identified as Susan and Sheila. And on November 4th, 1993, felony charges are filed against Teresa and her two sons, William and Robert. William was living in Sacramento. He worked at a warehouse. He lived in a nice, quiet neighborhood. And investigators tracked down Robert to prison, serving his 16 years. They track him down.

Pretty tough to track him down, huh? No, yeah. Initially, they both refused to talk. They wouldn't say anything. Of course. Eventually, police got them to take deals essentially yeah and they promised them lesser charges if they would testify against their mother yeah but at this time they still don't know where Teresa is so they finally track her down she's living in Salt Lake City they've used like a driver's license application to track her down they go to the house that they believe that she's been living because when they track her down using this driver's license application, they find out

she's actually been arrested five days prior for a drunk driving charge. And so they have a current address on her from that arrest. Yeah. And so they go to that address. She opens the door and they take her into custody without incident. Again, though, she refuses to cooperate, They take her into custody without incident. Again, though, she refuses to cooperate, immediately asks for a lawyer and won't say anything. Teresa was eventually charged with the torture slayings of her two daughters. And because of the torture specification, she was facing the death penalty. So she pled not guilty. She maintained her innocence through all of this like not at all

going to happen i'm not going to tell you anything and then she finds out that both william and robert have made deals essentially yep william was not an adult at the time of the murders but they said that they were going to charge him as an adult and that's when he agreed to testify against theresa yeah and so when theresa learns this she decides that's when he agreed to testify against Teresa. And so when Teresa learns this, she decides that she's not going to take her chances with a death sentence. And she finally takes a plea deal in exchange for life in prison. On October 17, 1995, Teresa pled guilty. During her sentencing, the judge characterized Teresa's crimes as callousness beyond belief. She was sentenced to two consecutive life terms, though she will be eligible for parole as early as 2027. Really? Yeah. That's too soon. It is

way too soon. Robert, who was still in prison serving his 16 years for his previous murder charge, got three years added to a sentence, but that was ordered to run concurrent. So it didn't didn't change his time. And then William, because of his cooperation was given probation and then ordered to undergo therapy. Good order. Yeah, I agree. When Teresa was arrested, she was living in a suburb of Salt Lake City. Yeah. Terry was living in the exact same town as her mother. They called it in the same neighborhood. So I don't know how close that is. It's got to be within blocks of each other. Did they know? They had no idea. What? Terry had no idea. That's weird. Yes. Can you imagine how terrifying that would have been if she'd run into her mom? Just bumped into her? Yeah.

Yeah. Because Terry's like working at a grocery store and reportedly Teresa went to that grocery store sometimes. Like the fact that they didn't bump into each other is. Miracle. Yeah. Terry had a very tumultuous life. When all of this came out, police were very familiar with her because they'd been called to her residence multiple times for domestic situations. They knew her and her husband. Following this, Terry did a bunch of interviews. She was involved in a Cold Case Files episode about her case. And this would likely never have been solved without Terry coming forward. Multiple times. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Because she tried to come forward and no one believed her, which the case is unbelievable. Yeah. It's unbelievable that a mother would do that and force her children to do the things that she forced her children to do. But I feel like you've got to also weigh what if this is true? Yeah.

Yeah. It's so horrible. So what if it is true? Well, then we have to you have to do some kind of follow up. It just seems like they just said, oh, that's crazy. That's crazy. Yeah. I mean, for her therapist to write her off as I'm not believing what you're telling me.

I mean, that's terrible. Yeah. You tell that person things you don't tell anybody. Yeah. Yeah. And for them not to believe you, I just can't even imagine. No. So the weight of carrying all of this around for Terry took her toll.

And in 2003, at the age of 32, she died of a heart attack. Wow. Yeah. Teresa remains in prison. If she is paroled in 2027, she will be 80 years old. Okay, I have to look up a picture of this woman.

Teresa, what's her thousandth name? Nor, if you look up Teresa Nor, she'll come up. K-N-O-R-R. Oh. Ooh. There have been several true crime books

written about this. And there's been a movie, a fictionalized account called The Afflicted. It's a horror movie that came out in 2010. And it's based on this case, but the timeline is kind of compressed. But it sticks pretty closely to this story, I guess. I have not seen it. Are you looking at this hair?

Oh, yeah. I mean, that is a perm on perm on perm. It sure is. Do you have to do perms like that? No, I don't do perms, ma'am. What if I really wanted one? Too bad. First of all, you have highlighted hair.

It'd be a terrible idea for you. And you already have curly hair. What the fuck are you going to do with a perm? You know what? You're not being very professional right now. Oh, fun fact. As fun a fact as I get. Teresa Norris held in the women's prison in Chino, California, which we mentioned on the

last episode. It's me getting it confused with Chico, California. You know what? I'm going to let that pass as a fun fact because I'm the one who always says fun fact and then it's like the worst, most terrible thing. It's always like Hitler's penis. Yes. Yeah.

Nothing fun about that. So that's the story of the mother from hell, which I believe one of the books that was written about this case is called the mother from hell and fits yes i don't think anyone's gonna disagree with that no oh why brandy i'm sorry why must you do this why must you be the way you are because at the end of it i think it took so much courage for terry to come forward and make sure that her sister's stories were told. See, you could have just said, hey, there once was a brave woman. Because there's no way.

Yeah. I don't care how far away from her mother was. She still had to have felt fear in regards to that woman. So facing that fear and coming forward anyway is is huge. So facing that fear and coming forward anyway is is huge. And see, I would love to know. I would love for there to be a miniseries on her life where we see that change from you grow up in this environment. You think that what you've experienced is at least some kind of normal. And then you slowly start to realize, oh, this isn't the way it's supposed to be.

Yeah. I mean, that's a huge mental leap to make when she was still a teenager, right? Yeah. Oh. Yeah. When she finally left her mother, she was only 16 years old. Mm-hmm. So all that she went through in her short life.

Yeah. Oh. Oh. Those poor children. Yeah. Really the only one. And I won't say, I was going to say the only one who came out unscathed, but there's no way he came out unscathed. No one did.

But the most balanced was her oldest son, Howard. Because for whatever reason, he seemed to not receive. Well, the boys didn't receive hardly any abuse. Right. But they were forced to deliver it upon their sisters. Because she didn't have any reason to be jealous of her sons. She was jealous of her daughters. because she didn't have any reason to be jealous of her sons.

She was jealous of her daughters. Well, but also with that many people, if you're going to be the one in charge, you have to have deputies. Oh, absolutely. It can't be you against all of these young kids. Yeah. Or 20-something. So yeah, you've got to pick a few

who you're going to make on your side. Yeah. And better to pick the two strongest ones. Yeah, yeah. See, I get it. No. Better have six kids, Kristen. Oh, God. Better get started, Norm. What you got going on? Don't shake your head, Norm. This is a very exciting opportunity for you. Norm, you don't want to have six kids? Nope. Fine. We'll compromise. Eight. how is that a compromise

well i'm assuming that you wanted 10 yeah six wasn't enough for you that's what i thought i'm sorry you're mistaken six is too many oh i see i'm glad we cleared that up no kidding i'm pregnant right now. With Octopolis. Oh, God. Remember Octomom? Yes, I remember Octomom. Oh, my God. I complain enough already. Can you imagine?

Anyway, you ready to move along? Yes. Mine's not great either. Oh, good. Mine's really sad. Oh, good. I cried. Oh, no. Here we go. Okay. So I'm going to do the thing I do sometimes where I don't tell you the name of the episode

that I watched just because I think it gives a cool thing away. Why do they do this? Yeah. Anyway, really good episode of 2020 about this case. I'll tell you the name at the end. Also, the Wikipedia entry, not too shabby. What? We can bleep this or cut it out. Is this like a switched at birth thing? No. Okay. Casey just told me about a case, like a switched at birth thing. Yeah. She was really good. So I know. Okay. Okay. Don't you worry if it's on 2020, I know all about it. Also a quick thing. There are a lot of Chinese names in this. And I've listened to YouTube pronunciations, but it's all newscasters pronouncing it. So I'm taking their pronunciations and then I'm doing my bad pronunciation anyway.

