Let's Go To Court! - 107: Fatal Attraction & the Kidnapping of Brooke Hart

Episode Date: February 5, 2020

Dave Kroupa thought he’d hit the jackpot. He’d just met Cari Farver, a beautiful, intelligent woman who wasn’t looking for a long-term commitment. The two dated casually for a little while, but all of a sudden, Cari became much less easy going. She dumped him, via text and abruptly left town, leaving her son to fend for himself. For years afterward, she sent Dave countless verbally abusive texts. But over time, Cari’s family became suspicious. Had she really up and left?  Then Kristin tells us about an old timey kidnapping that took the state of California by storm. Brooke Hart had it all. At 22 years old, he was good looking, athletic, and wealthy. Really wealthy. His family owned the beloved Hart’s Department store. He was next in line to run the family business, but that all changed on November 9, 1933.  And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: The book “Swift Justice” by Harry Farrell “Bay Area mob lynched kidnappers 75 years ago,” by Carl Nolte for the San Francisco Chronicle “Brooke Hart” entry on wikipedia.com In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Scorned” episode Dateline “How investigators used technology to solve the mysterious disappearance, murder of a Macedonia woman” by Brian McCormack, Daily Nonpareil “Cari Lea Farver” iowacoldcases.org “Cari Lea Farver” charleyproject.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 Brooke Hart.

And I'll be talking about a fatal attraction. Oh. Oh. Oh, no. Brooke Hart. That sounds familiar. You probably researched the crap out of this person and then decided not to do it for your kidnapping series. You think?

Yeah, you didn't have the nuts. Oh. But let me tell you something. You have the nuts? I got the nuts. She's got the nuts. Oh. But let me tell you something. You have the nuts? I got the nuts. She's got the nuts. Sha-na-na-na-na. You guys, there's something that is horrifying all of our patrons.

Yes, there is. This week, we released a video on there for Supreme Court members. It's Brandy's cottage cheese jello salad recipe. It's hilarious. it looks disgusting sounds disgusting tastes delicious well according to norm it also tastes disgusting norm hated it made him try it well you know we're doing our midwest recipe videos on there yeah and some stuff you just have to like come out of the womb eating it yeah otherwise i mean you can't be introduced to cottage cheese jello salad when you're 23 it's just not gonna work yeah that's probably an

accurate statement yeah norm hated it but the rest of us had like 12 someone's response to it was like are you guys okay in the midwest the answer is no no we are not we're freezing and is it spring yet i'm very excited which also means excited in english very excited for my case this week oh good i don't couldn't care less about your case you love kidnapping i'm just kidding jerk i thought you were gonna say that you were excited about my case. A fatal attraction. I will get more excited as I know more. But some of your cases.

Let me give you this little tidbit. What? It comes from an episode of Dateline. Okay. And our boy, Keith Morrison. And you would not believe this episode what we get to hear him say. Whore and hoe. And it was amazing. Did he look as...

I'm going to stop you right there, Kristen. What? Because I only listened to the episode. I didn't actually see it. Damn it, Brandy. So Dayline has done this amazing thing, which I guess I'm now plugging Dayline's podcast. I was going to say, you know, it's kind of a David and Goliath situation.

David doesn't go around saying Goliath is so big and so great, you know? We're not celebrities, Brandi. We have no funding behind this. Well, Dateline has done this really cool thing where they've turned their episodes into podcasts. And so I listened

to this episode. I did not actually get to watch it yeah i try i attempted to watch it and when i went to datelines i you know do a little google search comes up on nbc's website click on it oh watch the full episode great click on it this episode is no longer available yeah heartbreaking it was heartbreaking tale anyway you heard about this little show called the joe rogue experience the who what i swear so i don't really listen to that one i've never listened to it once but it's the number one podcast in all of podcasts the few times i've listened he always brings up bow hunting bow hunting yeah i am starting to surmise that he might be a bit of an alpha male now as i mentioned i've never listened to an episode of his podcast but what i believe that i remember from when he did stand up is that he doesn't like cuss or anything right so it's like

good clean wholesome i brandy i think he curses quite a bit i thought that was his whole thing when he did stand up is that he didn't cuss during his stand-up. I think you're thinking of Will Smith. I'm definitely not thinking of Will Smith. But I do. So fuck him and fuck you too. Joe Rogan. Kennedy.

I'm not finding anything. Yeah. Did I just make this up? You might have. Do you know? Well, hold on there do you know who didn't curse in his comedy bill fucking cosby yeah no i'm not thinking of bill cosby yeah bill cosby with his person joe rogan is a white male i know the difference i'm not saying you've

got them confused in that sense but we're talking about comedians two black males as if i don't know the difference no brandy i'm just saying listen i'm a i don't know where i pulled this information from you didn't pull it from anywhere you fabricated it by the way are you going first or am i i go first you would never know it now i need to find find out brandy you are never gonna find it because joe rogan is not a clean comic he curses every now and then he's like us he's just like us in every way successful a bow hunter i don't know i don't know where i'm thinking we can weigh in on this topic that would be great thank you anyway kr Anyway, Kristen, stop distracting me.

Let me get to my keys. Well, we never really plugged. Okay, the Patreon. If you want to listen to bonus episodes, if this fine banter wasn't enough for you, and you must hear more, at the $5 level, you get bonus episodes. You get into the Discord. You get to vote on topics. You get case updates at the $7 level.

You get all that, plus a sticker plus a monthly bonus episode plus our lovely autographs oh the list goes on and on all right can you stop talking so i can do my case i sure can wonderful i'd like to give out a couple shout outs here my boy keith morrison of course because the majority of this comes from an episode of dateline anastasia in the Discord who recommended this case. Sweet. Oh, OK. So this was one of those weeks where I'd like started reading like four or five different

cases and just nothing was speaking to me. Oh, not gruesome enough for you. That's exactly right. And then just like on Monday, Anastasia recommended this case in the Discord. She was like, this one has it all. And boy, was she right. Oh, God. Oh, God.

I called dibs immediately. And then lastly, what doesn't come from the Dateline episode comes mainly from this article. In the daily nonpareil. Ever heard of that thing? The daily nonpareil? Pareil. Pareil. No. Nonpareil. Pareil. Pareil. No.

Nonpareil. It means it's unparalleled. No. Mm-hmm. I've never heard of it. I believe it's a Nebraska or Omaha-based newspaper. Is Nonpareil a town? No.

It means unparalleled. Kristen, I just explained that to you. I thought you were joking. No. Oh, God. Okay. So much. I had never seen this word in

my life before. And I was like, they named their fucking paper this. And then what would you distract it? I know I had to look down at the notes that we share because I was like, I've got to see how this is spelled. So I'm sorry. I had to look. Is it Latin? Kristen, I didn't look that much into it. Here's what I know. I looked up the pronunciation and the definition and here we are. Anyway, that article is by a man named Brian McCormack, who I'm sure is great and loves working for the non-parole. Parole, maybe? Don't ask me.

I'm the one who's wanting more information and you're just clueless. I am clueless. Anyway, it doesn't matter. It's a great paper with a great article. Let's jump right in, after 43 minutes i don't think you're allowed to say let's jump right in when we've been talking for half an hour dave krupa was hating his life a couple of weeks ago this self-described commitment of phobe was questioning his whole outlook on love. Because this seemingly perfect woman had been dropped as if by fate itself into his life. But now, that perfect woman...

You're saying it in the Keith Morrison voice. ...had turned into a nightmare. After just a couple weeks. That's right, Kristen. I'm going to say that she was never the perfect woman. You are going to eat your fucking words later. Oh no, is he the bad guy? Damn it! This is why I hate your

cases sometimes. It was fall of 2012 when Carrie Farver walked into an auto shop where Dave worked. They immediately had a connection. Dave reportedly said that she was one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen. But he was at work.

He was representing his company. And so even though he found her very attractive and wanted to. He could only hit on her a little bit. No, he wanted to hit on her, but he didn't. He said that he thought that would be extremely inappropriate. And so he didn't. Yes. OK.

Though he felt that she kind of returned. There was definitely like a little chemistry between them. So she gets worked on, on her SUV, leaves, nothing more. A couple weeks later, Dave is on a dating app or dating website. And he stumbles across a picture of that woman who'd come into his shop that day. And he immediately recognizes her and sends her like a cute little message like, hey, I know you. And Carrie responds almost immediately. And she's like, oh, my gosh, I know you, too. And they strike up a conversation. And they decide to go out on a date together.

So it was very much she, by fate, was brought back into his life. He'd missed this, hadn't taken this opportunity to ask her out initially. And then here she showed up on this dating website. It was like it was meant to be. Kismet, if you will. I'm glad we finally learned a new word. That's exactly right. So they go out on this date and it's amazing. They hit it off immediately. It's late October, early November when they go out on this date. They go out to dinner, have a great time, and they go back to Dave's apartment.

They no more than walk into Dave's apartment when there's a knock at the door. And at the door is Dave's ex-girlfriend, Liz. So her name is like Shanna or Shana Golyer, G-O-L-Y-A-R. But she goes by Liz, her middle name. So there's Liz standing at the door. And Dave's like, this is fucking awkward. I'm on a first date here with this woman. And my ex-girlfriend shows up at the door. And Dave's like, this is fucking awkward. I'm on a first date here with this woman. And my ex-girlfriend shows up at the door.

So she was coming around to apparently pick up some belongings that she'd left at Dave's apartment. Yeah. And just had terrible timing. And so Carrie was really great about it. She was like, no big deal. I'm going to go ahead and go. You take care of this situation. When you're done, give me a call. No big deal. I'm going to go ahead and go. You take care of this situation. When you're done, give me a call.

No big deal. Huh. So she leaves and this Liz woman comes in. They pass each other briefly. No words are spoken. It's just like a brief interaction as the two pass each other. Carrie goes home. She lives about an hour away.

So Dave lives in Omaha, Nebraska, and Carrie lives in a very small town in Iowa called Macedonia. So Omaha is right across the river from Iowa. And so she just lives like across the river. It's about an hour from Omaha where Carrie lives. And she's it's a very small kind of rural town. She lives out in the country. So she goes home and she's only home a short time when Dave calls her and he's like, I'm so sorry. I got that taken care of. I apologize. I'm sorry. Yeah. So they're at his house. Yes. The girlfriend drops by. Ex-girlfriend.

Ex-girlfriend drops by. Unannounced. Unannounced. Pops in. Right after they get home from this date. Yeah, just pops in. And it's like, hey, I came to. Who pops in?

I agree. Yeah, I think it's super fucking weird. Yeah. But Dave was so impressed by how Carrie handled herself. She was like, hey, this stuff happens. No big deal. Call me when you're done. And so he does. And Carrie's like, yeah, I mean, if you're still wanting to hang out, you can come out to my house. We can have coffee, whatever. And so Dave makes the hour drive out to Carrie's house for the coffee or whatever.

So he gets there. They're sitting on the couch at this point according to dave they've not even so much as kissed they're sitting on the couch they've got coffee they're talking and carrie looks at him and goes you know if we're gonna have sex like i'm totally down i'm totally down for it but that's all it is i'm not i've just started this new job it's kind of a big deal you know i don't have a ton of time i'm a know, I don't have a ton of time. I'm a single mom. I don't have a ton of time to devote to a relationship. But if you want to have like a casual relationship, I'm totally down for that. And that's all it's going to be.

And so Dave's like, I hit the fucking lottery here. Like this woman who is so beautiful is telling me, this guy who's terrified of commitment, that she doesn't want one and just wants to be, you know, friends with benefits or, you know, hang out when we have time. So I'm basing this off one couple I know. Uh-huh. These things never work. You always fall in love and get married.

