Let's Go To Court! - 138: The Ken and Barbie Killers & the Cocoanut Grove Fire

Episode Date: September 2, 2020

In the early 1940s, Boston’s Cocoanut Grove nightclub was *the* place to see and be seen. The club owner, Barnet “Barney” Welansky, was a sharp businessman. He ensured that the club was beautifully decorated with blue satin hanging from the ceilings, heavy drapes, and support columns that were made to look like palm trees. He also kept a watchful eye on the finances by ensuring that no one left without paying. He locked almost every exit and covered windows with draperies. On November 28, 1942, the Cocoanut Grove gained the horrific distinction of becoming the deadliest nightclub fire in American history. Then Brandi brings in her sister, Kaci, to tell us about Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, aka, the Ken and Barbie Killers. In the late 80s, the people of Scarborough, Ontario, were on edge. There’d been a string of rapes in their community, and all anyone seemed to know about the rapist was that he was blonde and in his twenties. On little more than hunches, two women called the police to report that they suspected Paul Bernardo as the perpetrator. The women were right, but it’d be years before Paul faced justice.  And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: The documentary “Six locked doors: the legacy of Cocoanut grove”   “The Cocoanut Grove Inferno” by Jack Thomas for the Boston Globe “Grove Owner Starts 12-15 Year Sentence,” The Boston Globe “Court Upholds Prison Term in Night Club Fire,” Universal Press “Night Club Owner Guilty In Boston,” The New York Times “The Cocoanut Grove Fire,” BostonFireHistory.org In this episode, Kaci pulled from: An episode of Autopsy from HBO “Autopsy 8: Dead Giveaway” “Paul Bernardo & Karla Homolka” by Marilyn Bardsley, The Crime Library “Karla Leanne Homolka,” Murderpedia.org “Paul Kenneth Bernardo,” Murderpedia.org “Karla Homolka,” Wikipedia.org “Paul Bernardo,” Wikipedia.org

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A proud member of Wayne's Auto Group. One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts. I'm Kristen Caruso. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court. On this episode, I'll talk about the Coconut Grove fire.

And I'll be talking about the Ken and Barbie killers. Or will you? Will I? No! Brandi, why won't you be telling us about this? Because I brought Casey to do it! Hello! Hi, guys! Now, who's Casey?

Casey's my sister, who we've talked about 8 million times on this podcast. I'm pretty sure I've been mentioned before. So Casey, amazing sister that she is, was like, I'm going to write a case up for you so that one week you can take a week off, you know, because you have your hands full with London and whatever. And you can just present the case that I write for you. And I said, no, if you're going to write the case, you have to come on and do it. The real story is that I've been telling her to do this case since the podcast started. And I figured if it was going to get done, I was going to have to do it. Casey and I texted this week and she's like, I've been telling her about this.

And I was like, yeah. She's so tiring, that Brandy, I tell you. No, we've got to talk about something what do we want to talk about well the fact that right now on our patreon there is a video of us reading my elementary school diary we didn't read it you read it and i watched in horror what was your favorite part? It's very interesting. Yeah, Casey just got to get a sneak peek of it, too. Yeah, so folks, that's available at the $7 level on our Patreon. Also at that level, you get a bonus episode every month.

You get into the Discord, which is like a 90s chat room. You get a sticker. You get our card with our lovely autographs. And at the $10 level, you get all that plus ad-free episodes a day early. That's a whole lot of stuff for a low, low price. Okay, could you try not to sound so bored? No, I'm in awe of how much stuff you get. I'm so in awe that I took a nap and now I'm awake and I'm like, wow, the savings.

The deals., the deals. So many deals. What else do you want to talk about? We don't have ads this week. I don't think we should talk about that. Yeah, so I guess nobody sign up at the $10 level this week. Don't say that. Sorry.

You still get the episode a day early. Yeah. That's right. That's right. Damn it. Sign up. Sign it. Sign up. Sign up. Sign up. Thank you, Casey.

I've signed up. Promoting. No discounts for family. We don't get no discounts for family. When my sister was on, she was, yeah. She had to confirm that we do not get family discounts. We are assholes to everybody. That's exactly right.

Family included. You guys ever heard of the Coconut Grove Fire? It's misspelled coconut. I did not misspell it. That's how they spelled it, Brandy. We've been over this. Man, there's nothing like Brandy when she thinks she gets to correct somebody. Oh, she lit up when I saw that in there, misspelled.

Folks, she was juicing. Oh, God. I would say juicing. That's God. I would say juicing. That's weird. Yeah, that's weird. Well, it was weird when it happened. And here I am calling you out. No, I've been covering a lot of the disasters lately.

You have? Is this a disaster? Well, yeah. It's a fire. It's not a good thing. Oh, it's a fire. It's not a good thing. It's a fire. It's not a good thing, Brandi. Well, I mean, I don't know what Coconut Grove is.

I don't know what that is either. How big of a fire is it? Oh, is it just a fire and some trees? Okay, both of you need to keep your pants on, and I'll get started right away. Weird how we both came in here and took our pants. All your sisters, I don't know if that was a weird family thing. I figured this is what Brandy does every week. It's what I'm supposed to do, too. Okay, so this is another case from Adam and Connor, who

gave us all the Boston recommendations. This happens in Boston! Very good, Brandy. Are there coconuts in Boskin? Yeah, Boskin? Boston? Yeah, Boskin. That's its new name. I changed it. There are in this place... What? I know, I know. Anyway, I'll keep going.

Okay, okay. Shoutouts to the documentary Six Locked Doors, The Legacy of Coconut Grove, BostonFireHistory.org, which is a real website, and the article The Coconut Grove Inferno by Jack Thomas for the Boston Globe. Are people getting trapped in this place? I got a question. There's a whole website dedicated to just fires in Boston? Yeah, it's archived. You have to know where to go to get it.

How'd you find it? On the dark web. Deep in the dark web. Let's talk about the Coconut Grove Nightclub. Home to the deadliest nightclub fire in American history. So wipe those smiles off your faces. Yeah, that sounds terrible. More deadly than the, what was that concert one? That shooting one in Florida? No, not that one. I know which one you're thinking of. The pyrotechnics one. Yeah, More deadly than the, what was that concert one? That shooting one in Florida?

No, not that one. I know which one you're thinking of. The pyrotechnics one. Yeah, more deadly than that. Wow. I'll cover that another time. Okay, excellent. Okay, the coconut.

What is that? Is somebody doing some construction out there? There's a lot of ladder noise. Did Norm get on a ladder? No, Norm would never get on the ladder yeah that would never happen is norma for the heights yeah he's terrified of heights i didn't know that um one of the first times i'm sorry guys we're starting with a tangent right off the top one of the first times he like met my family we went to a lighthouse because you know they don't

have those in the midwest so we're like oh you went to a lighthouse because, you know, they don't have those in the Midwest. So we're like, oh, cool, you can tour a lighthouse. And I guess he was too embarrassed to say I'm terrified. So he went up and we got to the top and he was like, oh, no. So poor Norm. Yeah, he would never get on a ladder. I'm the one who gets on ladders in this household. Do you clean the gutters in this house?

I did at our old place. I wouldn't do it here. I was going to say, at this house, you got to pay somebody to come out and do that. Yeah. At this stately manor. This mansion that I live in now, thanks to the podcast. Okay, so the Coconut Grove opened in 1927 and was located at 17 Piedmont Street, Boston, Massachusetts. I have to take us on a slight other tangent.

Why'd this default to San Francisco? Came right up for me. Why didn't type in Boston? Sounds like user error. A slight tangent. Did you hear that that address that you gave us last week was even crazier than you said it? Because it's not pronounced Hartlepool. It's pronounced Hartleypool.

That address was insane. How do you ever find anything in England? It was a UK address. I take no blame for that. Okay, I'm looking at this. Okay. Is this a home now? Yeah, it's really nice, expensive condos.

It looks very nice. So for a few years in the 1930s, the club was owned by a Bob Moss named Charles King Solomon, a.k.a. Boston Charlie. I'm sorry, his real name? Was Charles King, in quotation marks, Solomon. Because of the Solomon. Yeah, yeah. Okay, I got it. Do you get it? I do. You sure? Biblical mob boss nickname. He was cutting kids in half right in one. This is a lesson to the mothers, you know. He had no choice.

But then, oopsies, Boston Charlie was murdered in front of the Cotton Club. And 3,000 people attended his funeral, and they never caught the murderers or figured out why he was shot. But that's a story for another day, so quit asking about it. So when Boston Charlie— Are you going to cover that one? Yeah, right now. It's a tumor right here.

No! No, but I mean, there's—well, I didn't look into it much, but it doesn't seem like there's much court stuff because no one was ever caught. Well, yeah, because it was a mob murder. So. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So when Boston Charlie was killed in 1933, his wife, Bertha. I know.

I feel bad for women named Bertha. I know. It's just you. I know. It's bad for women named Bertha. I know. It's just you. I know. It's not a pretty name. No. And can you imagine being big and being named Bertha? Oh, my gosh.

Then everyone, big Bertha. Big Bertha. No, I hunted her name down because I didn't want her to be Boston Charlie's wife. And then I saw Bertha and I was like, oh, geez, that's too bad. So anyway, Bertha was like, I'm up to my neck in legal fees and I've got a bad name. So she handed the Coconut Grove over to their lawyer, Barnett, a.k.a. Barney Walansky. So he took over ownership of the club. It's Barney's club now.

Yeah. And man, Barney was well connected. He had ties to the mafia, obviously, and he had ties to the mayor of Boston, Maurice Tobin, and the dude had friends in all these high places and also was quite a business cat. Did some people call him the gangster of love? Some people called him Maurice D.D.

This guy was all about the money. He came up with a ton of great ways to increase the Coconut Grove's profit margin. Are you ready for these great ways? Yes. For example, he hired teenage boys to be busboys because it was cheap labor. Makes sense. He hired a bunch of really mean dudes to be waiters. And since they were so big and mean, they could double as bouncers. I was going to say you get two for one. Exactly. Very good.

Fun fact, that's where we get the term BOGO. So Barney was super duper paranoid about people leaving the club without paying. So he came up with a plan. Like any good flight attendant, he made note of all the exits. And some of them he locked. Some of them he covered with draperies. And another one, he just brought in a bricklayer and just had him brick up. Oh, shit. I bet that's going to come back to bite him.

No, this is not foreshadowing. I'm just telling you about a great businessman. So there was really just one obvious entrance slash exit. And it was a revolving door. Oh, that sounds dangerous. Yep. Revolving doors are awful. They take forever to get through.

And they're very scary. It's like double-dut. Chop's going to jump around. We've got to time it just right to get in there. You know what I hate? I hate when somebody jumps in the same little compartment with you. Oh, man. It's too much.

That is. I should probably mention that technically Boston Charlie was the one who was super paranoid about covering all the exits because he was a Bob Moss. But still, when Barney took over, he saw no need to change things. Yeah. But who would want to find a way out of the Coconut Grove? It was so fun in there. I know, they just want to stay on fire. Brandy, spoilers! Spoilers all around! It was beautiful inside. It looked like a tropical oasis, the complete opposite of Boston. It was like you were on vacation

in there. There was bamboo on all the walls, and dark blue satin canopies covering the ceiling. Oh, God. There were heavy drapes over every window. Oh, no. It's just kindling. It's all going to go up in flames. Oh, my gosh. You guys, why aren't you more appreciative of the decor? And all of the support beams had been done up to look like palm trees. Super flammable material. Yep, yep. And it was kind of like a maze to get through because the building had originally been a garage and warehouse kind of thing,

so there were all these different areas you could go and hang out in. There was a bar and a couple of lounges and dining areas. There was a caricature bar, and there was a basement called the Melody Lounge. And the main floor had this retractable roof that they rolled back when the weather was nice so people could dance under the stars. That's actually nice. Looking at pictures of this place before it all went to shit, it looked so cool.

I mean, this was like the place to be in Boston and it makes sense. So it was an amazing club. The Coconut Grove had everything. Live music, food, cocktails, dancing, celebrity appearances. When someone famous entered the Coconut Grove, the maitre d' would be like, Here ye, here ye, Jennifer Aniston is here. It was cool. Needless to say, the Coconut Grove was a very popular place. It was posh. It was beautiful.

It was exclusive. Extremely flammable. Yeah, well, that too. And by exclusive, I mean they didn't let in black people. Fun fact. I do actually, I consider this a fun fact. It doesn't sound like it should be a lie. It's about to get more, you know, this is all bad, but on the night that this all goes

to shit, a black couple wanted to go in there and they were like no, you can't come in here. So they maybe didn't die. Racism saved lives that night. We'll probably have to cut that. That's terrible. On the night of November 28th, 1942,

the place was hopping. And here's why. That night, some dudes played a game of football and people were terribly interested in it. And the game was held at Fenway Park, and it was between Boston College and the College of the Holy Cross, and it was just a sold-out show. Everybody was there. I don't think they call it a sold-out show. 41,000 people attended the football performance, Brandi.

The football performance! Everyone agreed it was better than the matinee that evening. It was wonderful. No. So everyone expected Boston College to win. But Holy Cross won. And what we sports fans call an upset, Brandi. We sports fans.

The College of the Holy Cross defeated Boston College 55 to 12. Wow. They didn't just College 55-12. Wow. They didn't just defeat them. Yeah. Yeah, in my opinion, that is quite a defeat. So Boston College was devastated, although I'm sure both teams had fun. So even though the whole football team had planned to go party at the Coconut Grove after the game, a lot of them just took their balls and went home.

And the mayor took his ball and went home to him because he was a big Boston College fan. Also, he was sad. Yeah, a lot of grown men went home and cried into their pillows, which meant that the Coconut Grove was able to let in a ton of people they wouldn't have otherwise let in. Right. Still not black people, though.