My heart's in the right place. Wonderful. Are you allowed to say that about yourself? Yeah, I think so. You're doing your best. All right. You're not intentionally trying to butcher anybody's name. No, it just happens. Yeah. Okay. You're doing your best. All right. You're not intentionally trying to butcher anybody's name. No, it just happens.

Okay, starting right off the bat. Did you know, and this is a fun fact. Oh, is it? Yeah, it's the first time I've ever actually said a fun fact. Okay. The University of Illinois has more Chinese students than any other college in the United States. I did not know that.

Why is that? Okay, isn't that strange? So the 2020 episode just like drops that fact in there. And I was like, well, I've got to know more about that. I want to know more about that, too. Good old Wikipedia to the rescue. Okay, so I thought this must be some recent thing. No, the university's connection to China began in the early 1900s. Wow. So the university president at that time, like worked with the Chinese minister to the United States, and they established a relationship. And basically, ever since then, the university has always had a really large population of like visiting scholars, you know,

students from China. Yeah. So and it continues to this day. Wow. So today, I want to tell you about one of those students. Picture it. Yes. Sicily, 1922. Somebody said in the Discord that they always picture us doing the Sophia from Golden Girls thing. That's how I picture it, too. Absolutely. Picture it. April of 2017. A 28-year-old, well, some sources say she was 26.

Anyway, a woman named Yingying Zhang came to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a graduate student. Okay, so frankly, the university was really lucky to have her. She was super smart. She just graduated from Peking University, which is basically the Chinese Harvard. It's a top university, and she did really well there. But she wasn't just smart. She was also a really good singer. So she and her friends formed a band, and she was the well there. But she wasn't just smart. She was also a really good singer. So she and her friends formed a band and she was the lead singer. And it looks like it wasn't just some little garage band for fun. Like there was footage of them on stage with a big crowd.

Wow. Yeah. Also, she had what seemed like a really great personal life. She had this super cute boyfriend named Norm. If I tell you a name, will you help me out? Sure. It's X-I-A-O-L-I-N. Zhao Lin. Zhao Lin. Okay. Yeah. I'll double check, but I think it's Zhao Lin. So she had this super cute boyfriend named Zhao Lin Hao, who she met in school. And he was also really smart. They were

like in the top two positions of their graduating university. I can't remember who was number one and who was number two, but all you need to know is they're very smart. I know I'm doing a lot of hand gestures. There's so many hand gestures happening here. I think I'm like really loving being in the happy part of this story. I'm just trying to stick around. Stretch this out as long as you can. So, you know, they plan to get married in, I think it was October of 2017. Things were going great for them. Ying Ying's success made her family very proud. So when I heard that she went to like basically China's Harvard, I assumed she came from like a really wealthy family.

That was not the case. She came from a very modest background. She was from Nanping, which is in the southeastern region of China. And according to this episode of 2020, it's one of the region's poorest cities. Okay. So she grew up in a pretty small house that didn't have heat. Her dad was a driver, her mom was a homemaker, and her younger brother is now studying to become a chef. Okay, so Norman just came in and said it's Shaolin Hao. There we go. I'm making good on my promise to mess up these names. Excellent. Okay, so Ying Ying came from what appears to be a very strong, close family. And she grew up to accomplish a lot. She was smart, talented, adventurous, and also super gorgeous. I mean,

you know how I am about bone structure. She had good bone structure. And big eyes. I mean, come on. Yeah. Give me a break. So she arrived at the University of Illinois, and she was happy to be there. She was going to get her Ph.D. in environmental science, and they have a great program for that. So good stuff. She wouldn't actually start the Ph.D. program until the fall. But, you know, in the meantime, she tried to get comfortable in her new surroundings. She moved into what is referred to as married student housing. Oh, yeah. It looked like a 1960s motel. Oh, really? Yeah, it didn't look all that nice. But she started working in a

university research lab. Like psycho? Like that kind of? No, not like, you know, more than one level. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah. I'm just gonna get a picture here. You know, give Norman Bates like a more successful motel to run. And that's what you got. Okay? Great. She bought a guitar because it made her feel less lonely. Wow. It's just hard to move someplace totally new. Yeah. I mean, she didn't know anybody like that. Yeah, that'd be really hard.

She'd only been in the United States for a few weeks when the worst possible thing happened. It was Friday, June 9th, 2017. Ying Ying started off her day by going into the lab on campus where she worked. 2017. Ying Ying started off her day by going into the lab on campus where she worked. Meanwhile, in a different area of town, a British international student named Emily Hogan was out and about when a white male in a black car pulled up next to her. So he had on mirrored sunglasses and he had a police officer's badge around his neck on a chain. And he was like, hey, hey, I'm an undercover cop. I've got some questions about what's going on in this neighborhood. I need you to hop into the car and talk to me.

Okay. And she was like, no, this is super weird. There's no way I'm getting in that car with you. Yeah, no. So Emily was freaked out. And as soon as the guy took off, she pulled out her phone and called the real police. She went in, gave a statement to them, was like, hey, this guy approached me. She even posted about it on Facebook because she just wanted as many people to know, like, there is this creepy guy pretending to be a cop trying to lure women into his car. Okay, back to Ying Ying. At this point, it's around noon, and she told her co-worker, Guo Feng Mao, hey, I've got an appointment. I'm going to head out for a bit.

The reason she had to head out was because she wanted to sign a lease for a new apartment. Like I said, she already had a place, but she wanted to be someplace less expensive. So she had an appointment to meet with, I think it was either the property manager or the marketing manager of One North Apartments. Okay. So she told her coworker, hey, I might be gone like two hours. And the co-worker was like, yeah, okay, that's fine. See you when you get back. One o'clock rolled around. That was fine. Two o'clock rolled around. That was fine. Then it was

three o'clock. And that was kind of concerning because Ying Ying still wasn't back. Then it was 3.30. And then it was four and still nothing. Yingying's co-worker was very concerned. Because even though the two of them didn't know each other super well at this point, she knew that Yingying was reliable and responsive and just wasn't the type to, like, blow off work. Right. So Guo Feng became pretty worried. She tried calling Yingying, but nothing. And she wasn't the only person trying to contact Ying Ying. She'd never shown up at the apartment complex. So that property manager who she was

supposed to meet with was like texting her and trying to reach out and say, you know, hey, are we still on? But Ying Ying never responded. Oh, that's not good. No. Eventually it was time for Guo Feng to go home for the day. So she went home, she ate dinner, but she still could not shake the feeling that something was really wrong. Yeah. So she actually went back to the office. This was a Friday night. Went back to the office just to see if, I mean, maybe for whatever reason, by some weird stretch of the imagination, Ying Ying like had appeared back there. And of course she wasn't there. So then Guo Feng went to Ying Ying's apartment. She knocked on the door. Nothing. She was like, okay, this is really, really bad. So she went to the university police office, not called,

like went to the office. Yeah. And the police were kind of like, okay, it's a Friday night. And what you're telling us is that she left work early and never came back. Yeah. Yeah. And wow, Is that she left work early and never came back? Yeah, yeah. And wow, it's a Friday night and she's not sitting at home? Yeah. My God. Sound the alarm.

Yeah. So initially, this was not taken super seriously. But by this point, a lot of Ying Ying's fellow grad students were concerned. They knew something was wrong. It's amazing how much the community kind of rallied. So they basically parked themselves in the university police office until someone took them seriously. Wow. And they didn't just focus on getting the police to pay attention. The next day, they called the local newspaper, the News Gazette, and they talked to the crime reporter. And they said, hey, there's a missing international student.

