Let's Go To Court! - 116: The Springfield Mall Shooting & Mrs. Sherlock Holmes

Episode Date: April 8, 2020

It was February of 1917, and 18-year-old Ruth Cruger was missing. Her family panicked. They called the police. But detectives didn’t seem too concerned. They assured the family that Ruth would come back. And if she didn’t? Well, Ruth was probably… on the prowl. The Crugers were offended by the implication, and incensed that the police weren’t taking them seriously. Months went by. Despite a credible suspect, the case went cold. So the Crugers did the only thing they could think to do. They hired a courageous, tenacious attorney named Grace Humiston. By the end of the saga, Grace would be dubbed, ‘Mrs. Sherlock Holmes.’  Then Brandi tells us about a shocking event that bystanders initially wrote off as a joke. It was the day before Halloween, in 1985, at the Springfield Mall in Springfield, Pennsylvania. A woman approached the mall wearing fatigues. She carried a gun. Most people thought she was in costume. Then she fired her very real weapon. 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: “Mrs. Sherlock Holmes Takes on the NYPD” by Karen Abbott for Smithsonian Mag “Missing in Action” By David Krajicek for the New York Daily News  The “Mrs. Sherlock Homes” episode of Criminal, where Brad Ricca is interviewed for his book, “Mrs. Sherlock Holmes: The true story of New York city’s greatest female detective and the 1917 missing girl case that captivated a nation” “Cocchi implicated in police grafting,” New York Herald June 23, 1917 “Buried Truth,” by Joseph McNamara for The Daily News “Cocchi says his wife killed girl,” Daily News June 26, 1919 In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Sylvia Seegrist: Guilty But Insane” by Katherine Ramsland, The Crime Library “Sylvia Seegrist went psycho and killed three innocent people at the Springfield, Pa., mall” by Mara Bovsun, New York Daily News “Decades After Sylvia Seegrist, Mentally Ill People Are Still Murdering Innocents” by Victor Fiorillo, Philadelphia Magazine “Sylvia Seegrist” wikipedia.org  

One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts. I'm Kristen Caruso. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court. On this episode, I'll talk about Mrs. Sherlock Holmes. And I'll be talking about the Springfield Mall shooting. Ooh.

Do we want to explain why we mixed up the intro? Well, yeah, we probably should. Someone on Twitter pointed out very correctly in last week's episode up the intro? Well, yeah, we probably should. Someone on Twitter pointed out very correctly in last week's episode, the intro, we sounded like we were drunk. It's nearly impossible to record anything in unison when we can't see each other. And there's a lag in our recording

because we're still recording remotely. So sorry, folks. This is the new way. Well, hopefully for... Oh my gosh you know better be temporary well you know trump said it'd be done by easter so well he walked that one back christian you're kidding you're kidding so we can't just tell a virus when we'd like it to go away this is so weird i feel like i'm that one way back I feel like I'm learning a lot. It's as if we're not in control. Yeah. Weird, huh? Brandy, how are you doing? I'm doing pretty good. How are you doing?

I'm doing okay. In your isolation booth. Yeah. You know, I, um. So I told you yesterday on the phone that I, I was so anxious on Monday that I threw up, which is something that I have not done since law school. Oh, so that's a fun thing. That's not fun at all. It sucks. No, I think maybe it's too much news. Yeah. You know, I I mean I don't want to be a dum-dum who thinks this thing's gonna be gone by Easter but at the same time you know yeah there is such thing as like absorbing too much information about all of this should I should I say the thing about the caution tape yeah say. And I'm going to start by saying to everyone, I know this is ridiculous. I know it's ridiculous now, but like I've said before, I

live kind of near a cool playground and I'm obviously taking in too much news and I'm taking stuff very seriously. And even though the playgrounds are shut down in Kansas City, you know, obviously the parks, you can still go out and get outdoor exercise, but you're not supposed to be on playground equipment, blah, blah, blah, duh, right? You would think so. You would think that's a duh, Kristen. Turns out, not so much. Well, it's a duh because they've got freaking signs at the playground saying, hey, dumb dumbs, don't get on the playground. Anyway, I went down and I saw people on the playground and not just like kids and parents, like teenagers, like tons of people. And I was just filled with rage. And then I came up with a brilliant idea. I came home and I was serious.

I was like, Norm, I've got an idea. I want to buy some caution tape. And one night when everybody else is at home, I am going to wrap the playgrounds with caution tape. And he was like, that is insane. I realize now that he was right, that is insane. I realize now that he was right, but I really, I was fired up.

So then like a couple of days later, I went by the playground again. This time someone had wrapped it in caution tape, but people had just taken it off. So they were continuing to play on the playground with caution tape tattered all around them i don't know i about lost my mind a second time but i felt like maybe a vigilante yes was my kindred spirit right so very much like you i have a playground very close to my house and i have been getting like just like progressively more and more angry every day when i see people playing on it because

it i saw this meme the other day and this is exactly what this makes me think of like people who aren't taking the stay at home order seriously it's like when you're in kindergarten and somebody keeps misbehaving and everybody loses recess time yes that's exactly how it is yes and it's like okay this is just going to keep going on longer and longer if people don't fucking pay attention and do what we're being told. And so I just am like getting angry every time I see people playing on the playground by my house. And so like David one day was like, what do you want to do? Go yell at him.

And I was like, no. Today, you told me the story about the caution tape today. No shit. The police department in my town posted a notice online saying basically like this is why we can't have nice things because nobody pays attention and sorry folks now we're putting caution tape up all over the playgrounds and my playground is now covered in caution tape today good good yes now the question is will people be like oh i don't care and then take it down and continue to play? I hope not, because I will literally call the police on that.

No, I think that kindergarten thing is a good analogy, because it was like, yeah, we get time taken away from recess, and, you know, maybe somebody dies. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, I would also like to point out that you went on your big spiel about world peace last week but you know yeah and you just wanted sunshine you know what we have here in kansas we've had for the last several days fucking coronavirus fucking glorious sunshine kristin yeah so what happened there was the genie could only grant one wish and the genie was like sunshine world peace the end of coronavirus i think i'll do sunshine

should we start our actual episode now 47 minutes yeah because you know. Do you know this case? I don't think so. Okay. Well, just hold on to your pants, which I'm sure you're not wearing right now. I absolutely have pants on right now. How dare you insinuate otherwise? Are you dressed professionally right now? I wouldn't say I'm dressed professionally. I have maternity leggings on and my Ripley's Believe It or Not shirt that I got on our trip to Branson. Yeah, I wouldn't call that really professional.

I'd say that's a casual Friday in any Missouri town. That's right. Okay, so right off the bat, a big thank you to Karen Abbott for Smithsonian Magazine. She did the article, Mrs. Sherlock Holmes Takes on the NYPD. It's a great article. Another great article comes from your boy, David Kradicek-Brandy. Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! He wrote an article for the New York Daily News called Missing in Action. Very good. And then also, I feel like I never listen to other podcasts for research, but there was an episode of Criminal where this guy, Brad Ricca, was interviewed for his book, Mrs. Sherlock Holmes,

and get ready for the longest title of your life. Mrs. Sherlock Holmes, the true story of New York City's greatest female detective and the 1917 missing girl case that captivated a nation. Excellent interview. Yeah, it was all the words. I think he was paid by the word. No, excellent interview. Really enjoyed it. I also got a bunch of stuff from newspapers.com and goes without saying, but old timey disclaimer. Excellent. Picture it. Sicily. Shut up.

picture it harlem tuesday february 13th 1917 ruth kruger's family was worried sick 18 year old ruth had left their apartment located at oh oh hold hold hold the phone i got so many windows okay all right i'm ready i'm ready 180 claremont avenue new york new york how do you spell claremont is that like with an i or uh an i no c-l-a-r-e-m-o-n-t okay you know what i shouldn't the craziest spelling ever you're right name claire you know as soon as i said that i thought i've been too harsh you know just because she had the opportunity to get rid of coronavirus and chose sunshine instead doesn't mean I need to be mean to my friend, you know? Okay. All right. I see it.

It's nice, isn't it? It is. It's very nice. Cute, old timey apartment building. Yeah. So she'd left the apartment wearing a coat and a hat and gloves, and she was carrying a pair of ice skates. But now it was evening time, and she still wasn't back. So I believe her parents were out of town, but her sisters knew she was missing, obviously.

They were very concerned. And so her dad, Henry, called two police departments. But both of them were like, called two police departments, but both of them were like, sorry, not much we can do about it. It hasn't been that long since she went missing. Oh gosh. Midnight came. Ruth still wasn't home. So some family friends went to the police and they were like, you guys have to do something. This is not like Ruth to just not come home. But the cops weren't worried. Detective Sergeant John Legreen said that 99 out of 100 people who go missing eventually turn up. That's not accurate. It's not accurate.

Well, and here's the thing. Even if it is accurate, it's still your job to investigate, right? Yes. I mean, can you imagine if you were a doctor and you're like, well, you know, most people who have this condition die. So I'm just throwing in the towel right now. So the detective said that, you know, Ruth would probably turn up and she was probably just out there on the prowl. On the prowl?

Uh-huh. Okay. That sentiment obviously offended the hell out of Ruth's family. Ruth didn't have a boyfriend. She spent like all of her time at church and at school. She was not roaming the streets looking for dudes. By the way, when I had my nose pierced a few years ago, that was what my grandmother told me I looked like. She said I looked like a woman who roamed the streets.

Wow. She said I looked like a woman who roamed the streets. And usually my tactic with my grandma is just just kind of like play dumb or like pretend that nothing's happening. And so I was like, hmm, just kind of, you know, be bopping along. And she goes, looking for men. Thank you for clarifying in case i didn't get it oh oh for sex for prostitution thank you grandma and you know what she was right you were she was not a tiny little nose stud no she was right that i was secretly a prostitute

oh were you in that time when i had the nose piercing. I had no choice, obviously. Obviously, Brandy. So Ruth's family is obsessed. They are offended. But they tried their best to get some sleep. And the next morning, Ruth's older sister, Helen, was like, you know what? Fuck it. If the police won't do their jobs, I will do it for them.