Okay. That's my advice. Wow. Who's the one couple you know? Well, I'm not going to name them. That might be kind of embarrassing to them. That probably is i apologize but yeah they started out as just just a or something you know coffee or something they were just the or something and now they're married excellent

we'll see if that's what happens for carrie and dave spoiler alert it's probably not yeah brandy covers a lot of cases where people just get married and so things go on like this for a couple of weeks and it's great so dave's apartment is very close to carrie's work so on her lunch break and his lunch break they'll meet up and have sex in his apartment whatever she'll come out or after work sometimes great now it's the beginning of november and carrie takes on this big project at work She's got like a week till deadline and she's going to have to work long hours. And what does she do for a living? She's a computer programmer. Okay. Okay. She's got this big project and it's like, like I said, coming down to deadline. And so she talks to

Dave and she's like, Hey, I'm going to be working long hours. Would it be cool if I spend the night here a couple of times so I don't have to drive all the way home after those long hours. And he's like, absolutely. He's like, yeah, you can stay here all week. That's totally fine. No big deal. That's what I'm telling you.

And so that's the arrangement they make. And so her teenage son is still in high school. And so she lets him know, hey, this week I'm staying in Omaha. You're on your own. And he's old enough to take care of himself. And his grandma lives nearby. So it's not like a big deal. And he knew that she was under a lot of pressure at work and so he was totally understanding and was like cool mom whatever you need um I'll call you if I need

anything so it is November 12th 2012 teenage son do you know he's 15 or 16 okay I'm just thinking any teenager would be like yeah sure yeah absolutely. Yeah, absolutely, mom. Yeah, no problem. I got it. I got it all under control out here. So for some portion of his life, because Carrie got like unexpectedly pregnant in college, was not with his father. So she'd been a single mother for some portion of his life. They lived with his grandmother. So so it was like having a second parent.

Yes, exactly. In the neighborhood. Exactly. Gotcha. Gotcha. So, OK, so it's November 12th, 2012. And no, I'm sorry.'s november 13th 2012 and dave gets up for work and carries up already getting ready for work and he gives her like a kiss and they are doing like a funny like you know 50s married couple

routine have a great day you want to get? And he leaves for work and everything's great. And then it's like 630 in the morning or so when he leaves for work. And Carrie was the girlfriend pop over. Carrie is going to leave, you know, shortly after and head into for her job. She was like messing around on her computer a little bit. And then all of a sudden at like 10, 1030 that morning, Dave gets a really odd text from Carrie. It says something to the effect of I need to move in with you or we need to take this

to the next level. We need to move in together. Something to that effect. OK. And Dave's like, what the fuck? This comes out of nowhere. And why would this be done via text? Yeah.

And so he responds like with a knee jerk reaction immediately. It's like, no, we've only known each other for a couple of text. Yeah. And so he responds like with a knee jerk reaction immediately. It's like, no, we've only known each other for a couple of weeks. Yeah. And Carrie like flips out over text message. She says she never wants to see him again. She can't believe he'd react that way. And it goes very badly. And Dave never sees Carrie again after that morning when they kissed goodbye.

But he sure heard a lot from Carrie because over the next several weeks into months into years, he would receive all kinds of crazy messages, emails, Facebook correspondence from Carrie Farver. It was as if she'd completely like turned into his ex-girlfriend, completely flipped out, completely gone off the deep end and turned into this completely different person. But no one could find her, including her family. She completely disappeared off the face of the earth. She left her mother and her son and she sent them messages. She sent them text messages and Facebook messages explaining that she one day she had just decided it was enough.

She was quitting her job. She was moving to Kansas. Okay. At first, her mother was very alarmed by this. But Carrie in the past had had some issues with depression and like for long periods of time wouldn't be able to get out of bed. And she also then would have the opposite like manic periods. And so ultimately, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. But for years now, she'd been medicated and was very well regulated, and it had no issues. But her mother

was like, Oh, my gosh, maybe she's maybe she's having like a bipolar episode or something like that. And so initially, her mom was like, Okay, tell me what you need, you know, whatever. And her son was like, you know, come back, don't just leave. And his mom through these messages was like, just move in with grandma. She'll take care of you. So you can finish high school or you can come to Kansas with me. He's like, I can't come to Kansas with you. Like no one's gonna say that. Yeah, yeah. And so this is kind of what went on for the next, as I mentioned, weeks into months into years. And the messages from Carrie to her family were always like, I'm so sorry that I'm doing this to you guys. I'm so sorry that I'm going through this, but I'm going to get it together and I'm going to come back.

Just bear with me while I'm figuring myself out. But Carrie's messages to Dave were of a very threatening nature. She blamed their breakup, if you can call it that. Yeah, yeah. And he's like, why didn't you think we were together? On his ex-girlfriend, Liz. Mm-hmm. And then, all of a sudden, Liz starts

getting threatening messages. Oh, did she? From Carrie as well. Were the calls coming from inside the house? So Liz starts getting threatening messages in text form, in email form. Carrie starts posting things on Facebook about how Liz is a whore and Liz broke up her perfect relationship and how Liz stole Dave away from her and how Liz has herpes. This goes on and on. Can you you do a keith morrison impression i wish i could it's just you have to listen because it's just amazing to get to hear him

read the messages about a whore i just i just imagine horror takes way longer to say yes because okay i have a favorite word that keith morrison says do you do you have a favorite word that Keith Morrison says. Do you have a favorite? Oh, my God. I mean, I love the way he says die. Oh, yeah, it's great. Die. I love the way he says record.

Yes. Anyway, so these messages to both Dave and Liz become increasingly threatening in nature and also in frequency. At one point, Dave is getting 60 messages a day, 100 messages a day. But Liz and Dave weren't together. Liz and Dave were not together. Okay. They were not together. They weren't together.

They had already broken up by the time Dave met Carrie. Right, and they never got back together. Well, we'll get there. Okay. So at this point, though, they are not together. They had already broken up by the time Dave met Carrie. And they never got back together. Well, we'll get there. Okay. So at this point, though, they are not together. So Dave starts getting all these messages. He says at points it made his phone basically unusable because messages were coming in with such frequency. He changed his number multiple times. Somehow Carrie would always get it. Yeah. Liz always knew the new number. Wow. Kristen. Yeah. I am ready for Liz to be locked up. Some stuff's going to happen to Liz here.

So. Oh, God. Should I shut the fuck up? Yeah. I'm sorry. Okay. Yeah. Some bad stuff happens to Liz.

So. So. And somehow Carrie always knows where Dave is. Like she'll make references to what he's wearing or where he's been. And so he'll like rush outside to try and find her, but she's never there.

So at one point, Liz's like garage gets broken into and a message about her being a whore is written on the garage wall. Dave gets all these messages about how Carrie is talking to a hit man about trying to figure out how to get Liz taken out. And she's trying to drag him into it. She's like, okay, now do we want to pay for just Liz to be taken out? Or do we take out her two kids too? What do you think? What do

you think we should do? What? He's like, what the fuck? And so eventually, because Liz and Dave are both victims of all of this harassment and threatening stuff, they end up talking about it. Like, what are you getting? What are you they're comparing notes, and they end up going to the police. So they go to the Omaha police, and they're like, this is what's happening. And they start registering all of these complaints about this harassment that's going on. And they just like, it's just complaint after complaint after complaint that they're registering with the police, but the police can't do anything about it if they can't find Carrie. Right. So some of the messages they start tracing and they come back to a location in

Omaha. And so they'll go there, like we're able to get phone records and the phone company is like, well, this is where the message was sent from. So they go to that address. No, Carrie, no sign that Carrie's ever been there. Nothing. At this same time that all this is going on in Omaha, over in Macedonia, Carrie's family is freaking out. They're like, they believe by this point that the messages that are being sent by text message and on Facebook don't sound like Carrie. Her mom's really like gone through

and really dissected them. And she's like, this doesn't sound like her grammar. These don't sound like words she would use. The post's like, this doesn't sound like her grammar. These don't sound like words she would use the post about calling someone a whore and stuff like that. That's not her style at all. And so she decides to go to the sheriff's department there in Pottawatomie County, which is where they live and report Carrie as a missing person. Yeah. And so they take all the information and they're like, you know, she's still active on social media and you're still getting messages from her.

Her phone's still active. Like there's not a lot we can do. You can report her. But if she's an adult woman who wanted to, yeah, if she's an adult woman who wanted to get away and that's what she's telling you in these messages, you have shown me messages that say that.

Yeah. There's not a lot we can do. Ugh. Yeah. So now we've got Liz and Dave who are comparing notes about all of these threats they're getting. And Liz is scared because she's being threatened by this woman she has no connection to. Right. They passed one time.

They dated the same person, but neither, like, she didn't have anything to do with Carrie's relationship ending. And so this actually does draw Dave and Liz back together a little bit. And they start kind of seeing each other. They kind of go through like an on and off, seeing each other kind of thing. And things continue to escalate. At one point, Liz is moving out of her residence into another residence. So she's got like most of her stuff at the new residence. Her kids are there.

But she goes one morning to her old residence to kind of go. Her pets had been staying at the old residence until they were all set up at the new place. She goes one morning to go get the pets to move them. And her house has been set on fire. Oh, my God. She had two dogs, a cat, and a pet snake that all died in the fire. Okay. Well, the pet snake.

Kristen. Well, the pet snake really deserved today. And so she's like, this is it. Like, this is enough. And so they go to police again. And the police look at it. And they're like, this is definitely arson. And they talk to Liz.

And they're like, who would have done this? And she's like, I know who exactly did this. Well, yeah, of course. And then Dave gets an email from Carrie claiming responsibility for the fire. She's like, yeah, I burned that whore's house down and I wish her kids would have died in it. Oh, my God. Yeah. OK, this story is absolutely nuts.

I'm on the edge of my seat. I hate that I said anything disparaging about any of these people because I have no idea what's going on. All right. Continue. Yeah. Except I love Keith Morrison. Spoiler alert. But at this point, again, they've tried tracking Carrie by her IP address and stuff like that. And everything is coming back with different results, which means it's likely being run through like anonymous server or whatever. That's like rerouting everything. So it's untraceable. And on and on. That's exactly right. And so they're getting nowhere with it. As time. I would be shitting my pants if I were Liz.

Oh, absolutely. At some point, Carrie doesn't show up for a family wedding that she was expected at. She messaged her son saying she would be there and she doesn't show up. And so they're like, OK, that's definitely odd. So the family on the one hand. So you got people over here in Omaha who are terrified that Carrie is going to fucking murder them. Yes. And then on the other side, you've got her family in Macedonia who are like, where's our daughter? Where's our mom?

Absolutely. So she doesn't show up at this family wedding. Her dad dies and she doesn't show up to the funeral this is weird it's terrible so they start sending her messages and sometimes they get a response sometimes they don't they're convinced that something has happened to carrie at some point dave receives a message that carrie's moving into his apartment complex. Oh, yeah. She messages him and is like, hey, I rent an apartment in your complex. And I really hope we run into each other soon. Something of that nature.

And so he calls the police. Absolutely. And he's like, this is where she told me she's living. Like, can you guys go check it out? They go and they check it out. Only the apartment building number is correct, but there's no apartment number in that building to match what she said she was living in. Oh.

Yeah. So it was just to scare him. Mm-hmm. But the family gets reports that there have been sightings of Carrie. At one time, they get a call from a homeless shelter in Omaha. It's like, Carrie's here. You guys need to come pick her up. And Carrie's mother is beside herself. She's so excited that somebody's finally got their come pick her up. And Carrie's mother like is beside herself.

She's so excited that somebody's finally got their hands on her daughter. She gets there. She goes with detectives to go there to pick her up. The detectives are like, let us go in, please. Because all of these threats have been made by her. And so she is a person of interest in this arson investigation and whatever else. She could be dangerous. She could be very dangerous.

and this arson investigation and whatever else. She could be dangerous. She could be very dangerous. And so detectives are like, let us go in, please, first, and we'll assess the situation, and then we'll go from there. So they go in. They've got a picture of Carrie with them. The people at the homeless shelter have never seen her.

She's never been there. Wow. It's all been some kind of ruse again by someone saying she's been there. Yeah. At that point, Carrie's family has just, like, had it. They don't understand what's going on. Carrie's mother sends her a message on Facebook. And she's like, we came to the homeless shelter. You weren't there.