Please help. And so the reporter, it seems like she kind of had the same reaction as the police. Like, I mean, Ying Ying hadn't even been missing for 24 hours and like it was a weekend. So it just, but she said that there was something about the caller's voice sounded so sincere and so concerned that she basically said, what the hell? I can write a little story. So she wrote a short story just saying, hey, there's this missing international student. People are trying to find her. You know, all right. Meanwhile, the police went to check Ying Ying's apartment and everything looked fine. Her stuff was there. She clearly hadn't packed up and left.

Which is bad. Yeah. Yeah, it's really bad. They knew she didn't have a car. So if she'd gone anywhere, it would have had to have been by bus probably. Right. So then they started combing through surveillance footage from a bunch of different buses. And OK, side note, you would not freaking believe the number of surveillance cameras they have on these buses in Illinois. We're talking like 10 cameras inside a bus plus an external camera. Right. You can't do shit on these buses. Yeah. Which is a good thing because people are disgusting on buses. Yeah, it's a security measure.

Only to get you after the fact, Brandy. Guys, if you're not signed up for Patreon, you don't know that Brandy and I got into a legit fight about a Greyhound bus. I'm sorry I'm right, Brandy. Break it up, you two. I'm sorry. You're distracted by how right I was about the security measures on buses. You know what?

Last episode, we talked about having a country mouse and city mouse situation. Brandy, I still think about that argument. And I think of more reasons why I was right. Good for you you guys are thinking that this is like a real smooth plug for the patreon it's not we're just like we're really against each other yeah there are very few times that we legitimately like disagree on stuff and we really disagreed on that point well i will say when you and i disagree we really really disagree yes yeah i can only think of two times on this podcast that we've really

disagreed yeah can you think of them um i'm curious if we have the same two obviously one is the greyhound yeah the greyhound bus um no what's the other one so the one i'm thinking of is you did a local case where a husband and wife owned a gun store. Oh, yeah. And some people broke in. Yeah. And they shot her husband. Yeah. And you were like, and I guess afterward, the woman, she made a statement about how Yeah, don't make this about anti guns, please. Yeah. Yeah. And don't make this about gun control. Right, right. And you and I had a total disagreement. Yes. Whether we needed to go along with that. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. That was an awkward one. Do you guys still hold your ground? Feel the same way? Yeah, I do. Yeah, I do too. I mean, that doesn't surprise me.

You and I are kind of the same way. We're like, we feel how we feel. All right. Well, fight 530 in the driveway. Wait, what is it that the guy wants in that case that i he wants a trial by combat yeah let's have a trial by combat yeah we'll see who's right explain that i shared i shared this story in the discord i swear this is not a plug yeah i shared this story in the discord about this guy here in kansas who's been going through this divorce in Iowa with his ex-wife. And it's been this nasty, drawn out divorce and custody battle.

And he says that his ex-wife's lawyer has just destroyed him in court. And so at this point now, he would like to have a trial by combat. He wants to sword fight his wife because it's not technically prohibited by law. So Kristen, I demand a trial of a combat. Hi, I will not consent. And it's only because I don't have good hand-eye coordination. Neither do I. We would be a mess.

We'd probably be hilarious. We probably would be. Future bonus video ideas. So, you know, they've got just all kinds of footage from these buses. And of course, they found footage of Ying Ying. Here's what they saw. At around 1.30 p.m., Ying Ying got on a city bus. She sat down.

The bus took off. Eventually, she got off of that bus so that she could get on a connecting bus. And, you know, it was one of those classic sliding door situations. She got off of her bus. And as she did that, she saw the bus she wanted to get on across the street. And it had just taken off. So you see her in this footage running after it, trying to flag it down. And of course, that doesn't work.

Right. So the bus didn't stop for her. And by this point, she was running late. She had already texted the property manager to let them know she was going to be there at like 2.10. I assume the appointment was for 2 o'clock. But now she was going to be even later. So she slowed down, walked to another bus stop to wait for the next bus. So, you know, that's what they've got in the footage.

Yeah. Clearly, she was frustrated, upset that she'd missed her bus. And now was going to miss her appointment or at least be. At least be even later. Even later, yes. you never want to be late for nothing and here she was going to be probably super late yeah but you know police were like okay so she's waiting at the bus stop we should have footage of her getting on to the next bus they didn't didn't have any more footage of her after that bus stop wait for it okay so what they knew now was at some point in that very small window of time, she had gone missing. Luckily, the University of Illinois is just one big surveillance camera

from what I have learned from 2020. Because the police realized, holy shit, there's a camera on that parking garage and it's pointed in the direction where Ying Ying was standing. So they watched that footage and that's when they saw it. Ying Ying was, gosh, how do I describe this on a podcast? Okay, so she's standing at an intersection. Let's say she's on the left side. Okay. And there's a black car driving toward her. Okay.

But on the right-hand side. Okay. Yeah, in America, we drive on the right-hand side. Yeah, sorry. So right before this car reaches that intersection, the car, you know, turns left and then hangs around and comes back so that it can pull up right next to me. Okay. So the car pulls up.

They stop. Ying Ying talks to the person through the passenger side door. Uh-huh. Probably the window, I'm guessing. Oh, shit. God. All right. that's enough. This is because I was so right about the Greyhound bus thing. That's exactly it. At the end of that conversation, which lasted about a minute, Ying Ying got in the car. Really? Yeah. Okay. But we

don't know what's going on inside that car, what they're saying or anything like that. Right. We don't know anything. All we know is she got in the car. In a car. Okay. But police were like, holy shit. This isn't some story about a student who blew off work. This is a kidnapping. What makes them think it's a kidnapping?

I mean, probably because the car matched the description of that other international student who said that a man was trying to lure a woman into it. I mean, I'm assuming they made that connection fairly quickly. And, you know, she's missing. Yeah. Okay, so we've all heard Brandy's kidnapping series. Yes.

All of us. All of us. No one is starting on this episode. So this should not be new information. But once you've got a kidnapping, you're no longer dealing with just the local police you've got the motherfucking fbi that's right thanks to the lindbergh i was gonna say thank you thanks to lindbergh baby and it was a good thing because even though the university

of illinois is one big surveillance camera the quality of the footage was not that great okay so i saw a bunch do they have a license plate that's a good question no you're not gonna answer no i'm about to answer it right now why don't you keep your pants on huh again i've never come here without my pants on christine it's my word against yours who you gonna believe folks yeah so they've got this footage and basically all you can see is that it's a black car. Okay. You can't see the driver. You can't see the license plate.

In most of the footage, it's just like a basic black car and a cord, maybe a Camry. Investigators were like, as Brandy would say, fuck beans. I mean, how many Camrys are there in the world? No shit. But eventually they figured out the make and model of the car. Okay. And boy, were they lucky because the car was a Saturn Astra. Oh, fucking what?

Exactly. Who's even heard of that? You know, the great... What, they sell four of those? You know the great thing about a Saturn Astra? No one bought it? Yes! No one drives a saturnastra

there were 58 of these cars in the entire state of illinois holy shit 58 i mean talk about a breakthrough no kidding and what did that talk about an idiot kidnapper i think these are the things you don't even kidnap someone in your 1934 Rolls Royce? Like, that's the equivalent of how rare that car is. I mean, the only thing good is that from a distance, it looks like a basic car. But yeah, Saturn Astra. No one. Yeah. First of all, they only made the Astra for a little while.