So she walked all over the neighborhood searching for any sign of Ruth. But she didn't find anything. But then Helen remembered that Ruth had told their other sister, Christine, about a motorcycle shop not far from the family's home. She said something about wanting to go there to get her skates sharpened. So Helen was like, all right. And she dashed over to the shop located at... I closed the window. Oh my gosh. Okay, I'm ready. I'm ready. 524 West 127th Street. Is that with an I? West 127th Street.

Is that with an I? I don't think it's still standing. I mean, I tried looking a while ago, and I just really didn't see anything that fit. Okay. Okay. Pretty close to the Apollo Theater. Yeah. I don't know if that helps anybody.

It helps me in no way, but thank you. So Helen shows up at this shop and sure enough, there was a sign in the window that read, skates sharpened. By this point, it was like 9 30 in the morning and the shop was closed, which seemed weird. But what was even weirder was that Helen could hear noises from inside. Clearly someone was in there, but for some reason they weren't opening up the shop. So she left. She came back an hour later. This time there was a padlock on the door. She left again.

She came back four hours later and finally the shop was open. It was actually pretty busy there were women there who needed their baby carriages repaired and there was the shop owner alfredo cochi what the fuck kind of motorcycle shop is this what do you mean they're sharpening ice skates and fixing baby strollers so i imagine it's kind of like your neighborhood repair shop, you know. This is old timey times, Brandy. Oh, right. All right. We can't we can't go too deep specializing in stuff. You got to serve the neighborhood. Boy, your 1917 business would fail, let me tell you. So there was Alfredo Cochi, the shop owner, working on a bicycle.

Helen rushed over to him. She said, did my sister leave her skates to be sharpened yesterday? And Alfredo was like, uh, huh. Well, a young lady did come by with some skates. She said she wanted them sharpened, yeah. So she came by with them in the morning and then came back later and picked them up. So at this point, Helen's heart was racing. She was like, okay, okay. What kind of skates were they? And he said, they were fastened

on shoes like you have on, which I have no idea what that means but obviously that was the answer she was looking for so helen's like okay good was she a dark and attractive girl and alfredo said yes by this point i'm sure helen was freaking the fuck out yeah this guy had clearly been in contact with her sister yesterday and today for some reason he hadn't opened his shop until like 2 30 in the afternoon probably because he was getting rid of a body yep that's what helen was thinking helen was like this guy seems sketchy as hell so she rushed home she told her dad henry the whole story and henry was like all right he called the police and he was like here's everything helen told me i'm worried about this alfredo guy i think he had something to do with the disappearance of my daughter ruth

please investigate him but the detective assigned to the case john lagreen was like But the detective assigned to the case, John Legreen, was like, eh, hold up. Well, just hold up just a minute there, Brandy. There are tons of reasons that a person wouldn't have their business open in the morning, you know? Like they were busy disposing of a body. Oh, well, now, come on. What time do you open the salon? 6 a.m.? No? Oh, that must mean that you dispose of a body every day.

Imagine, is that the world you want to live in where business owners get in trouble for not having their businesses open super early? Come on. Maybe he was out doing other jobs in the neighborhood. Hmm? Did you ever think of that? doing other jobs in the neighborhood. Hmm? Did you ever think of that? Maybe he was sleeping in. Hmm? All right.

Okay. All right. Thank you very much. By the way, Alfredo, you want my personal opinion? Very respectable businessman. I don't think he's up to anything bad. Okay. Henry was like, I'd like to speak to your manager. And the manager made the detective go to Alfredo's shop.

The report that the detective wrote afterward was four words long. I searched the cellar what what's wrong brandy what i don't understand what don't you understand i need more information kr Kristen. All right. Two days later, Alfredo was gone. What? Ruth's family was like, well, that seems suspicious. Uh, fuck yes, it does. But Detective John Legreen was like, meh, he probably just wanted to get away from his wife. Ladies, I tell you. Months passed. There was no new information on this case.

But the case of Ruth Kruger did not go quietly because Ruth was kind of the trifecta. She was beautiful. She was white. She was rich. Ruth came from an upper middle class family. She attended Wadley High School, I think is how you say it. Do you think it's pronounced Wadley? I don't know. W-A-D-L-E-I-G-H. It's still around. It's probably Wadley, right? Probably. That sounds way better. So this was a highly respected school for girls. And when young women like Ruth went missing, people paid attention. Newspapers wrote articles about her. People began to speculate about what may have happened. Okay, we're going to take a quick historical side note. Very good. About 10 years before this whole thing

went down, white people were freaking the fuck out about white slavery which what yeah it's kind of a weird term from what i gather this is what we now call human trafficking oh okay all right yeah okay so it's hard to know how big this problem actually was there's no doubt that it was happening but a lot of the talk around it was kind of nuts at the time people were being shitbags to immigrants which has totally changed and so there was this really gross but popular view that italian men greek men you know the bad guys were going around kidnapping women and selling them into sex work. Okay. Yeah, it sounds exactly like sex trafficking.

Yeah. Except, you know. Minus the racist part. Yeah. I was like, uh-oh, Brandy's going to get some. No, no, no. Minus the part about their ethnicities. Brandy's down for any amount of racism. No.

disabilities. Brandy's down for any amount of racism. No. So this got so bad that in 1910, President William Howard Taft hoisted himself out of his bathtub. Custom made bathtub. Okay, you know what I've heard? And this just this kills me. I've heard that it was just a normal size bathtub. No, I refuse to believe that. I know. I refuse it, too. I had a book about presidents when I was in, like, first grade. And that fact about him needing a bathtub that could hold four working men, like that line is still etched in my head because I was just like, oh, my God, amazing. just like oh my god amazing that's literally the only thing i know about him besides what i'm about to tell you okay which is that in 1910 he signed the white slave traffic act better known as the

man act oh i know the man act huh i know the man act how do you know the man act charles manson what that's how he first went to prison seriously seriously he violated the man act you know this is how charlie chaplin went to prison too yeah the man act okay okay now since you brought that up i am going to go into more detail about the man act okay okay so it was this very vague law that outlawed transporting women across state lines for, and I'm quoting, the purpose of prostitution or debauchery or for any other immoral purpose. Yeah. Okay. So obviously that last part is like ridiculously vague because who's to say what constitutes an immoral purpose i have the final say on all of it brandy will judge no but so there are there are a lot of

really interesting stories about people about men who got in trouble for violating the man act like sometimes it was just racism, like a black guy was with a white woman and you know, oh, that's the immoral purposes. But anyway, that's another debauchery if I've ever heard of it. That's right. So that law was passed in 1910. But at this point, we're in 1917. And people aren't necessarily all that sympathetic or worried about women who might have been forced into sex work right instead now the attitude was a little more like whores will be whores oh no well you know we're all just asking for it, Brandy, and that's a fact. Oh, goodness gracious. And that seemed to be the theory of the NYPD. Really? Yeah, Ruth was sick of her family. She

wanted a little adventure, and so she'd just gone off into the night. Horn it up, huh? A witness came forward who said that he'd seen a woman who looked like Ruth getting into a taxi with a man. Police also said that they'd met with a guy who said that he had met with Ruth several times without the knowledge of her parents. What the fuck

does that mean? I think you pick up what the police are putting down right like met with that could be anything no so they're they're trying to be like um yeah we we super don't have to investigate this because uh whatever happened to your daughter i'm sure she deserves it and she'll probably be back soon and And just calm down, everybody. Yeah. 99% chance she'll be back any day. So that's what the police are putting out into the media.

But Ruth's family knew that that could not possibly be true. And by this point, they were enraged. They knew that Ruth hadn't run off. And the fact that the police were going around bad mouthing her when she'd clearly been the victim of something was like more than they could handle. So they announced an award of $1,000 to anyone who could give them information about either their daughter or the location of Alfredo Cochi. Adjusted for inflation. I was waiting. I was on the edge of my seat i couldn't believe you didn't interrupt i was like ready for you to come charging in i was ready for you to make entry into my home

and i would greet you with lysol and tell you to go away i've got caution tape all over this house. So yeah, adjusted for inflation, it's about 20 grand. Wow. But they didn't stop there. They hired a private investigator. Her name was Grace Humiston. Humiston? Humiston?

I think this is the inventor of hummus, right? I don't think so. She did a lot of cool stuff. Unfortunately, we can't give her the credit there. She really knew her way around a chickpea. This lady, she was the coolest. The coolest. She was also known as Mary Grace Quackenboss Hummiston, depending on what period of her life we're talking about.

Now, this is the part where the interview on Criminal was really helpful, because Brad, the author, was talking about how Grace was married, like pretty early on in her life, but she got divorced, which, you know, obviously was not like a common thing back then. No, super frowned upon. She was married to this doctor. know everything seems so great but then she found out that he was oh he was he had holes drilled in the waiting rooms of his office not waiting rooms but the the patient rooms so he could watch people yes yeah and so grace was like uh goodbye disgusto frico disgusto frico those are her words not mine brandy uh-huh so grace was born into a wealthy family in new york she went to hunter College. Then she went to NYU for law school.

And did she do all the semesters? She did every damn one of them and she kicked ass. So here's the thing. NYU was kind of the only choice she had because it was one of the few schools that actually allowed women to enroll. But she was only allowed to enroll in night school classes, which were kind of like the rougher crowd. And of course, the douchebag she was taking classes with hated the fact that a woman would be in one of these classes. So one of the stories is that the men would come in on a snowy day with a bunch of ice and throw the ice on the women students just, you know,

as a friendly gesture to remind them that they're not welcome anywhere. What a hilarious prank. Yeah. So it seems that she initially went to law school not because she thought she could actually practice the law. I'm sure that was just kind of unheard of. Not because she thought she could actually practice the law. I'm sure that was just kind of unheard of. But because she had inherited a bunch of money and she wanted to learn enough to not be stupid with it.