Tell us what's going on. Yeah. Her son, Max, is just like beside himself. He doesn't know what has happened to his mom. Does mom just abandon him? So he sends her a message, his mom a message that just says,

hi. That's all the message says. Yeah. Hi. And he gets a response. Hi, little man. What's up? And she's never responded

to him before? She's responded very sporadically here and there. It's been very inconsistent. Right. And so he says, I've got three questions for you.

What's my middle name? Oh. What was the name of our first dog? Who was my best friend growing up? Oh, shit. And he gets no response. Yeah. And to him, it was then.

Yeah. That he knew that his mom, something had happened to his mom. This was not his mom that he was talking to. Yeah. At another point, after Carrie's dad had died and she didn't show up for the funeral. So Carrie's mom and dad were divorced, but Carrie had been very close to her dad. She was also very close to her mom and her stepdad. Like she'd had a great relationship with her family. Yeah. So when she failed to show up at the funeral, her mom, that's when her mom started looking through these

messages and really like dissecting them. And she was sure that something had happened. And she says on this episode of Dateline that after that, there was this moment where she was sleeping and her ex-husband came to her in a dream. And she said it was just the most clear thing. Like she can remember it so clearly to this day. Her ex-husband came to her in a dream and he said, don't worry, Nancy, Carrie's with me. Wow. And she said she just knew then. Yeah. That something had happened to Carrie and her her hopes that she would find her changed to her hopes that she would know what happened to her. Right. At some point. Yeah. Oh, my God. So the threatening messages to Dave and Liz kind of taper off. We're talking like over a course of like three years. Oh my God, these poor people. And as the messages taper off,

kind of Dave and Liz kind of grow apart and their relationship kind of falls apart. Dave at one point ends up moving to Council Bluffs, Iowa, because that's across the river from Omaha. His ex, so he was with this woman, Amy, for like 12 years. They never married because he is afraid of commitment, but they have two kids together. And so Amy and his two kids live there. So he was with this woman, Amy, for like 12 years. They never married because he is afraid of commitment. But they have two kids together. And so Amy and his two kids live there. So he's going to spend more time with his kids. He's going to be closer to them. And he thought if he moved out of Omaha, Kerry had less of a chance of being able to locate him.

So he just kind of felt safer doing that. At some point after that move, he also buys a gun. He said at the height of all of the threats and everything, he was drinking so heavily and he's never been a drinker in his life, but he would get off work. He'd go to the bar and he'd drink until it was closed. Like he just couldn't believe what he was going through. Yeah. And so he moved away from the situation, closer to his kids, and then he bought a gun to help

him feel safer. He stored it like in a locked gun safe in the top of the closet and whatever and didn't really think much of it after he bought it. He just knew he had it in case he needed it. At some point during all this kind of early on, Carrie's car is actually discovered in Dave's apartment complex. So parked in a different part of the complex. And it is like immaculately clean. Mm hmm. When they find it, it had been a very snowy winter there. So they find it like in January. So remember, she went missing in November.

So they find it kind of in January sometime. And all of the other cars have been, you know, clearly moved in the snow. They've been dusted off. They're not piled up anymore. And this car is sitting there still piled up with snow. And so that's kind of what got attention drawn to right right so like who's not using right car so they figure out the police come out and they look at and they figure out that it's carrie's car and that it's like spotless clean they impound it they you know process it they find nothing in

it with the exception of a box of mints, like a little mint tin or like, you know, something like that in the cup holder. And they lifted one clean print off of the mint container. When they ran through the system, it didn't come back with anybody. And so they just knew that they had that like, and it could have been Carrie's for all they knew. They didn't have even hers to compare against it. So they just like put that in a little evidence container and that was it. And then the case went cold. So, you know, these messages have been going on and then tapering off for three years. And no one's really looking at this missing persons case on Carrie anymore. This story is bananas.

It is nuts. Until these two guys who work for the Pottawatomie County Sheriff's Office. So this story about crazy Carrie kind of became like office talk, like everybody talked about her on the office. Like, what do you think happened to her? Like, you know, do you really think that she went missing? Whatever. And so these two deputies, Detective Ryan Avis and Investigator Jim Doty, they are talking about it one day and they're like, let's take a look at it. Let's see if we can get permission to open it back up and take a look at it. Because essentially it's a woman who left of her own free will.

There's no reason to believe there's anything. And so they have to get permission to kind of take a look at it. Sure. And they do. And so they decide to look at it with fresh eyes and to look at it independently. One of them is going to look at it as if Carrie is still alive and left of her own free will. Oh, this is so cool. And the other is going to investigate it as if Carrie is not alive and something bad has

happened to her. I love it. And they're going to follow both those paths until they come to dead ends and see where they can meet up. Isn't that nuts? This is amazing. This is amazing. So they have tons and tons and tons of digital evidence to look through.

Because when all of these complaints are being made by Dave and Liz, what's happening is they're having to turn over all of those emails. We're talking like 14,000 emails over this time period. And then they also did data dumps from both Liz and Dave's phone to preserve any of those text messages that came through, any of those threats. They've just got massive amounts of data to go through. Yeah. And so they start sifting through it and they don't really know what they're looking for, but they start following the trail and piecing it together. And they work in this other guy, Tony Cava. And Tony Cava is not a detective. He has the title of special deputy on this case because he is the county's

IT guy. So during the day, he just does IT for Pottawatomie County. But they ask him to look at this case. And so he takes it on in the evenings. He starts helping them investigate in the evenings and seeing what he can find. And so they're looking through it like they spend seven months just weeding through information, seeing what they can find, working their separate paths. And around that time, just kind of by happenstance, as they're trying to piece together some kind of theory on it, one day, one of the detectives is like walking through the halls of the station and there is Liz at the station.

And to this detective, like he's seen this woman's stuff. He's been going through all of her stuff for months now. He's like, it was like seeing a celebrity to me. This woman's here just like in the sheriff's department. What the hell is she doing here? Right. And so he finds out what she's doing there and she's there to make a complaint about threats again.

And so he's like, can I please, can I please be the one to take her statement? Yes. And they're like, of course, of course. And they're like, of course, of course. And they're like, of course, IT guy, go ahead. Yeah. So he sits down with her. Sorry, I'm like nowhere near in my notes here.

Let me. You have not looked at that screen once. I'm obsessed with this case. I can tell. I can tell. You did the deepest of dives into this case, and I love it. And he's already working on a little theory of his own, but he wants to see what Liz has to say. So Liz says that she's been getting more threats and she wants to

make a harassment claim against somebody. And he's like, okay, tell me about it. And she's like, well, it's Carrie. And he's like, what? What? He's like, yeah, it's this woman, Amy Flora. And he's like, OK, tell me more. Yeah. And she's like, well, so Amy Flora is Dave Krupa's children's mother. They were together for like 12 years. And I've really been thinking about this. She's been harassing me on Facebook. And I actually think that she's been the one that's been behind all of these Carrie messages

this whole time. Oh, my God. I actually think that she's been the one that's been behind all of these Carrie messages this whole time. Oh, my God. And he's like, oh, my gosh, what do you mean? And she's like, well, you know, I've just really been thinking about it. And Carrie and Dave were together for like two weeks. Yeah. So someone who's together, they're going to be together for two weeks and then she's going

to stalk him for three years. That doesn't make any sense. No. But Amy Flora was with Dave for 12 years and ended their make any sense no but amy flora was with dave for 12 years and ended their relationship because she was pissed he wouldn't marry her yeah and then she just has a way of just coming back in and out of his life because they have kids i just think that this makes way more sense that she's the person behind all of this and so the detective's like all right i mean thank you for the information Let me know if you find anything more.

If you can get us over those messages, you know, that'd be great. And we'll see where we can take this. So they're like, minds are blown at this point. Yeah. By this new information. At least that's what they let Liz think. What? Oh, my God.

What are you talking about? Because by this point, they'd put together a pretty good circumstantial case against Liz. Okay. Okay. Did she light her own snake on fire? She sure fucking did. So the first damning piece of evidence they found against Liz was in, remember when I said that they did those data dumps from Liz's phone when she was getting all the harassing

messages? So among those were tons of pictures. And so they're looking through these pictures and they're putting them in chronological order and everything. And they find a picture of Carrie's car. Carrie's car that had been not seen for weeks, months after she disappeared. And the picture was dated December 24th. But Carrie's car hadn't been located by police until January. So how is it that Liz knew where Carrie's car was, but no one else did? Yeah. So they were like, holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. This is bad. This is real, real bad.

Yeah. And so then like that had taken them in a whole new direction where they start looking at this information as if is Liz responsible for everything. But they, of course, don't want to let her know that they're already on this path. That's rude. You should always let the suspect know. And so when Liz comes in that day to make a complaint against Amy Flora. And they're like, oh, my gosh, Amy sounds bad. Yeah. This sounds terrible. That very night after Liz had come and made that complaint against Amy Flora, she needs to clear her head. She goes out to Big Lake Park, which is, I believe, in Council Bluffs. And she just wants to walk the trail, be alone, sit on a park bench, stare out over the river, you know, really think about what's been going on in her life. park bench, stare out over the river, you know, really think about what's been going on in her life. She's sitting there in the dark by herself. And a short time later, a call comes in to 911.

A call comes in to 911. You sure? I'm positive. I'm very familiar with the emergency contact number. Rarely forget even one of the digits. And it's Liz on the line and she's been shot in the leg in the leg kristen how do you know it's the leg come on liz she's been shot in the leg she was sitting there minding her own business when a woman came up to her and forced her to lay on the ground and then shot her through the leg wow lay on her back um i think on her stomach i and then shot her through the leg. Wow. Lay on her back? I think on her stomach. I think she made her lay face down. Really? So emergency crews respond to the scene.

They get her. They take her to the hospital. She's got blood everywhere. But weird when they start, you know, giving her medical attention, how every bone, major artery, and everything has been missed. It's a clean shot through the side of her leg. Because, you know, often attackers just give you a clean, glancing blow. This is your warning shot.

That's right. And they bring in helicopter crews. They're searching the area. They don't find a single shell casing. No dog can pick up a scent that anybody's been there. There's no signs of anyone. Liz gets her leg all bandaged up and they bring her in and they're like oh my god so the same detectives sit down

with her and they're like oh my gosh we can't believe this are you okay and she's like yeah you know i would love to see this yeah and they're like what do you think happened and she's like well you know i've been pretty scared because you know, Dave bought a gun and his gun went missing. And I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure that Amy Flora is the one that took a gun. She's the only other one that has a key to Dave's apartment. And so what I think happened and the detective stop her and they're like, yeah, kind of what we're thinking happened is that Amy took Dave's gun and shot you with it. And she's like yeah that's what I'm saying and they're like yeah I mean that's what it's looking like gosh and so then

they're like you know that's what happened we know that's what happened sure sure what we need here is some evidence yeah so it'd be just great if you had some messages from Amy, you know, that said that she was going to do this or, you know, some more threatening

messages from Amy. And so Liz is like, oh, right, right. Yeah, let me see what I got. Let me see what I can drum up for you. Let me see what I can find.

Let me see. And so she leaves and they've given her this task, basically, to see what she can come up with for messages. So write up some messages for herself. Write up some messages. So the whole goal is to see what she comes back with. And wouldn't you know it if just the very next day she's forwarding them all kinds of emails from Amy Flora. Goodness. in them all kinds of emails from Amy Flora.

Goodness. And what's weird about these messages, though, is they carry the same grammatical errors that all those messages from Carrie had. Hmm. Hmm. The real mystery. So strange that these two women, you know, Dave was really drawn to women with the same vocabulary,

same errors, same writing style. So at this point, they've got Liz working on this little side project. Right, right. Give us all you can get us, you know. Let's see what you can work on. Busy yourself. And they start creating as good a case against Liz as they can. Oh, hey, whoa.

Whoa. Very rude. And so at this point, they get Tony Cava involved again. And they're like, OK, we know now this is Liz. It's been Liz the whole time. Can you help us prove that? And so Tony starts looking at stuff. So he's like a computer genius.

