Let's Go To Court! - 146: Dane Cook & Ryan Ferguson

Episode Date: October 28, 2020

For a few years in the mid-2000’s, Dane Cook was on top of the world. He performed high-energy stand up routines to countless adoring fans. He sold out Madison Square Garden. One of his stand up comedy albums went platinum. The next one went double platinum. He got movie deals. He created his own production company. At the risk of stating the obvious, Dane got rich. Super rich. Luckily, his half-brother Darryl McCauley was by his side the whole time, acting as Dane’s business manager. Then Brandi tells us a story that’ll make your blood boil. In November of 2001, Kent Heitholt, a sports editor for the Columbia Daily Tribune, was discovered dead in the newspaper’s parking lot. Kent had been brutally beaten and strangled. His murder went unsolved for two years. But a young man named Charles Erickson, who’d been 17 at the time of Kent’s murder, read about the crime and got a bad feeling. He and his friend Ryan Ferguson had been partying at a nearby bar on the night of Kent’s murder. Charles had done cocaine, taken adderall, and been drinking that night. He couldn’t remember the night in question, but he began having troubling dreams. Those dreams made him wonder whether he and Ryan had been involved in Kent’s death. Charles eventually confessed to the crime. Police accepted the story, despite the fact that Charles’ dreams didn’t match the evidence. 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: Dane Cook’s appearance on the podcast, “Your Mom’s House” Dane Cook’s appearance on the podcast, “Inside of You” Dane cook’s appearance on the podcast, “Bertcast” “Dane Cook’s half-brother, sister-in-law must repay $12 million,” by Alan Duke for CNN “Dane Cook’s manager-brother ordered to pay him $12 million,” by Lindsay Powers for The Hollywood Reporter “Wife of Dane Cook’s brother sentenced in embezzlement scheme,” by Lisa Redmond for the Lowell Sun In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Dream/Killer” Documentary “Ryan Ferguson’s Habeus Corpus Petition” courts.mo.gov “Saving Ryan Ferguson: One Lawyer’s Story” episode 48 Hours  “The Ryan Ferguson Case: An examination of a strange murder and conviction” by Chris Hamby “Ryan Ferguson Freed After Spending Almost a Decade in Prison for Murder” by Lauren Effron and Victoria Thompson, ABC News “Ryan W. Ferguson” 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 Dane Cook.

And I'll be talking about a dream, a wrongful conviction, and a father's fight for justice. Are you writing bad poetry, ma'am? That's right. Why can't you just say, I'm talking about Ryan Ferguson? No. You know, do you get SEOs, you know, Brandy? You familiar? SEOs, you know, Brandy, like, you familiar? Obviously, when you put the episode out, you're going to say, you're going to title it, you know, Dane Cook and Ryan Ferguson.

Weird combination. That is a weird combination. I mean, two very bro-y looking dudes. Yes, they are both very bro-y looking. Mm-hmm. Yep. I feel like we objectified Ryan Ferguson enough in our bonus episode. We definitely did. Okay, so we won't go into it much, but you guys, Ryan Ferguson is hot.

Super hot. Okay, now we'll be— Brandi, keep your pants on. All right. You got any life updates to give me? Life updates? I know, I feel like we've seen each other so much lately. Practically been in your lap this whole time.

No, not really. What about you? Nothing. Yeah, nothing. London went to her four-month doctor's appointment yesterday. That was pretty exciting. Oh, yeah? Yeah, she's growing.

You know, that's good for babies. Everywhere or just the head? You shut up. She does have a very sizable noggin. It's only like the 85th percentile. She looks exactly like David. She does look exactly like David. But she's real cute.

Oh, ouch. Sorry, David. David's also real cute. You said she does look exactly like David, but she's real cute. We all heard it. Don't try to deny it. Patty, roll the tape. She looks exactly like David, which means she's real cute.

You don't have to give me that look like I'm the one who said the offensive thing. You were the one who was way out of line. There's enough talk of politics on this podcast. No shit. And there's enough talk of David not being cute enough on this podcast. I for one won't stand for it. You shame me when I say sweet things about David. Listen, as an old married hag, I can't handle the fresh love. I have to shit upon it. Shit upon my love.

That's right. Hey, Kristen, have you heard of a little thing called Patreon? What happened to your voice? Patreon. Yes, yes, I have heard of it. But tell me more. We have one, and it'd be awesome if people signed up for it, because we've got some new content out over there.