But, you know, then she goes and she's amazing at it. She kicked all those dudes asses. She did three years of law school in two years and she graduated seventh in her class. Wow. After she graduated, she created her own law firm where she worked really hard helping immigrants and people with low incomes. She did a ton of cool things. And spoiler alert, we might be hearing more from her because I just think she's cool in the future. But I'm just going to narrow it down to some of the basics. Here's one big thing. While she was working with immigrants, her clients kept telling her weird stories. They said that they had family members or friends who had gone south and completely disappeared. So here's the deal. At this this time there were people in new york whose job was to get other people usually immigrants to go work in the south and they'd be like oh you're gonna

make money you're gonna have a whole new life you're gonna love it goodbye forever so grace was like okay what the hell is actually going on in the south so she went undercover to find out what she discovered was that the south sure missed having slaves so they'd found a way to still have them kind, yeah. So it was basically forced labor. Grace talked to tons of people and ended up building a case against these douchebags who were profiting off this system. It was a whole big thing.

And the Department of Justice opened an investigation and Grace was appointed Special Assistant United States District Attorney for the Southern District of New York. She was the first woman in the country to be named a special assistant United States attorney. But this may surprise you. A lot of people hated her for the work that she did. Right. Especially in the South, people threatened her. They said she was a busybody. People even said, and these people can these well i guess they're dead so what whatever

anyway they said that her work would damage the united states as a country because if she kept scaring off immigrants we'd have no one left to work the fields and grace was like yeah or you could just treat people better and then immigrants would be happy to come work for you. I am not the bad guy here. Shut up. Yeah. All of that was to say that when Ruth Kruger's family wanted to find someone who was smart as hell, incredibly hardworking and not scared of a damn thing, they hired the right woman. By this point, the case had gone cold, but Grace didn't care.

She worked tirelessly, and she refused payment. For 15 hours a day, she walked around Harlem interviewing people, and she quickly discovered upsetting information about Alfredo Cochi. Oh, what'd she find out? He was a serial child molester. What? Okay. Okay. The guy that the police were like, oh, he's a really upstanding guy. Yep. Yep. So some of this stuff I got from the old timey articles and newspapers.com. And let me tell you, when they talked about child molestation back in the day, they really, the first couple articles I looked at, it didn't even register because they would use terminology like, a mother came forward and said that Alfredo Cochi had been unkind to her daughter. And I was like, is that the article um but no eventually it did sink in child molestation

great right anyway so she found witnesses who said that on the night oh sorry no my notes were right never mind here we go no back up no back up no back up she found witnesses who said that on the night and day after ruth went missing alfredo looked filthy he was covered in dirt and from the cellar what huh no because brandy please pay attention That detective said that he had checked the cellar. So obviously the cellar is not a place of suspicion. So. Okay. Yeah. My mistake. Thank you. Thank you. My goodness. Grace was like, okay. Ruth was definitely in his shop and he emerged from his shop covered in dirt. I need to get into his cellar and examine it.

So obviously she wasn't paying close attention to what that other detective had said either. My goodness. So she went to Alfredo's shop, and Alfredo's wife, Marie, answered the door with a brick in her hand. What? And Marie said, I'll split your skull with this brick if you try to come in here. Seems a little aggressive. No, Brandy, sometimes you've got to be aggressive. Be, be aggressive.

Grace was like, whoa, okay, let's be cool. And as she was backing up slowly, she noticed a sign in the window of the shop. It said mechanic wanted. And that gave her an idea. She was going to get it. She was going to infiltrate the shop. That's exactly right. So she reached out to a detective and she was like, I need you to go undercover.

So he did. He applied for the mechanic job. And Alfredo's wife, Marie, seemed skeptical of him, but she really had no choice. She had two kids to raise and a shop to run. And she didn't know how to fix motorcycles. And here was this guy who said he could. So she hired him on the spot. There was just one problem. What was it? The dude had no idea how to fix motorcycles. What about, could he sharpen skates and fix baby carriages?

I mean, I sure hope so. Whatever the fuck else they were doing there. So here's what he would do. I, oh God, I just love this. So, you know, he goes to work, he acts busy. And basically what he would do. Oh, God, I just love this. So, you know, he goes to work. He acts busy. And basically what he would do is he would look at the motorcycles very closely. He would try to memorize what was wrong with each of them. And then he would go home and, like, Google the problems. Well, he couldn't Google the problem, Kristen. You know what I mean.

1917 or whatever. He went through the little pamphlets you know he talked to whoever he needed to talk to old-timey Google he asked Jeeves did that's right Google wasn't around yet but there was ask Jeeves from 1917 till about 1998 so he'd come back to the store with, you know, his Ask Jeeves knowledge in his brain. And he did a good enough job that, you know, he was fixing some stuff. But the whole goal, obviously, was to get down in that basement and to kind of look around. But Marie did not trust him. And she did not allow him under any circumstances to go to that basement. So weeks went by where he was just working as an honest to God motorcycle mechanic, trying his best and hoping that eventually she would trust him. would trust him. Wow. Then one day he was like, uh, Hey, I gotta do such and such thing to these spokes. You know, I don't know. And I guess I'll have to run down the street to another shop to do

that. And Marie was like, you know what? Why don't you just take care of it in the basement? You don't have to go to another shop. At this point, our undercover buddy is elated. Finally, he's getting down to that basement. So he goes down there and he starts trying to subtly poke around. But he must not have been subtle enough. Because after a few minutes, Marie was like, get up here now. Oh shit. His cover was blown and he was fired on the spot. Oh shit. So for Grace, it was back to the lab again.

Obviously, I was really hoping he would start singing with me. Sorry, I missed my cue. Yeah, well, this is just, obviously, there was something in that cellar that the Cochise didn't want people to find out about. Yeah, like a body. Yeah, for example, a body. What if it was just weird sex stuff? Oh, God.

It was just old-timey dildos. Oh, God. Old-timey dildos okay old-timey dildos yuck i'm sorry is there something about the old-timey dildos that's especially gross i don't know i'm sorry i'm not familiar with very many old-timey dildos kristin so you are familiar with some um i have seen, okay, legit, haven't you seen like the hysteria machines? Oh, yes. That's essentially an old timey dildo, right? Well, that's an old timey vibrator. I mean, I hate to get really technical with you here, Brandy. I think we're all learning a lot right now. So much. Isn't that funny, though, that women used to go to the doctor to get, you know, their rocks off?

To get their rocks off? Well, I mean, nobody thought it. Nobody thought that that's what they were doing. They thought there was something wrong with them for having urges, Kristen. Well, some people had to know what they were doing, right? I mean, come on. I don't know. Okay. So, you know, the undercover dude has been fired and Grace is like, we've got to somehow get back in that cellar. So she takes another route. She discovers that there's this old

forgotten coal chute that leads into the coach's basement and wouldn't you know it that's just her size it fits like a glove no brandy it's public property yes she just slides right through it. So Grace got a permit and she and her now not undercover detective started digging. Meanwhile, the NYPD, these douchebags, they were laughing at them and Marie Cochy was threatening them. One source said she had a hammer and she was like, come near me and, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You get the idea. I mean, I believe that she had a brick last time we saw her. But then they found something.

Was it a body? It was a newspaper from February 15th, 1917. Two days after Ruth went missing. That's right. They found part of a corset. And then they found bones. Oh. They took the remains to an expert and the expert looked at them and said,

yeah, what you have here is evidence that a pig has died. OK, I was going to say last time there were bones in a cellar, it was an animal. That wasn't a cellar. That was a stump nearby. You know, the cellar that had the buttons used to be in the cellar. That's right. Yeah. But that burial place was too effective. So they moved it to a new burial place and then another one. Yeah, that story didn't smell like bullshit from minute one. All right, so they take the bones to an expert and he's like, these are pig bones.

Yeah, and he's like, that's all, folks. Oh! So it's pig bones. so it's pig bones and interestingly instead of feeling defeated grace was determined someone was trying to fuck with her and she did not tolerate that shit one bit so what did she do brandy um she i don't know she put on her tweed jacket and got out her pipe. Um, she did the most baller thing that a person could do in this situation. She bought the fucking building. What? She bought the building which held the motorcycle shop.

And in doing so, she was of course allowed to dig in the cellar of the motorcycle shop because it was her damn building now that is genius oh i love it how could she afford to do that when she's not even taking payment for most of this work that she's doing she was independently wealthy all right all right yeah hopefully she was getting some sweet alimony from that gross doctor. And also she was she was born. I think her dad. Her dad did something, you think, that made him wealthy, like inventing hummus. So her dad, I'm pretty sure her dad, he was in the legal system. I want to say he was maybe a judge or something. I know he was an attorney at one point. But anyway, she came from money, so she could pull this kind of stuff. Very good. So they went into the basement. It was piled with boxes and crap. And one of the boxes was at kind of an angle. They moved it and saw that the concrete floor beneath it had been smashed.

They were like, all right. They started digging up what they could, chunks of concrete, dirt. And then they hit a rubber sheet. That's not a good sign. That's bad. It's real, real bad. Brandy, you're a genius. Underneath that was the body of Ruth Kruger it was in the cellar her ankles were tied together and there was a towel tied around her neck her bloody ice skates

were down there with her so an interesting thing by this point this case was huge. And so a crowd had gathered for this search of the basement. And Henry Kruger. Did they start taking souvenirs? No, no, no. They weren't allowed in. But like people were surrounding the shop and stuff. And Henry Kruger, Ruth's dad, was on the scene, but not in the basement. And when they found Ruth's body, he wanted to go down and see her.

But Grace convinced him not to. Thank goodness. Yeah. So he identified his daughter's body by her class ring, which she'd just recently gotten. An autopsy revealed that Ruth had been hit in the back of the head and cut across her abdomen with her ice skate. Oh, my gosh. across her abdomen with her ice skate. Oh my gosh. Okay, so clearly Alfredo Cochi had murdered Ruth Kruger. Duh. Yeah. But where was he? Exactly. He's on the run. Turns out he was hiding in Bologna, Italy. No. I don't think that's how they say it. Bologna. Which is where he was from. So he was just like hanging out with family.