And he, in fact, writes a whole program around this so that he can categorize all of these different interactions. And he can prove what came from where. And when Liz was accessing one account, she could also be accessing this account because they have to be able to prove that these digital footprints all come back to Liz. It had been basically a full time job for her pretending to be all of these different people at all of these different places sending messages. So he gets to work on that and he does a great job of it. He's able to lock down key places and times

and prove that, you know, yes, at this exact time, she was logged on here and then also here. And so, but it's a huge project. I can barely turn my computer on and do a Google search. Brandy. Yes. That's the biggest lie I've ever heard i'm an excellent googler i can i can search i can stalk the shit out of someone exactly exactly i can't

i can't follow someone's footprint oh okay i see what you mean yeah yeah i thought you were trying to downplay your internet sleuth no i'm an excellent internet stalker you're like scruff mcgruff It's a laptop. So they've got him working on this. They're working on creating this case against Liz. Liz is off working on, you know, framing Amy Flores. And at this point

the detectives do something big. They reach out to Dave and Amy and they're like, we can't tell you much but we believe you're both in danger. And we would recommend that you spend as much time together as possible because you're in the least amount of danger if you're together. And this is terrifying. Stay away from Liz. That's all of the information they give them.

So at the time when Liz was shot and she blames it on Amy Flora, they actually bring Amy in and like give her a lie detector test. Yeah. And she fails it. Well, I mean, lie detectors don't mean lie detector test. Yeah. And she fails it. Well, I mean, lie detectors don't mean shit. Oh, absolutely. But she fails it. She's like panicked by it all. Yeah.

But one of the detectives who had been there that day had had like the forward thinking because immediately Liz said it was Amy Flores. So they went to her house very quickly after the shooting happened. Right. And one of the detectives that happened to be there for that had the forward thinking to feel Amy's car. Yes. And it was cold.

It had not been running. So she'd driven really fast. Exactly. Her neighbors said that she'd been there all day. She'd never left. And so despite her failing that polygraph test, they knew it was never her. So they finally give them this little bit of information like, hey, stay away you guys are in danger and dave moves into amy's house at this point

that sets liz off liz loses her fucking mind what about their kids their kids are in danger too this is terrifying so liz loses her fucking mind she comes into the police station shoots her other leg and she's like this woman gets to shoot me she gets to kill someone else and then she gets to move in with dave she gets everything and you're not arresting her oh wow and it's finally at this point that they're like who do i have to kill now well it's finally at this point that they're like, yeah, because we don't believe that she's involved in any of this. We've got some pretty good evidence that it's you who's been a part of all of this. And she immediately asked for a lawyer. She's like, I'm done talking to you.

Yeah. I was really hoping she was dumb enough to not ask. Before they revealed all of this to her. Yeah. They got her to walk them through how Carrie had been murdered if she'd been murdered. You're kidding me. Through an email that Amy had sent her.

You are kidding me. So in an email that she provided them, Amy confessed to killing Carrie. Wow, that's lucky. Yeah. And told them exactly how she did it. My goodness. Yeah. That must have been, hi, Norm.

Welcome back. Welcome back. How are the archives? Fun. Do you want to try that again into the mic? It's his first time. No. Hello.

Hello. Brandy is telling the craziest story, I think. I mean, I shouldn't say that you've ever told. It's one of the craziest stories. It is absolutely nuts. Okay, continue. Okay, so they get her to basically furnish them an email that is Amy, I'm doing air quotes here, people, confessing to exactly how she killed Carrie. And when she comes into the police department, she pissed because now amy's living with dave

and everything and i get nothing yeah why aren't you arresting her that's when they finally like here's the deal we know it's you we know it's you and they lie to her they're like we've found remains oh we're still waiting on positive idea but we're pretty sure they're carrie's oh so why don't you go ahead and tell us everything? And at that moment, she just completely clams up. She's like, well, I'm done talking to you. And I'm like my lawyer. And so that's it. No more information from her. So now they've got to piece together all of this digital evidence in a way that a judge and a jury will understand it. They have to explain very complex stuff about VPNs and all kind of bullshit, proxy servers in a way that the layman will understand it. Yeah. And so they get Tony Cava again to work on this. And he does. He charts it all out. They've got a pretty solid case

moving forward. Well, yeah. But it's all circumstantial. They have no body. What about that fingerprint on the mint tin? Oh, what about that fingerprint? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So when they're trying to find what they have physically to link Liz to the crime, they're like, oh, that fucking mint container. Yeah.

The print matches Liz. Yes. Liz's fingerprint is in a car of a woman who she's had one, according to her, you know, very limited cross interaction with. And somehow her fingerprint is in Carrie's car. It's a real mystery if you ask me. Right. So by this point, years have gone by, right? This case went cold.

It's been years since Carrie's car was recovered. There was no reason to believe any crime occurred in it at that time. So it's been like sold to someone they have to go track down the car to search it again to see if they can find any physical evidence because now they have this confession from amy flora about how she murdered her in her car oh it said she murdered her in her car someone's driving around in a murder car yes so they track down the car they get it they can't find anything and so they take the fucking seats out they pull the upholstery off and under the passenger seat upholstery giant blood stain oh no yeah and so they're like okay

well that definitely matches up yep so the So the prosecution, like I said, is feeling pretty good about moving forward with this case. They've got tons and tons of circumstantial evidence. They've got all of this digital evidence linking Liz to this. But at the end of the day, they have no body. They have no murder weapon. And they don't actually have any proof that Carrie is dead. Yeah. So the investigators, the two original investigators who, you know, are the reason this case is opened and

pieced together finally, they decide to go back through everything and see what they can find to like bolster the prosecution's case. They go back and they talk to Dave. They're like, is there anything else? And Dave's like, oh my gosh, actually there might be Dave they're like is there anything else and Dave's like oh my gosh actually there might be and so they're like what do you got and he remembers that he has this tablet that Liz had used when they were together but now he's just like had it in storage it's not something he uses so he goes and digs that out and he's like I don't know if you'll find anything on it but Liz did use this so he gives it to them they send that over to And he's like, I don't know if you'll find anything on it, but Liz did use this. So he gives it to them. They send that over to Tony.

He's checking it out. It's got a micro SD card in it that's been wiped. It's been reformatted. But all of that stuff is saved. Even when you think you've deleted everything, it's saved on like some crazy part of the thing that they're able to recover it. Some crazy part of the thing.

That's right. Is that a quote from Tony? that's exactly that's exactly what tony said and then he said you know other computers and wing names he just said font names helvetica georgia times new roman and so he's able to go to this s SD card and recover thousands of images that Liz thought she deleted off of it. Oh, good Lord. And they're looking through those images and they come across some very disturbing things. Initially, they're not sure what it is. They see what looks like it could be a person.

Oh, no. And they keep going and keep going. And what they are looking at are pictures of decomposing body parts. Oh, God. And there's a couple of close-up images of tattoos, including one. Oh, wow. That they're able to determine is a human foot. And on that foot is a tattoo of a Chinese character saying mother. And so they contact

Carrie's family. And sure enough, Carrie had the Chinese symbol for mother on her foot. Oh, my God. And so now they've got undeniable proof that Carrie is dead and that Liz had in her possession pictures of Carrie's dead body. So this case is like days away from trial when they recover this information. You are kidding me. No! Oh my God. Yeah.

They go to trial. The prosecution puts up all of this amazing, undeniable, circumstantial evidence. They talk about the pictures of the body parts. They talk about all of the digital footprints. And Tony Cava walks everybody through his charts and everything. It's all- Comic sans.

Makes sense. It's great. And then the defense gets up there and he's like, you know- I hate my job. I swear this guy sounds like, there's a little clip of him on the state line episode. I swear he sounds like a guy

who has no idea what technology is. Cause he's like, they can have camcorders and who's it's and what's it's galore. But at the end of the day, they don't have a body. They don't have a murder weapon. And they can't tell you where this murder happened. I actually think that is a perfect tactic. I agree, too.

Because you're hoping that you're going to get some dumb, dumb jurors who don't trust technology either. So, yeah, why not take that tactic? Absolutely. I live in the real world. Everybody else has their eyeballs glued to their phone. I just love that it's like his first piece of technology that he lists is a camcorder. In this world of VCRs and camcorders. What were those huge discs back in the day?

Laser discs. Laser discs. These millennials day? Laser discs! Laser discs! These millennials with their laser discs. You know, they might have a laser disc full of body parts. Hey, why are you guys hating on camcorders? I use a camcorder. Well, because a camcorder was involved in no way in this case. Lots of electronics were used in this case.

A camcorder was not one of them. Fair enough. Didn't mean to offend you, Norm. So offended. But at the end of the day, the prosecution did what they needed to do. And Liz was found guilty of Carrie's murder. And she was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. She appealed this decision, of course. Well, yeah, because Amy did it. Right. On the grounds that they had no body. So they couldn't even prove that Carrie was really dead. They had no concrete proof that Carrie was dead. And this appeal actually made it all the way to the

Nebraska Supreme Court. But they laughed in her face and denied her appeal. Yeah. I mean, she's got pictures of the dead body. Yeah. Yeah. So the detectives were like, this woman was walking around with trophies of her kill. Yeah. There's no other reason she had those pictures. No. Yeah. Carrie's body has never been recovered.

In the confession email from Amy, in air quotes again, I believe burned the remains and then took them to the dump. Yeah. So that's likely what happened to them. Well, that's what Amy did. Carrie's family has said that it actually did bring them some good closure to know that Carrie had never left them. Yeah.

Especially for her son. Absolutely. That would be really important. He said it was still very difficult to deal with, you know, but knowing that his mother had not left of her own free will and just abandoned him definitely brought some closure to all of this. Right. Those three detectives who solved this case, they were really impacted by Carrie Farver. And they loved that she was into computers.

Like, that's what she did. She was very smart with computers. So they actually started a scholarship fund in her name for someone that's pursuing a degree in computers. The scholarship is a thousand dollars per year to a college within like the Western Community College, whatever system within Iowa. And until I don't have an update on this, like to this day, like this is a couple years ago, this article came out. They were funding that scholarship themselves and hoping that enough people would come with donations that that could be like a recurring thing for years to come. We've got to find a link to that.

There I have. I have a link to it. OK, that's so cool. Yeah, I think it's amazing. They were super impacted by this case. And like, I mean, just the fact that this story was like talked about in the halls about crazy Carrie and then this is what it turned out to be. They were really impacted by that so yeah so you can go to our pccf.org to learn more

about the scholarship fund and to donate okay and that's the story of one scorned lover oh wow isn't that crazy yes she shot herself in the leg and burned down her own house killing her own animals what a fucking psychopath i don't know she seems real great here's a fun thing i found in one article so i wasn't sure about the source so i didn't use this as a source material because there were a couple facts that i know for sure they got wrong in the article yeah yeah that always they did talk about so they interviewed these people who didn't want to be called by name but they were liz's boyfriend's parents. So Liz had this boyfriend at the time of her arrest who was 20 years younger than her.

Oh, no. Yeah, so she was 41 when she was arrested. Oh, God. And this guy was like 21. Oh, this poor kid. And so his parents are interviewed in this article and they're like, yeah, you know, we don't really approve of their relationship, but we know that Liz is innocent. Oh, my. Yeah.

She had a lot of people fooled for a long time. Not the jury, though. Nope. Or the Supreme Court. That's right. Thank you, Anastasia, for that amazing case recommendation. That was great. That was nuts.