Hot new bonus episode. You guys ready for this? I personally thought it was way too soon, but Brandy covered Typhoid Mary, a super spreader. And Kristen talked about scrunchies. Hey, you know what? Sometimes we need a light one, okay? Damn it. It's going to be a super fun episode.

I think you guys are going to like it. I guarantee it. We dubbed the fans of this podcast with a new nickname, so. You're going to hate the nickname. It happened organically and it can't be taken back. We called you all skeezy scrunchies. And you're just going to have to listen to the episode to know what that means. I really hope it takes off.

I'm kind of sad it's a bonus episode because I'd like to just address people as skeezy skunches. Yeah. Because then I don't have to worry about stopping saying, hey, guys. I can just say, hey, skeezy skunches. And then no one's offended. Or everyone's offended either way it's a hundred percent i'm excited there's also if it's not out already it will be out anytime now momentarily yeah bonus video which you get at the seven dollar level

what'd we do in the bonus video kristen do you remember? Brady, I'm not a goldfish. We recorded it like two seconds ago. Yes, two minutes ago. Okay, we made a recipe from a listener, which was quite appropriate. Yeah. What was it called again? Pumpkin pie dip. Pumpkin spice butthole.

Everything's pumpkin spice. Pumpkin pie dip. It was quite good. It was. It was delicious. Very Midwest was. It was delicious. Very Midwestern. Everything was prepackaged. It's a super Midwestern recipe.

I enjoyed it very much. Will make again. What more do you need to know? That's right. Then it's top tier. That's for our Bob Mosses on Patreon. You get all that plus 10% off on the merch store, episodes a day early, and ad free.

Woo! Sounds good. I think I might get in on that thing. Did I convince you? Yeah. I'm going to sign up at the $5 level, though. Oh, wow. Just try it out. Dip my toe in. See how I like it. What if I told you

that if you sign up at the $10 level, we will ship you a very small container of pumpkin spice butthole. You can just spray right on there. Wait, do you spray it on your butthole? Obviously, Brandi. And it makes you. Don't be an idiot. Make your butthole smell like pumpkin spice? Yes, yes.

It shouldn't be a tough concept. Okay. I'm branding it LGTC. I'm just slapping a sticker. LGTC pumpkin spice butthole smell like pumpkin spice? Yes, yes. It shouldn't be a tough concept. Okay. I'm branding it LGTC. I'm just slapping a sticker. LGTC pumpkin spice butthole. Yeah. Great. People asked for it.

I don't think they did. I didn't just come up with it. Should I keep going? Yeah. Do you know about this? Okay, Brandi Patty, I'm gonna need you to bleep that That is not what I meant

I didn't mean tell my whole damn story You guys, that's revenge What she did to me You wanna complain to them? Kristen tried to spoil my case today. I didn't try. Well, yeah. You did.

And she spoiled my case on the bonus episode, so. But still sign up and listen to it. Yeah, listen to it. No, we bleeped all my spoilers. Uh-huh. Did we bleep it here when we were selling the Patreon and you told them that I covered Typhoid Mary on the bonus episode. Okay. I'm just kidding.

Brandy. You know what you're like? You treat every episode like a Dateline episode. Yeah, I love it. I like a reveal. Yeah. But, like, I feel like for podcasts, you've got to, like, have a name that is familiar, not like a knock at a door or an affair to remember or the deadly plot. Or, you know, like, you know.

You know what I'm saying. Anyway, here we go. Tell us about this story about Dan Cook that I don't know anything. I really don't know anything about it. Clearly you do. Okay, do you know how I know what I know? What? So many you knows.

Because he talks about it in his stand-up. And I have seen him. I've been to a Dan Cook show where he talked about it. I didn't realize he talked about it in his stand-up. Yeah. I haven't seen his stand-up in like 15 years. Well, yeah, it's been— I mean, I didn't go yesterday. Like, it's been like 10 years.

You went to his COVID show? Yeah, I went to his COVID. That's how I got COVID. I went and saw Dan Cook. And he spit directly in my mouth. Because naturally you weren't wearing a mask. That's right. Good, yeah.

Yeah, masks are so lame. Am I right? We're trying out a new thing. so lame. Am I right? We're trying out a new thing. You guys, we got some angry reviews about me sharing my political opinion, so now I'm going full right wing. I cannot.