And get this, apparently, do you want to know how they caught him? Obviously. Some reporter just like walked up to him and was like, hey, are you Alfredo Cochi? And he was like, I suppose I am. You know, so like he's feeling no fear, obviously. So Grace tried to get Italy to extradite Alfredo, but they were like, no, thanks. But they did arrest him. And under interrogation, he admitted to murdering Ruth Kruger.

Well, hold on. Actually, Brandy, if you want the truth, it was an accident. He accidentally sliced her open with her ice skate. Oh, hold on just a minute there no see ruth was real clumsy and she fell into the basement you know like you do whoopsies whoa oh boop died on the spot and you know what was he supposed to do except bury her there and flee the scene duh i think we've all been there. What about this detective? Is this detective in on it?

Because he was like, ugh, I searched the cellar. I don't know, Brandy. Perhaps you'll have to keep your pants on, assuming you're really wearing them. But then that story changed to... Because, you know, once he had some time to think about it,

he was like, uh, okay, okay, I did murder her. But in my defense, it was kind of her fault. What? Here's what he said. I had never seen Ruth Kruger before she came to my shop to have her skates sharpened. From the very beginning, Ruth did all in her power to attract my attention. I felt something strange when her dark, penetrating eyes fixed on mine. From the very beginning, Ruth did all in her power to attract my attention.

I felt something strange when her dark, penetrating eyes fixed on mine. I was still more disconcerted when she came back again to get her skates. An overpowering attraction for the young woman seized me. What happened afterward seems like a dream. That's some BTK bullshit. that's like the same bullshit he said where it's like oh i was powerless to the urges yeah immediately after he confessed he beat his head against the wall of his cell oh my gosh yeah right his trial would take place in italy grace hated that but she had no control over it. So instead, she did her best to make...

The murder didn't happen in Italy. What? Yeah, but they're not willing to extradite him. Oh, my gosh. They said they would take care of it, and, you know... If Italy's not willing to extradite, what do you do? I don't know. I'll tell you what you do.

You hold the trial in Italy? Yeah. Well, yeah. No, so Grace went into overdrive. She was like, all right, I'm going to do everything possible to make the Italian prosecutor's job easier. So she compiled all this evidence, compiled all these statements, and she handed all of it over to the Italian authorities. She was basically like, here's your case on a platter. You're welcome.

So Alfredo's trial began in Italy, but it was a bit of a shit show. Halfway through, he recanted his confession. Oh, boy. And blamed Ruth's murder on his wife. What? Here was Alfredo's new story. Are you ready? I'm so ready. You see, his wife, Marie, saw Alfredo talking to Ruth and she'd become incredibly jealous. So she grabbed one of Alfredo's tools and she struck Ruth over the head. She murdered Ruth. All that Alfredo did was help bury the body because,

you know, I mean, what what was a guy to do in that situation? Hmm. Hmm. That's dumb. So Italian authorities actually took this pretty seriously. And his trial was delayed for about a year as they investigated this new story. But American authorities were like, no, that didn't happen. Here's why, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. When his new trial finally took place, Alfredo was in big trouble. And the jury deliberated for just 90 minutes. And they found him guilty of the murder of Ruth Kruger, attempted criminal assault, And they found him guilty of the murder of Ruth Kruger, attempted criminal assault, falsifying passports, and false enrollment in the military. False enrollment in the military?

Yeah, he was trying to hide out, is my understanding. Uh, right, right, right. That makes sense. Okay. So Alfredo Cochi was sentenced to 27 years in prison. Grace had solved the crime, but she wasn't satisfied. The police had smeared Ruth's good name, so she made the rounds to the media, and she told them about her investigation and how the police had fucked up, and she gave them her theory on the case. She didn't think that Alfredo killed Ruth because he was just like so attracted to her. She thought that Alfredo had wanted to traffic Ruth. But when Ruth fought back, he hit her and killed her. Yeah, I mean, I think that's logical. Yeah. Yeah. So Grace was giving interviews right and left. But one thing kept bugging her. And it's the same thing

that keeps bugging you, Brand the detective the kruger family had handed police the murderer on a silver platter from day one and the police hadn't done shit yeah in fact in grace's eyes they'd done suspiciously little so she told everyone who would listen that the police had messed up they They hadn't done their jobs. They needed to be investigated. Something fishy was going on. I agree. She sounds like a genius. The police commissioner opened an investigation and discovered that this wasn't just a case of lazy police work. It was corruption. Alfredo Cochi had been really tight with the police, specifically the motorcycle police. In fact, Alfredo and the motorcycle police were involved in illegal activities together. They had this weird arrangement where whenever someone got arrested for speeding, the police

would say, hey, this guy, Alfredo, he's the magistrate. So the person would go to Alfredo, pay him, and Alfredo would keep some of the money and he'd give a portion to the police. And that's why the police had been so reluctant to truly investigate Alfredo. He had dirt on them. Yeah. As a result of this investigation, Detective John Legreen was convicted of willful neglect of duty. But, strangely, was allowed to keep his job. Really? This is so frustrating. He worked for the NYPD for 40 years.

worked for the nypd for 40 years toward the end of his career and you can't make this up he was in charge of overseeing the detectives to make sure that they were on the up and up oh lord yeah nobody knew his background by that point the only i mean i don't know the only thing i can think is like maybe if he's like you know what I was wrong and now I have learned my lesson and now I now I'm on the good side. I don't know. I just I can't believe you don't lose your job for something like this. Oh, yeah. Four other motorcycle policemen were also suspended from their jobs. Some more modern sources say that they were all let go.

Some more modern sources say that they were all let go, but from looking at the newspaper sources from back in the day, it does not appear that the punishments were quite that harsh. So, about a month after Grace discovered Ruth's body, Grace was named a special investigator to the New York City Police Department. Her job was to track down missing girls who had been trafficked. Grace remained very unpopular with the police. Thanks to her hard work, they'd been proved to be corrupt. That sounded awkward. She'd made a mockery out of them. But evidently, Grace wasn't too worried about being popular. She kept doing her thing, breaking barriers, solving cases, kicking ass, taking names. And around this time, she formed the Morality League of America, where she helped families track down their missing girls and young women. Wow.

And the press dubbed her Mrs. Sherlock Holmes. That's awesome. I love it. Yeah, she sounds amazing. She does, doesn't she? Yeah. I mean, how cool. Like, I feel like we should all know her name.

Yeah. Even though I can't pronounce her last name, but whatever, we should know it. Grace Hummus. What was the rest of it? Hummiston. Hummiston. Hummiston. I've got to admit admit i'm kind of weirdly excited about yours uh it's kind of a it's a bit of a heavy one you're kidding

are you ready to talk about a mall shooting you know okay i realize what a creep I sound like for being kind of excited. I just think we've never done a case like this before, right? Yeah, I don't think we have covered a case like this before. It's very interesting. And I know I say that about all of my cases. I wouldn't research them if they weren't interesting. First of all, shout outs to Catherine Ramsland at the Crime Library and Mara Boveson for the New York Daily News. They both did big pieces on this case. So here we go. It was October 30th, 1985. And these articles

refer to that day as Mischief Night, which I've never heard of. What? Is that because it's the night before Halloween? Night before Halloween. Yeah. Huh. Yeah, I've never heard that. Anyway, so it's the middle of the afternoon. And there were lots of people at the Springfield Mall just outside of Philadelphia. A few people noticed a woman walking through the parking lot, dressed oddly, but most of them believed that it was some kind of something connected to Halloween. How was she dressed? She was dressed in olive green military fatigues, like a knit beret and like shiny black combat boots. Yeah, that totally sounds like a costume.

Absolutely. And she was holding a semi-automatic rifle as she was making her way through the parking lot. At first, one man spotted her and thought exactly what I said, like, oh, was that woman in costume or whatever? He really took note when the woman aimed her.22 caliber rifle directly at him. Oh, well, yeah. He fired twice. He was like 30 yards away. And so somehow he managed to avoid being hit by the shooter. But he, and this is super weird to me.

So he noticed what car this person had gotten out of, ran to the woman's car, pulled an ice pick out of his pocket. What? And stabbed her tire so that she couldn't make a quick getaway. Wow. Once he realized that she was shooting a real gun. Wow. That's quick thinking. Yeah.

And at first, just because of how alarming the situation was to him, he assumed it was a man and then on closer inspection saw that it was a woman. So this woman continues towards the mall. She's got her gun out and there's a woman standing near an ATM and she's like in the process of doing a withdrawal from the ATM. So this woman who's walking through this parking lot takes aim at her and shoots this woman at the ATM. Again she misses though. Panic is starting to ensue as people realize that someone is shooting in the parking lot of the mall. Sure.

Now this woman continues into the mall, and now she's near a restaurant near the mall entrance. And it is here that she actually hits her first victim. A small child was standing there with, it was like a young boy with his two cousins. And the shooter shot all three of them. One fatally. So, yeah, it was a two year old, a nine year old and a 10 year old that were all shot. And those were the first targets that she made contact with, for lack of a better way to describe that yeah and then she just

continued through them all people by this point are like ducking into stores hiding in back rooms people are scattering all over the place still some people are not taking it seriously because it seems like a stunt of some kind yeah yeah um she is and there seems to be like no rhyme or reason to who she's shooting or or who she's taking aim at she passes like a furniture store and shoots out the window but doesn't aim directly at anybody she you know the other thing i keep thinking of is in terms of people not taking it as seriously is obviously there's the halloween element but it's also it was 85 you said yes yeah we weren't used to people going and like shooting up schools and you know it's just no this was not the norm which unfortunately it is now yes not at all so yeah she's she shoots out the window of a furniture store she like pokes her head in the right aid

drug store and shoot the gun over the head of the clerk intentionally shooting into the ceiling not directly at a person then she shoots into a shoe store then she passes like a walkway that I assume goes down to like mall offices or like a bathroom or whatever and there's a man standing there, like, clearly distracted, very unaware of what's going on. And he notices her there, looks up, and she shoots him three times, and he drops to the floor. The whole time she's kind of like muttering under her breath. She fired off several more shots, some making contact with people, some some not most of the time she missed her target but there were seven people that she ended up shooting kind of with kind of like a glancing

shot they weren't really injured very very badly but she had made contact with them and then like it seemed like this chaos just very abruptly came to an end. She had been in the mall for about four minutes when she came across this guy, John Lawfer, who was sitting there on a date with like this newish girlfriend. And he looked up. He's like this 24 year old guy. He's a graduate student. He's like a 24 year old guy he's a graduate student he's like a trained emt he looks up and sees this woman dressed in these fatigues walking directly towards him

and he's like this is a terrible prank this is unacceptable and so he gets up he walks directly towards her while she has her gun aimed at him oh my god he takes the gun from her and says this is unacceptable i'm gonna turn you in oh my god yes and so he like grabs her somehow and chauffeurs her into a store a shoe store store, sits her down and is like, stay there. I'm getting a security guard. Oh, my God. And she does exactly as he says. Wow. He goes out. There's it happens to be a security guard, like kind of running in that direction. He grabs a security guard. It's a female security guard. She comes in. She grabs the shooter, kind of takes her to the ground, She comes in. She grabs the shooter, kind of takes her to the ground, cuffs her.