Nuts. Oh, my Lord. Okay. Are you ready to hear about a kidnapping? You know I am always ready to hear about a kidnapping. I'm wondering how well you know this one. Okay. I feel like this has to be one that you know really well. The name only looks vaguely familiar to me so I don't know. Brooke is a boy. Okay. Okay. Did you think that was going to be like, I was going to be like, yeah, yeah. Cause I hear Brooke and I think girl. No. Okay. Okay. First of all, Wikipedia, my God, the Wikipedia entry on this thing. I did take a little bit from an article by Carl Nolte for the San Francisco. Is that Nick's brother? Who's Nick Nolte? That sounds so familiar. What's he been in? A million things. Norm, what's Nick Nolte that sounds so familiar what's he been in a million things

Norm what's Nick Nolte been in he's in the Mandalorian he is in the Mandalorian I have spoken I have spoken oh I didn't see that he was in

wasn't he in all those Beverly Hills Cop movies yeah he's in one of those Eddie Murphy you're naming all the things I would never watch you've never seen anything Nick Nolte's been in

is he in Blue Chips yeah he was in The Thin Red Line. He was in a lot of 80s and 90s movies. He's got a very unique voice. Okay, well, good for him. When he was younger, people used to say my dad looked like him. Really?

Yeah. Ooh, I see it. Yeah? Yeah, I'm looking at an old picture of him. I see it. It's the eyes. Yeah. Okay.

So a little bit of this comes from an article by carl nolte for the san francisco chronicle is he nick nolte shut up oh my god man i was trying to cut that crap out guess not but i mean like 99 Guys, I'm so hilarious. I love it. My own joke over here. Professional comedian. Classic Brandy. So like 99% of this comes from the Wikipedia entry.

I do want to say, though, a lot of the Wikipedia entry comes from, why are you sitting like that? It's where he's most comfortable. Comfortable. Don't shame him. I'm sorry. Seat shaming. Most of the wikipedia entry i mean if he wants to sit with his leg behind his head like that kristin who are you to check why are you worried about how i'm sitting i don't want to be titillated

this whole time you know i'm trying to work here trying to earn a living so a lot of the wikipedia article comes from you know newspaper articles but also the book swift justice by harry farrell which i did not read but i feel like the man deserves a shout out excellent okay you ready yeah is that perry farrell's brother you just made that up no perry farrell yeah isn't he the lead singer of jane's addiction god damn it you know the side notes on this podcast are really too much to bear. Oh my, look at him. It does seem that he's the lead singer of Jane's Addiction. In your fucking face, Kristen.

He? I mean, are these fillers in his hands? Cheeks? I don't know. No, that's his natural cheek. My goodness. Anyway, I'm going to stop interrupting you for the next three seconds. Because this script is long get it

kristin all right you'll never bowl tonight it was 1933 excellent and brooke hart was 20 oh shut up was 22 years old living like the most enviable life first of all he was super hot he was athletic he was really nice. People liked him. And rich. That's because Brooke was part of a very well-known and very well-loved family from San Jose, California. Do you know the way? To San Jose? Mm-hmm.

His grandfather was Leopold Hart. And in 1866, Leopold started a store called the Leopold Hart and Son Department Store. But they obviously shortened that to Hart's Department Store because duh. Yes. Eventually, Brooke's dad, AJ, took over the business from the grandpa. And over time, Hart's became like this iconic store in San Jose. People loved it. It had customer service you would not believe. They treated their customers really well.

They treated their employees well. Hartz was so well regarded in the community that even during the Depression, people stayed loyal to them and kept shopping there and kept them in business. So Brooke, you know, had it made. When he graduated from Santa Clara University, his father made him a junior vice president at Hartz and began training him. You know, the idea was Brooke would take over the company one day. But then at a little before six in the evening on Thursday, November 9th, 1933, Brooke went to a parking lot in downtown San Jose, which was like right behind the Hart's department store.

And he hopped in his brand spanking new yellow Studebaker President Roadster, which is like a very cool looking car, I must say. And he took off. Brooke was supposed to go pick up his dad, AJ, and take him to a meeting at the San Jose Country Club because AJ didn't drive, which at first I was like, that's weird. But it was 1933. I'm sure his generation was like, this newfangled thing, technology,

camcorders, later discs. Am I right? I called it later discs. Those haven't been invented yet. I just invented something new. So AJ waited and waited, but Brooke didn't show up to pick him up. He was thinking, what the hell? Brooke's always on time. This is really strange. Time went by. Somehow AJ did end up making it to the country club. I mean, he was super rich. I'm sure he just had somebody else drive him. I'm sure. But he was still pretty

worried. That evening, as he was eating dinner at the club, he received a phone call. It was a friend of Brooke's. The guy was like, hey, Brooke and I were supposed to get together at like eight o'clock tonight, and he never showed up. Do you have any idea where he is? So by that point, AJ had had enough. Something was clearly up. Obviously, Brooke had gotten into some kind of accident. Yeah. So he called the cops. Okay, fast forward about an hour.

It's 9.30 at night at the Hart home. When the telephone rang, Brooke's younger sister, Elise, L-E-E-S-E, picked up. I don't think that's Elise if there's no vowel at the beginning. A-L-E-E-S-E, picked up. I don't think that's Elise if there's no vowel at the beginning. A-L-E-E. Really? You said L-E. Oh, A-L-E-E. Does it help to have all the letters? It does. You just jumble them around and we'll see what name we can come up with. So she picks up and a soft-spoken man told her that Brooke had been kidnapped. And he was like, I'll call back later with instructions. Just give us the instructions now, sir.

Okay. This whole story is beyond annoying for that exact reason. Why are we breaking up the phone calls? Just give me, give me all the info. Oh my gosh. Okay. Hang tight. Cause this is going to happen like 17,000 more times.

An hour later, the phone rang again. This time, Brooke's sister Miriam picked up, or Irium if you drop the M. A man who sounded like the same guy who had called earlier said, Hey, I'll hand over Brooke, but I want 40 grand. I'll call back tomorrow, and we can figure out logistics. Great. What's 40 grand? Damn it. They even and we can figure out logistics. Great. Well, it's 40 grand. Damn it. They even adjusted it for inflation in the Wikipedia article. I think it's like almost $400,000. 1933. Brandy, you have to do everything around here. That's right. Make the Nick Nolte

references. $767,000. Oh, damn. Okay. What'd you guess? $400 four hundred thousand just a little off so by this point the hart family was freaking out about half an hour later brooke's car was discovered it had been abandoned in milpitas sure which is north of san jose and it had the lights on this was a huge deal only about a year and a half had passed since the lindbergh baby was kidnapped. In fact, at that point, the case was still unsolved. So the local police were like, we're here. And the county sheriff's office was like, we're here.

And a group that would later become the FBI was like, we're here too. Yeah, all hands on deck. But figuring out who had done this was a bit of a shit show. Okay, so let's start with the phone calls. Phone records for the Hart home indicated that the kidnappers had actually tried to call three other times that night. And no one had answered? No, the line had been busy. Old-timey problems. Who were they fucking talking to? They were probably calling around being like, have you seen Brooke? Have you seen Brooke? You're right. Yeah, yeah. Calm down. But no big deal. Investigators were- Didn't they just do like emergency breakthroughs in that time?

Couldn't the kidnappers have been like, get me through to the house? I don't know. You think they had like the operator and they could be like, hey, Ethel. Yeah. This is a real big deal. Yes. I don't know. You didn't dial a number.

You said, give me, hey, see, give me. And if you didn't say, hey, see, they didn't put your call through. So investigators were able to trace the calls, which shocks the crap out of me. Me too. That seems very advanced for 1933. But they did it. Using laser discs. Not later discs.

The calls all seem to be coming from San Francisco. Okay. Calls all seem to be coming from San Francisco. Okay. Specifically, at least one of them came from the Whitcomb Hotel, located at 1231 Market Street, San Francisco, California. Ooh, delightful. Right?

Let's go there. Let's go there. Okay, are you looking at the lobby of this place? No. Show me the lobby of this place? No. Show me the lobby. I mean, it is marble on marble on marble on gold on chandeliers and oh, I want to go here. Fine. We'll go. Okay. Okay. Oh, there's two Walgreens nearby. What more could a gal want? Am I right? That's right. For whatever reason, investigators didn't believe that the kidnappers were actually in San Francisco. They thought the location of the San Francisco phone calls was some big decoy.

Okay. Well, how far away is San Francisco from San Jose? I thought it was a little further than I thought. So I always, I had a map pulled up this whole time. I didn't actually. You thought it was a little further than you thought? I assumed back in old timey times that everything's five minutes away. If you're driving, it's an hour and 13 minutes. So I thought that's a little further than I thought. I think I'm going to thought and throw you out the window. Thought, thought, thought, thought, thought, thought, thought. So they started their search in Oakland.

But then. Why? See, that part. It's not quite San Francisco. That part of the Wikipedia entryipedia entry if i if i may offer a criticism who am i to critique this fine wikipedia entry i did want to know more about like well why were you so sure it was for whatever reason they start in oakland great okay big raiders fans that's right but But then someone found Brooke Hart's

wallet. Where? It was in San Francisco. Well, fuck. So they should have been in San Francisco. Wow. Good words. You want to try it again? They should have been in San Francisco the whole time. It was on the guardrail of a tank ship. I'm going to need more information. I don't even know what those words mean together. so a tank ship here google tank ship so it's basically like a transport ship and it's kind of like this big old flat thing that they carry a bunch of heavy duty like a barge i don't know what any of those you don't know what a barge is no well you don't know what a tank ship is so why don't you so anyway it was on the guardrail of a tank ship. So people were like, what the hell?

But investigators quickly developed a theory as to why Brooke's wallet was on the tank ship. Here was the theory. This tanker and another really nice passenger ship called the SS Lurleen. Lurleen. Or Lurline, whatever. I like Lurleen. I like Lurleen too. They were both refueling in San Francisco, and they were docked super close together

from midnight until about 5 a.m. So, obviously, someone on board the SS Lurleen had tossed Brookhart's wallet out of a porthole, and it had, boom, landed on the guardrail of the tank ship. Only explanation. Therefore, Brandy, holy shit, the kidnappers, and possibly Brookhart himself. We're on Lurleen. Yes! Go to there!

Where was Lurleen headed? Lurleen sounds like how you would say my grandma's name if you had too many drinks. My grandma's name is Shirlene. She's like, Lurleen. Listen, Lurleen, these margs are great so they're like stop that ship so the ship pulled to the side of the road in la uh-huh they searched it top to bottom they talked to all the passengers and they were like are you the kidnapper okay how about you don't lie because it's rude and we can tell. Maritime rules. You cannot lie. Jesus cries when you tell lies.

Oh, my God. I've never heard that before. Did some horrible adult say that to you as a child? No, I don't think so. Okay, true story. Babe Ruth was on board. What? Yeah.

So they talked to Babe Ruth. And that's when Babe Ruth confessed. To the kidnapping? Yeah, a lot of people, they just gloss over this part. This is like when people are like, can we just watch the Cosby show and enjoy it? People only want to remember him for the baseball. No, just kidding. Babe Ruth had not kidnapped Brookhart.

So Brookhart was not on board. Didn't seem like any of the people on board had kidnapped him. They had nothing. Nada. So then they started thinking, okay, what are the other reasonable explanations for how Brookhart's wallet got on that tank ship? And they came up with one. What is it? Brookhart was on the tank ship? Track down that tanker. It's not quite that exciting. The place where that tank ship had stopped to refuel was really close to a sewer outfall which sounds disgusting

yeah that was my reaction too and investigators just dropping that right into the ocean so is that real that's what the wikipedia entry said to me and that's what i'm saying to you and who are we to question any part of this process they figured that because the tank ship was so heavy it was possible that it had maybe dipped underwater a bit near the sewer outfall and when it rose back up the wallet was on deck somebody had flushed it down the toilet is what they're saying i don't know that they were saying that exactly in a storm drain there we go okay there we go so that wasn't a bad theory but it didn't give them a whole lot to go on. No.

Meanwhile, the public was going nuts over this story. People really liked Brooke Hart and they wanted answers. At one point, pretty boy Floyd was suspected of the crime. So they tried to track him. I mean, yeah, people were just very concerned. Yeah. Well, that was happening. The Hart family chartered a plane, you know, like you do.