And like, Saturns have been done for a long time. So you're really talking about an antique there. So, you know, they're like thanking their lucky stars about that. Meanwhile, word about this kidnapping went international. Back in China, Ying Ying's friends, family and her boyfriend were terrified and devastated. So her family and her boyfriend hopped on a plane and flew to Illinois because they were just so desperate to figure out where she was. And so were a lot of other people. The university and the local chapter of Crime Stoppers

offered a $40,000 reward for information that led to the kidnapper's arrest. The family put up posters. They tracked down leads. Okay, this is really sad. At some point, somebody was like, oh, no, I saw her in like Salem, Illinois. And so the family was like so excited. They went down and it wasn't her. It wasn't her.

Yeah. Meanwhile, the FBI and police talked to everyone in the Champaign or Champaign. What is it? Champaign. Okay. I spelled it very interestingly in my notes. So they talked to everyone in the county who owned a four-door Saturn Astra. All 18 of them.

Right. There was just one problem. None of them said they'd kidnapped anybody. And you have to take them at their words. No, so none of them really seemed suspicious. Like kidnappers? Yeah. Yeah.

Huh. So who could crack the case? It wasn't the FBI. It wasn't the local police department. Who was it? It was her family. So it was a university cop. Oh my gosh.

Which I feel like everybody shits on university cops. They do. But this is the guy who broke the case wide open. So here's what he did. He wanted to be helpful to the investigation. So he offered to just like sit and watch and watch and watch the surveillance footage. Oh my gosh. And he saw something that no one else had seen.

What did he see? I live for this stuff. What did he see? What did he see? If you get too excited, I won't tell you. Wait, did you tell us if he has got a license plate yet? Did they find it? No, they have no license plate, Brandi.

There's no, they don't know it. Do you think we'd still be talking about this if they had the license plate? Well, I don't remember you expressly saying that they hadn't been able to make out the license plate, even though I clearly asked about it. Okay. If they had made out the license plate, would they have talked to all 18 of the people who own these things? No. No. Do you expect me to put these puzzle pieces together? Yes. You're a very intelligent person. I thought maybe he sat at a computer and he did like the enhance, enhance, enhance thing until he got a license plate. Well, which would have taken all of five seconds.

No, maybe he's got to get, you know, he's got to create the software first. Do you want to know the breakthrough or not? Yes, I do. Please tell me. So what he did was he enhanced, enhanced his car. he enhanced and the thing is cars have license plates and the fbi had never thought to look at the license plate okay asshole let's get the real story okay so what he noticed after watching this thing for like the hundredth time was that the right front passenger hubcap was missing a chunk of metal. Oh my gosh. That's very specific.

It's the kind of... He like looked at those like, can you spot the differences? He was really good at those puzzles. He used to love Highlights Magazine. That's exactly what I'm picturing. So it's one of those things. Once it's pointed out to you, you cannot unsee it. Yeah.

But yeah, when you just see the footage of this kind of grainy car... Okay, so they gotta go back to those 18 cars. Exactly. Okay. And see who has the missing chunk. Or who's got a brand new hubcap or a brand new pair of roller skates. I've got a brand new pair of roller skates. So the other thing he noticed was that it looked like maybe this car had a sunroof. I mean, it wasn't totally for sure. So he shared this information with the FBI and the local police, and they were like, okay, one of the 18 people we interviewed had a Saturn Astra with a sunroof.

The dude didn't seem suspicious. He said he'd spent the whole day napping and playing video games. Ugh, those gamers. Gamers. Gamers. Ugh. they napping and playing video games oh those gamers gamers gamers but now we have to go back to that apartment and see if all of his hubcaps are intact yeah guess fucking what they weren't he had a chipped hubcap so this dude's name was brent christiansen was Brent Christensen. And he spells it with a D. Brent. Brent. Brent. Yeah. B-R-E-N-D-T. That's stupid.

No. Yeah. Yeah. He was set up to fail. Okay. He was set up to be a kid. Yeah. And his front passenger hubcap had a missing chunk.

You know, it's not surprising to me that he didn't seem suspicious. Because somehow he talked her into getting into his car. Yeah, absolutely. So he's probably like charming. He's the worst kind of douchebag. Maybe charming. Yeah. Yeah. We'll, we'll talk about it. Cause I, I don't know that I would say charming, but there's something else about him that I think made her trust him. Okay. So they took his car to an FBI office in Springfield, Illinois. They examined it and they discovered. Is that where the Simpsons live? No. There's a ton of debate over which Springfield

the Simpsons live in. Norm, go ahead and sit up and tell us all about it. Oregon. Really? Yes. That's the consensus? Matt Groening has confirmed Springfield is in Oregon. What? Where he is from. Well, that makes sense. Alright. I'll allow it. Alright. Alright, Matt.

That's fine. So, back makes sense. All right. I'll allow it. No. All right, Matt. That's fine. So back to Brent with a D. Yeah. They discovered. Sounds like you're talking about his D, Kristen. Oh, God. I'm talking about a micro penis. Anyway, he and Hitler.

I was going to say, where's the, come on, Hitler. Bring in the Hitler comparison. So they discovered that the passenger side door was super clean. Hmm. Just been wiped down, eh? Yeah, the other door is not so clean. Uh-huh. But the passenger door... Spotless.

Mm-hmm. Uh-huh. Wonder what that could mean. Yeah, it's not weird at all. So what was the deal with Brent Christensen? Probably some loser, right? Someone with no future and a lengthy criminal record. No.

Nope. Turns out he was 27. He was married to his high school sweetheart. He'd just gotten his master's degree in physics. And he'd been a very popular teaching assistant in the physics program. And by the way, zero criminal history. Yeah. They went to his apartment at like midnight.

And Brent was super calm, totally chill. And his wife, Michelle, was completely naked. What? Yeah. What? Yeah. Okay. The officers thought it was super weird.

She was just walking around naked while the officers were there? She answered the door naked. No! What? According to what they said in 2020 that's so weird it's super weird and they said they said like ma'am could you put some clothes on because they were just kind of uncomfortable yeah who answers the door i don't know anyhow okay that's not the weirdest part of this story it's just a you know it was a fun fact it

was a fun fact uh so you know she put on some clothes did they have to ask her twice yeah the first time she's like no i'm good they're like well man please so she threw on some clothes and brent cons to do an interview. And he was like real casual, really calm, which I think is what played a role in all this. Because he just seemed, he seemed to have some authority. Yeah. So, you know, he's been brought in at midnight by the police. Yeah. For his second conversation about a kidnapping.

And he's like anyone would be. He's super calm. No, yeah. Not worried at all. So he's like, yeah, I was just playing video games and napping all day. Yeah. What? But they put the pressure on him.

And he was like. Did they like literally put the pressure on him? Yeah, they all leaned on him. No, they were like, come on. And he said, OK, OK, OK. Now that I am really thinking about it, maybe I got my days mixed up. And, oh, oh, hey, you know what? Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.

This is so embarrassing. I completely spaced on this. When I talked to you guys the other day, you know, I did give an Asian woman a ride in my car. I totally fucking forgot. Are you kidding me? Oops, my mistake, my mistake. I thought that was the day. I thought that was Tuesday and here it was Wednesday.