And she's like, why did you do this? Why did you shoot these people? And the woman says, my family makes me nervous. What? Yeah. And then she said that she hadn't meant to do it. Huh. Obviously, the police had been called.

They were already on the way. But then they found out that she hadn't meant to do it so they just hadn't meant to do it so they're like oh okay our sounds good yes so in all the shooting had lasted like i said about four minutes she'd fired off about 20 rounds yeah two people died and eight were wounded. One critically, in addition to the two who had died. When she was stopped by that young man, that John, who was like, excuse me, what the fuck are you doing? She had 10 bullets left in her clip. Wow. He later said that he just assumed she was firing blanks it hadn't even occurred to him that it was an actual weapon and that he was like taking some risk by confronting her that is incredible yes he thought he was putting an

end to douchebaggery but really he was stopping a shooter a mass shooter yes additionally this john guy is amazing because after he subdued this the shooter and got the security guard to take her kind of into custody or whatever he went about like seeing about the people who were wounded he was a trained emt so he went around to the people that were on the ground and gave them medical care until actual emergency crews got there. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So the news of this obviously spread very quickly. This was alarming for one big reason that you kind of already mentioned.

This was not something that had happened before. There had been, at this time, kind of a surge in workplace violence with like men being angry and coming on shooting up their workplace like the going postal thing was kind of like a hot topic or whatever postal yeah yes but there had never been a mass shooting perpetrated by a woman to this point this is believed to be the first mass shooter who was a woman in the United States. Wow. So we covered two trailblazers today. Women really can do it all, Brandi.

Oh my goodness. Don't you forget it. is that as news of this shooting spread, kind of the same person's name kept coming up as like, I wonder if it was so and so in this community, because the shooter who was later identified as Sylvia Segrist was very well known to the employees of the mall, to people in this community around the mall, as someone who they deemed to be kind of unstable. And so as soon as word of the shooting got out before her identity was released, people all over the town were like, oh my gosh, I bet it was Sylvia. This woman had such a reputation of being bizarre. She frequented the mall a lot.

She often wore weird clothing, whatever. She had been given the nickname Ms. Rambo by some of the mall employees. So it was like very quickly people knew who had done this they took her into custody obviously and she was immediately kind of had her first court appearance that very night she appeared like barefoot uh yes she appeared barefoot are you even allowed to do that i don't know and the first thing that she said to the judge was fuck you i hope you starve motherfucker well okay i don't i don't like that feeling but that's just the way it is wait she said she said i don't like that feeling but that's just the way it is yes Yes. Okay. Yeah.

At that point, obviously, the judge was like, I think there there's probably more valuation we need to do with this individual. And she was taken into into psychiatric care to do evaluations. And as that happened and as the news of this continued to spread, it turned out that there had been lots of warning signs about all of this, including from Sylvia's own mother, Ruth. Ruth had actually the very day that this shooting had happened, had begged her daughter to commit herself back into the hospital. So this news starts to break about Sylvia's background. So Sylvia was 25 years old at the time of the shooting. And as I mentioned, she had been flagged like as an unstable person, as just like a kind of a weirdo in town. But there was a lot more going on with her than that. Her neighbors knew her to go on these like diatribes about

weird conspiracy theories and stuff like that. She raked leaves at her apartment complex at like midnight, like just odd behavior. But there was so much more going on under the surface. Her mother did a few interviews at the time of Sylvia's arrest and the time of the shooting and said that Sylvia had actually been diagnosed as schizophrenic when she was 15 years old, which is very young for a female to be diagnosed. I always forget, are women diagnosed earlier or is it men? Men are typically diagnosed earlier. It usually doesn't appear in women until their past like puberty okay um yeah so something had happened to sylvia when she was a child somewhere maybe around eight or ten her grandfather had exposed himself to her and it's unclear if that had led to an actual like sexual molestation or if it had stopped at the exposure either way

it had had a huge impact well sure that's on sylvia and it was shortly after that that she absolutely it was shortly after that that she kind of started having violent episodes and by the time that she was 25 when the shooting occurred sylvia had been hospitalized upwards of 10 times wow but in the 70s there had been a lot of measures passed for the rights of patients that had had very limiting effects on how much time Sylvia could be held against her will in a facility it It was like three weeks max. And so she would have a violent episode. Like at one time, she had like held a knife to her mother outside of like the DMV. And she had at that time been arrested and put into a mental facility. And she'd been held and observed for three weeks. When the three weeks was up up the psychiatrists at the facility were like we would recommend that she continues to get care

but if sylvia said she didn't want care anymore they had no choice but to release her this stuff is so hard it is it's really hard because you can absolutely see why those measures were enacted why those measures were passed because absolutely the patient's rights are important. But this was super frustrating to Ruth, Sylvia's mother, because she was like, my daughter needs care. She needs this help. And because she is an adult now, there's nothing I can do to keep her in there. Right. Right. In another instance, she was in a facility and she stabbed one of her psychiatrists like in the back with like a little paring knife. She ended up serving a small amount of jail time for it and then being released to live on her own.

Wow. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. wow yeah yeah when this happened Ruth Sylvia's mother was really upset because she felt like she had been begging for help to get her daughter under control to get her daughter help and the legal system had kept her from being able to do that, from being able to protect her daughter and from being able to protect others. Yeah. It was just a very frustrating thing for her. As the time went forward, obviously Sylvia is being held in a facility and being evaluated. She gets like three different trial

dates set for her and each time they deem her not competent to stand trial and the prosecution is still working to put together a case they're like we're going to be able to put together a case on this she will eventually be deemed competent and we will be able to try her and sylvia had made it clear that she wanted to be tried for this she knew what she had done was wrong and she would rather just get it over with and she even made a comment about wanting to be just put to death, which is heartbreaking because, you know, that just means that she's battling so much within herself. Yeah. Yeah. And she hates herself. Absolutely. But she at the time of her initial arraignment could do nothing to help her own defense.

When asked her age, she was able to do that. But when she was asked a phone number, she just like rattled off a long string of numbers. When the judge asked her why she did it, she said that she'd had trouble with her parents. And when he asked her to elaborate on that, she said, my parents beat me, of course, and the police never handled my parents. This was, I believe, deemed like not credible, like there was no signs that she'd ever been beat by her parents. But it was very clear that she was not at that time competent to stand trial. And so people were angry. The public was angry that even her mother had seen all of these warning signs, but that the system hadn't been able to do anything to protect them against someone who was very clearly showing signs that they were becoming more and more violent.

Even down to like, how was she able to purchase a gun? So as this story develops, they kind of learn more information about that. She had actually attempted to purchase a gun from a Kmart store prior to the shooting. But when she'd gone there, the employees had just thought that she seemed off is how they put it. They felt that she was weird. It was just like a gut feeling. She had come dressed in her fatigues when she tried to buy the gun. And so the two clerks that were working like the

gun department that day, lied to her. And they said they didn't have the gun she wanted in stock, but she could put down a deposit and they could order it. And so she did that she put down a deposit. And when she came back like a week, two weeks later to pick up the gun, they told her that her application had been denied and they couldn't sell her the gun. Again, they lied to her. Okay. But she was given her deposit back and she left. A week after that, she went to another sporting goods store or the sporting goods counter at a store called Best Products. I don't know what that is, but I believe it's some kind of chain department store. Well, obviously they have the Best Products, Brandy. I don't know what that is, but I believe it's some kind of chain department store. Well, obviously they have the best products, Brandy.

Obviously, yes. There, you had to fill out a form. And on that form, it asked if you had a history of mental illness. And she checked no. It also had a thing that you had to fill out that said if you'd ever been in trouble with the law before. And she checked no. And that form was all that was required by law. Of course it was.

They didn't have to check into her answers at all. So she very easily was able to lie. She had learned apparently from her experience at Kmart. She lied. She gave them the form. They took $107 and she was given her weapon. Great. It had been very easy for her to purchase that gun.

She then enrolled in some kind of shooting lessons which she'd taken leading up to the shooting on october 30th so that she would know how to use the gun when she decided to go through with her plan they were able to kind of piece all of these things together which to the prosecution obviously shows that this was very premeditated she made multiple attempts to buy the gun. She, you know, took shooting classes and gun handling classes. And then the day before the shooting, she'd actually visited a lawyer's office and had a will drawn up. Oh. So she did that on October 29th and the shooting occurred on October 30th. At one of her court appearances, Sylvia told the judge that she knew she would not live past 25.