And they flew over kind of the area where Brooke's car had been abandoned. They were hoping to find houses or cabins where the kidnappers might be hiding out, but they didn't find anything. Then, Sunday, November 12th, Brooke had been missing since Thursday. What? No, just Carrie went missing on November 13th. What are you making out of this? It's the...

I like when dates line up. You are weird about dates. The family received a telegram. And the telegram was like, hey, hey, hey. I think we got a little greedy asking for 40 grand and all. How about 20 grand for your son? Does that sound good to you? What? Right? You're just lowering the ransom? A little greedy, asking for 40 grand and all. How about 20 grand for your son? Does that sound good to you?

What? Right. You're just lowering the ransom? Yeah. Why on earth would you do that? That doesn't make any sense. The next day, a letter arrived at the Hart department store. It was postmarked from Sacramento, and it was made out to Brooke's dad, AJ.

And the letter was like, AJ, here's the deal. We want the ransom money real bad so we want you to install a radio in your studebaker because we will be giving you ransom instructions via the kpo radio station excellent as soon as you get our instructions you'll need to drive to the location of our choosing with the ransom money be there or be square so a couple things first of all the hearts were crazy rich. They didn't have some shitty Studebaker that didn't have a radio. So they were like, we've already got the radio in there, came installed. All right. But the other big thing was AJ like did not drive, did not know how to drive. But obviously he wanted to get his son home however

he could. So I don't know what they were doing, like maybe giving him real fast driving lessons. But anyway, here's what he did. He publicly announced that he would give five grand to anyone who could return his son safely. And he promised that if his son was returned to him, he would not press charges against the kidnappers. Wow. And just to prove how eager he was to let the kidnappers off the hook completely, he was like hey breaking news the police are no longer tracing the phone calls to my home you can call at any time talk as long as you want hit me up is he lying of course he's lying of course he's lying the police were 100% still tracing the calls i was like now that's a weird tactic i like where he's coming from on the

other stuff but i got the ability to track the calls, we should probably be tracking the calls. The next day, the Hart family received another letter from the kidnappers. This one was postmarked from San Francisco. In this letter, the kidnappers were like, here's what you need to do. Put the money in a black satchel, drive to LA. At this point, the kidnappers may have figured out that aj didn't know how to drive because they later made a phone call and told him hey get the money and take the night train to la investigators were pumped they stuck the shit out of that train station yeah and it didn't take long to spot their man they saw him they swarmed him they jumped all around him they

got him they were like you are under arrest for the kidnapping of Brooke Hart. And he was like, who? He was like, oh, he was just a bank teller. He was just out for a stroll. He had nothing to do with the kidnapping. He was just chilling. These are the dangers of exercise. The Hart family was devastated. They still had no idea where Brooke was. Yeah. But they knew that the kidnappers clearly wanted to work with AJ, and they kept asking him to drive somewhere. So the next day, they put up a big sign in the window of Hart's department store. And I'm not sure the exact wording, but it basically said, AJ Hart doesn't drive.

Oh, wow. Yeah. That night, the Hart family received another phone call. Of course they fucking did. This time, the caller said, grab the ransom money and, you know, drive somewhere to meet me. But this time, AJ was like, how do I know you really have my son? You know what? Put him on the line. I want to talk to him. And the dude was like, yeah, well, don't worry about your son. He's fine. He's being held at a super safe location. Not near me right now, blah, blah, blah,

bleh, bleh, bleh. AJ talked and talked and talked to this guy, trying to keep him on the line as long as he could, because as they were talking, the police were trying to trace the call. And they fucking did. Where'd they trace it to? They traced it to a garage in San Jose. But by the time they got there, the caller was gone.

Gosh. The next day came. Had anybody seen him? Mm-mm. Ugh. Now, keep in mind, they were getting tips all the time they got there, the caller was gone. Gosh. The next day came. Anybody seen him? Mm-mm. Ugh. Now, keep in mind, they were getting tips all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because, you know, this was a huge story.

Yeah. It's November 16th. Brooke had been missing for a week. It's not a great sign. No. The Hart family got another call. And it's the same story, different day. Get the money, drive to meet us at this certain location.

But things ended differently this time. This time, when police traced the call, they were like, holy shit. drive to meet us at this certain location but things ended differently this time this time when police traced the call they were like holy shit that phone call is coming from inside the house you're kidding me i am kidding no oh my god it was coming from a park that's rude i know it was coming from a parking garage that was literally 150 feet from the San Jose police station. Oh, my gosh. What idiots, right? Yeah.

So they hauled ass over to that parking garage. And, of course, I mean, it was just a light jog. And they caught a man talking on the phone to A.J. Hart. Who was he? The man's name was Thomas Harold Thurman. Sometimes people refer to him as just Harold, but I'm calling him Thomas throughout, so we can all just deal.

They brought him in for questioning at around eight o'clock at night. And at around 3 a.m. Is that Uma's dad? Oh my God, Brandy. Norman smiled. Norman, don't encourage that crap. At around 3 a.m., he cracked.

Here's what he said. Thomas said that about six weeks earlier, Norman, don't encourage that crap. At around 3 a.m., he cracked. Here's what he said. Thomas said that about six weeks earlier, this nude. I almost said this nude. This dude named John Holmes approached him. John Holmes. Shut up. Katie Holmes' dad.

There, I beat you to it. Took the wind right out of your tank ship. John Holmes was the porn guy. The porn guy? Yeah. What are you talking about? He's the guy with the giant dong. He had the big dong.

And I accidentally said nudes right in front of his name? Mm-hmm. Boy. Yeah. I mean, how big is his dong? I'm sorry, I don't know. Well, you seem to know a lot about it. Okay.

He was like the original superstar. Also known as Johnny Wad. Wad? Yeah. He was like the original, like, superstar. Also known as Johnny Wad. Wad? He was like the OG male porn star. Hold on just a second. I've got to do something. Ah! Whoa!

That is huge! Oh, God! You're looking at his dog? Why are you looking at it right now? You can't tell me something like that and have me not look it up. My God, that is... Oh, my God. I've got to stop. Ah!

Sorry. You guys are the ones who brought it up. Brandy's trying to act like she's not looking. Look at her face and tell me she's not looking at Dawn. Holy crap. Norm, you want to get a load of this? Ew. I'm sorry.

I'm good. I didn't mean. I'm good, actually. I didn't mean like get a load. I think I'm good. I don't want to get a. I think I'm good. I don't want to get a load of John Holmes' thumb. I'm sorry. It looks like it's a transplant from an elephant.

So anyway, this dude named John Holmes approached him. Do I need to backtrack a little? Are we lost? No, we're good. So, John was having a rough time. He just lost his job as a salesman and he was thinking about getting into porn. He and his wife had just separated, so he didn't get to see his two kids much. And it was John's idea to kidnap Brooke Hart. Okay.

Now, this may shock you, but when police went and got John Holmes, get a load of this, he said that the kidnapping was Thomas's idea. Of course he did. Very weird. So they were like, well, since you two can't agree, we'll let you both go. No, they weren't. No, that's not how this works. Obviously, there were inconsistencies in their stories, but I'm going to tell you kind of

like the stuff they agreed on. Oh, OK. like this is the middle of the diagram this is the middle and really i think it's kind of all you need to know yeah i'll be the judge of that on the evening of november 9th brooke hart got his car from the parking lot like i told you and as he was driving toward the exit, Thomas jumped into the passenger seat with a gun and ordered Brooke to drive to Milpitas. Milpitas. A thousand apologies to anyone who knows how to actually say that. Milpitas sounds like a snack, doesn't it?

The last time you don't know how to pronounce it just astounds me. Norman, will you look up Milpitas, California and tell me how to pronounce it? That may be the rudest thing you've ever said to me. The amount of stuff you don't know how to pronounce astounds me. Hey, not bad. Yeah. Mm-hmm. You killed it.

Yeah. Boom. So he ordered Brooke to drive to Milpitas. Once they got there, Thomas ordered Brooke out of the car and into another one. And that one was being driven by John. From there, they drove to the San Mateo Bridge. Once they got to the bridge, one of them hit Brooke in the head with a concrete block. Oh, gosh.

Twice. Well, he's dead. Not yet. He didn't die from that? Then they used wire to bind his arms. Oh, no. They tied two concrete blocks to his feet and they threw him off the bridge. By this point, it was obviously dark out and they could hear him flailing. One thing said that he shouted that he couldn't swim. Oh. So one of them pulled out a gun. Well, John says that Thomas pulled out a gun and shot at Brooke. Shot at Brooke. Mm-hmm.

Okay. They couldn't tell, you know. Then they left. This was like an hour after they'd kidnapped him. Oh, my gosh. From there, they drove about a mile and stopped to get rid of the extra wire and a concrete block. And a few hours later, they made their phone calls to the Hart family, where they demanded $40,000 in return for Brooke, who was, of course, dead. Right.

This is so infuriating. Yeah. Like, why? What is the point? Why? These confessions obviously were huge and they were infuriating. The crime was so senseless. Brooke had been dead

this whole time. And for what? Yeah. Investigators went to the bridge and on November 18th, they found evidence that corroborated the confessions. They discovered two 22 pound blocks that were stained with blood. What did the DNA say? They had to wait several decades for that. Two days later, they found Brooke Hart's hat. They found a pillowcase that the kidnappers had used to cover his head. During this time, a few people came forward with details that also corroborated the confessions. You know, somebody saw three men driving in a car that matched the description. They heard a man scream for help near the bridge.

All of that was helpful, but at this point, the main concern was finding Brooke's body, which turned out to be really, really hard. They dragged the bay, but that didn't turn up anything. They got a blimp to get a better look at things. They used a hydraulic pump to dredge the mud under the bridge. The Hart family offered a $500 reward for anyone who could find their son's body. But eventually, you know, they had to call it quits because they were just finding nothing. So on November 25th, even though they hadn't found Brooke Hart's body, the official search came to a close. Then the next day, two duck hunters found him. What? Brooke's body was about half a mile south of the bridge and it was in terrible shape.

I guess it had been eaten by crabs and it was badly decayed. Oh gosh. But there was enough for the family to ID him and they did. You'd be amazed the pictures you can find online of this. I mean because I was kind of like well how would they even know for sure that that was Brooke? But I found a picture and i mean it was a fully clothed body so you know oh my gosh yeah if you knew what he was wearing yeah the coroner said that brooke had died from drowning there were no bullet holes in his body so they had they'd shot at him but they'd missed yeah oh is that worse or better i don't even know well and honestly like one guy said that one guy shot the other one didn't mention

anything about shooting. The other guy was just like, yeah, we took $15 from his wallet, split it and went on our way. Meanwhile, the public got angrier and angrier. Do you know this story, by the way? I haven't stopped yet. No. You don't know this?

Okay. The public got angrier and angrier at Thomas and John. This was cruel, senseless, and it had been done against like the nicest guy who everybody liked. The local newspapers and radio stations were fanning the flames. One newspaper ran a front page editorial advocating for mob violence. I was going to say, are they going to lynch him? Let's see. By this point, Thomas and John had attorneys, and not bad ones. John's dad paid 10 grand in cash for him to be defended by Vincent Hallinan, who would later wait. Do you know that name? No. You said it like, well, $10,000 is a shit ton of money. Yeah, it's crazy. And it was cash. Yeah. Vincent Hallinan would later run for

president as a progressive. Never heard of him. He would also later go to prison for tax evasion, but that's another episode. Meanwhile, Thomas was defended by J. Oscar Goldstein, who also later ran for president. Just kidding. He was just a regular defense attorney. But these defense attorneys immediately got to work. Thomas's attorney began working on an insanity plea, and I think John's attorney was probably going to do that too, but he was more focused on getting John's confession thrown out. He felt the confession had been forced out of John, that the investigators had intimidated him and told him that if he didn't confess, they'd turn him over to the lynch mob.

Wow. Which probably they did say that. Probably. Yeah, I think it's very likely they said that. Yeah. Which, by the way, was a very real threat because there was a literal mob outside of the jail where they were being held at all times. I'm sure. And when people found out that these two men might try to use an insanity defense, they just freaked out.