You know what I say. She bought a Hummer, guys. I say, Donald Trump refused to denounce white supremacy and that's A-OK with me. Stop it. One-sided disclaimer. Oh, OK.

This all comes from Dane Cook. Yeah. He told it to me in our weekly phone conversations. Also, bro-y disclaimer. Yeah. So I had to listen to so many bro-y podcasts for this. That's my sacrifice. The whole reason I actually know about this is I – this is not a podcast I listen to, but they do clips on YouTube.

And I just thought this clip was really good. It's from Your Mom's House where Dane talks about this story. Your Mom's House. The name of the podcast is Your Mom's House. I listen to a lot of podcasts that had like those names that were like, whoa. Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk about a comedian named Dane Cook.

Super familiar. How are you familiar? I had like all of his CDs. I've been to three of his shows. You've been to three Dane Cope shows? I saw him twice at the Sprint Center and once at the Midland. Okay. What was your favorite?

My favorite show? Yeah. I don't know. They're all, I mean. See, I remember Vicious Circle. Yeah. Yeah. That's the one I remember. You.

You don't even have to tell me. And I know this. What? You thought he was so fucking hot. Oh, Brandy. Brandy, he was in those tank tops. No, I hate, you know, I don't like when men wear tank tops. You don't?

I don't. You want them fully naked or not at all? Quit teasing? No. A vag tease? There's something about a bro tank I'm not a big fan of. Even back in the day, you didn't like a bro tank? Yes, even back in the day, I didn't like bro tanks.

What don't you approve of? I don't know. I think it's you see too much chest and back. It's like a little bit scoopy. And I had a traumatizing experience with a tank top, with a man in a tank top. Are you going to tell that story? Because that story is wild. I think that's the real problem.

This man came in. This was years and years ago. I was a new stylist. This man comes in for a haircut. I cut his hair. He's very happy with it. You know, trimmed him up around the edges, cleaned up his neckline. And then he goes, can you go down further in the back, please?

And I said, oh, I went to your collar line. That's as far as we can go. And he's like, oh, okay. Okay, thanks. That was it. No big deal. You think nothing of it. Yep.

That man, a few weeks later, comes in for another haircut. Wearing a tank top that scoops in the back so that I could shave his entire back for him. It was horribly traumatizing. So did he ask you to go to his collar line this time, or did you just, like— I just stopped at, like, the normal— And he didn't say— No. Okay.

No. But you know he was— That was 100% the intention. Yes, absolutely. With the tank top. Absolutely. It's like, sir, there are wax centers all around. That's correct.

Yeah, I did think Dan Cook was attractive. Yeah. Yeah. I thought he was super hot. Yeah. Now he's had something done to his face. His face looks weird. He's had something lifted.

I think it's kind of puffy or something. Something's like a little bit too high and like, yeah. He doesn't drink, so it's not booze. I wonder if he's had fillers and Botox. But his eyes are pulled back. Yeah. Constantly surprised. Yeah.

Which I got to say, I think I'm a little bit of an asshole on this because I feel like I'm not as judgy about women doing it. But for some reason, when a guy does it, I'm like, oh, that's too bad. I'm not as judgy about women doing it. But for some reason, when a guy does it, I'm like, oh, that's too bad. I think maybe in general it's because we think men get more attractive with age. I don't think that's it for me. All right. I think I've always thought that, like, the advantage to being a dude was you didn't have to worry so much about your looks.

And so when I see guys who clearly are worried about their looks, it makes me go, oh, man, are we all in this shit boat together? Anyway, should I get to the fucking case? Yeah, tell us this fucking story about Dane Cook and his... Okay, Brandy, guys! Patty will need to bleep that again! Dane grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He had an older half-brother named Daryl McCauley.

What? I'm sorry. It's M-C, capital C, A-U-L-E-Y, McCauley. McCauley. McCauley. McCauley. You don't say both the Cs? Maybe I do. And he had five nameless sisters. I don't say both the C's? Maybe I do.

And he had five nameless sisters. I don't know. I'm sure they were given names at birth, but they're not important to the story. Dane was always pretty quiet growing up. He was a bit of an introvert. But over time, he came out of his shell, and in late high school, he began to dabble in comedy. He knew comedy wasn't exactly a stable career choice. So when he was in his early 20s, he went to a tech school in Boston and studied graphic design.