Like this was definitely I think what her plan was. The speculation is that her plan was to be taken out by law enforcement or by somebody else while she was carrying out this shooting. Right. She didn't anticipate that someone would think it was a prank and come up to her and be like, hey, hand that over. Hey, hand that over. Exactly. Exactly. Finally, like in June of 1986, she is deemed competent to stand trial. She's had enough care. She's been medicated long enough. But in the meantime, since the shooting took place, so seven, eight months have passed since the shooting, the victim who was critically wounded, who had shot three times the man that was standing in the hallway, he passed away from a blood clot that he sustained as part of the injuries of that shooting. So his his injuries were terrible but he lived for

several weeks a couple months i believe he had been shot like through the temple and they'd actually like oh he'd been in a medically induced coma and never regained consciousness during this time but still had some form of brain activity although they had had to remove both of his eyes and in any kind of life his quality of life would have been terrible and then he ended up passing from a blood clot so she was then her charges were then upgraded to three counts of murder and then seven counts of attempted murder for the others that she injured that day at the trial the prosecution laid out how they completely believed that sylvia had methodically planned this attack and that she had done it to get attention she wanted to be seen she wanted to be known she wanted to be remembered i don't agree with that

at all i can't just sounds like she was really just very, really struggling and just extremely mentally ill, right? Absolutely. So one aspect of this is that Sylvia was super isolated. After all of these stints in these kind of different mental institutions and things like that, she had tried to live like in a group home at one point. And like people refused to live with her because they found her so imbalanced or so difficult to be with. And so she was living completely on her own. She refused to live with her parents. And I think her parents refused to let her live with her just because of dynamic. And so she was extremely isolated. She'd been evicted multiple times for just erratic behavior at different apartments that

she had rented. And so, yeah, she was extremely isolated and extremely mentally ill. And when I tell you that her mother had reached out for help, Sylvia herself had reached out for help, too. She had been like two days prior to the shooting. She had reached out to a psychiatrist that she had seen and she had said that her anxiety was getting really bad and she needed to be seen and instead of seeing her they called her in a xanax prescription oh wow yeah you can't do that

today right i mean you have to see somebody before you i i believe so assuming it's a new patient i mean that's crazy. And I don't know if this was a doctor that she had seen regularly. I'm not really sure. But they had called her in a Xanax prescription to that Rite Aid at the mall. And when she had gone to fill it, she hadn't brought either her. or she hadn't brought her insurance card. She was missing some piece of information that she needed. And so they refused to fill the prescription for her.

And so they believe that is what led to her choosing the mall as the scene of this mass shooting. So anyway, so the prosecution at trial kind of lays that out, that they believe that this was all for attention and whatever. at trial kind of lays that out that they believe that this was all for attention and whatever and in contrast the defense was like um no this woman was extremely mentally ill and she didn't even really understand that what she was doing was wrong which the prosecution heavily disagreed with they said that she knew immediately that it was wrong she apologized as soon as was taken into custody. She told the judge at her very first appearance that she knew what she had done was wrong. I think you can know what you did was wrong and still be very mentally ill. And I think you can also know after the fact that, oh, okay, what I did in that moment was wrong. I regret it. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't think it necessarily means that in that moment you had full control or you knew this is what drives me crazy about these cases. I know. I know. The human mind is too damn complex, Brandy. It is. It is. And it's, yeah.

And even as this trial is going on, like there's just mounting anger from the public towards the mental health field about how this happened, how when there's so many signs like. And so this actually led kind of a charge in reexamining those laws that had been passed in the 70s that protected patients' rights. And we'll get into that a little bit. I didn't go into that protected patients rights and we'll get into that a little bit i didn't go into it a ton but we'll get there so anyway so the defense is like no she's super sick like this is not an attention thing no at all and so testimony begins and they talk to the security guard at the springfield mall that had taken sylvia segrist into custody initially and she testified that she was very familiar with Sylvia. She was often at the mall. She was often kind of people alerted security to

her a lot because she acted strangely. She would stand and have the give these big monologues and all kinds of things. And and so this particular security guard was already familiar with Sylvia that day. And she testified that after she had handcuffed Sylvia that day, the day of the shooting, that Sylvia went on this big rant about negative energy and some black box that was recording everything, which the security guard described it as just being nonsensical if that's not a clear sign that this is somebody who's mentally ill and obviously like textbook schizophrenia right yeah yeah she clearly just said that thing about the black box for attention brandy no i don't believe that at all i don't think that either i think she just sounds like she was really struggling and very sick. Yes, I completely agree. The security guard also did testify that Sylvia had immediately admitted what she had done was

wrong. She knew that she had done something wrong. And she told the security guard as she was kind of cuffing her that she should have just shot her, which I think is just sad. Yeah. lots of witnesses testified who had been there at the mall they talked about what they had seen that day what they had heard a lot of testimony was given about the victims and the surviving victims described you know kind of their their experiences it was very graphic testimony it was very emotional sure witnesses cried the people in the gallery cried the jury cried cried. It was very powerful testimony. Yeah. The prosecution went on to show that in the weeks and months before the killing, Sylvia had joined that rifle club and taken the shooting classes.

And that all showed premeditation. She for sure had planned this. This was something that she, you know, had gone through a very detailed plan to put all of this together, including that visit with a lawyer on October 29th to draw up her her last will and testament. she talked about how when she was eight years old, she'd been subjected to that abuse by her grandfather. And then by the time she was 15, she was officially diagnosed with schizophrenia. And from then, she had been hospitalized multiple times, like I mentioned, she had always exhibited from that thing that happened at her formative age, when she was aged, she had exhibited bizarre behavior. That's how her mother described it. There were times where she would just like from that thing that happened at her formative age when she was aged she had exhibited bizarre behavior that's how her mother described it there were times where she would just like randomly cut off all of her hair or she'd spray paint herself or she'd write long like manifestos on her walls

all of these things were warning signs and ruth testified to how she was powerless to get the help that she knew her daughter needed the defense had three different mental health professionals testified two psychiatrists and a psychologist all that had had evaluated sylvia after the shooting and they all testified that she was too mentally ill to appreciate what she had done. Right. Right. Yeah. One of them said that she in her evaluation of Sylvia had determined that Sylvia had gone to the mall that day with the idea that killing people would put them out of their misery because she believed that like herself people wished they had never been born another one of the mental health professionals that testified said that sylvia

believed that by doing that mass shooting it was actually a great way to teach rescue personnel how to respond to emergencies oh come on and she said that that I think that that's possible that she believed that that Sylvia believed. I mean, yeah, I guess it's possible that someone can believe anything. But wow. And that she really wanted to be in the military. And she thought that if she could show what she could do, that that gave her a chance to do that. That's her audition tape huh right or or that at least it would give her some kind of identity being a famous criminal would be

some way to like lock down her identity that she had struggled with so badly through all of her life wait the, the defense said this? Yes. This is the defense experts that testified, yes. Wow. And they said that she had wanted to be a famous criminal? Not necessarily. That that was a step in trying to figure out her identity, that she'd struggled with her identity her whole life

as part of her mental illness. And perhaps becoming a famous criminal, carrying out this shooting shooting would lock down some form of identity for herself gotcha gotcha the court appointed psychiatrist actually concurred with all of this but the prosecution was like not so fast and pulled up a bunch of like school records of sylvia's that she had taken a bunch of psychology classes and that she'd done really well in them and so the prosecution stance was that Sylvia just knew what to say to how to fool the doctors oh this was all pretend come on she knew

how to trick them into making them believe that she you know hadn't known what she was done or that she was too sick to appreciate what she had done but that was all part of it that was all part of the plan so she set this plan into motion like years and years and years ago yes exactly no yeah um they even went as so far as to say like, yeah, OK, she has mental illness. She might have bipolar. We doubt she has schizophrenia, but, you know, whatever. But she executed these shootings in an organized manner and made statements to police and the security guards that indicated that this was a planned attack, that it was under her control and that she knew there were consequences from it. Therefore, you cannot say she's legally insane okay would you disagree with that yes i mean i do too at the same time i

these cases are always so touchy to me because i feel like we still don't know shit about the human brain but yeah i i think this prosecution is really reaching. Oh, I do, too. It seems to me she has a documented history of mental illness. Yeah. And this just seems like a progression. It doesn't seem like some big plan. No, I totally agree. In all, the trial lasted eight days.

The defense closed by saying that sylvia was a victim a victim of mental illness and the prosecution said that that wasn't the case sylvia was mad she was mad because she'd been unable to succeed at anything and she blamed that on society the judge told the jury that they had four options basically they could find sylvia guilty they could find her not guilty they could find her guilty but mentally ill or they could find her not guilty by reason of insanity the jury took nine hours to deliberate and ultimately they found sylvia what do you think, Kristen? Well, explain to me the difference between not guilty by reason of insanity and shit, what was the other one? Guilty, but mentally ill? Yeah. What's what's the difference? So the

difference would be not guilty by reason of insanity means that she didn't have control over what she was doing that day, and didn't understand that there were consequences. Guilty but mentally ill means she did do all of that stuff, but she's still too sick to really grasp it. She knew what she was doing was illegal. She knew what she was carrying out that day. But her mental illness keeps her from being able to reason that out like a normal person. I'm sorry, I don't mean normal person. Oh, wow. Somebody who is not mentally ill.

You jerk. Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I'm going with that one. I think that's the one the jury picked. That's exactly right. They found her guilty, but mentally ill. So with that, she was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences and then 10 years for each of the counts of attempted murder. So 70 additional years for each of the counts of attempted murder so 70 additional years for that and that

would be served at a um initially at a psychiatric facility and then once she was deemed able to she would then be sent to a regular correctional institution gotcha so following this trial, a civil trial was filed by the survivors and the loved ones of the victims who had not survived. That was filed in October of 1987. And that was filed against Sylvia as well as against the mall itself, Springfield Mall. Yep. the mall itself, Springfield Mall. Yep. The Haverford State Hospital, which is one of the facilities that she had received treatment at that had released her despite believing that she needed more care.

And then also the corporation that owned the best product store. They said all of those people collectively had failed to take precautions to ensure that the community was safe. OK, what should the mall have done? Yeah, I don't know. Okay. So when this civil suit is filed, the defense for all of those people collectively got together like a mock jury and they sat a mock jury

and put together what they felt like the argument would be to see how a jury would handle this would they see it as these people should failed should they have taken steps and that mock jury decided no that they didn't believe any of those people were liable nobody could have could have done anything differently to protect this everybody was operating within the law and all of that. Despite that, an actual jury was seated and this civil trial moved forward and the actual jury disagreed with the mock jury. Wow. In February of 1990, they awarded damages to the plaintiffs. They said, yeah, lots of things could have been done to limit this, to limit the like best products could have not sold her that gun.