I mean, we've covered some of these cases from back then. People, for the most part, thought that insanity defenses were just totally made up. Yeah. So law enforcement sent in two psychiatrists to examine the two men. And the psychiatrists were like, yep, they're sane. Toodles. At one point, the two men were moved to San Francisco for their safety. But it turns out that people in San Francisco also hate kidnappers, too. So they weren't that much safer there.

Days passed. People did not calm down. If anything, they got angrier and they got more friends to join them. So on the evening of November 24th, Vincent Hallinan, John's defense attorney, called up the governor of California and was like, hey, I think these people are going to actually lynch my client. Things are getting really ugly. going to actually lynch my client. Things are getting really ugly. Please call in the National Guard. What? What do you mean what? The National Guard? Yeah, it was that bad. Wow. But Governor Sonny Jim Rolfe. Sonny Jim? Sonny Jim, yes. Sonny Jim Rolfe? Yes. Huh, that's a mouthful of name. Sonny Jim was more of a nickname, I gather. I would assume.

I didn't think his mom named him Sonny Jim. Sonny Jim did not give a fuck. He said that if anyone did lynch the kidnappers, he'd pardon them. Oh, wow. Uh-huh. When reporters asked the governor about calling in the National Guard, he said, Let the sheriff handle the matter. He can appoint as many deputies as he wants. He has the power. I'm not going to call the guard to protect the kidnappers who willfully killed a fine boy like that. Let the law take its course. Wow. So anger was building. The mob of

people was growing. And then on November 26th, that's when Brooke's body was found. And the anger rose significantly. Of course it did newspapers published special editions radio stations started talking about it saying that the two men would probably be lynched that night wow and probably it would be at the St. James Park in San Jose it was like a hey hey guys hey I'm throwing a party tonight drop by around 11 invited everybody to the lynching might as well have oh my gosh starting at 11 a.m crowds began to gather outside the jail the sheriff did what he could to hold them back he organized like this makeshift barricade of trucks and cars to try to protect the jail i, the guy was outnumbered because by that evening,

thousands of men, women, and children were all there at the park waiting for something to happen. Oh my gosh. So the estimates are between 5,000 and 15,000 people. Holy shit. At some point, the crowd started chanting,

11 o'clock, 11 o'clock. Okay, well, that's creepy as fuck yes it is and the governor of california old sunny jim was loving every minute of it he was like standing there at the front of the crowd here's what he was doing he had planned to go to a conference in boise that evening but he was afraid that if he went his lieutenant governor might step in and call the National Guard to stop the possible lynching. Wow. So Sonny Jim was like, sorry, Boise, I'll catch you next time. And he stayed in California just so he could make sure that the National Guard was not called in.

Meanwhile, the crowd was getting meaner and meaner. And finally, at 1030 at night, the sheriff called the governor and was like, hey, hey, hey, here's the deal. We can't hold this lynch mob off much longer. Please send the National Guard. And the governor said no. Now it's midnight. The crowd's still there. The sheriff's deputies threw tear gas at them.

It didn't work. Instead, people ran to a nearby construction site. They grabbed this big pipe and they started using it as a battering ram. Oh, my God. And the sheriff was like, holy shit. So it was just him, nine deputies and eight state patrolmen defending two dudes against thousands of angry people. Wow.

Yeah, that'll save a chance. Nope. So he told his guys, look, once these people bust in here, there's not going to be much we can do. In fact, just kind of clear out of the way. And no matter what happens, do not fire your weapons. Do not pull out your clubs. This doesn't need to be any bloodier than it's gonna be. Yeah. Pretty soon the mob broke through the jail doors and people beat the shit out of these officers.

When one refused to hand over the keys, they choked him. And I believe it was that same guy when they were like, is that John Holmes? Is that guy right there, John Holmes? And he was trying to say he didn't know. He was trying to protect the guy. They choked him again. Oh, my gosh. Obviously, the crowd won. They grabbed Thomas first.

They beat him up. They dragged him out of the jail. They took him to the park, and they lynched him on an elm tree. Oh, my goodness gracious. As he died, they pulled off his pants and tore them up so that people could take pieces of them as souvenirs. It's like that one story that you did where they cut down the tree and took a slab as a...

Oh, wait for it. These old timey things like... Yeah, people were super... I guess they didn't have their phones on them so they would just take whatever they could. So fucking weird. So he was hanging from a tree with no pants and no underwear oh my gosh what happened it was underwear they pulled

it off for souvenirs gosh there are pictures of this oh i stumbled across the picture first and i was like oh my god is that because it's black and white so you're kind of like what am i looking at i was like is that does that man not have pants on oh Oh, my gosh. Then they dragged John out. The whole time he yelled, you're making a big mistake. I'm not the man you want. He tried to take the rope off his neck. He tried to fight back. So I guess Thomas had been so scared that he barely spoke the whole time.

But John was, you know, very different. As he tried to fight back, they broke both of his arms. And they lynched him, too. By the time they killed him, he was only wearing one sock and one shoe. Oh, my gosh, this is nuts. The bodies were left hanging in St. James Park for about 45 minutes, while the crowd of well-dressed men, women, and children danced in the park. What the fuck? Have you read anything about, like, Southern lynchings? No.

Like, the most disturbing thing. There are pictures of like, it's usually well-dressed white people. They look like they're at the county fair with their kids and everything. And then there's usually like a black man hanging from a tree. It is like the most disturbing thing. Yeah. I don't need to see any of that. Nope.

Then the police came and cut the men down. About a week later later the city council held a special meeting they had to decide what to do about that tree are you okay over there i'm great they had to decide what to do about that tree because people were ripping branches off of it they were hacking off limbs for souvenirs that's right what case was that where they did the um it was it was the pig lady one the torn love letters yeah episode eight question mark that's right god you're so good okay so some members of the city council were like i think we ought to keep the tree because it's a reminder that if you do bad things we will kill you yeah i don't think that's a great idea well luckily

most people felt the way you did and they just cut the tree down okay which i mean it's not the tree's fault that people are crazy but this is a court podcast so where the hell is all the court stuff there's not much of it because these two men even though modern scholars tend to agree they were definitely guilty yeah hadn't even been indicted and yet we had high ranking politicians and even members of the justice system. There was one judge who was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fine. No, my gosh. Let the lynch mob have them. That's so crazy. And after the lynching, a lot of people had no regerts. Sonny Jim called the lynching the best lesson California has ever

given the country. Oh my gosh. This is why I think it's so fascinating for a court podcast. Like, what the hell were these people thinking? It was the court of public opinion. Yeah. Good grief. But other people disagreed. They thought the lynching was horrifying and risked setting a terrible precedent.

Obviously, President Franklin Roosevelt called it collective murder. Former President Herbert Hoover also spoke out and he like took Sonny Jim to task and was like, hey, you should not be advocating for lynch law. He fussed him out right there. He fussed him out right there. And Sonny Jim fussed right back. This is California. So I don't think it counts at Southern, right? I mean, maybe half of it does. No, it's not Southern. How dare you?

No. Okay, so they would never say fussed out. The case you said it in, they were in fucking England, so. Oh, yeah, I just said fussed out because of this man. This Southern man has rubbed off on me. A lot of people thought that the leaders of the lynch mob should pay for their crimes. Are there people they can single out? Well, interesting you should ask. Because, you know, a lot of people thought that the leaders of the lynch mob should pay for their crimes. Are there people they can single out? Well, interesting you should ask.

Because, you know, a lot of people were there. Yeah. A lot of people witnessed it. There are photos. I saw freaking photos of this. Yeah. But it was kind of tricky because lynching technically was not a crime in California. What's that now?

Yeah. So murder is obviously beating someone up is breaking into a jail is. But the fact that lynching itself wasn't a crime would make this a little tougher to prosecute. OK, then there was the other obstacle. Remember, the governor had promised that he would pardon anyone involved in the lynching. So, like, what's the point? What's the point? And there were quite a few other high ranking officials in California who had zero interest in figuring out who led the lynch mob, let alone bringing them to justice.

Right. But let me tell you something. The wheels of justice, they were a churning. John Holmes' parents brought a civil suit against Sonny Jim and said that he, along with some other parties, played a role in their son's death, which, I mean, absolutely. But then that governor dropped dead of a heart attack sunny jim yeah wow so i mean well i guess he had what he had coming didn't he no i'm saying what you're saying no no no no no no i'm just thinking when some douchebag politician says oh go ahead and beat that guy up. Do whatever you want.

I'll pay for the legal fees or I'll pardon you. Look out. That guy might drop dead in seven months. That's just advice. Just good advice. Just good advice. So that was the end of that lawsuit. But the governor's death meant potentially that the lynchers might finally face justice.

It took a while, but they eventually arrested seven people who they believed led the lynch mob. But they didn't get any convictions. Yeah, I would think that'd be very difficult to prosecute. Then a man came forward and publicly said, hey, hey, I'm the one who led the lynch mob. What? It was me. That was me. So they arrested him.

But they had to drop the charges with that one. Yeah. The following year, they brought together a grand jury. Do you say convened a grand jury? They did. They threw a grand jury party. Yeah. And even though thousands of people had participated in the mob, even though there were pictures of the hangings, no one knew who led the lynchings. It was a total mystery, Brandy. It was a real whodunit. A real whodunit. So obviously with no witnesses, they couldn't move forward. So everyone involved in the deaths of Thomas and John got away with it.

Can you believe that there are people just walking around who participated in this thing and probably didn't feel guilt about it? I'm sure they didn't. John Holmes's estranged wife did sue the sheriff and a few deputies for negligence. She said they'd failed to protect her husband. I couldn't figure out how that lawsuit ended. I don't like that. Yeah. But I feel like it's one of those things where by that point, Sonny Jim was dead,

so she couldn't sue him. Right. But I mean, I think the sheriff probably did all he could. It really seems like he did. He asked for them to bring the National Guard in. Yeah. Yeah. couldn't sue him right but i mean i think the sheriff probably did all he could i i really it really seems like he did he asked for them to bring the national guard in yeah yeah yeah he's supposed to fight off all those people himself yeah like with i don't know 17 people yeah thomas's family never sued anyone and apparently they never discussed the kidnapping or thomas's murder with anyone else or even amongst themselves.

Wow. Which I think is, wow. That's odd. Never even amongst themselves? That's what it says. Huh. The Hart family sold their Hart's department stores in 1976. And that's the story of the kidnapping of Brooke Hart.

I didn't know anything about that. I was fascinated and I made room for it in our podcast because i know there wasn't a ton of court stuff but i just i think it had an impact oh yeah because obviously a lot of people have felt no guilt about this thing but i think it it says something that that's the last time that happened in california yeah and i mean i don't know of any more of them in the across the united states i'm sure they've happened, but. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Yeah, they lynched that Santa Claus guy.

That's right. That's right. Santa Claus bank robber. What year was that? Was that 30s? Yeah, I think it was 30s. Man, what the hell was going on in the 30s? Can't wait for a trial.

No kidding. Swift justice. I'll say. Santa Claus bank robber. 27. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. All right, Norm. You got some questions for us?

Some questions for us? Do you have some questions for us? I do. I do have quite a few questions. Ooh. If you're wondering how these questions come to be, Norm, you know, goes to our Discord to ask people to ask questions

at the end of these episodes. Try that again yeah really try it with some energy if you're wondering where these questions are coming from they're coming from our discord at the end of our episodes norm goes and asks people for questions to get in the discord you just have to join our patreon at the five dollar level or higher and you get in the discord you get you know to talk to us you get to talk to what more could you want than to talk to our moms you get to talk to norm you talk to other podcast fans it's a good time it's like a 90s chat room uh resident dairy expert fiery one wants to know

everyone's favorite board game i love board games you do you're obsessed i love board games. You do. You're obsessed. I love board games. Is Trivial Pursuit considered a board game? Sure. It is a board. Yeah. Okay. The game we played with Kyla and Jay the other night, I know it's not technically a board game. Monikers.