No. So, you know, I say that. I bet they allowed black people to perform. Oh, I'm sure. They probably did. Yeah, I'm sure they did. Middle finger. Why am I?

Why am I? Okay. Anyway, moving on. Sidetracked by racism. Okay. You know, I think what you thought is that if you brought this up, you could solve racism. And I feel like I'm not solving it yet. I'll bring it up in a few minutes.

So, and of course, a bunch of the people who'd gone to the football game were like, hey, let's keep this party going, and they headed to the Coconut Grove. And man, the folks at the Coconut Grove were thrilled. They pushed tables closer together to make more room for people. Really packed them in. They let in a ton of people. Were there fire safety laws at this time? I mean, you've had the shirt triangle factory fire has already been.

The shirt triangle factory. I can't remember what it's called. Triangle shirt waste. I think so. Triangle and shirt was in there. That was close enough. You were very close. Yeah, so there were some rules.

Did they follow the rules? I would say probably not. Sounds like no. They've got exits blocked. They've got flammable fabric hanging from the ceiling. They've got people shoved in there like sardines. They're probably way over the occupancy limit. Packed in there like sardines, I believe is the first.

No, you shove sardines. That's what you do. Definitely. packed in there like sardines i believe no you shove sardines definitely so the space was designed to hold a maximum of 460 people okay that night more than 1 000 oh my god we're packed into the coconut is that not cocoa nuts oh how long have you saved that up were you just waiting for that one she saw my intro look at her face right now this is why we need a video because she's so proud of herself it's like she's watching a professional comedian she does she's just got this smug look on her face she is so pleased with herself

hey maybe we can reach out to the um families of the victims and you can tell them your little coconut's junk. You insensitive jerk. So everyone was having just a great time. That night at around 10, 15 p.m., people were hanging out in the Melody Lounge, which was in the basement of the Coconut Grove. It was farther from the exit. Yep. And this beautiful woman named Goody Goodell was singing and playing piano on a revolving stage. I looked up her, some of her albums.

They were, you know, a little scandalous. Ooh. Fake palm trees surrounded her. The entire lounge was dimly lit. But what light they did have came from these sconces that had been made to look like coconuts and at one point this dude who was hanging out with his lady friend decided to unscrew the light bulb in a nearby coconut sconce i almost said coconut scone but i saved it and it was not weird

at all um so that he and his date could kiss in private. I'm calling bullshit on kiss. The articles say kiss. You don't unscrew a light bulb for kissing. In 1942, maybe you did. Oh, you think people started having babies after 1942? Come on, no. So before long, a bartender saw that the light bulb had been unscrewed and told this 16-year-old bus Stanley. Hey, don't break that couple up. That's banging on that table over there.

16 year old. Yeah. No, he was like, Stanley, go screw that light bulb back in. But that was like way easier said than done because Stanley pulled up a chair to where he thought the light bulb was supposed to be, but he really couldn't see anything because it was so dark. So he lit a match. Oh. I mean, I guess he didn't have a flashlight on his phone, did he? No. No, he had a Nokia pre-flashlight. And of course once he lit the match, he saw the light bulb and screwed it all the way back in and blew out the match.

And an ember traveled. Well, all we know is that a short while later, witnesses say they saw flames. So we just toss the match against the wall and walk away? We'll get into later, like, what think okay was the origin of the fire but um you know they say they they start seeing flames flames that started near that light bulb where there was a bunch of what it's 1942 though aren't people smoking cigarettes left in oh of course place oh yeah so yeah it could have been anything then yeah could have been like i mean everyone probably had 25 lighters on them you know so there were a bunch of these leafy fronds hanging below the ceiling which fronds was a

word that i had to look up but yeah i know i i know but it sounds weird when you say it so i was like i better make sure that this is really a word the The waiters leapt into action. They got a bunch of water, tried to put it out. The bartenders grabbed bottles of seltzer to try to put it out. And a lot of the patrons were cracking up because it was kind of funny seeing these waiters and bartenders with their bottles of seltzer trying to put out this little fire. I find lots of things very funny that other people do not. I don't think that's funny at all.

I think, I think when you're not even thinking about the possibility of this is how we're all going to die. It's just like people running with bottles of seltzer. When you've been drinking too weird things are funny. Yeah, that's true. You laughed at your grandfather's funeral,

ma'am. That is totally true. laughed at your grandfather's funeral, ma'am. That is totally true. You heard those upbeat renditions of songs and you laughed. But soon the palm tree was engulfed in flames. And at this point, people started to panic. There was only one way out of the Melody Lounge, and it was the staircase, which would take them up to the main level. So people started to make a run for it. the staircase, which would take them up to the main level. So people started to make a run for it. Meanwhile, one of the employees started yelling at people saying no one was allowed to leave before they paid their tabs. Oh, seriously. The Boston Globe article mentions that this man who did the yelling was five foot four and wearing a gray suit. What? It was a weird thing to make a

point of. But yeah, so thing to make a point of. But yeah, so this little guy in a suit was yelling at these people, don't run for your life. Pay your tab for a century and you can flee from the fire? Yeah. Wow.

But people continued to rush toward the stairs because the guy was 5'4". Just push him out of the way. As they did, more decorations caught fire and soon a fireball spread from one corner of the lounge and up the stairs. Oh my gosh. And the stairs are the way out. And for a lot of people, their first indication that something was wrong was hearing the screams of a woman at the top of the stairs whose hair had caught fire.

Oh God. The fire burst into the main area of the Coconut Grove. People screamed. They were shouting fire fire and people rushed to the revolving door and other people rushed to the coat room to get their coats no abandon your coat get the fuck out of there this is the part like these parts about like pay your tab i've already forgotten what time of year it was what time of year is it november 28th so it was cold it was cold as fuck but you can stand outside for a while without a coat on and i mean if the whole place is on fire you're gonna be plenty warm jesus oh my god sorry was that too dark that's just

that's just logic for you i think it goes to show like in these situations like no one no one is thinking oh this could be how we all die you know and so instead it's like yeah it's like well i'm not gonna leave my coat about weird things yeah you think of you try to make it normal when it's not normal right like i didn't write this part down so everybody drink everybody drink but like they said that the cashier um was standing there with the fire and someone was like get out get out and she, well, I can't leave the money. And she died in this fire. I just think, you know, by the time people figure out the danger they're in,

it's too late in some cases. There probably wasn't a whole lot done in schools on fire safety and stuff back then. I don't know. Now they do it young. They teach it really young. It's just like... Yeah. It should be interesting to know

when that stuff started coming about, like that sort of training. That would be interesting. I heard that stop, drop, and roll is no longer taught. What do you do now? What do you do now? You just stop and drop. There's no rolling.

Why? Well, you Google it. Maybe I'm making this up. But the rolling is to put out the fire. Yeah, the rolling puts out the fire. Just drop and roll. Now they just teach him to stop, drop, set him up. Randy.

Oh, no, I'm seeing plenty on stop, drop, and roll. I'm just giving out bad fire safety advice. Guys, hold on. Oh, State Fire Marshal says children often get confused about stop, drop and roll. Is that the end? Was there more to that? Hold on, that's the headline. I'm perusing.

I'm perusing for facts. headlight i'm perusing i'm perusing for facts it's crucial to stress especially to children that stop drop and roll is what you do when your clothing or body is on fire not just when there's a fire oh okay that that makes sense yeah i could see little kids getting confused you see a fire and then just yeah yeah little kids or brandy you know yeah yeah so meanwhile you know you've got all these people running to the revolving door you've got people running to the coat check and apparently the coat check lady was like well you've got to pay and you've got to present your ticket ticket yeah need your ticket meanwhile people continue to rush toward that main entrance slash exit.

But again, it was a revolving door, and people were freaked out, and they were shoving each other and falling and trampling one another, and only a few people got out of the revolving door before it jammed and broke. Oh my goodness. People were crushed against a revolving door that was now completely immobile. And it's a nightclub, so there's probably not any windows. Right. And some of the windows that they had had been boarded up.

Boarded up, yeah. There were, like, draperies over everything. So you couldn't have known where a window was. Yeah, you could be by a window and have no idea. Yeah. So the people who had gotten outside had to stand there looking back at the people. Watching people just trapped. Yeah.

Oh, that's got to be terrible. Oh. But the nice thing was that they weren't cold without their coats. They were just warming their hands. Yeah, because as you so delicately pointed out, that fire will keep you warm. Yeah. By this point, that fire will keep you warm. Yeah. By this point, the fire reached the dining room, and the dining room was packed. There was a show scheduled that night.

It was supposed to have started at 10 p.m., so there were a ton of people just hanging out, waiting for the show. But as smoke filled the room and the fire broke out, people scrambled to find exits. But there weren't that people scrambled to find exits. But there weren't that many exits to find. And on top of that, most of the exits were locked or obscured from view. From view, which starts with a V. What did you say? View. So people were panicking and they were fearful and they were trapped because there were very few exits that weren't

locked or boarded up or obscured from view which i've already said and those few exits that they did manage to find the ones that weren't obscured i was just like oh my god i've said this 13 times so all of those doors that they could find swung inward, which is terrible in the case of an emergency because you're just like, yeah, you can't get the room to pull the door open. Holy shit. So everyone like, you know, I'm sure maybe one or two people got out, but then there's this surge of people. Oh my goodness. There was smoke everywhere. People couldn't see anything aside from the flames. But a few people were lucky.

And those people were mostly the employees. Because they knew where the doors were. Exactly. Exactly. Unlike all the people who were just there for a good time, they knew where the windows were. They knew where the workable exits were. And they were much more familiar with the layout of this very confusing club. So a few of them got out,

and a few of the customers who followed the employees also managed to escape. This fire only lasted for 14 or 15 minutes, but the smoke was so intense and the fire spread so quickly that in some cases people were killed before they even had time to react. Oh my gosh. This is the creepiest thing. When firefighters finally got in there, some people were dead sitting at a table holding a drink.

Oh, my gosh. Like they had no time to react. Holy shit. So was that dying by being burned to death? Smoke inhalation, I assume. Wow, that quickly. I'm not an expert. I don't know, but like you said, there was that fireball thing.

So if a fireball comes across a room, like, yeah. We learned on a previous episode that I'm not a fire expert, so. That was devastating for me to learn. I thought you had it all figured out. So the Boston Fire Department arrived pretty quickly. Weirdly, they'd gotten a call about a car fire that night. So they went to that car fire, put that fire out, and while they were there, they were like, holy shit, look over there.

And three blocks away, they saw that the Coconut Grove was on fire. So by sheer coincidence, they were there very quickly and in just a few minutes according to one source or an hour according to another source they put the fire out either way wow yeah either way it seems fast fast for a big fire and a place like that you would think it would take a lot longer yeah but it didn't really matter the coconut grove had been a tinderbox and had been filled beyond capacity with people who had no way of escaping. So with the fire out, rescue efforts got underway. And it was horrible. I'm sorry, I'm looking at both your faces.

You look so bummed out right now. I love hearing about people who are burned alive, Kristen. I thought this would be more uplifting. Do you know what's a weird fear of mine? Being burned alive? Yeah. Mine be a weird fear of mine being burned alive yeah um mine too this is terrible the last couple cases i've covered have been fires and what a horrible way to go yeah you know i saw that movie scrooge when i was a kid oh yeah there's a scene where he's burned alive he's cremated but he's still alive inside the oh and he's like kicking trying to get

out it is pretty terrifying burned alive because had like a fear of being burned alive because of that you guys watched a lot of really scary movies when you were young look at this is a Christmas movie well it sounds terrifying it's a take on

Christmas Carol it sounds terrible burned alive yeah yeah I would have nightmares yeah I think it's rated R

it probably is it probably is yeah we definitely saw it too young definitely not fit for a four year old if you ask me Yeah. I think it's rated R. It probably is. It probably is. Yeah. We definitely saw it too young. Definitely. Not fit for a four-year-old if you ask me. So people from all over tried to help, but it was a mess. It had already been very cold that night, but as the hours passed, it just got colder. So the cobblestone streets, which got covered with water when the firemen put out the fire, became icy.

And fire hoses stuck to the ground. And as Casey pointed out, they put out the fire, which was a great source of heat. So it's not warm anymore. Very good. Sorry, just spat. There weren't enough ambulances, so they had to use newspaper trucks to transport survivors to nearby hospitals. And taxi drivers pitched in, too, shuttling people to hospitals. But just getting people out of the Coconut Grove was a challenge.

Rescue workers would reach in to grab someone, and the person's arms would come off. Oh. They began stacking bodies outside the exits. The stacks were shoulder high. Oh, my in some i'm sorry it gets worse and in some cases not everyone who was put in those stacks was dead everyone looked dead and it was really hard to tell yeah when you have that many bodies and it's so dark and obviously covered in soot and ash and who knows how many people were drunk before this so holy shit so one rescue worker had scratches on his legs from where survivors had grabbed hold of him begging to be pulled out of the stack of bodies oh once survivors

were pulled out of the building some of the rescue workers hosed them down with water. But as one firefighter put it, they breathed in fumes so hot that when they breathed in the cold air, they dropped like stones. Oh, my gosh. Area hospitals were immediately overwhelmed. Yeah. In one hour, Boston City Hospital received 300 victims. Oh my gosh. Mass General received 114 victims in two hours. But here's the weird thing. Since we were at war, medical personnel were better prepared for that moment than they would have been at like any other

time. With the war going on, they'd been preparing for a potential attack on the East Coast. So literally a week before this fire, they'd done an all-citywide drill to test for how prepared they were for a bombing, because that's what they were most prepared for. And obviously this wasn't a bombing, but it called on those same skills. Fire damage, yeah. So medical personnel were more prepared than usual, and because of the war, they had more supplies than usual. And in a truly crazy twist of fate, the first victims began arriving at the hospitals at the exact time when both hospitals were doing a shift change.