And meanwhile, he did some open mics and got more and more popular. You look like you want to say something. No. No? Okay. No, I didn't really know anything about his early life. I'm interested. Okay, I didn't write this part down, but... I knew he worked at the BK Lounge. That's about it.

We all knew that. No, I thought... He told this kind of... I thought it was kind of an interesting story. The first time he ever did stand-up, it was one of those places where, like, a ton of people want time on stage, so you have to put your name in a hat and, like, then you show up and, like, you just keep showing up, hoping they'll call your name.

And finally, the guy who was emceeing the thing called some guy named Ernest up. And there was this three-second pause. And Dane was like, oh, that guy's not here. And he was like, I'm Ernest, and then shot up there and did a whole set. Anyway, not that great a story. So good. I didn't include it. And now I regret telling it anyway. It gets better from here, folks. So, you know, he's doing some open mics. He gets more and more popular. In 94, he moved to New York. And in 96, he moved to L.A. And in 98, he got featured on Comedy Central's Premium Blend. Okay, I'm going to pause for another story I didn't write down.

Oh, good. Is it as good as the last one? Okay, I think it's better. Did you know that when Adam Sandler left SNL, they were looking for, like, a very energetic white guy who could play guitar. And so Dane Cook was up for the role. But he got to the audition. He got outside 30 Rock and just flipped out. And it sounded like he had an anxiety attack. Oh, my gosh. He was just like, I can't I can't do it. And that's they hired Jimmy Fallon. Wow. Right. Huh. That's crazy. Yeah. I didn't know that. Was that better than

the other story? It was better than the other story. I agree. Yeah. So, you know, things are going great. He wasn't anywhere near the peak of his career, but he was going places. At some point in all this, as Dane's career was starting to take off, he realized that he needed a business manager. Someone to handle the finances. Maybe book him at clubs, whatever. I don't know what a business manager does for a stand-up comedian, but anyway.

Brandy. Patty will have to blink that too. All right, that's the last one. I'm sorry. Oh, sure, sure. You seem real sorry. Sorry, I got a lube up my lips. Anal lube.

Tastes like real anal. I don't say tastes like real anal. Tastes like pumpkin spice butthole. So he needed a business manager, and who better to hire than family? At this point, Dane's brother, Daryl, was working as a corrections officer at a prison. Daryl didn't like his job, but it paid the bills and it gave him health care, which, as we all know, is a privilege, not a right. So Dane was like, hey, sorry, that was a joke. right. So Dane was like, hey, sorry, that was a joke. I didn't want anyone to think that I'd actually gone right wing. So Dane was like, hey, come work for me and I'll make sure that you have

a good salary plus benefits that you currently have. I'll get you medical, dental, you know, whatever. And Daryl accepted and he became the business manager for Great Dane Enterprises. No! You get it? I do! You get it? Should we tell people our business name? Yeah.

Juvenile Bigfoot LLC. That's right. It's an excellent name. So, it was a little stressful, though. At that point, Dane was a road comic. And suddenly he had not just himself to look out for, but his brother as well, and by extension, his sister-in-law. Because Daryl's wife, Erica, worked as a beautician, but she never made more than five grand a year. Beautician?

That's what the article said. I'm sorry, have I offended you greatly? It's the worst term. The worst? Yeah. How about Holocaust you greatly? It's the worst term. The worst? Yeah. How about Holocaust denier? Is that a word? Okay.

In reference to my career, beautician is my least favorite term. Jesus Christo. The Holocaust denier. Yeah, my Holocaust denier said just get a trim. She said maybe a balayage. Frame the face a little bit. It'll really make my eyes pop. Assuming my eyes are even real, you know.

Why is beautician so bad? I just think it's like a really, I don't know, it's kind of an old-fashioned term. I don't know. I just don't like it. What's your favorite term? Hairstylist. Oh. kind of an old-fashioned term. I don't know. I just don't like it. What's your favorite term? Hairstylist. Cosmetologist. Nobel Prize winner.

That's right. How do you feel about... Oh, shoot. There was some other word for it, but I can't... What's that other old-timey word for it? Beauty operator. What? No one's ever said that. Yes, people say that all the time. Has anyone ever called you a beauty operator?

Old women. Yeah. Beauty operator. I said that. Yes, people say that all the time. Has anyone ever called you a beauty operator? Old women. Yeah. Beauty operator. I love that. If I were you, I would use that. No, I want to use, I told you what I want to use. What?