Didn't even think to mention it. Obviously, I'm super innocent. You know. Gosh. Don't worry, though. I've seen pictures of Ying Ying. Pretty sure it wasn't just a different Asian woman. Yep. Uh huh. And they were like, dude, like dude come on where is she what did you do with her come on and at this point brent is like um yeah um i think i've been helpful enough uh i think it's time for me to go bye so he did the thing which makes me want to punch somebody in the face where he's like kind of flirting with the idea of getting a lawyer. Like, you know, I think somebody else in this situation might get a lawyer. And it's like, then fucking get one. Yeah, dude, don't play this game. So anyway, he goes and they're like, you can't actually go because the deal is he had made a false statement to the FBI that first time

he hadn't been like, oh, yeah, I did pick up an Asian woman in my car. So they held him for 24 hours and they decided not to prosecute him because at that point they'd learned a thing or two about our boy Brent with a D. What did they learn? Turns out, even though his life seemed pretty good from the outside, it was actually a shithole. Okay. Yes. Brent had his master's in physics, which is obviously a hard thing to do I'm not shitting on that but he'd been trying to get a PhD in physics and turns out physics is really hard and his grades sucked and he was like oops I'm gonna have to skate out of here with my master's around that same time he started drinking heavily and his wife Michelle

was like this isn't cute. She said, look, either we get divorced or I want an open marriage. And he was like, I choose open marriage. Wow. So this made things very interesting. Obviously, you know, when someone's a suspect like this, you can't always talk to the spouse or spouse. What is, what's it called? Spousal immunity or, you know, what? Spousal privilege called spousal immunity or you know what spousal privilege spousal thank you there's no such thing as girlfriend privilege right so they're like omg this dude has a girlfriend great yeah so they were like oh we need to talk to that girlfriend okay so the girlfriend was tara bullis and tara bullis was a badass she was very terrible i know right talk about like her parents shouldn't have named her that.

Yeah. Yeah. It's not great. Tara. Terrible combination. Yeah. Last name. Sorry.

Terrible. Oh, you didn't even do that on purpose. No, see, this is why it's a bad name. I'm not even trying to make fun of her and I'm making fun of her. Anyway, like I said, she's great. So she was very honest with them them i don't know the exact details of how this conversation went down but at some point they asked her to wear a wire and she said yes okay i believe how they sold it to her was hey hey you wear a wire and if he's innocent

then that'll prove it you know he's not gonna say anything yeah but if he's guilty then we need to know and you know she was concerned about this missing woman. So she was like, well, you know, okay. Okay. Meanwhile, they searched his house. They put him under surveillance. And then eight days after Ying Ying went missing, Brent went back to the cops. What?

Like on his own? Yeah, you know. That's super normal. Like you do. Like you do. All innocent people follow up with the police. Well, here's the thing, Brandy. He remembered something else he forgot to tell them, like that she was in his crawl space?

Just imagine, like, you know, the first couple conversations hadn't gone great, all right? And he needed to clear his name. Okay. His stupid name that had a D in it for some reason. A silent D. name okay his stupid name that had a d in it for some reason a silent d so he goes back to them and this just shows how arrogant he was that he thought he could like come and clear it up he's like yeah okay i had an asian woman in my car like i told you um and yeah my car appears to be the one in that footage yep uh but you gotta me. I have no idea what ultimately

happened to the woman who was in my car. Why? What'd you do with her? Oh, oh, Brandy, hold on. The thing is, she went crazy. Yeah. I drove a few blocks and I took a wrong turn and all of a sudden she was like pulling her hair and freaking out and being like where am i who are you so i mean i had to let her out of my car because i didn't want a crazy girl in my car so where'd you let her out yeah she'll be able to tell us exactly where you dropped her off and we can probably pull some surveillance video sure yeah because the university of illinois is one giant surveillance yeah uh-huh so police were like. Wow. This really clears things up. Okay. Meanwhile, Tara was wearing a wire. And for her first couple conversations with Brent, the conversations were

pretty stupid. It was just a bunch of recordings of him being like, I don't know why the police suspect me. I mean, I guess it's because of my stupid car that no one else owns. Yeah. But I didn't do anything. So now it's June 29. People were still trying to find Ying Ying, but it didn't do anything. So now it's June 29th. People were still trying to find Ying Ying, but it didn't look good. They held a vigil and a memorial walk and like a little concert for her. And guess who wanted to go to the memorial walk? Brent with a D. So Brent went and so did Tara. And she recorded everything. Wow. Up until this point, like I said, all the recorded conversations had been basically useless. But at the walk, he turned to her and said, everyone is here for me. Okay, that's fucking scary. I wanted to see how many people are here for me. What now? And at some point later,

she said, are we going to the concert? You should hear her voice. I mean, it's like she's trying to keep it together. But it is. And he said, we're going to the concert because that's also for me what the fuck so they went to the concert and ying ying's boyfriend performed a song that he'd written for her and it was beautiful and he got choked up when he performed it and as soon as he finished obviously everyone stood and applauded everyone except for brent brent sat in his seat and he... Ew, ew, ew! Slow clapped. Ugh, psychopath. He's a psychopath.

Mm-hmm. Ugh. Then later he said to Tara, they thanked me for being here. Just think about that. Nobody knows what happened. Nobody but me. Oh my gosh.

Yeah, this is the most... This is creepy as fuck. Oh, it's... Yeah. And then he told her everything. He did? While she had the wire on? Yeah.

Oh my gosh. Tell me. So he talked about murdering Ying Ying and how much she'd struggled. Oh. He said he'd tried to choke Ying Ying to death and it was unbelievable how she just wouldn't die. Oh my gosh. It was supernatural how she just wouldn't die. Oh my gosh. It was supernatural how she just wouldn't give up. And finally, he placed her in his bathtub and took a baseball bat and hit her in the head as hard as

he could until her head broke open. And then he said he chopped her head off. Oh my gosh. He talked about her family and said they're never going to find her. They're going to leave empty-handed because no one will ever know where she is. Oh my gosh. Then he told Tara, I'm on victim 13, including Ying Ying. No! I've been at this since I was 19. The last person I would consider at my level that actually did anything was Ted Bundy. So Tara, I don't know how she fucking did it. Like like i said she did a really good job keeping it together she basically did it just long enough to get the information and afterward brent christianson was immediately placed under arrest quick legal notes i know this is nuts i know illinois had abolished the death penalty a while back but since this was a kidnapping, it was a federal crime. So prosecutors were seeking

the federal death penalty. So in a pretrial hearing, it sounded absolutely fucking nuts. The prosecutor was like, judge, for the love of God, do not let this guy out on bail. Obviously. He's a danger to the community. In fact, during the vigil for Ying Ying, Brent talked about the characteristics of his ideal victim oh my gosh so the prosecutor turned to the crowd and he was like that person matches his description of the perfect victim that person matches it oh so does that person are we getting the picture like this guy's super dangerous oh my gosh but brent's did you imagine if you were sitting there? No. Fucking points to you. Good God, no. Oh. But Brintz's attorney was like, no, please.

He, oh God, I just can't imagine being this guy's attorney. He was, you know, he tried to argue to let this guy out on bail. And he said, you know, he has no criminal record. He has ties to the community. No. Yeah. And the judge was like, I'm siding with the prosecution on this one. And he said that the fact that Ying Ying was still missing was definitely a factor in his decision.

The trial began in June of 2019. Oh my gosh. I know. It's kind of new. It's very new. It got off to an interesting start. Okay. Brent's defense attorney was George Tassif. And he said in his opening statements, yes, Brent killed Yingying. He said, Brent Christensen killed Yingying Zhang, and nothing we say or do during this phase of the trial is intended to sidestep or deny that Brent Christensen was responsible for the death of Yingying Zhang. Oh, okay. So the trial had two phases. The first phase was to determine whether Brent was guilty of his crime. And obviously, you know, the defense was not going to put up any kind of fight on that. But they were really focused on the second phase,

because that was the phase that would determine whether or not Brent would be put to death. The defense said that Brent was on trial for his life. In the prosecution's opening statement, they laid out a lot of horrible information that I've already talked about. And they said that in the months before he kidnapped Ying Ying, Brent had become obsessed with serial killers and had actively planned to kidnap somebody. He bought a duffel bag that I think was like six feet long. I mean, yeah, my gosh, side note, because I don't know if I have this in the script anywhere else. So I'm just going to say this right now. It's believed that he got her into the car by pretending to be an undercover cop, obviously, like he had with the first woman.