Oh, so there were twice as many people there. Exactly. That's smart. I mean, not smart. Yeah, they didn't plan it, obviously, but that's good. It's amazing. Yeah. So literally, all these hospitals were, but that's good. It's amazing. Yeah. So literally all these hospitals were double staffed.

But although people had made it out alive and were in need of medical attention, there were also hundreds of people who hadn't been so lucky. Rescue workers had to set up a temporary morgue to house all the bodies. And again, some of the people who appeared to be dead were brought to the morgue only for workers to be like, oh shit, this person's still alive. I mean, it was just, it was a mess. Identifying the bodies. It was coconuts. Identifying the bodies was incredibly difficult. People had been burned in some cases beyond recognition. And women were especially hard to identify because, you know, men tended to die with their wallets on them. But when the fire started, women didn't necessarily, like, hold on to their purses.

And they didn't necessarily die right by their belongings. There was also the issue that even though a lot of people came to help the victims of the fire, there were also a ton of people who went. This is gross. They went up to the stacks of dead bodies. To take stuff? To take their wallets and stuff? Yeah. Oh, that's awful.

Brandi, quit being like, yeah, I get it. No, I mean, that happens. People do that. Terrible people do that. Yeah, one guy said that, or one, oh, my God, what's the name I'm looking for? Medical guy who looks at the dead bodies. Coroner? Thank you.

Yeah, one coroner was like, yeah, there's this one body with no damage to it. The only damage is to this man's ring finger, and there's no ring. Oh my gosh. Which made me think, do you guys remember like a couple years ago at a Taco Bell drive-thru? This was in Kansas City. A woman had like a heart attack and died, and the person behind her in the drive-thru, this was in Kansas City, a woman had like a heart attack and died and the person behind her in the drive-thru, rather than trying to help her, came over and took her wedding ring. No! What? Do you guys not remember that? No!

Yeah. Oh. Happened across from the stadiums. What? Yeah. I hope I'm not making that up. I think you are. No, I don't. I really don't think I am. I can't believe you made, I wouldn't believe you made that up. Yeah. That sounds too real to be.

Holy shit. Right? Oh, that's awful. I mean, they caught the guy because, duh, I mean, how many security cameras are around a Taco Bell? I mean, all the security cameras. Might as well rob someone at a bank. They got pretty high security on those bean burritos. You've taken me months to plan my heist.

Or I can pay 99 cents. You've worked so hard if you just, like, put the money toward the bean burritos. so hard if you just like put the money toward the bean burritos in total 492 people died as a result of the coconut grove fire gosh it was the second deadliest single building fire in american history stories filled local newspapers the first i don't know i'd have to to go Wikipedia that. Are you going to make me? Tell us the second. You don't know the first. Stay tuned for next week's episode where I cover another terrible fire. Hang on, you douche canoe. Hang on. Coconut Grove fire. Blah, blah, blah. Iroquois Theater fire in Chicago.

Is that how you say it? Yeah. Iroquois. Iroquois Theater Fire in Chicago. Is that how you say it? Yeah, Iroquois. Iroquois. 1903. 602 deaths in that one. My list technically says that the World Trade Center was number one. Yeah, they have some different, like, they went into. Criteria.

Yeah. That one doesn't count. Yeah. Thank you for filling in those gaps in your research, Christine. Wow. What case are you covering today, Brittany? I'm covering no case. Uh-huh, uh-huh. I still haven't seen this baby, so I don't even know what to believe.

She's not real. She just made her up. Those are just stock images she keeps sending you. Oh, God, can you imagine? Oh. Well, do you remember when, like, the first time I saw London, I thought she was a doll because she was so tiny and perfect. I mean, what if? You can't fake those little chub rolls on her thighs now.

That's not real. She's so cute. So stories filled local newspapers, hundreds of people were dead, and the stories of the survivors were horrifying. A few people had survived by hiding in a walk-in refrigerator. A Coast Guardsman named Clifford Johnson escaped the fire but went back in four times because he was trying to rescue his date. He didn't realize she'd already escaped. Who invented the Coast Guard? Oh, shut up.

What? She's trying to poke holes in... No. What? Alexander Hamilton. Oh. Oh, I thought you were trying to mess with me. Oh.

Also founded the New York Post. That's right. Yeah, founder of the Coast Guard. Man, I was so ready for you to... Founded? Invented? Whatever. He started the Coast Guard.

Was that the first Coast Guard ever? I don't know. Just the first Coast Guard in America. Couldn't be. Aaron Burr told me that he's the son of a whore, and he started the Coast Guard. Our good friend Aaron Burr. Are you going to cover Aaron Burr? I don't think so.

Yeah, that's not my speed. Cup of tea. It's more my cup of tea. It definitely is. But I've looked into it, and it seems boring to me. I'm sorry. Yeah, I mean, you're definitely going to have to, maybe we can get Lin-Manuel Miranda to come on and jazz it up for us. I'm sure he's a fan.

I'm sure he's a fan. I'm sure. So this Coast Guardsman, which, of course, the Coast Guard started by Alexander Hamilton, duh, named Clifford Johnson. He escaped the fire, went back in four times looking for his date. His date, turns out, had already escaped. But he ended up with third-degree burns over 55% of his body, which at that time made him the most severely burned person ever to survive with those injuries. Holy shit. I can't believe you survived.

That's amazing. It gets weirder. So he recovered, and then he was like, well, fuck this. So he moved back home to the great state of Missouri, and then he married the nurse who'd taken care of him. And then 14 years later, he died in a fire. Oh, that's terrible. Final destination.

That's right. That's death coming back for him. Free. He was supposed to die in the fire. That's right. Yeah. A lot of people don't know that that Final Destination movie was a remake of this original story. But you may be wondering, where was the Coconut Grove owner in all this?

Not there, obviously. I'm sure he wasn't. No, no. Barney Walansky had a heart attack two days before the fire. So when a ton of victims were brought into Mass General, he was already there recovering from his heart attack. Yes, this is so weird. People were incredibly angry and heartbroken about this loss of life, and they found it unacceptable. The more people learned about the fire and the way that Coconut Grove had been run, the angrier they became. They learned about the

blocked exits. They learned about the locked exits exits they learned that eight days before the fire a captain from the boston fire department had inspected the club and declared it safe wow how much did they pay him right um yeah good point um his report on the condition of the club was one word long. Oh, wow. Good. No, good. Yeah. Yeah, Barney was ridiculously well-connected. I didn't even put all this stuff in, but he was paying about half in taxes, what he should have been paying, if he paid it, you know, the whole deal. They also learned that the building had recently been remodeled.

But Barney had done the remodeling with unlicensed contractors and without getting any permits. Oh, wow. Turns out the club didn't even have a liquor license or a food handler's permit. And the electrician who'd wired the Coconut Grove didn't have a license. What?

And when the guy was like, oh, I'm unlicensed, Barney was like, don't worry about it. I'm BFFs with the mayor. Wow. It's like this guy was asking for his club to burn down he invented the phrase bffs no okay i'm i'm gonna tell you what he really said what he really said was so much weirder that i just said bffs he said mayor tobin and i fit oh that's right that mean? I don't like that. It sounds sexual to me. It certainly does. Yeah, we're a perfect fit. Huh.

I don't know. So I didn't include that, but you forced my hand. I mean, even if it does mean that they were having some kind of sexual relationship. That's not what you say to somebody. They weren't having it. Well, I guess I don't know. You don't know. They could have been banging.

But even if they were, in 1942, no one was like, oh, I don't know You don't know They could have been banging But even if they were In 1940 In 1942 no one was like Oh I'm banging the mayor You know That's probably true He's probably not going to allude to that In any sort of fashion

At all in 1942 It just means BFFs It's a weird way to say it Best fucking friends forever Yeah Best fitting friends We fit That's weird

The 16 year old Who everyone said started the fire Best fit and friends. We fit. That's weird. The 16-year-old who everyone said started the fire, turns out he was too young to legally work there. And that boy, Stanley Tomaszewski, was called to testify at an inquiry. He was ultimately exonerated, thank God, on the grounds that it wasn't his fault that the club had been filled with highly flammable decorations and it wasn't his fault that the building itself was unsafe. But that didn't really matter because for the rest of his life, people blamed him for the fire. Well, and he probably carried that with him, too.

Yeah, probably. Even if they don't know specifically that that's where the fire started, he would probably still always feel like it was your fault. Yes. That all those people died. Yeah. But even back then, it wasn't 100% clear what had started the fire. Everyone had this vague idea that Stanley had done it by accident. But the Boston Fire Department's report said that they couldn't reach a conclusion as to the cause of ignition.

said that they couldn't reach a conclusion as to the cause of ignition. But they could say that a buildup of carbon monoxide had helped fuel the fire and all the fire safety code violations and the flammable decorations and the doors that swung inward instead of out all contributed to the very deadly fire. Here is a not at all fun fact. In the 90s, a former firefighter slash researcher named Charles Kenny looked into the Coconut Grove fire and determined that at that time, because of the war, a lot of companies, a lot of companies used methyl chloride instead of Freon in their air conditioning, but methyl chloride is super duper flammable. And it turns out that in that same area where Stanley screwed in that light bulb,

there was an AC unit on the other side of that wall. So this researcher thinks that, you know, after like looking at all these witness accounts about the flames, the color of the flames, how everything smells, he thinks that it was an electrical fire and that that methyl chloride acted as an accelerant. Okay.

I still, I think it was probably Stanley, but again, not his fault. Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. At any rate, let's hop back in our time machines and return to the 1940s. People were grieving and outraged over this fire. Clearly, this well-connected club owner had ignored the rules and his negligence had led to an enormous loss of life.

Over the course of the next two years, more than 400 civil lawsuits were filed against Coconut Grove. Wow. And we're going to talk about every one of them. This episode is 15 hours long. So, okay, this sucks big time. When all was said and done with all these lawsuits, and all the money was paid out and divided among the survivors and the victims' families, everybody got about $150.

Oh, my God. Okay, that's fucking coconuts. I agree. Adjusted for inflation, about $2,200. $2,200 is all those people's lives were worth? Apparently. That's awful. That's terrible.

So apparently, with the building burnt down and little to no liability insurance, there wasn't much money to go around. Right. And the only valuable asset that the Coconut Grove had was some liquor that somehow managed to survive the fire. So there was no money for the survivors, which of course made people even angrier and someone needed to be held accountable for those deaths. Ultimately, on December 31st, 1942, like a month after the fire, 11 people were indicted for their roles in the Coconut Grove fire. And on March 15th, 1943, Barney and his brother James and the club's wine steward, Jacob Goldfein, which I'm wondering if he was the same guy who was five foot four and telling everybody to pay their tabs.

They were all put on trial together. The prosecution's case was basically that in a case of involuntary manslaughter it's not necessarily about what you did but in this case what you didn't do okay they didn't follow the rules they didn't exercise reasonable care the fact that barney had locked and obscured so many of those exit made him exits made him responsible for those deaths he showed reckless disregard for the safety of his customers. Yeah, that makes sense. No, you guys.

Whose side are you on? It goes beyond just negligence. It's a step past that. Yeah, it's manslaughter. Yeah. So they're saying Barney had a duty of care to uphold as a business owner, and he hadn't done that. If you're going to invite people into your business, you've got to make it safe.

Yeah. They called 95 witnesses who testified about the rules that Barney had flouted, and some witnesses who survived the fire testified about that traumatic night and their struggle to get out of the Coconut Grove. But Barney's defense was like, whoa, Barney wasn't even there that night. He didn't start the fire. It was always burning since the world's been turning. Then the defense did some light victim blaming. They argued that the people at the Coconut Grove that night

died because they'd panicked. Well, that's what a crowd does when something happens. Yeah, so it's all their fault, right? No! That is natural human reaction. The fucking exits were blocked. Yep. Yeah, so the defense said they did the wrong thing,

they freaked out, and they trampled each other, and if they'd stayed calm, they wouldn't have died. And you can't blame the club owner for the fact that his customers panicked and trampled all over each other. You can blame him for locking the doors and making it so they couldn't get out. And making it incredibly unsafe. Yeah. And again, he wasn't even there that night. Did we mention he wasn't there? Because he wasn't there.

The bottom line was it wasn't the club's fault. The defense for James and Jacob argued that they shouldn't even be on trial because they had no managerial authority over the club. At some point in this nutso trial, a fire expert, I believe this was for the prosecution, brought in a piece of material and tried to light it on fire as like a demonstration for the jury, but it didn't burn. so he took a bigger piece of the material and put a match to it and it went up in flames and the entire courtroom had to be cleared out and it was a big mess and can you i

mean can you light something on fire in a trial to demonstrate where people died from a fire what i'm hoping is that there were not people there who had been in the fire and who were really traumatized but like can you imagine how fucking stupid that could have been in the trial for the coconut grove fire everybody dies in the courtroom no shit yeah barney testified in his own defense he was on the stand for six hours and in that testimony he exonerated his two co-defendants he said you know what this was my club i had control of the club wow that's now that's what the documentary said i would have been very interested to see exactly how he said it what the way i imagine it and i'm just pulling this out of my ass is they start questioning him like yeah it's my club yeah that's how i yeah

that's how i imagine it yeah is the prosecution's like kind of getting at his ego like so you're not really in control uh-huh who's really in control of this that's how yeah that's how i imagine it the trial lasted for four weeks and the jury deliberated for almost five hours and when they came out they found barney guilty of 19 counts of involuntary manslaughter. So I'm saying 19. They were selected randomly from the hundreds of dead just to represent the group. Okay. And they acquitted the other two guys.