Like, Kmart saw it coming. Why didn't Best Products see it? There should have been, you know, better measures taken by the state hospital. I mean, they believe that collectively everybody could have done something a little bit better to keep this outcome from happening. It really surprises me that the jury came to that conclusion because I... It really surprises me too. Now, some of it, I am like, okay, they gave her a questionnaire and it's the honor system, how she fills it out. Give me a break. So... Yeah, but if that's the law, if that's all that's required... Right. I think the reason I'm surprised the jury came down that

way is because mass shootings were still a relatively new thing. And I think when things are relatively new, it's really tempting to think, oh, well, this is just a one off thing. No one can predict this stuff. No one can prepare for it. And why should they? Why? We wouldn't want to live in a world where we're prepared for that. What would that even look like? And, you know, I think if that case were to come around today, it'd be no surprise at all if the jury found. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, anyway.

Yeah. Ultimately, there was supposed to be a second trial held to determine the monetary amount that the victims be awarded. Sorry, you said there was going to be another trial to determine the amount? The amount, yeah. So the first trial was really just to determine if the defendants were liable. And they were determined liable. And the jury decided in favor of the plaintiffs. And then a second trial would be held to determine how much money the defendants would have to give these plaintiffs. That trial never took place because all of those people came together and settled for an undisclosed amount.

How do you feel about that? Yeah, it really drives me crazy. So it's rumored that the amount was somewhere around $3 million. Okay. Yeah, that's really not much when you divide that all out. It's not. Yeah. But this started a bigger conversation about where is the balance between protecting patients'

rights and protecting the community at large. And so kind of the mental health system backed by Congress put some like checks and balances in place to redefine those laws that had started back in the 70s. Initially, it started just in, in Pennsylvania, where this happened. And they changed the law to where two independent psychiatrists determined that someone needed ongoing care against their will, that would be enough to have them committed. Yeah. And then, as this move forward, and kind of developed somewhere in the maybe like the early 90s, it looks like they came together and kind of came up with an evaluation sheet. Like, how do we move forward? How do we evaluate? And they called this risk assessment. So if someone

we think that someone needs more care than they're willing to sign up for voluntarily, can we go through a risk assessment form? And if they meet all of the criteria, and it was like seven bullets, right, that they would have to meet all of them, then that person could also be committed or held against their will. I hate to say against their will, but against their wishes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's what it is. Yeah. Yeah. And so that risk assessment was kind of put into the work in the mental health field. And it's evolved a lot since then. But something similar to that is still still used to this day. In 1991, Sylvia gave kind of her first interview since all of this happened. At that time,

she had been in a mental facility. She had received a lot of treatment and she was medicated. And she she said that her behavior had been stabilized and her feelings. She was having a better grasp on her feelings. She said that she was no longer overwhelmed by anger or paranoia and didn't have the delusions that she'd once had. And instead, what she felt was remorse over what she'd done. She was quoted as saying, every time October 30th rolls around, I have a hard time that day. I have a hard time not crying. The idea that I hurt people, it's hard to describe. And she went on to say that she didn't realize at the time that she had been so sick. When asked in this interview that she gave, which this interview was with the Philadelphia

Inquirer, when she was asked to kind of give a reason behind what happened that day, she said that she feared that her mother was going to have her hospitalized and that she hated the side effects of her medication, and that she would have done anything to resist that. She said that since that time, medications have improved so much that there's much less side effects and that she has adapted to them much better than she ever did back then. Yeah. Another interview was done with her a few years later in 1994. And at that time, she had completed her college degree while in prison, and she was teaching math to her fellow prisoners. And her mother was interviewed for that piece as well and said that the structure of prison was exactly what Sylvia needed.

That it was exactly where she needed to be. And she was functioning the best she'd ever seen her. Wow. Ruth's anger about the inability to get her daughter the help she saw she needed never really went away. At the time of the Sandy Hook shooting, there was a lot of talk about that because she actually came out and did did an interview with a newspaper at that time and said that the system is still very flawed. And that with Adam Lanza, the shooter at Sandy Hook, like there had been a lot of red flags, just as the red flags that she had seen with her daughter and that she had begged for help for her daughter and hadn't been able to get it. She hadn't been able to protect her community. And clearly that was still an issue. And she hopes that there's more reform to come and there's lots more to learn about mental illness.

Yeah. I mean, the good news is that Sandy Hook never actually happened. Oh, Kristen, i will flip a table right now that i think that is just the it's fucking most ridiculous conspiracy theory ever fucking adam what it's his butt what's his name alex jones alex oh alex jones yes idiot he had that other theory what was it about the gay frogs the tap water was making frogs gay i don't i swear that was one of his theories it was like um the fluoride in tap water was making frogs gay i think well now i sound like the crazy idiot i would not put it past alex jones to have said that kristin i i believe you

now he would be a good episode. That guy is the fucking worst. Fuck it. He's a fucking nut. In case nobody knows, Alex Jones has said many harmful things. One of them being that he said that the whole Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax, which is so ridiculous and so harmful to the victims and to the people who experienced it.

I mean, my God. And so then the survivors were getting harassed by idiots. It was a whole thing. I'm glad I brought it up. Yes. Thank you for bringing that up. I have one little one little fun fact to finish out. Is it actually fun or is it more like one of my fun facts? It's not really fun, but it more like one of my fun facts it's not really fun but it's very interesting so there was this woman who was at the mall that day when sylvia went on her rampage and she wasn't wounded or anything but she witnessed the whole thing 30 years later she was at a different mall i believe no and another shooting happened while she was at the fucking mall oh my god yeah i read just a quick little blurb with her and

it was like yeah her immediate reaction was like this cannot be happening again right right yeah luckily she was not injured and the other shooting was not anything to the degree of what what sylvia's shooting was but yeah i mean i i'd probably just never leave my house again if no kidding well hey we're kind of doing that right now so we're doing that right now I think that story is so difficult the Sylvia Segrist story because there is there's such a balance between you know protecting a patient's rights and then yeah also being able to get help for someone if you know they need help and they don't see it yeah i think it would have been a really difficult place to be her mother absolutely

absolutely and difficult to be her i mean it just sounds like absolutely oh yes yeah she is still um she's still in prison and according to the last interview I saw with her mother is doing well and thriving there. So that's great. Good. Yeah. Well, yeah, that ended on a weirdly uplifting note. Kind of. Yeah, kind of.

You had to bring Alex Jones into it. I mean, oh, wait, wait. I was about to look up. OK, hang on. Let me look up Alex Jones. Gay frogs. OK. OK, let's. Okay. Okay.

Let's see. CNBC. Are we going to dive into this? Oh, I'm diving, baby. I am diving. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Yes. Okay. Okay. This is from CNBC. So now we know I am not making this up. One of Jones's most notorious conspiracy theories is that the government is using chemicals in order to turn people gay using a mysterious gay bomb devised by the Pentagon. First of all, why would that be a thing? Like what? What's the end game? We're all gay. Okay,

then what? That's even way crazier than you sold it as originally. Hold on. Hold on. No, you're waiting. Hang on. Hang on. I've got more. The reason there are so many gay people now, this is a quote from him. The reason there are so many gay people now is because it's a chemical warfare operation. And I have the government documents where they said they're going to encourage homosexuality with chemicals so that people don't have children. He said on his broadcast in 2010. OK. Five years later, the theory took a turn.

In a rant that has since become a meme and a line of t-shirts, Jones said that he didn't like the government, quote, putting chemicals in the water and turning the friggin' frogs gay. And then, Brady, I am not making this up. Then it says, he said, And then, Brandy, I am not making this up. Then it says, he said, the majority of frogs in most areas of the United States are now gay. Where is he getting his information? Obviously nowhere. What kind of studies is he doing?

I mean, okay. And I'm sorry if they're putting chemicals in the water. Isn't everybody being exposed to them? Well, yeah, that's why aren't we all gay? It's happening, Brandy. It's slowly happening to everybody. This is all a conspiracy. No!

So that none of us will have children. You got pregnant just under the wire, Missy. Not yet. Yeah. That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. I just think it's so cool that he spends so much time out with frogs that he's able to, like, make these observations. That most of the frogs are gay now. Yeah, let me give you the quote because it was so intelligent.

The majority of frogs in most areas of the United States are now gay. The majority of frogs in most areas of the United States are now gay. I mean, what kind of study has he done to determine that? Here's what CNBC said. They said he said it in 2017. And then the next sentence is just, the claim was without evidence. Like, obviously. Obviously.

Oh, Lord. Yep. Oh, my goodness. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Oh, Lord. Yep. Oh, my goodness. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Oh. Oh, wow. He also was one of the Pizzagate guys. What's the Pizzagate?

You don't know the Pizzagate story? I don't think so. Oh, my God. Brandy, pull up a chair. Okay. So this article that I'm looking at right now, it's like a top 10 list of his most nutty things he's ever said. It was this thing people said about Hillary Clinton during the election. They said she was running like this child sex ring out of a pizza restaurant in New York.

And someone went and like shot up a pizza parlor because they were so convinced that like there was this. Do you not know this story? It was called Pizza Gate. No, I don't know this story at all. Crazy. OK, maybe I need to. I wonder if there's any court stuff with that or if the guy just pled guilty. Hang on.

I'll read some more. I'll read some of this to you. OK. Jones did not invent the so-called Pizza Gate conspiracy theory. OK. Jones did not invent the so-called Pizzagate conspiracy theory, but Edgar Madison Welsh, the self-pro Clinton and her top associates were running a demonic sex trafficking ring inside the pizza shop. What? Yes. Yes.

Oh, my goodness. Okay. This guy. I've never heard anything about this. This article, by the way, is by Tucker Higgins, so I want to give him a shout out. But this guy, I'm like, all right, I'm ready to get rid of free speech for you. That's how I feel. Like you have abused free speech. You have abused free speech.

Well, he has gotten like in some legal trouble, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. As he should. I mean, what the hell? Which I don't know. I think he should get in trouble. And I think anyone who's dumb enough to listen to him should get in trouble. Can we arrange for that?