But instead of doing the you need to get in the car thing, she had looked so distressed about being late for her appointment that what they believe happened is he pulled up to her and under the guise of being an undercover cop and wanting to help her out, he said he would drive her to her appointment. And so that's how he got her in the car. So they talked about the grad student who he tried to abduct before yin-yang. Tara testified about their relationship and about her decision to wear a wire. The prosecution painted Tara, rightfully so, as a hero. Her bravery was what got the confession.

But the defense saw things a little differently. You see, this whole thing was Tara's fault. Because Tara was into kinky sex and bondage, and she introduced poor, innocent Brent to that world. What? He would have never even thought to do those things if it weren't for her. Okay. That's fucking stupid.

But Brandy, perhaps she was the catalyst who put this whole thing into motion. Yeah, that must be it. Yeah, consensual kinky sex is just the same thing as what happened there. Yeah. No. Brutally beating and decapitating a woman he kidnapped. And raping too. Yeah. That's the next step. So the recording spoke for themselves. They were horrible. So they played the recordings in court with a Chinese translation for Ying Ying's family to hear. I just can't imagine. No. The recordings clearly laid out how he'd kidnapped, raped, and murdered Ying Ying. But even though the defense wasn't planning to debate anyone on whether Brent had murdered Ying Ying, they did try to discredit the tapes. Those audio tapes of him

confessing to Tara were pure bullshit bullshit he was drunk and there weren't 12 other victims so obviously were there believed to be other victims so they looked into it they said that they looked into like other places he'd lived i think he was originally from wisconsin so they looked into other places tried to match up you see basically what they said was they couldn't find other victims that doesn't necessarily mean that there aren't yeah um but i think it's totally possible that this guy was a creepy weirdo who did this one thing and wanted to brag and yeah yeah but the defense position was he didn't kill 12 other people so how can we believe anything else on this recording what because you don't who would say shit like that what do you mean who's to

believe what he says like someone who didn't do that isn't going to walk you through how they brutally murdered someone well and see i think the question is okay so he's laid out how he says he did it what does the evidence suggest and that's where they went with it so the defense had tried to discredit those tapes but the evidence showed showed that even if Brent had exaggerated about being a serial killer, everything else he said was backed up by the evidence. So he said he hit her with a baseball bat. Well, they found the bat and it had her DNA all over it. They found her blood in his apartment and on his mattress. He tried to clean it up, but he did a shitty job. Where was his wife during this? She was out of town. Oh, my gosh. So she was out of town at the time of the murder.

And they had footage of him while she was out of town at Walmart buying a shit ton of Drano and Swiffer wipes and bags. Yeah. So that's what I mean. It's like, yeah, I don't think you can always take a confession as the gospel. Right. But if the evidence backs up what was said in the confession i mean come on yeah the jury deliberated for less than two hours and came back with a decision he was guilty of a kidnapping that resulted in death and two counts of making

false statements to the fbi so now we're at phase two of the trial for that part ying ying's family testified oh seeing her mom is what made me cry because her mom is just in misery. Yeah. Her mom said, how am I supposed to carry on living? I really don't know how to carry on. My daughter did not get to wear a wedding dress. I really wanted to be a grandma. Oh my gosh. The other thing she said that I didn't include in here because I kind of feel like it's maybe more of a cultural thing. And I was worried about how a mostly American audience would take it. But I'm going to say it anyway.

So, you know, Ying Ying comes from this very modest family. And I think the culture in China is more like you will take financial care of your parents. Yeah, you take care of your family. So one of the things she said was, you know, my daughter was going to become a professor. You know, she was going to take care of us. And now that's gone. Yeah, I was worried an American audience would like that. No, I think that makes total sense. Yeah. Her dad said, my life without her will not be complete. So Ying Ying's family felt very strongly that Brent should get the death penalty. And you know, who can blame him. But the whole goal of the defense, like I said,

was to prevent that from happening. So they played home videos of this douchebag. I know. So what are their mitigating circumstances? What are they playing? I mean, what do you think? What do you think? That, I don't know, he had some shitty childhood that made him do this? Sure.

Great. I mean, not really shitty childhood, but, you know, family history of mental illness. Brent's mom, dad, and sister testified and asked the jury to spare Brent's life. Brent's mom described him as bright, kind, and considerate. Oh, yeah? I know. Okay. She said she thinks about Ying Ying's family at least five times a day and how horrible this must be for them. I don't know how you defend somebody who did that. I don't either. I don't think I could. I think it would just... Yeah, I don't know. The jury deliberated for for eight hours in order to get a death sentence

the decision had to be unanimous and in this case it wasn't brent was spared the death penalty but he got life in prison so with or without the possibility of parole i assume without actually i don't know okay you know maybe there is the possibility of parole should i look that up right now you can yeah without the possibility of parole very good yeah so afterward up right now? You can. Yeah. Without the possibility of parole. Very good. Yeah. So afterward, Ying Ying's family and boyfriend spoke to the press. In this episode of 2020, her boyfriend, they just played a little clip of what he said. And the clip they played said, the result today seems to encourage people to do crimes. And me, myself, will never agree with that. So then afterward, I watched a YouTube clip of the entire thing that he said. And it was actually, I mean, it was very sarcastic.

And he started out by saying basically like, I guess I can murder people. I guess the lesson I'm learning here is I can go murder people. I can do terrible things to people. But as long as I take some Adderall or whatever, you know, then I guess I can get away with it. Yeah, I think it would be very easy in his position to have that opinion. Of course. Of course. Yeah. And I don't know, but I assume they're a little more generous with the death penalty in China. And so I think there would be this expectation that if you do something this heinous, then yeah, the death penalty would would sure happen. The other really hard part for the family was that they still didn't know where she

was buried. Are you okay? I just saw a picture of her. She's so cute. I know. They wanted to bring her remains home for a traditional Chinese funeral, but they couldn't. But then after the trial, one source said that prosecutors came forward with this information. Another source said that Brent's defense team came forward with it. At any rate, someone came forward and said that Brent had told them what

he did with Ying Ying's body. He'd said it about a year earlier, but it was during an immunity agreement. So they couldn't talk about it until now. Okay. So they said that he told them that the day after he killed her, he cut up Ying Ying's body and put her in three bags. Then he took those bags out to the dumpster by his apartment. Three days later, the dumpster was emptied and taken to a landfill. The remains were compacted at least twice, put into a huge area. I mean, we're talking like 50 yards wide. And by this point, it's under about 30 feet of garbage. And that's assuming you believe that what he said was true. At this point,'s under about 30 feet of garbage and that's assuming you believe that what he said was right at this point no one has tried to go after her remains because

again it's like even if that's true how do you even find her right and who knows if it's true how many bodies do you think there are oh god average landfill oh god i don't even want to know i'm sure it's a lot i i'm sure and that's the the story of the kidnapping of Ying Ying Zhang. I don't know how I hadn't heard of that. Like, I know it was absolutely nuts. So the episode of 2020 is called Undercover Girlfriend. That does give. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's kind of spoiler. It was just so sad. So sad. And I know I feel like I say this every time the death penalty comes up. I am anti-death penalty, but boy, if there was ever a candidate, the white guy who has a great education and who has DNA evidence linking him to the crime and actual footage of the victim getting into his car, I mean...