Barney was facing up to 20 years, but he was sentenced to 12 to 15 with eligibility for parole after eight years. Wow. How do we feel? So many people died. I know. Yeah. I know. He should probably have gone to jail for the rest of his life.

I kind of feel the same way. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure it was never his intention, obviously. But man. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure it was never his intention, obviously. No. But man. Yeah. Yeah.

But he should have foreseen that it was a possibility. Yeah. Yeah. But this was obviously a grave injustice, and Barney appealed his decision all the way to the Massachusetts Supreme Court. Casey, come on. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't know how to do it. I don't know how to do it. It takes a Casey, come on. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I don't know how to do it. You don't know how to do it?

It takes a tremendous amount of skill. Yeah, we have a training process you've not cleared yet. But the court was like, get out of here, man. The judge said, the prosecution didn't have to prove that you caused the fire by some wanton or reckless conduct. It was enough to prove that the deaths resulted from your reckless disregard of the safety of your patrons, you douche canoe. Yeah.

I wrote ding dong, but I decided to, you know, up the stakes. Add some flair. That's right. Now go back to prison. But remember, Barney was well connected. Yeah, so. He was a perfect fit with the mayor's butthole. And, oops, did I say mayor?

Because by this point. He's the governor? Yep. Oh, shit. So he gets a pardon? Yeah, so after serving four whole years in prison, Barney's good friend the mayor pardoned him. And nobody says anything about corruption, right? I mean.

So here's the deal. People were pissed and reporters found him and asked for interviews. And he said, I wish I died with the others in the fire. Yeah, I'm making the same face. Is that genuine? Nine weeks later, he died from cancer. And he was 50 years old. I mentioned earlier that other people were indicted for their roles in the Coconut Grove fire, but Barney was the only one to get convicted and the only one to face justice.

I mean, if you can call four years. But ladies, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking this court stuff has been very unsatisfying. Well, don't you worry, because the story of the Coconut Grove fire was so horrifying that a lot of lawmakers looked themselves in the mirror and they said, let's go to court. Yes, Casey. I did it. I got it. You've now completed step one of the training process. We think you're going to do quite well here. And they were like, let's make some laws. So here are a few of the laws that came out in the year after the Coconut Grove fire. Are you guys ready? Yes.

I have got my pants buckled so tight. Maybe you should loosen that up a little. It means I buckled up and kept my pants on. That's what I was getting at. I was just picturing you in aggressively tight pants being really uncomfortable. So, here's what they passed. A law banning flammable decorations in public establishments. Because duh.

Duh. Sure. Excellent. A law banning exit doors that only swing inward. Because duh. Yeah. A law that required exit signs be visible at all times. Because duh.

A law that requires exit signs have their own power source. Because duh. Yeah. A law that requires that revolving doors must also have an outward swinging exit door right next to them. Because duh. And a law that you can't chain or bolt an emergency exit shut because fucking duh. Yeah.

All these laws. All of those things should not have to be said. Right? But apparently they do. Well, and you know what I realized? I've always thought it was kind of funny that revolving doors always have other doors next to them. They have doors usually on either side. I thought that was like an option. Like, would you like

to take the revolving door or the regular door? Yeah, I always thought, I was like, oh, choices. I've never, never occurred to me, oh, like. It never, never occurred to me. Me either. Maybe a ton of people died because of a revolving door. This is there for my safety. Like, never occurred to me.

You know, I always take the regular door. I always do, too. I hate the revolving door. I'm too anxious about the revolving door. See, I take the revolving door because I've heard, like, for environmental purposes, like, it keeps the air conditioning. Yeah, it's better for the air in the building. But I don't like it. I do not enjoy it. And now after this story, I don't ever want to be in a revolving door at all

yeah what about those automatic revolving doors yeah oh they like spin like a fucking carousel i'm afraid i'm gonna get chopped in half yeah i don't like that at all that's how you go? That's how I go. She died doing what she hated, getting in a revolving door. So all these laws were thanks to the Coconut Grove Fire, but it didn't stop there. The fire inspired people to create commissions that would come along and punch establishments in the mouth if they violated any of these laws. And by that, I mean they'd fine them. violated any of these laws. And by that, I mean, they'd find them. And all of these new rules became the foundation for a ton of federal fire laws and code restrictions that we now have all across this great land. But weirdly, the silver lining to this story is not just about fire safety. Mass General and Boston City Hospital obviously received just hundreds of burn victims

as a result of the fire, and that horrible tragedy created a learning environment. So thanks to this fire, medical personnel figured out new, better ways to treat people who were burned or suffered from smoke inhalation. Goosebumps. And afterward, these two doctors wrote about the experience in what is now one of the most widely cited papers on modern burn care. Wow. So what people learned as a result of this fire is still used today to treat burn victims. But it didn't stop there. Psychiatrists also jumped in and they studied the effects that the fire had on families and victims. So some of the earliest research on PTSD comes from the work that psychiatrists did in the aftermath.

Wow. Yeah. So, I mean, this was obviously a terrible tragedy, but it had a huge positive impact, too. And the people of Boston wanted to commemorate the victims. and the people of Boston wanted to commemorate the victims. So in 1993, members of the Bay Village Neighborhood Association installed a plaque on the site of the fire. A commemorative plaque? Oh, no, that means you can't put that bullshit in.

I was so glad that you didn't say anything. I was like, we'll just cut that bullshit out. Commemorate is a very long word with a lot of M's. It's very complicated. Man, I wish I had something to throw at you. So anyway, they installed a plaque to commemorate the victims. And the plaque was actually created by the youngest survivor of the fire. He had been a busboy, and his name was Anthony Mar Mara and he'd grown up to be a metalsmith.

So he's the one who made this plaque. And it read, in memory of the more than 490 people who died in the Coconut Grove fire on November 28th, 1942. As a result of that terrible tragedy, major changes were made in the fire codes and improvements in the treatment of burn victims, not only in Boston but across the nation. I think that's coconuts that he grew up and chose a job where he would work with fire. I didn't even think about that. Yeah. Huh. The plaque sounds amazing. Well, um, are you

ready to get mad again? What happened? They tore that, they tore his plaque down. Uh-huh. Oh, no. When they tore down the building to build the condos. Uh-huh. Aww. You guys look like your face.

That sucks. It's just weird because you have the same so here's the thing the neighborhood installed that plaque but then these really expensive condos were built on the site and according according to this documentary, the people who lived in the condos... Didn't want any fucking plaques in their nice neighborhood. Yeah, it bummed them out, Brandy. Holy shit. They didn't like it, and, you know, people would stop and read the plaque, and then they'd, you know, look at the condos, and, you know... How big was the plaque?

It was not very big. It shouldn't have been that big of a problem. Oh. Well, you know... Well, I mean, these are richy-richies. I guess when you pay a few million dollars for a condo. You don't want to be reminded of the tragedy that happened over the site. Well, I bet that ghost that's coming up every night.

One ghost. You're lucky if you got one. You've got a whole ballroom full of them. So, yeah, these people kind of threw a fit, and the Neighborhood Association was pissed. They were like, you rich fuckers moved into a historic neighborhood onto a historic site, and because you have money and power, you think you can get a plaque removed from a historic site just because it bumps you out? I fucking double-dog dare you! And they were like, okay.

And the rich people were like, yeah, that's exactly what we think, and that's what they did. Yeah, that's exactly what we think, and that's what they did. So the plaque got moved underneath a light pole at the intersection of Piedmont Street and the newly named Coconut Grove Lane. And that's the story of the Coconut Grove Fire. Huh. That was awful. Yeah, sorry. I'm sorry. I realized I've done a couple of these just big old tragedies lately.

Okay, well, you're the creep who does the family annihilator stuff. Yeah, that's like one terrible person. Yeah, but you get to know all of them, and that's worse. I think it's sadder to, like, who's, that awful guy coined that phrase, one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic. Who am I quoting? Yeah, that's terrible. Am I quoting Stalin?

I think it might be Stalin. Good friend of the podcast. Post-it notes with that. Inspirational post-it. Live, laugh, love. One death is a tragedy. One million is a statistic yeah so sorry guys thanks for that horrifying fire don't worry i hear that the ken and barbie murders are like

really uplifting it's totally upbeat they're gonna laugh the whole time dolls so yeah i mean who cares if dolls get hurt no it's a horrifying case. Yeah, I know what's horrifying, Brandy. Do you know it? Yeah. She recognized it right away when I told her what it was. I was so excited. Yes. Yeah. I wish you'd covered it. I am covering it today. I brought Casey to do it for me. Wow. Get your sister to do your bidding. That's right. right okay first off to start um what inspired me i saw an episode an old episode of autopsy 8 called dead giveaway oh yeah so what's autopsy 8 i've never heard of autopsy is this show that used to be on hbo and eight is like they wasn't really like a regular show but they would have like hour-long specials like once

every three months or something like that so it was not really a tv show but more like a special series norman used to watch autopsy before but before he realized that was nuts well so when james and i got together he my husband he loves. Right. And so this is just one of the things that he found somewhere, like on Prime or something like that. Oh, okay. And I'd never seen it before. He's like, oh, you've got to watch these old autopsy episodes. You know, these are great. So he made me watch a bunch of them.

And this is one that really stuck with me. And so then after that, I was just like, that case is really creepy. For some reason, it just really resonated. And so that's where I picked it. So I watched the autopsy video again. Actually, I watched it like four times. And then I got most of the rest of the information from Murderpedia. There's an article on there for the Crime Library by Marilyn Bardsley.

That's really good, very detailed. And then Wikipedia was actually very detailed. I didn't even have to tell her. So then both Wikipedia has a very detailed article as well. So I use that as well. So did you watch the movie Carla? I didn't. I didn't try to find it.

I have not seen it. I've seen it. Laura Prepon plays Carla Homolka. It's weird that you've seen the movie, but you didn't ever bother to cover this case. Okay, Casey, take it away. All right. So it's December 1990. The holidays are approaching.

As the people of Scarborough, Ontario, prepare for their gatherings, the city is on high alert. Over the past three years, 12 women have been brutally raped, and the man who was responsible was still on the loose. Scarborough rapist. That's right. So Scarborough is actually a suburb of Toronto. It's on the east side of the city. It actually was its own city, but then in 1998, it was absorbed into Toronto. So kind of like Brooklyn was absorbed into New York. Yeah. I was recently schooled on Toronto. So kind of like Brooklyn was absorbed into New York. Yeah. So I was recently schooled on Toronto. You guys in our bonus episode, I covered a case in Toronto and said some dumb things and was corrected. So I just always like to know where stuff is in relation to other stuff. I'm really, I'm a math nerd. So it was important to me to know exactly where it was.

Yeah, Casey's super good at geography. Yeah, that's how we win all the trivia competitions is because Casey knows geography and other things. Okay, so meanwhile, an hour and a half later, to the south, in St. Catharines, Ontario, the Homolka family. Let's try that again. The Homolka family was having a celebration. I knew I was going to have trouble the Homolka family. Let's try that again. The Homolka family was having a celebration. I knew I was going to have trouble saying Homolka. Homolka, it's hard to say. It is.

It's a weird word. And James was making a joke. There's a character in the movie Congo whose last name is Homolka. And he says it really funny. And James is like, you're going to say Herkima Homolka? And I'm like, no, I'm not going to say it. And now I just did. We can cut out whatever you want. We can cut that part in.

Not for him, because he is actually going to listen to this episode. Wait, does he not listen to all of our episodes? Damn it, James. He actually used to listen to a lot of podcasts when we first met, but now he just watches TV because he's working from home, and so he doesn't listen to hardly anything anymore. He's a great advertiser for the show. Our own families

don't even listen. Anyway, if you've never seen Congo, it's a terrible movie from 1995. It's not terrible. It's terrible. If you watch it now, it is terrible. What do you mean terrible? Like sad? It is so cheesy. It is so cheesy. Brandy, did you act in it?

Why are you so... No, I... Okay, this is my recollection of it. Okay. We had a dog that had a stuffed gorilla, and we called her Gorilla Amy because of the gorilla in Congo named Amy, and we could tell Dolly, that was the dog, to go get Amy, and she could go get the gorilla. And so now you're weirdly attached to that movie? Yes.

Well, so it was... I've not seen it since I was a child. They made it right after Jurassic Park, so at the time they were like turning all of Michael Crichton properties into movies and this one was not done nearly as well as Jurassic Park. So, and it's about a talking gorilla. A gorilla that learns sign language

and taking it back to... Were you scared of Jurassic Park when you were a kid? Yes, I was terrified. Yes. You had to bring that up. You douche canoe. Park when you were a kid? Yes, I was terrified. Yes. You had to bring that up. You douche canoe. What are you doing right now? Okay, I was it was 1993, so I was nine years old when we saw it. I was seven. Didn't scare me. Their kids are stuck

in the kitchen being hunted by velociraptors. Yeah, it was scary. It's scary. Yeah, it was scary. Did you see it, Kristen, last week? I saw it in theaters. Okay, continue. All right. So the Homolka family is having a celebration. Their daughter, Carla, had just gotten engaged at the age of 20 to her 26-year-old boyfriend, Paul Bernardo.

So a little bit of an age gap there. So Carla Leanne Homolka was born May 4th, 1970. She's the oldest daughter to her parents, Carl and Dorothy, which his name is K-A-R-E-L. I'm thinking it's Carl, not Carol, but I don't know. Carol can be a man's name. It's a weird spelling, though. But because her name is Carla, I would say his name is probably pronounced. You're probably right. But I mean name is Carla, I would say his name is probably pronounced Carla.