Yes. Oh, my gosh. What a time. Oh, my goodness. What a time to be alive. Hey, let's play a fun game. When was the last time you were outside of the house and what did you do? When was the last time I was outside of the house?

I was outside of the house yesterday. Okay. Aside from taking my dogs out. Oh yeah. I went to the doctor. That's really the only place I get to go these days. Is that like your, I don't know. What am I trying to say?

Daisy's day out or? I don't know. Is that like your weekly outing? Yeah, well, it is right now because they're like, okay, so. Yeah, I'm to like the point where you get like a, you have like a weekly check in with your doctor and they really, it's super quick. They just like listen to London's heartbeat and that's it. And then I leave. And they're like, get the hell out of here.

This is a whole. Get the fuck out of here. Yeah. Yeah. So I went and did that yesterday. That was super fun. They tried to give me a second whooping cough vaccine, which I received last week. And I said no.

Because. OK, so here's what they did to me, Kristen. OK. So they're like, I was in the lab. Get it. Because I had my I had my glucose test done last week. So I was in the lab get it because i had my i had my glucose test done last week um so i was in the lab getting my blood drawn for that like so they could check my glucose level which i passed by the way excellent news if you're not gonna take this opportunity to say

diabetes i do not have the fetus diabetes congratulations thank you yeah so while i'm in there the nurse comes in and she's like oh I've got to give you a shot and I was like okay and I'm like waiting for more information and she's just like no she's like okay pull your arm down I was like what's the shot for and she's like oh it's your whooping cough vaccine and i was like oh okay cool so she gives me that and then like two days later my arm hurts so fucking bad like i can't move it and so i go and i look at my records because i have like a little handy dandy app where they you know you can go look at all of your medical stuff it was not just a whooping cough vaccine it was actually a tdap shot which is a tetanus diphtheria and pertussis vaccine those fucking

tetanus shots you have a dead arm for a week afterwards i was like that would have been great to know that that's what i was getting so yeah when i was there yesterday she was like okay um i'll be right back i'm gonna go get your tdap shot, she was like, OK, I'll be right back. I'm going to go get your TNAP shot. And I was like, hold up. Wait a minute. Yeah, I had that. You gave me that last week. And she's like, oh, I'm glad you remember. And I was like, of course I remember.

My arm just stopped hurting. Like this morning. It is slightly alarming. Although I do know they've got to be under a lot of stress right now. But I guess this is just a reminder to everyone, like, be your own advocate. Absolutely. Yikes. Yeah.

So that was my last outing. Kristen, what have you been up to? I just want to say, though, Brandi, are you sure you want to get vaccinated? Oh, my gosh. Yes. I want all the vaccines. I keep hoping, like, if there's a silver lining through all this crap we're going through right now, can it at least be the death of the anti-vaccination? Anti-vaccination.

Yeah. Yeah. No kidding. Yeah. No, I learned. So I what I didn't know about the whooping cough vaccine is that it actually crosses the placenta. So it gives the baby some kind of protection when they're born until they can get their first round of vaccinations.

So it's good stuff. Yeah, let's see. When was the last time I was out? I mean, really nothing exciting. I've been going on walks. That's like, you know, that's my thing. Yeah. Don't you wish you were pregnant so you'd

have an excuse to go to the doctor absolutely not my okay my dad had to go to the doctor the other day and he said he said I mean it just sounds like the weirdest thing you know you go in and there's no chairs in the waiting room and so you check in and then they're like all right go to your car we'll let you know when you can come in. Which obviously it's like, well, yeah, that's great. That's how it should be. But it's just, man, things are a changing. Yeah. I have never in my life looked forward to going to the doctor before.

You know, so I have never. Well, so one of the things that one of the things I'm doing lately is like when I go to the grocery store, if like, if somebody needs something in the neighborhood, I'll try to get it for them. That way, you know, we don't have as many people out and about. Yeah. So I, I told my neighbor that I would wear gloves when I got their groceries, just because it's like, okay, you know, extra cautious. Here's how ridiculous I am. There was part of me. And it's like, I don't know if it's leftover from middle school or what. But before I went to the grocery store, and I was putting on my gloves, I was like, I hope no one thinks I'm lame.

And I walked in. And like like everybody had gloves on. Some people had masks on. I mean, it was like, okay, well, I guess everyone in here is taking it pretty seriously. I'm not like the lone freak with gloves on. But yeah, it's, I don't know. This stuff is pretty scary shit. It is scary shit.

And because of that, I think we should stop talking. No, we're not going to stop talking until one of us vomits. No. Yeah. Well, on the real folks, we hope you guys are all staying, staying safe, staying healthy and staying home. I know that we have several people in our discord who are who are working on the front lines. We have health care professionals and grocery store workers and all of that and oh we hope you're safe oh yeah we do and in the meantime i'll do everything i can to buy up rolls of caution tape and wrap them around any nearby structure i cannot tell you how vindicated i felt today when they put the caution tape on the playground equipment because I every day I'm like, what the fuck are you doing playing on the equipment? How many people are out there playing?

Usually it's only like one one little family at a time, but that's too many. It's the same thing where where I am like it's not nearly as many people as normal. But I guess are people like not realizing that the thing lingers on surface? Anyway. Yeah. So the thing that was posted. Yeah. The thing that was posted today specifically by the police department was like, hey, we know you want to be outside in this beautiful weather.

And that's great. The parks are open. But the playground equipment is high risk. Stay the fuck off of it. I don't think they should have cursed in that announcement you know they tried to be nice about it initially but eventually they had us write the announcement that's right you know what i got an email from a company the other day this is me being grandma grump and the subject line was cut the bullshit or like let's cut the bullshit or something. Oh, did you think that was inappropriate?

I did. And then I thought, what the hell is wrong with me? I curse all the time. But it's so funny because I got that and I was like, oh, my stars. How dare you? How unprofessional. Oh my. I could have had a child reading over my shoulder. You know, I think the truth is that like right now everyone is on edge. No one is their best selves. And so I, yeah, it's, but I was, I was offended for a half second before I realized that I have a podcast where I say, you know, fuck, fuckity, fuck, fuck every 12 seconds. I find myself doing that all the time when we watch TV. Like David is watching the series Supernatural right now.

And so I'll watch that sometimes with him. And he's watching like old episodes and there will be like risque stuff in there. I'm like, this is a CW show. Like, isn't this supposed to be family oriented i am feeling titillated right now and i should not be okay big question you know what i'm gonna ask you have you guys watched tiger king oh my of course we watched fucking tiger king we binged the shit out of it because once you start watching that how do you look away okay well norman fucking norman let me tell you something he he has gotten he's very good he's like the perfect person to work from home because he

will be like okay i'm getting up at this time today and i'm gonna work from this time to this time and blah blah blah and that means i need to go to bed at this time. And so he was like, no, let's do all these episodes out. Let's watch one episode tonight. And I have in the past been the bad wife who sneaks off to watch the remainder of a show without him. But I did not. I stuck with him and that show is just crazy. It's so good. It's so good. It is so good. It's the maybe the craziest show I've ever watched. It's I mean, if you are if you are bored right now and you're staying in as you should, what are you doing? You got to watch Tiger King. Yeah, I feel like we're probably preaching to the choir. I bet all of our listeners have already seen it. There's like one person who hasn't seen it. We got one holdout.

Yeah, and they're like, fine, I'll do it. God. Come on, Stephanie. Watch it. You just scared the shit out of one Stephanie. Hey, you know what it's time for? What time is it, Brandy? It's Supreme Court induction time.

So I just glanced over at our Discord and it seems someone was inducted for the second time last week. They were inducted twice? Yes, they were inducted on episode. I just checked. They were inducted on episode 115 and they were also inducted on episode 113. Really? Who is it? Yeah, Kayla Rennish.

Well, Kayla, you got the doubles. All right, guys, for our Supreme Court members, we are doing inductions today and we are sticking with favorite movies. Tracy Blanton. The Heat. Erica Stilwell. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Elle Hoffman. Roadhouse. Danielle Robinson. Princess Bride. Kate Hoganson. Step Brothers. Dunk. A League of Their Own. Carolyn Maples. Edward Scissorhands. Lisa McCabe.

Mamma Mia. Megan Riley Deese. Nope. It's pronounced Deese. With a D. I don't think the R is silent. Well, that's what she's saying. Okay.

Megan Riley Dreeus. Dreece. Dreece. You want to hit that one more time? I don't know. Should I? Megan Riley Dries. American Beauty.

You know, I blame you. I tried to get you to say these names. Jackie Maloing. The New Peach Dragon. Tara Vernon. The Burbs. Ryan Bessett. All About Eve.

Welcome to the Supreme Court Hey guys, welcome to the Supreme Court Man, felt really weird to not have backups on that But I know it'll sound better in the end Thanks guys for all your support And thanks for hanging in there with us During these remote recordings And these remote episodes.

What are you going to say? No, I was just going to say like, yeah. And I decided that was lame. So that's why I stopped myself. And yet I've interrupted you anyway. And here we are. We really do appreciate all of your support. And we really hope you guys are all doing great in this.

We hope you guys are all doing great in the weird times that we find ourselves in. What was that? If you've got some extra time on your hands. What was what? There was nothing. It sounded like something dropped in the background. Is Oliver running around being a crazy? No, there was.

That was a sound at your house. There was no sound inside the house. There was no sound from inside the house. Hey, guys, if you find yourself with a little extra time on your hands, please find us on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Patreon, and then head on over to Apple Podcasts. Leave us a rating. Leave us a review. And remember to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen. And then be sure to join us next week when we'll

be experts on two whole new topics. Podcast adjourned. I think we did it. I don't think we did it. 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 I'll see you next time. by David Kradicek for the New York Daily News, the podcast episode Mrs. Sherlock Holmes by Criminal and Newspapers.com. I got my info from an article for the Crime Library by Katherine Ramsland and an article for the New York Daily News by Mara Boveson,

the Philadelphia Magazine and Wikipedia. For a full list of our sources, visit lgtcpodcast.com. Any errors are of course ours, but please don't take our word for it. Go read their stuff.