Monikers. I love that. I don't know what that is. It's very fun. It combines like charades. It combines taboo a little bit and sort of meh. Not really, but it's quite good. Yeah.

I also love taboo, which is not a board game, but. Yeah, let's consider it a board game. What about you, Norm? I do love Trivial Pursuit, but growing up, I played a lot of Risk. Yeah, we like Risk in my family. Kristen, not a fan of Risk. Not a fan of Risk, Kristen? No, I was just thinking of this story.

What? So when you guys both said you love Trivial Pursuit, I was thinking of this really old Ellen DeGeneres joke, which is that stupid people hate Trivial Pursuit. And I think that every time I'm about to say that I hate Trivial Pursuit. So my dad just told me this story like this past week. Okay. So you know, obviously, that for like two and a half years of my childhood, we lived in Chihuahua, Mexico. Yeah. And while we were there, obviously, we went to school there. We went to this little private school.

And I think it was like the second year we were there, we got a new principal at the school. And I want to say that my parents had been like on the board of directors or something, or they were very involved in the school. And at some point point it became clear i don't know if we might have to cut all this out but at some point it became clear that the principal wasn't great all i knew as a kid was that like he just wasn't a good fit let's say okay and so i kind of knew that my parents had ushered him out or had, you know, brought about. Yeah. Been a part of.

OK. OK. I didn't know why. Uh huh. So this week, my mom and dad call me up and they're like, hey, do you remember taking an intelligence test when you were in Mexico? And I was like, I mean, not really. I get I was in like second and third grade.

So I, you know. Yeah. And I was like, I might have. I don't know. Here's how my dad knew this principal was full of shit. Okay. The principal calls up my dad and was like, oh my God, we've given everyone in the school an intelligence test.

Uh-huh. And Kristen is a genius. Uh-huh. She is so smart. She's the smartest kid in the school. And don't you worry. We are going to make sure that she gets all the extension she needs

for her intellectual gifts. Blah, blah, blah, blah. My dad knew that that couldn't possibly be true. He knew that the guy was sketchy as hell and tried to get on his good side. So my dad was like, you know, I think I'd like to see that intelligence test. The guy, I guess, was real hesitant. I'm sure he was because it didn't exist. Apparently, he brought it out.

And my dad, I don't know if he saw my answers or my dad just looked at the questions and was like i can't answer these and my dumb kid isn't smarter than me so anyway that's the story about how you found out you're not really a genius you know what i like to think that i was a genius but my parents just didn't believe in me stifled you kla 2348 wants to know, what would you rather have? One real get-out-of-jail-free card or a key that opens any door? A key that opens any door, obviously. Come on. That's not even a question.

Yeah. But what are you going to use it on? Everything. Yeah, any door. The thing is, like, if I were a jail frequenter, maybe I'd go for the... Yeah, never had a run-in with the jail. Okay, what if you could only use the key once? It's like you use it and it, like, disintegrates.

That's lame. But it opens any door. Yeah, but only one time. Yeah. You've made this question lame, Norm. I've made it a lot harder. No, you made it lame. I'm looking at the questions now because I'm very...

You don't like that one, Christine? No, I'm kind of like, hmm. Well, keep going. Okay, okay. Irma Gerd Kerber wants to know, have you guys ever played in escape room? Oh, yes. Love escape rooms. I've gotten out of all but one.

I've done several. It was just my basement. David and I did one with my sister casey and james not too long ago that's the most recent one that we did and we set the record i've set the record twice doing it we did one with the salon for a christmas party one year and we set the record at that one too and the lady came in and she's like like we got out in like 33 minutes and you have like an hour and she's like oh my god you guys like blew the record away did you get the key to the city that's right so i'm now the mayor of bonnish i have a terrible sense of direction and i'm not very good at trivia or anything so i feel like

for me an escape room would just be like regular life i mean what do they even have you doing so fun there's all kinds of puzzles and riddles and terrible oh it's the best let's go do one escape rooms are very fun amazing they're usually busy that day well they're usually themed it's like puts you in a scenario and no you know i've never done kristin okay we're doing one yeah they're blessed bonus episode idea or video idea god it would be good oh oh like that's got so excited it did get so excited uh uh funny you say that because um uh somebody commented that escape room patreon bonus video would be amazing oh all right because you asked we'll do it not because it was my idea and I'm so excited now. Resident Canadian, Mark.

Have any of you ever left the United States? Yeah. If so, where did you go? I went to Mexico where I got an intelligence test and I passed with flying colors, Mark. Yeah, I've only been on vacation to Mexico. Kristen, you've been to Italy and... Yeah, so Italy, Greece, England, and Norway. South Africa. Oh Norway. South Africa.

Oh, and South Africa. Thank you. Yeah. I've only been to Mexico. Yeah. We got to get you out. I know. Out on the town.

And by the town, I mean other countries. That's right. If you could go on a double date with anyone or a couple in history, who would it be? This is from Mindalive. I just didn't know him we have the best time we do have a really good time how sweet no that was a stupid answer uh yeah because you can do that anytime you want like every sunday yeah i was gonna say like you can do it anytime and we've done it many times

hmm my tough thing is i really don't like meeting new people, so. I mean, Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald, I'm sure we'd get blackout drunk and, you know, dance around town. But that sounds kind of scary, so I don't know about that. Charles Manson and his Manson girl of choice. Manson girl of choice. Oh, my God. Whoever you're into that day. That's right.

Your forehead's not going to look good with whatever he wants to put on. X or swastika, either one. I know. I'm probably not going to leave that dinner without getting in his cult. Exactly. Yep. You guys want one more question? Sure, let's do one more.

Kay Burns, who would you Freaky Friday with? Ooh. Ooh. For how long? Well, in the movie, there was like, what, two days? Yeah, a couple days. I don't know. Or was it only one day in Freaky Friday?

No, it was a couple days because... I thought maybe it's only one day. No, way too much happened in that for it to be less than a couple days. Jennifer Lopez is the first person that comes to mind. I don't even know why. The president. Oh, no. Ew. Donald Trump?

Yeah. Sounds terrible. I don't want to be your friend. I would resign. All right. Make big moves. You would just make some moves and then switch back? I would just resign.

Yeah, but what do you think he'd do in your body? I mean, the thing is, I'm so much less important than the president that, I would just resign. Yeah, but what do you think he'd do in your body? I mean, the thing is, I'm so much less important than the president that, I mean, even if he went and shat in a bed, bath, and beyond bath, like, what's that going to do to my reputation? I don't know. You've already done that. Exactly.

People will be like, she's at it again. No, I shouldn't make it political because people hate politics. I don't know. I know. That's a tough one it is a tough one i was thinking about if i freaky friday with patrick mahomes like right before the super bowl oh god you do for the super bowl norm i know wouldn't it be hilarious because it's out there you can't you can throw it three feet and that's it mahomes is well no i i would get his arm strength

but you wouldn't have the all the know-how you wouldn't because freaking jamie lee curtis didn't know how to play the bass exactly right but that's like a mental thing like arm strength is a physical thing you don't think there's any mental aspect of there is i'm not saying i am not saying no no no i'm saying i've seen freaky friday i'm saying i could throw the ball far concept i could throw the ball far but I would have no idea what I was doing. Yeah. You wouldn't know the plays.

Right. So they would be like oh Mahomes. You'd be out there yelling Helen Keller and you wouldn't even know what you're saying. Helen Keller.

I want to know what that play is so bad. I bet it's offensive. I'm sure that it is. The commentators would be like Mahomes is 0 for 28 right now. I don't know what's going on with him.

You think you'd do that well in a professional football setting? 0-28, it means you haven't made a completion. Norman, I understand that that is terrible, but it would be you against the best in the National Football League, and you think you would still perform that well? 0-28 is... No, I think she's claiming that you'd be a pancake on the field

like i would just die yes absolutely like in your fantasy you're like i'd do really badly but i'd hold you're saying you're saying i wouldn't even be able to throw the ball you would get sacked every time i guess it's very possible here's a game me and my brother play, actually. We put ourselves in the scenario, in professional athlete scenarios, and we try to figure out how many attempts it would take us to do something. So, like, how many attempts if, like, I was a running back in the NFL tonight, how many attempts would it take for me to run three yards? Yeah, I'd never make it. Yeah.

Or like catch a fly ball in baseball. Like how many attempts would it take? I might be able to do that. I mean, if it came right to me. I could never do anything. Like in the sandlot, you just hold the glove up. Yeah, in camp horn, yeah.

I mean, I played center field when I played softball, so. How long has that been, Brainy? It's been many moons ago, Kristen. It'd take me a few tries several court nights an adult rec league for a little bit too okay got hit with a line drive right in the leg i have a permanent mark on my leg from the league yeah it was the first time i ever played infield i always played outfield growing up and then i played infield as an adult

and i hated it battle scars yeah that's Well, that's all the questions we have. Take it away, ladies. Thank you. Time for some inductions. Oh, yes. Tell them how to get inducted, Kristen. Here's how you do it, folks. You sign up for our Patreon at the Supreme Court level.

This week, we are doing favorite movies. What do you want people to do while we are inducting them? Get on your feet and jump around. Jump, jump, jump. Excellent. Taylor Levy. Oh, no. What do you want people to do while we are inducting them? Get on your feet and jump around. Jump, jump, jump. Excellent. Taylor Levy. Oh, no.

Wrist Cutter's A Love Story. It's actually really good. Oh, okay. Yeah, she has a note here that says, sounds super morbid, is in fact cute as shit. Okay. Jamie Powell. Dirty Dancing.

Shelley McNean. Step Brothers. Stacey Spradling. Fried Green Tomatoes. Oh, that's so good. Becca Brainerd. Back to the Future. It should be Fargo because that takes place in Brainerd.

Oh, I'm sorry, Becca. You've got the wrong favorite movie, according to branding. Lisa Ryder. Tommy Boy. Leslie Forstein. Want to try it again with confidence? Leslie Forstein. The Help. Lydia Boas. Leslie Forstein. Want to try it again with confidence? Leslie Forstein. The Help. Lydia Boas.

The Fifth Element. Multi-Best. That's one of my favorite movies. Felicity Slosher. Tangled. Clam. On the Basis of Sex. Pong.

Raising Me Arizona. Lisa Daly. Pulp Fiction. Welcome to the supreme court my voice cracked in the middle of court did you hit puberty just now wow congratulations brady thank you you're blossoming before our eyes i love hearing people's favorite movies i do too raising arizona i've never seen that. Oh, you have to see it.

I want to. So good. I've been watching a lot of movies lately. Not that anybody cares. You want to talk about them? What's your favorite movie? My favorite movie? Saving Private Ryan?

Saving Private Ryan. Kristen? Saving Private Ryan. No. A League of Their Own? Oh, I do love A League of Their Own. Yeah, yeah, probably. It's a good movie yeah i have like 12 so it depends on my mood kind of like pizza that's exactly right

hey guys brandy here thanking you for your support just like i do every week shut up kristin thanks for all your support if you're looking for other ways to support us please find us on social media we're on facebook twitter instagram reddit patreon you know all those places and then please subscribe to us wherever you listen to podcasts and leave us a rating leave us a review um on apple podcasts and then once you've done all that be sure to join us next week when we'll be experts first time you said that line krista i'm sorry for some reason when every now and then when you say once you've've done all that, I'm like picturing someone who's like, I'd like to listen to the next episode, but I haven't done all the things yet. When we'll be experts on two whole new topics.

Podcast adjourned. And now for a note about our process. I read a bunch of stuff, then regurgitate it all back up in my very limited vocabulary. And I copy and paste from the best sources on the web and sometimes Wikipedia. So we owe a huge thank you to the real experts. For this episode, I got my info from Wikipedia and the San Francisco Chronicle. And I got my info from the Dateline episode Scorned, iowacoldcases.org, thecharlieproject.org, and the daily nonpareil.

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. You know, I gave you a lot of shit this episode about not pronouncing things correctly, and I don't even know how to pronounce that source. I love it.