You're probably right. But, I mean, I don't know for sure. So they had another daughter in 1971, Lisa, and then Tammy was born in 1975. The Homolkas seemed, by all accounts, to be a normal, average family. Their daughters all grew up happy, healthy, well-adjusted. And Carla was no exception. She was pretty, popular at school, and well-liked by everyone she met.

She had a passion for animals and worked part-time at a pet shop during high school. And once she graduated, she transitioned into a career as a vet assistant, first at Thorold... Thorold? Thorold? Thorold. There's too many O's in that word. Is this a word? It is. Thorold. Wowold. Thorold. Thorold. There's too many O's in that word.

Is this a word? It is. Thorold. Veterinary clinic. I thought you were trying to say the world. T-H-O. T-H-O-R-L-D. No.

T-H-O-R-O-L-D. Thorold. Thorold. It's a weird word-O-L. Thorold. It's a weird word. It's not good. Thorold. And then she moved to the Martindale Animal Clinic. That's way easier to say. I can pronounce that one much better.

Like Wink Martindale. Yes. He's a former game show host. Oh, my God. I'm sure he's dead by now. And I'm sure no one knows who you're talking about besides Casey. Who doesn't know Wink Martindale? Casey is the only person who knows who you're talking about besides casey no casey is the only person who knows who you're talking about he hosted debt when we were children we used to watch that when

we were children or in the 60s and then you watch the real game show that was on really yes okay yeah the whoever made it to the final round you were playing to pay off your debt. Uh-huh. So it was always, like, a different amount. So, like, people would have, like, $10,000, $8,000, $15,000. And, like, if you won, they'd pay off your debt. That's kind of sad. They need to bring that back. Yeah.

We thought it was cool at the time. I was hosted by Wink Martindale. That was my point. Anyway, she's a volunteer working at Martindale Animal Clinic. So she's working at the animal clinic. So her love of animals is actually what led her to attend a pet convention held in Toronto in 1987. Is that where she met Paul? There she met her fiance, Paul.

I think they call it a furry convention. So she was 17 when she met him. Ew. And Paul was 23. Yeah, now it's not good. So yeah, I mean, it's only six years between them, but at 17, she's definitely too young to be dating a 23-year-old. Well, and the younger you go, the bigger that gap, you know? Yeah, exactly.

So six years when you're 17 is like 10. Is huge. Six years when you're in your 40s is nothing. Right, exactly. Is huge. Six years when you're in your 40s is nothing. Right, exactly. If Carla's parents had reservations about Paul, they quickly got over them and welcomed him into the family with open arms. He was good looking, smart, and he treated their daughter well.

And like super fucking charming, right? Yeah, exactly. He fit seamlessly into their family and they found him to be the perfect son-in-law. Kristen, your face. I'm sorry, I just, I cannot imagine. You know what you know about him and you're just like. Perfect son-in-law. Chris in your face. I'm sorry. I just, I cannot imagine. You know what you know about him and you're just like. Well, but I'm also like, I can't imagine having a 17-year-old daughter.

Bring home a 23-year-old and be like, hey, that's great. We love you. Yeah? Yeah, no. Okay, so back to our engagement party. Paul had recently gotten a video camera, so he spent the whole night taking pictures and video footage of everything and so they show this footage in this autopsy episode and it is just like you know those early 90 videos everybody had video cameras back then they were the cool new thing and like you take all this footage to all these people they're so happy and they're just joking around

and they look like normal regular people i we watched, a few years ago, our Uncle Greg busted out one of the old video footage from us in the early 90s. And this footage looks just like that. Like, just our regular family gathering. It's of nothing. It's of nothing. There's nothing happening. That's what all those old videos were.

They were just like, hey, kids, got the camera out. Yeah, exactly. So it's just like that, these videos are. And they just look like a normal, regular family. Everybody looks happy. All the sisters are there and the parents, and they're all just having a good time. So after Dorothy and Carl go to bed, Carla and Paul stay up celebrating and drinking into the night. So since it's right before Christmas, it's during the holiday break,

Carla's 15-year-old sister, Tammy, was allowed to stay up and hang out with them. So Carla and Paul, after, in, God, I hate it so much, I know what's coming. Carla and Paul allowed her to drink with them. Cool, yeah, great. So 15, hanging out, drinking with her older sister and her fiance. Now, I'm sure she thought that was great. I mean, you're 15, you just, you want her older sister and her fiance. Now, I'm sure she thought that was great. I mean, you're 15. You just, you want to hang out with older people.

You think you're much older than you actually are. Oh, yeah. In the early morning hours, Tammy was rushed to the hospital. Carla had noticed that Tammy was making a choking sound and had started to vomit. So Carla rushed to her sister thinking she was having a seizure or an allergic reaction. She tried to administer CPR, got no response, and then she called 911 for help. Tammy was pronounced dead later at the hospital. During an autopsy performed later that day, a forensic pathologist determined that the cause of death was asphyxia due to the aspiration of her stomach contents.

And she also had a very large burn on her face, which was attributed to stomach acid. So she vomited so much that she burned her face with stomach acid. Is that even possible? I don't know. Okay. But that was the official record that's...

That she choked to death in her own vomit and burned her face in the process. Do you want to say words that people can understand? You sound like an angry old man. We'll get back to it. Okay. Moving on. Okay.

All right. Okay. So the family was obviously devastated. Her funeral was held the next day. The next day. The next day. Yes. That is super soon.

That is so fast. I don't even understand. Yeah. But yes, her funeral was held the next day yes that is that is super soon that is so fast i don't even understand yeah but yes her funeral was held the next day so and i think that this happened on the 23rd so like her funeral was on christmas eve oh god yeah so and i wonder if maybe they rushed it that fast because family were in town it could come yeah i mean it just seems so fast yeah these funerals take a lot of time to set up i mean i can't imagine being able to pull it off that quickly but this is what it said it was the next day so so family and friends and extended family all expressed shock at tammy's tragic end at such

a young age and it seemed to affect paul especially hard we're at the funeral, and Paul is taking things especially hard. According to friends... Paul, the guy who just met everybody? Well, I mean, he didn't just meet them, but they just got engaged. They've been together for three years at this point. Oh, okay. So he's been with the... Okay, alright. I'll calm down. With the family. Alright!

So, friends, according to friends of theirs, Paul kept referring to tammy as their angel oh she's my angel she's our angel she's gonna be our angel in heaven and she kept finding ways to touch her and play with her hair you and she's she's in a coffin oh well i assumed they didn't have a prop up in it okay brand, do you touch people in the coffin? I've seen, like, a widow go and, like, you know. He was not a widow.

Yeah, I know. Not, like, going and playing with the hair. Yeah, that's weird. So one of the things that's also strange about this is he actually videotaped the funeral. You already told us everybody had video cameras. Not at the funeral. They were videotaping everything that day. So, yes, see, there is footage in the episode of autopsy of this funeral. That's weird.

It's very weird. Yeah, that's super weird. Why would you want to commemorate that? Because you're a murderer and you're proud of yourself. I mean, yep. You want to have that footage to jerk it to later. Oh, wow. We were all thinking it okay so the family moves on and tries

to heal two months after tammy's death carl and paul decide they want to give her parents space to grieve so they move in together near port deluce ontario so this is still in the general area of saint catherine's which is on the can Canadian side of Niagara Falls. So it's not that close to Toronto. It's about an hour and a half of drive around the lake to get from one place to the other. So did you know that Toronto is a very multicultural city? Yeah, I heard that. Big Jamaican population too. That's what I have learned as well. Okay, so this is when friends start to really notice a change in Paul. He starts drinking heavily.

He gets weirder and weirder. At some point in this time. Coming off kind of rapey? At some point at this time, he leaves his job or loses it. It's not clear which. But he doesn't tell anybody that oh my god this is a dude thing i swear yeah so pretend to go to work every day i'm not sure they don't mention that but he's no longer an accountant where he was and he's running cigarettes illegally to make money

so he's like going across the border getting getting contraband and bringing it back. Because they're really close to the border. His friends just start describing his behavior as erratic and strange, and he gives off this impression that he's got this big secret, this big thing hanging over him. Let's back up a little bit here. In May of 1990, so before any of this happened yes so there was a victim she was raped and this time it actually happened in saint catherine's and not in scarborough toronto so got a change of location weird because paul just moved to saint catherine i mean he's at

least visiting his girlfriend who lives there yes um though the location's not the same as the other it is determined that it is the scarborough rapist so for whatever reason they do figure it out and put it together um how were they doing that were they doing like uh semen tests so they're what's a semen test i was gonna say do you mean the dna test it's too early for dna testing it's in the 90s no 90s like that that's when they started doing them. Okay, so they were collecting samples. There were samples left behind.

Everything seemed to test. But they didn't have anything to test against. Yeah. And the mode of operation was very similar. So he would creep up on women and attack them, like, out on the street or in their backyards or in parks and push them down and rape them both vaginally and anally. Wow. Jesus. You know what's weird is that's the kind of rape I feel like everybody fears, but it's one of the most rare ones.

Rare time. Like a stranger coming up and attacking you. The real stranger rape is not very common, but yes, it's clearly happening here. This is the real deal for that. Yeah, you hear about that runner in arkansas not not what are you talking about why do you always tell me about these runners because she's trying to get you to stop running no just don't worry about you what happened she was running in arkansas she went missing they did this whole big search party for her they found her body she'd

been sexually assaulted and killed some man who was part of the fucking search party. Of course. Has been arrested and charged with her murder. Oh. Yeah. He just, they believe he just saw her running and decided he had to have her. Gross. Yeah.

That is really gross. Terrible. Yeah. Okay, so. I'm sorry. I think of you every time I see those stories.

It makes me so anxious. I mean. Yeah, I don't know what to say. But at the same time you can't let stuff like that keep you from living your life

and doing. That's true. Doing the things you want. You don't. You shouldn't have to be. I want you to be aware of your surroundings. You should be aware of the things you want you don't you shouldn't have to be aware of your surroundings you should be aware of your surroundings you're running the the worst case scenario thing comes from our dad it does that's absolutely my dad thought that i died today because i didn't totally didn't respond to his text for two hours people would think i was

dead all the time i yeah i like put down my phone and I just don't answer for a long time. But, yeah, I mean, I don't know. I think about that a lot when I run. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, the Hamilton soundtrack is so loud in my head, I can't really. You wouldn't even hear that guy coming up behind you. Which is how I want to go.

And then, you know i did see like a really terrible article that was like what women should think of when they're running and like it came off good very victim blaming yeah in the world we want to live in you should not have to worry about things like that obviously but absolutely yeah that's not the reality we live in the thing is i've some of those articles that are like how to stop yourself from getting raped are so ridiculous like they say the thing about ponytails yeah don't wear your hair in a ponytail exactly like what am i fabio no i'm gonna pull my hair up and like can we blame the rapist when there's an attack and not me with my ponytail but yeah brandy will come in afterward and do that semen test she invented she's gotta get him

i'm pioneering a whole new form of semen test i'm picturing you with just a bunch of Chobani yogurt. It's a taste test. Oh, God. I knew that's where you were going. No, you didn't. It's hard that you knew I was going to say Chobani yogurt. Yes, I know you. Just when I think I've said something so weird, you say you knew I was going to say something.

I'm sorry, Kasey. Go ahead. So, different area. Yeah. Same rapist. Yeah. So, the difference between this rape and the others is that the victim is actually able to give a description of her attacker. The previous victim said not.

He'd covered his face or something. Yeah, covered enough. I mean, they had vague information, but nothing of any tangible sort. So she is able to describe him as a tall blonde man in his 20s. And then she's actually able to work with the police, and they are able to come up with a composite sketch that is then released to the public and published in the newspapers. So they've got a lead now.

They know what this guy approximately looks like so um the canadian police start questioning men who fit the description um they ask the public for tips you know and then they'll check out these tips based on on what people do so they bring in hundreds of people right yeah top one man in his 20s that fits a lot of people and it's a big area that they're looking for so i mean the toronto area all i mean this is all even the naira falls it's all highly populated there's millions of people that live there so there's tons and tons of people to go through so two separate tips were filed that the man that they were looking for was none other than paul bernardo the first tip was from a bank teller who filed that the man that they were looking for was none other than Paul Bernardo.

The first tip was from a bank teller who thought that the sketch looked like Paul. So she had seen him and just said that that guy looks like him. So the second tip was the wife of a friend of Paul's. And she thought that Paul fit the description. And she was aware that he had proclclivities for rough sex whoa well how'd she know that apparently it's something that he would brag about to his friends and so like they were all aware and apparently they were a rough crowd and so like i mentioned earlier that he seemed a little rapey i was probably right on track yeah brandy's giving this face like, I hate to be a genius.

Yeah, I just can't imagine me like, yeah, I'm really into choking my lady. I don't know. I don't think that's what he said. But, I mean, I think it says something that all they had to go on was tall, blonde, man, 20s. And these women were so creeped out by this guy that they were like, I think it's this guy. Sounds like Paul. Yeah.

So the police weren't sure if they should take her tip seriously. They said her phrasing was very stilted and awkward, and they just weren't sure if it was credible. They were afraid that she was trying to be, you know, get the reward money. So there was actually a reward. And so they thought that just the way that the tip was filed, that she didn't seem very genuine. So they just kind of were like, oh, okay.

So they just put it in a file. But after doing some file reviews, they did decide to go ahead and bring Paul in for questioning, but not until November of 1990. So between when the several months before they bring him in for questioning. So they do bring him in. The police ask him why they thought he had been brought in. And Paul admits right there. He's like, I look like that sketch. That guy looks like me. But I promise I haven't been raping anyone. Yeah. So I super swear. Paul is in this interview with these two detectives for a total of 35 minutes oh my

gosh they found him to be forthcoming and cooperative of course he's very charming and he even voluntarily left a dna sample wow so after that was over the police determined that he was not a suspect and and they moved on. So DNA evidence is all very new at this time, so I don't know how well that worked. They were able to determine, I think, from things that the person they were looking for was a non-secreter. Oh, yeah. That's how they used to do it. Only 12% of the population or something like that is that way. 12% of the population or something like that.