Yeah, there's no questions there. No. He's such a dirtbag. Yeah, he's awful. He is absolutely awful. I just saw a picture of him. He's got like a stupid mustache in this picture. Yeah, he's awful. He is absolutely awful. I just saw a picture of him. He's got like a stupid mustache in this picture. Yeah, he's an idiot. One other interesting thing. You know, I did write it down, but then I took it out of the script. Do you want to hear this? Yeah. Okay. I think this is

kind of interesting. 11 weeks before he kidnapped Ying Ying, he went to the university counseling center. And on the intake form that they have you fill out, you know, they have you fill out like if you've ever had homicidal or suicidal thoughts. And he checked yes. So the counselor who was an intern asked him about it. And he said that, yeah, a while ago, he'd gotten super into serial killers. And he felt that he could do what they did. It was just a matter of planning. Oh, my gosh. And the intern was like, okay, have you purchased anything to help with the planning? And he said, yes, by the way, there's video of this because she's an intern. Yeah. But he said, you know, I'm done having those thoughts. Obviously not. So she flagged this for her supervisors and they set up a follow-up

appointment because obviously that's concerning. And he just't come of course not of course not yeah i yeah uh oh my gosh i'm sorry i think there are certain things that like if someone checks yes for homicidal or suicidal thoughts maybe you don't get just the intern yeah oh my gosh so ying ying's family obviously walked away feeling like the university could have done more. So they filed a civil suit against the university. Yes. Again, I didn't follow up on it, so I don't know what happened with that. But I believe that's pretty recent.

Yeah. Yeah, I would guess it's very recent because he was just sentenced in July of 2019. He was actually sentenced on Casey's birthday. This is the Casey episode. Casey, we hope you've enjoyed this uplifting episode. All these things that happened on your birthday. This is the Casey episode. Casey, we hope you've enjoyed this uplifting episode. All these things that happened on your birthday. Oh my gosh. Oh. And that poor intern. Yeah. My God. Well, and she probably did exactly what she's instructed to do. I think so. I mean, she talked to him about it. She flagged it for her supervisors. I mean, here's the thing. What?

to him about it. She flagged it for her supervisors. I mean, here's the thing. What? Is that I could say that I'm very into serial killers. Yeah. I've done a lot of research on serial killers. I find them very fascinating. However, it has never led to a homicidal thought. To me, I am fascinated by them because my mind works so differently than theirs. That's what's fascinating to me. So for him to be so fascinated by them because it's exactly how his mind worked, that's what's fascinating to me so for him to be so fascinated by them because it's exactly how his mind worked that's terrifying yeah i mean it's totally different it's him saying oh i see how i could do that too yeah you're fascinated by the differences which is why i'm so fascinated by accountants kristen has so many books about accountants. I just read and read and read about accountants. So they know how to use Excel, huh?

And QuickBooks don't scare them? My God. My God. I just hated this story because she seemed so cool. And she could have really done something amazing in the world. And I'm sure you could argue that she already had, but like she's going for a PhD. I mean. Yeah.

And then this guy's just a loser. Yeah. Oh, man. Thank God that girlfriend wore that wire. I know. Thank God that wife asked for an open marriage. Yes. I mean, you're right right you're absolutely right i feel like sometimes

the open marriage thing it doesn't work out this time it was very helpful real key to yeah huh i mean surely they would have gotten him though with that stupid car with the missing part of the hub cap yeah but they yes they would have gotten that. But would it have led to, could they have gotten without Tara getting the stuff on tape? Could they have made a case against him? Could they have had enough to be able to search his apartment and find the DNA on the bat? I think so. You think so? I think, you know, once you've, I mean, you've basically established that is for sure the car that she got into.

So surely that's enough to search the home. And then you find, you you know stuff in there and he tried to clean it up but you can never do a good enough job i mean luminol i'm sure lit that fucking bathroom up like a discotheque yeah so i started that sentence and had no idea where it was going but i think they would have gotten it. But, you know, the more evidence, the better, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

What do you think? Would you have death penaltied this guy? Yeah. Yeah. I would have been very tempted. Because like I said, this is, you know. There's no question. Yeah, you're not getting it wrong.

No. So it's basically just a matter of, do you have a moral issue with the death penalty? And it's not a case of somebody not having proper representation. Yeah. Exactly. It's not any of that. It's not somebody not having the proper background for education. I mean, none of those typical things that lead to false.

Everything is in his favor. Absolutely. Is what I think. Yeah. He's a white guy. He's educated. Everything's working in his favor. Yeah.

And he still, for sure, did it. Yeah. Again, I'm guy. He's educated. Everything's working in his favor. Yeah. And he still for sure did it. Yeah. Again, I'm anti-death penalty, but who is this tempting? Yeah. Not that anyone asked me, so I guess it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I'm acting like I'm untempted. Who cares?

I think in... What? I think in this day and age, it's harder and harder to reach a unanimous decision on the death penalty. I mean, they tried to do it multiple times with Jodi Arias. And if there's not a clear cut case of someone who should have gotten the death penalty, I don't know what it is. Yeah. Yeah. That's are you doing that case? I'm so overwhelmed by it. Because yeah, 100% the case that I know the best and follow the closest. And so you could probably do it today. I could probably do it right

now. But it's just it's too overwhelming. I feel like I won't do it justice and I'll mess it up. And yeah, I watched every bit of that trial. I DVR'd it every day, watched it every night. Like I was obsessed with that case. I believe it. Yeah. You creep. I found all of Travis's sisters on Facebook. Did you really? Absolutely. Why am I surprised by this? Why am I surprised? Professional internet stalker, Krista.

How do you get paid for that? It didn't pay as well as you'd think. It's just kind of, you get a reward deep inside. That's right. The glow of the screen warms you. That's right. The glow of the screen warms you. That's right. These were some crazy cases today. Yeah, they were really awful.

Both involved Casey's birthday. This is the theme. Casey's birthday. It's the themed episode. Casey's birthday. Happy birthday. Why didn't we do this on her birthday? We'll never know.

That's right. You know know some people plan that stuff out this was this was kismet you know what two words in like 10 minutes that i just never hear discotheque and kismet i don't even know what kismet i just hear people saying i feel like i used it in the right context kismetet. Let's see. Destiny or fate. Yeah. See? Yeah. Well done.

Thank you. You're no dummy. See, I wasn't confident enough of the definition. So when you said it, I was like, so that's what that means. See, and I sold it like I knew exactly what I was saying. That's typical Brandy. That is 100% typical Brandy. It's what I do.

So, you know, we've reached the end of this thing. I know. We don't have questions from the Discord because Norm had to leave. Norm abandoned us. Yeah, he has a chiropractor appointment. He's off getting popped and jiggled. Yeah, I... It scares me. It scares me too.

I've never been to a chiropractor. Neither have I. It scares me. So when I worked at Walgreens, one of the store managers there, like the assistant manager, his wife went to the chiropractor and stopped she was paralyzed yeah it's terrifying i'm gonna have to imagine they did something wrong obviously so i really i'm a weirdo i enjoy watching like the chiropractor videos on youtube i find them oddly relaxing but no no, I don't like.

Well, first of all, I'm touching my neck, by the way. I don't like the popping noises to begin with. Like even somebody like popping their knuckles bothers me. Yeah. Yeah. Nope. No, thank you. Although I can do this.

Ew, stop that. Do you want to explain to people what that was? That was my jaw. Yeah. Me unhinging my jaw. Like a snake. That's why I can open my mouth so wide, Kristen. nothing what do you got to say about that a darn thing it's how i talk so loud uh-huh gal like you didn't stay single for long okay

all right that's enough of that sorry sorry i forgot this was a family show only the fact that our family's listening yeah my apologies to brandy's parents oh god stop right now so i guess since we don't have any questions we should do some supreme court inductions oh shit yes i was like yeah i mean i was like what should we talk about? Here I am, ready to go with my induction page all up. Really? Brandy? Yeah, I got tired of you yelling at me. Oh, sorry.