Okay. Is that way. So they were able to narrow it down some, but because of backlog and I can't even imagine forensic labs were that established at this point either. Did they try Kristen's idea of the taste test? I don't think so. Nobody wants to be that police officer. The DNA samples were just.

Tasted disgusting. I mean, they just went by the wayside. Nothing was tested. Anything like that. You guys are so gross. Can we add some blueberries to it? Okay. So, on June 29th of 1991, we're back in the main story now here.

Just six months after the death of Tammy, Carla and Paul get married. So six months later, they're getting married after. I mean, that seems very fast to me, but. Yeah. I guess if they already had it planned. Right. Right. So it was a huge affair.

Very frilly. It was early 90s type of wedding. Oh, yeah. So she's wearing the big poofy sleeves and the giant skirt her dress i'm kind of like headdress she's got some crazy headdress with like things dangling off of it oh yeah it's just the dress is like three times the size of her so she just looks like an enormous cupcake in all these videos so um the style there was even a horse-drawn carriage oh my they literally left the church in a horse-drawn carriage oh my god yes brandy are you taking

notes i am i think you and david need to get married this way if you don't look like a cupcake i'm gonna be pissed so following the wedding carla and paul honeymooned in hawaii and again there's tons of video footage of this stuff because paul honeymooned in hawaii and again there's tons of video footage of this stuff because paul just has that camera everywhere right and they they just look so happy they're they look perfect they're two blonde people they're so pretty everybody like just they look like ken and barbie that is an apt description i mean like they look like early 90s ken and barbie yeah so you know she's got the big blonde hair the windbreakers there are photos from me from many a family vacation

so on the day of the wedding in nearby lake gibson a father and son are out on a fishing expedition they found the remains of a young girl she had been dismembered and each part of her body was encased in a block of cement she was later identified as 14 year old leslie mahaffey from burlington ontario which is about halfway between toronto and port de lucie weird she'd been missing since june 15th Toronto and Port DeLucie. Hmm. Weird. She'd been missing since June 15th when she'd been locked out of her house for missing curfew.

After attending the wake of a friend. Oh no. So I didn't put this in here, but some of the notes say that she's kind of a wild child, really rebellious. Yeah. Her parents didn't get along. They were going to teach her a lesson. I felt that was like,

I don't know. I left it out. I wasn but no i mean it's not her fault and it's not their fault no yeah but you as a parent if that happened that would do yes you would never recover no terrible so her retainer was also encased in the concrete blocks and that is what proved instrumental in identifying her body oh my god oh so forensics was able to determine that she had been sexually assaulted in a manner consistent with the rapes in the area so um so now they think the scarborough rapist has escalated to a murder yeah so um they quickly were able to link the crimes um And the public is just terrified. This rapist who's been raping a lot, but he hasn't been killing anybody, has now killed somebody.

So, and the police still, while they have the lead, they have the photo, they still don't have a solid suspect. So, the following April, a body of a girl was found in the woods nearby. She was naked and had been strangled with an electrical cord. She was identified as Kristen French, a 15-year-old girl who had been missing for about two weeks. Oh, God. They're so young. I know. That's what I was just thinking.

They're so young. They're so young. She had been abducted after school one day on her walk home. Oh. And there were actually several witnesses to her abduction, but no one was able to identify a suspect or a vehicle. One woman said she thought it was a Camaro, but it wasn't. And so they're looking for Camaro owners, and it's not what it is. The manner of death and the disposal of the body are significantly different than that of Leslie Mahaffey, so the cases are not linked.

They don't suspect that it's well yeah the disposal is completely it's completely different i think that someone would dismember someone like in such a specific manner right and then go to just dumping a body right so in the woods in december of 1992 paul does something really stupid and this is what ultimately more stupid stupid than giving a DNA sample? Well, more stupid, yes. Because this is ultimately what causes his downfall. In an argument, Paul beat Carla severely with a flashlight.

Oh, okay. So she goes to work after a few days on January 3rd with huge bruises all over her face and her body. Her co-workers are immediately concerned they're like what happened to you what's going on why do you look like this and she said she was in a car accident and they're like no no you weren't no you weren't no you weren't so they call her parents and tell them about what's going on that she came to work like this she looks like she's been beat up so her parents come to physically remove her

from the home and rescue her from paul because they think she's been beaten up and her husband's abusive yeah so she puts up a fight initially she's running trying to get away from them running back into the house she's searching frantically for something but they're not sure what it is and she can't ever find what she's looking for so she ends up leaving with them they take her to a hospital where they have her injuries documented and then she's able to go to the police where she makes a statement alleging that she is a battered spouse and then they they filed charges against paul for beating her up yeah um and he was arrested and shortly thereafter though he is released on his own recognizance. And Carla's moved in with relatives. Wow.

So, finally, at this point, the Scarborough police have run the DNA samples. Three years later. Not a moment too soon. So they were on the back burner that long, and they finally got through the backlog. I mean, at this point, because the rapes had stopped in scarborough i guess they just kind of thought i guess it's not that important anymore so they did go ahead and run them and wouldn't you know it paul bernardo comes back as a match on those dna samples so the police immediately put him under 24 hours surveillance but they don't arrest him right away

why at this point so this is what i didn't get couldn't find exactly but they say in the documentary i don't know how true this is but that the police have at this point put together that they think that leslie mahaffey and kristin french are also connected to the scarborough rapist so they've connected these deaths with the rapes which they have plenty of evidence on the race but they want to be able but they want to be able to get them for the murders too and there's just not enough they know they won't get a conviction with what they've got okay so they know this until carla walks into police headquarters so carla goes to police headquarters and she has an interview

that takes place over several hours she told the detectives that she is afraid for her life paul forced her to commit these horrible unspeakable acts or he made her help him rape these these young girls and that she didn't want to comply but he was going to kill her if she didn't he had forced her to help him abduct rape and torture and kill both leslie mohaffey and kristen french she made real sure that she got to control the narrative there she sure did and on top of that you know they had videotaped the whole thing oh oh god so one thing here officially there's only the the two victims there is a third possible victim who went missing at this around the same time and was found six months later in Lake Ontario but the body was so badly decomposed at that point that

there was not any way to determine if she had been sexually assaulted she went missing in the same area she was their type they strongly suspected that she was a victim of theirs but but couldn't tire couldn't tire too Carla during this interview talks talks about how she's, he made her do all these things. She's videotaping it. She's trying to be as caring as possible to these victims. She's telling them it's going to be over soon. She says she gave one of them a teddy bear to tell her, I'm going to take care of you. You're going to be okay.

You know, I'm going to take care of you. You know, you're going to be okay. She didn't want to be doing this that Paul was making her, you know, that this is just disgusting. Yeah. So in this interview, she expressed her desire to do whatever it took to put Paul away. That she wanted to cooperate in any way to help them secure a conviction against him. So the police knew that they didn't have enough with what they had, so they definitely needed her testimony.

And they need the videotapes. Right. Right? Right. Does she have them? She does not have them. Where are they at? That's the thing.

Now we'll get to that. Okay. See what I mean, Casey? She can't keep her pants on. So they make a deal with her. Okay. So the deal is, tell us everything you know, and we will give you a break in your sentence. Initially, Carla and her lawyer wanted full immunity. But the police said that with her involvement, even as a battered wife, that is just not possible.

Yeah. So Carla did end up agreeing to the deal. And over the next several days, she gave a videotaped confession to all of their crimes. Do we get to hear the specifics of the deal? Like, will you get to hear how much time she agreed to? Okay. All right, I'll keep my pants on. So they get her.

They're halfway down your thighs, lady. So over the next several days, they get her videotaped confession to all of their crimes. So this deal only applies if she admits to all of the acts that she and Paul committed. And this includes what really happens to her sister Tammy. This is the first time that anybody hears about what happened to Tammy. And did they have the deal of like, if we find anything new, then this deal is off and you're screwed for, oh, okay. Nope. Okay.

No. Nope. When Paul and Carla met, for, oh, okay. Nope. Okay. No. Nope. When Paul and Carla met, he was upset that she was not a virgin. Oh, great. Which, that's disgusting. Oh, my gosh, I forgot that's why this happens. This is horrible. So, very quickly into their relationship, he starts to obsess over Tammy.

Oh, God. Knowing Tammy. He would spy on her through the windows he would enter her room and masturbate while she was sleeping he even enlisted carla's help by having her break the blind so he could have easier access oh so for christmas in 1990 right after they get engaged carla decided to give tammy's virginity to paul as a gift what the fuck yeah she stole halothane from the animal clinic that she worked for and they spiked tammy's drinks with sleeping pills oh once she was out carla applied halothane soaked rag to tammy's nose and mouth to ensure that she stayed unconscious. Paul then proceeded to rape Tammy both vaginally and anally,

and he forced Carla to perform oral sex on her. Oh. While the camera was rolling. So in the process of all this, Tammy starts to vomit, and then she stops breathing. Carla and Paul attempt to revive her, and then they call 911, but not before they clean up the evidence, redress Tammy, and move her back to her bedroom. Yeah.

So the burns on her face were not from her stomach acid. Right. Of course not. Yeah. So, obviously, the police had not been expecting this. They had no clue that Tammy was even a murder victim. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, really. So they arrest Paul, and they charge him with both of the rapes and the murders of leslie mahaffey kristen french and tammy homolka for some reason the murder of tammy homolka is not ever like tried yeah so i'm not 100 sure why not but sometimes when they feel like they've got it yeah so they did not try him for the murder of tammy homolka even though he was arrested for that yeah so they opened the investigation into tammy's death though and the chief coroner of ontario ordered exhumation of her body so at this time they perform a second autopsy and the toxicology report showed the presence of both

halcyon which is a sedative. That's what they put in her drinks to knock her out. And halothane, which is a general anesthetic. So keeps her knocked out, keeps her free from pain, you know, so she's not going to like wake up in the middle of it. But neither of these drugs were tested for in the first autopsy. And the presence of either one would have indicated foul play yeah so the combination of the two is ultimately what led to her her heart to stop eating her to stop breathing so so carla pled guilty to manslaughter oh my gosh and was sentenced to 12 years for her role in each of the deaths of leslie and krist, but the sentences were to be served concurrently,

and she would be eligible for parole in just three and a half years. The judge in the case also ordered a media ban on Carla's plea agreement and sentencing so as not to taint the jury pool for the upcoming trial of Paul. That's probably good. Yeah. So Carla gets sentenced, and she starts serving her time. Somewhere in there, she files for divorce. They are officially divorced, so she's just waiting for the time she has to testify against Paul.

But Paul's trial keeps getting pushed back. So it's the videotapes. They know these tapes exist they need to find them they actually searched their house for two months and cannot find these tapes they cannot find them they're like a hidey hole or something yeah so it turns out that paul tells his lawyer where the tapes are they are hidden in a ceiling tile up above their bathroom, which was a false... Yeah, there's a drop ceiling.

Yeah, something like that. It was a place that wasn't searched and wasn't easily findable. So Paul told his lawyer where they were and the lawyer goes to get the tapes. And then he holds them for 17 months. Oh, he has these tapes that the prosecution knows exist and knows are somewhere.

But he will not turn them over. What are the rules on that? Yeah, I mean, I that's illegal, right? I feel like it should be right. right i feel like it should be right and so at this point they're monitoring all of their calls together like between the lawyer and him which i how is that that's that's privileged information so of course this is canada it says the article i read definitely said that they were wiretapping all their communications so that's definitely illegal too. I can't imagine it is. The lawyer says he doesn't know what to do.

Do they call them like wink winkies? I got the wink winkies. What should I... After the 17 months, he does hand the videos over to the prosecution, but as he does it, he uses it as an opportunity to withdraw himself from the case

he's like oh you have these tapes i'm out of here i'm not doing this wow so side note i didn't write this down but he was actually prosecuted for obstruction of justice at some point after this trial so yeah you can't do this yeah however he was acquitted oh okay so maybe because he eventually did turn it over yeah i think one of the things i saw i don't know if this is true or not either he was not only charged with a obstruction of justice they also charged him with child pornography because the videos show he did possess him for a really long time girls being raped i mean yeah wow he was acquitted so yeah what for whatever reason the jury says that what he did was okay i don't know but so they finally get the tapes i think i back i i feel like there is a fine line of like

what's the what am i allowed to do to protect my client? I don't know. You know what's funny? And that's the thing is why he, why Paul told him about where the tapes were because he wanted to make sure that his lawyer got them and not the prosecutor. But don't you have to turn over all evidence, whether it's good or bad? I mean, do you? I wish I'd gone to all the semesters of law school. And I almost did a case about this.

I wish I'd gone to all the semesters of law school. And I almost did a case about this. There's a really fascinating case where this murderer eventually told his attorney about where these other bodies were. And the attorney kept that information to himself, and it became a big, like, groundbreaking case. Obviously, I can't tell you any more than that. But, yeah, my understanding was that you could tell a defense attorney just about anything, and they don't. It's privileged information, right? Yeah, it's privileged information. But at the same time, a video of you doing the thing?

Surely that's not privileged. Yeah, I don't know. I would think that they would have to turn it over. I'm surprised that he held them for so long and didn't just destroy them. Right. Just say, hey, I never had these. Yeah. Thank God he didn't.

Yeah. Okay, so he withdraws from the case and Paul has to get a new lawyer. So that's delayed the case by quite a bit. So now it's 1995. And he's finally on trial. His trial starts. And the Crown Prosecutor, Ray Houlihan, opens the case by showing a segment of the footage featuring a naked Carla masturbating with the close-up zooming in on her vagina. Oh, my gosh.

Really started out with a bang there. So the courtroom is in absolute shock. Yeah. start out with a bed yeah so the courtroom is in absolute shock yeah the video goes on to show carla and paul role-playing a king and his sex slave carla continues to try to excite paul in the video by going into a long detailed fantasy of procuring a 13 year old virgin for him to rape ew oh my god so this may seem like a strange way to treat your star witness because you know she's testifying against him um and the fate of this trial rests heavily on her testimony right yeah and the jury obviously needs to feel some amount of sympathy towards her but it's kind

of hard to do when you see video like that so hoolahan then tells the jury that the reason he's showing them this footage is to illustrate just how depraved paul is he says the scene is an excellent example of just how paul controlled carla he told her what to do what to say how to act how to cater to his everyone that the does it show that or does it show that Carla... That the scenes were largely... The prosecutor claims that the scenes were largely scripted by Paul. And so that she would say the things that he wanted her to say to get him excited. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I get that.

I do. But it also seems to me like it shows her as a way more willing participant than she... So Carla took to the stand shortly after to go into detail about what the jurors had just seen and heard. She told of years of abuse and degradation. How no matter what she did, how low she stooped, no matter what she let him do to her, it was never enough to please him. He called her names and he told her she was worthless and told her that she would be nothing without him. names and he told her she was worthless he told her that she would be nothing without him however as the jury was soon to find out the videos once played in detail show a far different story carla had been downplaying her role extremely she is seen on tape as a willing

participant in the rapes and tortures of the three girls she rapes them as well not just him she tortures them they even show her enjoying herself and laughing and playing oh and she and paul they just seem to feed already locked down this deal they just seem to feed off of each other's energy yes so they she's already sentenced in serving her time nearing her parole i mean yeah she's already been in jail for several years at this point there's no going back on that deal so one of the earliest tapes shows paul and carla having sex in front of the fireplace in the basement of her parents house the footage was taken just three weeks after tammy's death and carla is wearing tammy's clothes and pretending to be her oh my god

horrifying yeah so there's this back and forth you know paul said that the deaths of leslie and kristin were accidental he never intended to kill them he was going to let them go um but carla ended up killing them and carla obviously says that paul killed the girls the more the murders themselves the deaths of these girls are not on tape right so it's his word against hers it's just the rape and the torture they don't actually film when the girls are dying when kristen was strangled and leslie they don't actually know what specifically was the cause of death because she was decapitated and dismembered so bernardo's attorney was able to knock carla's credibility quite a bit he did make her appear to be cold and callous and that her i

bet that was really hard for him to do probably not after seeing those videos um that her battered spouse defense was just an act that she played everybody that it wasn't you know genuine you do wonder though right i mean how much it did play into right you i i mean i i definitely think there has to be some there has to be some element of it yes absolutely definitely conditioned and yeah she was groomed from a pretty young age by this older guy so i do i do struggle with i do i agree i think it's a it is a weird struggle yeah yeah it's just i read an article on this i didn't write anything down for it but on the gray area of this case because it is so much there are lots of battered women out there who never go on to cause anybody any harm whatsoever yeah but then in a case like this she clearly is

enjoying herself but is it because he taught her to right i think because she's not experienced when she meets him and yeah and he teaches her what pleases him and so she starts to see it as normal because it sounds like this is the stuff that they talk about all the time they they yeah yeah it's such a it is such a gray area one of the things that i didn't go into that they do they do show um during the court case is there is actually another victim in this um she was not murdered but she's a girl that worked with um carla and she was she like a willing participant no she wasn't so she was a 15 year old girl who worked at the animal clinic with carla um carla invited her over to hang out just the two of them they were going to hang out and have fun

and so they had food and she ends up putting sleeping pills in her food and the girl falls asleep and then paul comes home and rapes her um but she's knocked out and so carla cleans her up and she wakes up the next morning feeling sore and but she has no idea what's happened to her holy shit have it on video oh my god yeah so this girl has no idea that this has happened to her and she's she's just listed as jane doe but they do show the footage in the courtroom oh my god and i can't even imagine finding out afterwards that that this horrible thing has happened to you by these terrible people yeah oh my god and you had no idea holy shit so the attorney is able to you know knock carla's credibility and they they really make her look bad in court and obviously the videos make her look bad too but it was not enough the jury was horrified

and outraged at paul's crimes. And they found him guilty on all charges. He's sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years. However, he is given a designation that they have in Canada, Wales, and England called a dangerous offender. So what it means is that it's a convicted person can be held for an indeterminate amount of time, even if they've served the amount of time even if they've served the amount of time they were sentenced for wow oh so because he's given this designation it means that even though after 25 years he could be eligible for parole he is seen as a risk to the public that he will reoffend and he will hurt more people so it is likely his parole will be denied

every time because he has this designation i like that i do too so he did become eligible for parole in february of 2018 uh in october of that year he was denied parole good so he's currently being held in the mill haven institution which is a prison in bath ontario he does have to be held in solitary confinement for his own protection because he has been he's very high profile very high profile he has been and he's a child rapist multiple times yes so he will likely have to continue that way for the rest of his life and he is 55 years old right now wow can't say i feel bad for him no so carla served her full 12-year sentence she She did serve all 12 years. She did serve all 12 years. She applied for parole at one point and was denied and then never applied again.

She was deemed to be danger to the public, and so her parole attempts were denied. I just said that. That's my thing, to repeat yourself. So after the trial, the public is outraged about this case, you know, when the details finally get out because they haven't really known what happened in the first sentencing. Even though all the rapes and the murders are pretty high profile, there was the media ban. And so the details are out now and they're absolutely furious that Carla was allowed to take a deal and serve so little time, basically 12 years for two murders. I mean, three, really. So the media referred to it as the deal with the devil wow so carla even while she was in prison received

death threats and so they transferred her to a prison in montreal where she was less famous less well known you know yes high profile so near the time of her release after she served her 12 years the attorney general of ontario fought to have the dangerous offender designation applied to carla so this would allow them even after her release to keep track of her whereabouts yeah yeah he so much like a sex offender registry so he felt that carla being bilingual would easily be able to slip into obscurity in quebec she speak french she does speak french also so the and they were afraid that the people she interacted with would be completely unaware of who she was and what she'd done yeah and like her violent past and they need to be on guard when dealing with her clearly so um an ontario

judge did agree with this and he placed her under the following restrictions after her release first one is that she must provide her home address work address and the names of all the people she lives with to the police and notify them of any changes in those situations if she planned to leave her home for more than 48 hours she must notify the police of where she was going and with whom at least 72 hours before said trip wow she could have absolutely no contact with paul bernardo leslie mahaffey's family kristen french's family or any other violent criminals the only violent criminal in there is paul bernardo obviously leslie mahaffey's family is not violent or kristen i weirded it i worded it weird so okay so she was

also not to be around anybody under the age of 16 what if she has children i yeah i don't know it doesn't go into details of that so she also could not use any drugs other than ones that were prescribed by her doctor she must see isn't that true for everybody yeah she must seek therapy and she must provide the police with a dna sample yeah that they'll test in three years right any violation of these restrictions would carry a maximum two-year prison sentence so if she violates any of these things she goes back to jail for two more years yeah still doesn't seem like very much but no so after her release and she's released in quebec so she petitions the court there that's where she settles down that's where she's gonna live she petitions the court in quebec for removal

of these limitations so it's a different court system than ontario do they give it to her she maintained that the restrictions made it too easy for the press to hound her they are able to easily find her and harass her and all she wanted to do she's paid her debt to society and she can just seek in quiet life where she could move on. The court agreed with her. They found the restrictions to be unjustified. The Department of Justice appealed the decision, but it was upheld by the appellate court. Wow. So Carla moved to Guadalupe, which is an island in the Antilles, the Antilles, and changed her name. She married the brother of her lawyer, and she now has three children.

Wow. At some point, she has returned to Canada. She is now living in Quebec without her husband or her children. Where are her husband and children? It doesn't say. I have no idea. I'm sure they're alive. Don't make that face.

I'm sure they're alive. They make that face i'm sure they're alive they're just not they're not together or yeah yeah so that's the story of the ken and barbie killers holy shit that's oh that's fucking terrible you did great though you did a great job that was very disturbing i always get caught up on like how to feel about her like how much how much of it was just she was a victim too versus yeah but how much at what point do you hold someone responsible for what they've done my issue with her my biggest issue she's obviously a terrible person but my biggest issue with her is that she pretty much single-handedly killed her sister. She's the one who drugged her. He raped her.

Yes, that's terrible. But she allowed him to. He didn't administer the drugs. He didn't choke her. And as far as the grooming goes, that was in the very early part of their relationship. Before he could have had... I mean, they weren't living together. She was still living at home with her parents.

He couldn't have been... I do think there's an argument that a lot of her behavior absolutely groomed by him being abused by him but that happened very early yeah and so the documentary the autopsy episode talks about how they think that if she had never met paul she probably never would have done any of this yeah yeah yeah i agree with that that she just that the two of them in together combined to form this crazy personality that just fed on each other and just i mean yeah she had she had the forethought to know that she could if she went to the police she could control she could control it well yeah and with kristin french the second girl that they murdered um she actually helped him abduct her she distracted her asked for her directions she walked up to her with a map while paul attacked her from behind and dragged her into their car um initially when paul abducted leslie he lured her into her his car for cigarettes

and then he blindfolded her and took her home and then told carla that they had a new play thing so oh my god she's definitely much more complicit in the abduction of the first the second girl than the first one paul claims that because Leslie was wearing a blindfold, he always intended to let her go, and that Carla killed her in a fit of rage, but there's, I mean, nobody. Jealousy, right? Wasn't that his claim?

Yes, that she was jealous that he was so infatuated with his plaything. Oh, God, I hate that. Everything I know about this case comes from the movie and i had a real problem with it their kitchen and the movie had granite countertops and stainless steel appliances in 1990 which would not have been the case in 1990. Nope. Throw that movie out. That's a Formica countertop that should be there. That's exactly right. And those are wood cabinets for sure. I'm thinking black appliances.

Black or even white. Like off-white would have been very popular at the time too. Yeah, black was like kind of cutting edge. It was. Yeah. My family had a black refrigerator. I'm not trying to brag. I'm just telling you how fancy we were.

Yeah, I had to have the wallpaper with the, what? You guys always had the fancy appliance. What was the fancy appliance? Trash compactor. You were always into our trash compactor. I was obsessed with your trash compactor. Was that a Brighton thing? Because Karen's house had a trash compactor too I was obsessed with your trash compactor. Was that a Brighton thing? Because Karen's house had a trash compactor, too.

I assume so, yeah. It's so funny. I'm just now remembering, yeah, you would always run the trash compactor. I love to run it, and I like to empty it. Because it comes out in, like, a perfect square. You know what's a tragedy? What? You don't have one today.

I do not. There's no way one of those would fit in my kitchen. We should have fit one in her kitchen. Well, don't bring that up. My kitchen is a shoebox. Okay, your next house, which will be in Prairie Village. That's right. It's going to have a trash compactor.

Do they even still make those? Is that a thing still? I don't know. What is it? My parents' house in Belton had a trash compactor. I'm getting a fucking trash compactor. I know. I think this is an achievable dream for you. I want to make it happen. You know, it's funny. I grew up in a house with a

trash compactor. I don't need one today. I don't know. I was never that thrilled. Do you remember at Tuckaway when we lived there, they had that giant trash compactor? Yes! Okay! It was a dumpster trash compactor. You took your bags down there and then you had to hit the button and it went and it oh it was amazing it made noises just like that did you like take your trash down individually just to watch it no it was way better if you had a big bag of trash. Like a body? I mean, how many bodies? It was the size of a dumpster. So, like, you could toss lots and lots of bags in there and it would do it.

Okay. Ladies, I'm saying. This is what you do. You get, like, four trash bags. You take them all down there at once. Put them in there. Pile them in there. So you've got, like, a mound of trash bags.

Yeah, I see. And you hit that button. Woo! What kind of safety measures were taken around this thing? I think you could have easily fallen into it. Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm saying. Like, this seems like a terrible thing.

Oh, yeah. For sure you could fall into that thing. Yes, you could definitely have fallen into it. Yeah. Whew. I'm excited to talk about the trash because that day. All these years later, just the thought of it. You're so jazzed. Well, should we take some questions from the Discord, ladies?

Yes, we should. I let the people know that you were here with us, Casey. All right. Ooh. Gaydrell asks, what's a snack food you'd wish they'd bring back? Are you hankering for some early 90s snack? Yeah, there's so many. Butterfinger BBs.

Oh, yeah. I love those. Those things get stuck in your teeth. Yeah. Yeah, no, thank you. You got candy all day. 3D Doritos. Oh, yeah. We always had those. 3D Doritos oh yeah

we always had those what I miss are the Cheetos that were in the shape of a paw those things were so good I remember those okay

those were good I'm sorry for shading this question apparently there are things how about a Dunkaroo those are supposed to be coming back I didn't love Dunkaroo

wrong I loved i loved the nasty little cheese breadstick oh yeah handy snacks yes yeah i like those those still exist do you remember they also had the little crackers and it came with that little red because you were fancy that's right that's exactly right with your cheese that didn't need to be refrigerated yeah yeah don't question that oh shanna wants to know casey what's an embarrassing brandy story i'm sure there's none of those i god i don't know any embarrassing stories nothing ever like she does stupid stuff

all the time like everybody does but it never sticks with me. It doesn't. My stupid stuff lives forever in our family. It's true. Forever. Like what? It's 100, um, one time. Oh my God. I love how this is turned around. Yeah, exactly.