How do people get inducted into this fine Supreme Court? So they have to join our Patreon at the $7 level. So head on over to patreon.com slash LGTC podcast and sign up at the Supreme Court level. You get inducted into our Supreme Court. You get a sticker. You get bonus episodes. You get a bonus video every month. My God, the video. The video. Really, they're kind of fun. I really do love them. Yeah, we have a good time doing them too. I'm excited to do our cottage cheese jello salad. I think Norman is going to throw up. I think he might. So Norman is our cameraman for our bonus videos.

And Norman does not like cottage cheese. So he's not even a big fan of jello, really. So this is just like combining all the things he hates. Yeah. So I'm sorry. Are you stalling now? Yes.

I was going to pull up Patreon and now it's making me verify that. You guys, we love Patreon. But I mean, it's like Fort Knox over there. It love patreon but i mean it's like fort knox over there it is i mean like i have accessed patreon from this computer multiple times but now yeah every time we get an email that's like you know someone logged into your patreon i always text you yeah and i'm like ready for the day when someone's trying to bust into our patreon it's

never happened not happened i'm really excited for this crime to occur no one's trying to bust into our Patreon. It's never happened. Not happened. I'm really excited for this crime to occur. No one's trying to. No one's interested. All right, guys. This time we are continuing on with our favorite drinks. Well, not our favorite drinks. Have we told the people our favorite drinks? Do you want to tell them?

I mean. Kristen, how could either of us pick? How could I choose? We both love beverages. We do love beverages. So here's the thing that i think is really funny because kristen always teases me about being so picky about food but i will pretty much try any beverage i love beverages yeah what why are you so adventurous when it comes to a i have a

theory but not a solid i have a theory okay it's because my reason that i am picky with food is texture based and that's not a thing in beverages. Would you try any smoothie? Yes, I love smoothies. That's a texture thing. It's an excellent texture. Oh, okay. So I think that's why I will try basically any beverage. You're always like, what the fuck is that that you're drinking? So I try them all. It just seems very kismet to me. I've learned nothing. Yeah, so we can't pick our favorite beverages. There's too many to pick from. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, we're going to share these people's favorite beverages as we induct them into the Supreme Court. For today's inductions, what should people do, Kristen? Hmm, not Bikram yoga. I watched that documentary. Stay away from

that guy. So just while we're doing this induction, don't do hot yoga. Yeah. You can literally do anything but hot yoga. Cold yoga. Whatever you want. Lukewarm yoga. Hattie Samuel. Earl Grey tea.

Emily Zygo. Vanilla iced coffee. Amy Jarboe. Nope. Yeah. Pronounced like hair bow, it says says but i think she meant just means the bow the bow yeah okay okay sorry you want to say it again i sure do amy jarbo peach bellini sarah tony stevenson unsweetened iced tea melanie ryan mountain dew baja blast oh my gosh. Norman loves that stuff. I have to go on a tangent. I'm so sorry. What is it?

What is it? Because Taco Bell, this is where Mountain Dew Baja Blast comes from. Taco Bell are big old buttholes and they have a proprietary version of this that is zero. They have a Mountain Dew Baja Blast zero. So it's like a diet version of it. It tastes like nectar of the gods. And you can only get it on Fountain at Taco Bell. Why are you upset about this? You love how Mountain Dew...

Because I can't just go to the store and buy it. Yeah, but you were just bragging last week about how McDonald's has proprietary Diet Coke. But you can go to the store and buy a fucking Diet Coke. But according to you, it doesn't taste the same. It doesn't taste quite the same, yes. But I can't buy anything even close to this in the store. And it is so good. You would never

know it's a diet. People always say that. You would never know. It's like that fucking unicorn drink that never actually existed. How dare you. The Diet Sierra Miss Cranberry Splash. Put some respect on that name.

Alright, sorry for that tangent. Mindy Timothy. Water with a lemon. Oh my gosh. Have you had the water with a lemon at Taco Bell? Fesis lemon is what that is. That is a fesis lemon. Why are you saying feces? Is that when there's feces on is what that is. That is a feces lemon. Why are you saying feces? Is that when there's feces on a fetus?

What the hell is that? Fetuses. Fetuses. Okay, so. It's a feces lemon. If you've been with the podcast for a long time, you know that Brandy feels like there's, well. There's a study on it. That there's trace amounts of feces on...

Barf root! Yeah, okay. So that, if you're making that water with lemon at home, great. Good for you, Mindy Timothy. But if you were drinking that out at a restaurant, that is feces water. I'm sorry. But why did you say feces like Walter

Brimley says diabetes? Diabetes. It's an alternate pronunciation. feces like Walter Brimley says diabetes. Then Walter, why do people say diabetes? I don't get it at all. Like there's no you in there. It's all old people too. No young people say diabetes.

Mandy Mason. I love a good margar diabetes. Mandy Mason. I love a good margarita. Stephanie Noble. Crooks and Marker lemon lime spiked soda. Welcome to the Supreme Court. Did you say Supreme Court? Yes. Yes.

Oh my goodness gracious. Do you remember those old commercials from back in the day when he'd be like, he'd be like, I've had diabetes for about 20 years now. That was Walter Primley, right? I'm pretty sure it's walter primley how do you think paula dean pronounces diabetes diabetes hang on let me look it up there's a paula dean pronunciation website i think i so i am looking up paula dean diabetes

okay let me i've got okay there's a two minute 43 second video. Oh, goodness gracious. Oh, shit. I'm hang on. Oh, she said diabetes. She said diabetes. That I mean, that's surprising. I thought for sure she'd say diabetes. I'm not at all surprised she said the N word, but I am shocked that she has said diabetes. Oh my goodness gracious. Well, seriously. I mean, was anyone really surprised that she's racist? No, I wasn't surprised at all.

Considering her age and she's from the South. Well, and she's, I don't know. She seems a little. I don't know. She's got the look. She's got the look she's got the look oh my gosh not all old people from the south not all of them just 98 oh lord anyway anyway what do we say at the end of these episodes kristen why don't you give it a try brandy for the last time i am so sorry for making fun of you for the way you express your gratitude

on this podcast. Oh, yeah. Do it. Do it. Do it. Thank you guys for all of your support. We appreciate it so much. If you're looking for other ways to support us, please. Hey, now you're saying it like you don't mean it. I do mean it! Alright, then say it like you mean it. Please like us

more. Now I'm flustered! No. Please subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen. Leave us a rating. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, specifically, if you listen to us there. I think there are other places that you can. Not all podcast platforms allow you to leave a rating and review. Rate us everywhere.

Rate us on Yelp. Yeah. Google Reviews. On Uber. If you give us five stars on Uber, that'd be great. And then find us on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Patreon. That's it.

That's all of them. That's all the social medias. We do not have a Friendster page. So if you're finding us on there, that is a catfish. That's a fake. That is a catfish. And we are often duplicated wait often imitated never duplicate that's right and our webcam is broken and my camera phone i dropped it and so

it's just a black screen but i i will facetime you but it's just gonna be a black screen and we can talk for hours that's right and i might sound slightly like a prepubescent boy. Also, could we have a thousand dollars? Yes. You know, because my mom and then my brother has cancer. And then, you know, a bus fare. You know, all the things that they talk about. Yeah. And I was going to come meet you, I swear, but I got run over by a car. They do always have some tragic thing.

They're always so crazy. Well, it can't just be I didn't feel like it. No. It has to be. Yeah, I got run over by a car on my way there. Yeah. You didn't see all the ambulances. Anyway, thank you guys. Please be sure to join us next week.

When we'll be experts on two whole new topics. Podcast adjourned. Ooh, we slowed it down. 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 the Undercover Girlfriend episode of 2020, CNN, the Chicago Tribune, and Wikipedia.

20, CNN, the Chicago Tribune, and Wikipedia. And I got my info from an article for the Crime Library by David Lohr, the Los Angeles Times, Murderpedia, 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. Yeah!