Like then there was a dead squirrel in the road. Okay. In case you said, oh my God, is that a deer paw? Like a deer was just running along and its paw fell off. I was 12. I think that's not fair. Oh, yeah. So we say deer paw in the family to tease her.

Yes, a lot. However, do you remember that picture of Rosie, Kyla's dog? Yes, yes. Brought back a fucking deer paw? Yes. So a deer paw is a thing. It is a thing. Casey was vindicated by that okay yeah

okay guys so you gotta tell that so many years ago this is so weird many years ago it was around christmas time norman and i were out at my parents place and kyla and jay had flown to connecticut to see his family and we were all watching their dog rosie and we were going for a walk and my parents had some property so it was off leash and we saw rosie at the front door of their house with like this big stick in her mouth and as we got closer we realized she had a fucking deer leg in her mouth yeah you sent me the picture of it and then i sent it to casey and i was like look it's a deer. Okay, so embarrassing Brandy stories. The only thing I can really think of, there was one time

we were at the mall and you know, they put in those new escalators outside of Nordstrom. So Brandy cannot do escalators. She's terrified. I have a serious escalator phobia. She's trying to get on the escalator. I'm standing behind her waiting for her to go.

She cannot go. It's like five minutes and I'm just sitting there like at this point i'm on the floor laughing because she's just keeps starting and stopping starting stopping there's people are looking at her like she's crazy they're trying to go around her and she seriously it took her like seven or eight minutes to get on the escalator and i'm just dying laughing i don't like hysterically in the mall i can go up i can't come back down okay okay so i have been sitting here just like slack-jawed because i have memories of going on the escalators at a park mall with you but when i think about it i always think about us going up yeah and then i would conveniently lead us to the stairs that went down i had no idea yeah it goes back to when i was like a little kid my grandma

used to take us to the mall to do like mall walking right yeah before they would open we'd walk around and i like she i think you were there she and case Casey got on the escalator, went down. I was still at the fucking top, terrified. Some man brought me down. Oh God. Yeah. So to this day, you just hem and haw at the top of an escalator. It takes me a minute. So like when David and I are forced to take an escalator, he goes first and then he like makes himself big in case I fall. See see you're afraid of falling down i'm afraid of so many things i'm afraid of falling i'm afraid i'm gonna miss the corner of the step and like scrape my heel on that fucking razor sharp part of the stair i don't think it's razor sharp it is it's like a claw i know it is like i'm afraid that part of my clothing is going to get sucked into the neck.

I have a feeling like that's horrible. That's scary. I watched a video a couple years ago of a woman in China who the whole thing, she gets to the top of the thing and the whole thing just collapses. She was ingested. Yes, so she pushes her child miraculously out of the way and then just falls into the machinery. It's the most horrifying

video you have ever seen of an escalator. Did she survive? No! She did not survive. I'm sorry, guys. Well, that's terrible. Anyway, yes, I'm afraid of escalators. Anna Faye wants to know how I told Casey about my pregnancy pregnancy this is actually kind of a funny story

so it is a funny story i took my pregnancy test in the middle of the night like the very first pregnancy test i took like i had bought it actually david bought it on like a monday night but i wanted to wait until tuesday morning to take it because you're supposed to take it with your morning's first pee for the most accurate results oh I had no idea so I woke up at three o'clock in the morning I was like yeah morning's first pee I gotta take it and so I took it it was positive whatever and like I woke David up it was really cute we had a whole thing anyway oh yeah please don't tell us any of those barfy details. Anyway, the next morning, Casey texted me, and she said, I figured out when I'm going to get Lisa for Christmas. I got her the perfect present for her.

And I responded with a picture of my positive pregnancy test, and I said, this is what I'm getting. So suck on that. She was like, what the fuck? Also, I'm kidding. So suck on that. She was like, what the fuck? Also, I'm very excited. That is sweet. Ooh, my favorite case that you guys have done. See, I really like the finger in the chili case. Oh, yeah, that was fun.

Solely because you say tail as old as time in it time and I could not stop laughing. I laughed hysterically. Casey thinks that's the funniest thing you've ever said. I think it's the funniest thing you've ever said. I like, and I listened to it again and I laugh that hard every single time you say it. You know, what's kind of sad is that that's the funniest thing I've said. And it's one of our earliest episodes. You peaked too soon. You peaked too soon. You peaked too soon. We were just talking about people who peaked in high school.

I mean, this is kind of the same thing. Pamela asks, what are acceptable burger toppings? Onions are a no, right, Brandy? Yes, onions are a no. She also asked, what about fried eggs, avocado, bacon, condiments? I love an egg on a burger. It shocksiments? I love an egg on a burger. It shocks me that you love an egg on a burger. It's delicious.

Oh, yeah, an egg. No, I agree it's delicious, but there are so many things she doesn't like, and there's an oozy factor. Oh, that's so good. Okay. So good. But I'm pretty, when it comes to condiments, I'm not a big condiment person. I don't like sauces.

Ketchup and mustard, girl. That's it. Just your basic bitch here. That's right like i like a burger with some cheddar bacon an egg if you're feeling frisky ketchup and mustard what do you put on your burger everything all of it all of it you know me i've there's i will eat anything over here what what mayonnaise on her burger I do put mayonnaise on burgers yeah that's common

I mean she's not making you eat it I do also like a good barbecue burger that has like those onion straws on it too that's good

but no I think so mayonnaise on the burger common in Mexico and mayonnaise on hot dogs I could never get into that David puts mayonnaise on his hot dogs I would put mayonnaise on a hot, common in Mexico, and mayonnaise on hot dogs. I could never get into that.

David puts mayonnaise on his hot dogs. I would put mayonnaise on a hot dog too. That sounds terrible. Brandi, no one's going to force you to do this. Nobody's going to make you eat mayonnaise. Why are you making that face? I don't like it. Is this the semen test you're worried about? That's right.

That's exactly right. Casey, I feel like this is a good one for you because you keep up with the movies true crime and chill asked what blockbuster hit from summer 2020 were you most excited to see and super sad that it will not come out it's not quite um the summer well a black widow i we were excited to see black widow and it's gotten pushed back um i feel like it's definitely time for scarlett Johansson to have her own movie, you know, or Black Widow to get her own movie. The second female protagonist as the main character.

The new Christopher Nolan movie comes out, like, next week. What is it? It's called Tenet. It stars John David Washington. He's Denzel Washington's son. He was in Black Klansman that's what I know him from was he the lead?

yeah oh my god it was great a movie Kristen's seen there's like five of them and that's one of them so we are really looking forward to that and obviously theaters here

are just opening back up and it's like do we go? do we not? I mean we probably won't go we'll probably wait for it to be at home and it's like, do we go? Do we not? I mean, we probably won't go. We'll probably wait for it to be at home. But it's disappointing because Christopher Nolan's movies are always big event movies.

They're made to be seen on IMAX, and so we won't get to see it that way. And so it's just not the same. I've liked most of his movies, and James loves him. So it was something we were definitely looking forward to that we're not going to enjoy enjoy the same way casey and james very into movies if you guys didn't pick that up i wanted to see um the rental which was supposed to come out this summer i did see the rental dave franco's movie um he wrote and directed it it did get like a drive-in release and you've seen it we've seen it get like a video on demand so maybe i'll see it that way yeah yeah yeah yeah

oh casey did kristen and i do any annoying things to you when we were kids i don't remember spending a lot of time around you guys as kids no because you were cooler and older. I don't know that I was cooler, but you guys, I was definitely older, and so I just was, like, had my own friends. Oh. Wow. I remember your room was always very neat, and you had a bulletin board, and I thought that was really cool.

What? No, I don't specifically have any... I just remember... Well, because you guys... It wasn't ever really just the two of you. No, it was always a group of us. Also, Christine and Kyla and it was... There were always like five of you.

Yeah, you did not want to hang out with... One kid two years older does not want to hang out with a bunch of... But even... What about people as cool as us though right yeah i hate to break it to you you guys were not cool in high school oh wow excuse me i was an editor on the yearbook now i was not cool either but still you were better than the yearbook. Oh, this has been devastating. I thought it was cool the whole time. Ooh.

Carly What's-Her-Butt asks, favorite game besides trivia? I love Codenames. Have you played that? I've seen Codenames. I've never played it. I actually got my dad this new game for Father's Day? Question mark? Was that Father's Day?

Yeah, I think Father's Day. Mother's Day. Father's Day. It's called Linky. Yeah, I think Father's Day. Father's Day. It's called Linky. Uh-huh. I'm obsessed with it. Was this a gift for him or for you? It was for him.

Uh-huh. It was also a gift for me. So, yeah, it's, you get four trivia questions. I realize that I said not trivia trivia but this isn't standard trivia you get four pretty basic trivia questions asked one at a time on this on a card and then you have to be able to come up with the answer to all of those questions but you don't say any of them aloud once you have the answers you then have to find the link what those four answers have in common and that's the thing you have to say out loud and then you win the card and the first person that gets all the cards to spell out the

word linky wins the game okay that sounds like a very cutthroat wonderful game for your family it's so fun i love it brady loves it because she's won every time she's played i know dad beat me last time did he beat you last time around and so now they're not gonna play ever again that's right no the other game we got him for father's day was a good one too death by trivia trivia yes it's all questions associated with death and dying and ways to die like famous crimes all kinds of stuff like that it's super fun and so your goal is so if you get the question right, like your turn's over, it moves on. If you get the question wrong, you get the card,

and it has a mode of death on it, a poisoning, a stabbing, or a shooting. And once you have collected three of any of the modes of death, you are now dead, and you are attempting to kill the other people who are still alive. Brandi, you look so excited just explaining the rules. I love games. It's so fun.

It is a lot of fun. Kay Burns wants to know, what book would you recommend, Casey? Because the people in the Discord know that you are very into books. Yeah, you're the book person. I'm trying to think. Let me go see what's on my Goodreads recently read list. I have a problem where I read a lot of things at once, and so after I'm done reading them, it just all goes into this. This woman is a lunatic. She reads like four books at a time.

Yeah, I read two books at a time. How do you keep it straight? I do fiction and nonfiction, and that's easier. I'm also very smart. And nonfiction. And that's easier. I'm also very smart. Okay.

I did just finish a book called The Shadows by Alex North. It's kind of like a detective mystery novel. It was pretty good. I think we're looking for something that's pretty good. Yeah, we're looking for real, real good. The book that you gave me after my surgery Kristen um the nightingale yes the night by Kristen Hannah yes that book was amazing yeah I cried as hard as I've ever cried from reading a book after that boy great gift to give someone after that open heart surgery where her her sternum has been sawed in half you know what I didn't even think of that it was like, here's the best book I've read recently.

I didn't think about, like, it's horribly depressing. Holy hell. It really is. No, it was really good. I also just finished recently a book called Happy and You Know It by Laura Hankin. It was really good, too. I liked it. It's about a musician who takes a gig playing for babies at a play group

and just kind of what happens to them. Do the babies die? The babies do not die. It's a tragic tale. Great for someone who's just had surgery. Excellent. Yeah. Good questions. Should we move on to Supreme Court inductions, Kristen? I think we shall. Okay. Um, I certainly have that pulled up. Good gosh. I've been doing nothing over here.

And we are doing people's names and their favorite books. And we will change the topic up eventually. Someday. When I feel like it. Camille Peters. The Virgin of the Small Plains by Nancy Picard. Tamara. when I feel like it. Camille Peters. The Virgin of the Small Plains by Nancy Picard. Tamara.

The Book Thief. Oh, I didn't say her last name. Oh. Tamio Casio. No. Tamio Cosio. No, it's Tamara. What's Tamara?

Whose first name is Tamio? What was the best one that you said it was so much tamara cosio the book thief amy the bible emmakes. The Dog Encyclopedia. Amanda Grice. American Gods. Rachel Coro. Gideon the Ninth. Amanda Lehu. Member of the family, Diane Lake's story of living with the Manson family. I have not read that. Elizabeth Wright. The Throne of Glass Glass Series Marlena Da Silva The Harry Potter Series Trevona Gilbert Anything by James Patterson Deanne Waddell

Furiously Happy Ellie Colum Heart Song Kristen Learned Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Angela Faber The Stephanie Plum Series. Kayla Carmichael.

The Great Gatsby. Dolly Bolivar. Gone with the Wind. Welcome to the Supreme Court! Thank you guys for all of your support. We appreciate it so much. Thank you, Casey, for joining us. Yeah, it was fun.

I'm glad I got to come on. This was fun. If you guys are looking for other ways to support us, please. Oh my gosh, what if people like you better than they like my dad? That'd be wonderful. I don't think that's going to happen. Oh my god, it'd be so great if finally he had some competition. Daryl just has some magic about him. There is just deep magic. Okay, well now I've

made this even worse. Hey guys, find us on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Patreon. Please remember to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen and head on over to Apple Podcasts. Leave us a rating. Leave us a review. Then be sure to join us

next week when we'll be experts on two whole new topics. Podcast adjourned! And now for a note about our process. I read a bunch of stuff, then regurgitate it all back up in my very limited vocabulary. And I copy and paste from the best sources on the web and sometimes Wikipedia. So we owe a huge thank you to the real experts. For this episode, I got my info from the documentary Six Locked Doors,

The Legacy of Coconut Grove, BostonFireHistory.org, the article The Coconut Grove Inferno by Jack Thomas for the Boston Globe, and Newspapers.com. And Casey got her info from... Okay, I got my information from Murderpedia.org, an article written by Marilyn Barsley for the Crime Library called Paul Bernardo and Carla Homolka, and an episode of the HBO show Autopsy called Autopsy 8 Dead Giveaway.

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.