Hair surgeon. Because tree trimmers in Brit speak are often called tree surgeons. It only seems right for you to be a hair surgeon. I want to be a hair surgeon. Okay.

Okay. We'll make it happen. How do you feel about Erica being a beautician and making no more than five grand a year? I mean, I don't know what the fuck she's doing.

Not getting out of bed, right? I guess not. Okay. But anyway, anyway, not important. So really, by giving his— Can you imagine if I'd been working 15 years as a hairstylist paying five grand a year? I mean, clearly she doesn't have a job, right?

I mean, it's just like— It must just be like friends and family thing. Okay. So really, by giving this job to his brother, he was providing security for his brother and sister-in-law. to his brother. He was providing security for his brother and sister-in-law. Years went by

and Dane's career took off thanks to Brandy seeing him three times. That's right. Did you find out about him through MySpace?

Mm, mm-mm. Okay. Honestly, I think Dan, my brother, probably told me about him. Mm-hmm. And I think

he played me like a Comedy Central special. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah. So in 2000, he did a half hour special on Comedy Central Presents. Might that have been the thing you watched?

That might have been it. In 2003, he released his first DVD, Harmful If Swallowed. It went platinum. Yes. Then in 2005, he released Ret Swallowed. It went platinum. Yes. Then in 2005, he released Retaliation. It went double platinum. Then in 2005, he did his first special for HBO, the special that captured the hearts of college students everywhere, Vicious Circle.

Okay. My roommates and I in college, we fucking loved Vicious Circle. Do you remember the who shit on the coats bit? Yes. Okay. We might cut this because this is so stupid. But we were obsessed with that bit. Who shit on the coats?

You know, at a party, someone shits on the coats. We were so obsessed. So we went to Simmons, but Simmons was overcrowded that year. So we rented out, like, part of a dorm in Wentworth Institute of Technology. Okay. So we had the first floor in this really nice dorm room or dorm building, and we had the first several suites. And so my friend Christina printed out, like, on a million sheets of office paper, who shit on the coats? Uh-huh. It was very mature and very cool.

We put it up. We taped it to our windows. And we actually had it up for, like, a week before Wentworth asked us to take it down because some important people were coming to tour the school. You guys are such badasses. I know. Okay, that was the dumbest story ever. Welcome to the episode where Krista tells dumb stories.

No, I love it. We did think we were very cool. Yeah. And we were. Obviously. You heard the story. I heard. Obviously.

You put up the signs that said we should on the windows. Right there on the windows. It's very intriguing to all the people who walked by. 2005 was wild. He filmed two pilot episodes of his very own sitcom, Cooked. Which we all remember fondly. Okay, okay. Another story that I did not write down but I thought was interesting.

So apparently. Better than the first one, not as good as the second one? I think you're really going to enjoy this story. Oh, guys, she folded her arms. Oh, she's a tough crowd. Okay, here's the deal. So he did like a million sitcoms that never went anywhere. And one of them was with Betty White playing his grandma.

Oh, I bet that would have been great. Yeah. And Marie Osmond was his mom, I think he said. Anyway, not important. Important part is Betty White. So apparently Dane Cook fucking loved the Golden Girls, was obsessed with the Golden Girls, as we all are. Who isn't? You know, it actually made me like him more because I feel like that's not very bro-y to love the Golden Girls.

But anyway, so I guess they were about to do this scene and their lines had just gotten changed around and they were in front of a live audience and they were kind of like, oh, God, what do we do? And Betty White said, do you want to know a trick that we did on the Golden Girls? And he's like yeah okay and she goes okay you know there would be all these scenes where we would be sipping from coffee sipping a mug or whatever and we'd hold it up there okay the reason there are so many scenes like that or scenes where they're holding sugar packets they had their lines written on the inside of the cups and on the other side of the sugar packets. That's really smart. Okay. Was that better than the second story?

You're not getting as much of a kick out of it as I thought you were. Better than the first story, not as good as the second. Then Betty White shat on some coats. What about that? Is it a better story now? That's better. And that's how he got that bit. Then he did a 30-day, 20-show college tour, which was hilariously titled Tourgasm.

And that became a documentary for HBO. Then he hosted SNL. And oopsies, now it's 2006 and there's a rocket attached to Dane Cook's ass. So he hosted SNL again. And then he launched his own company, hilariously titled Superfinger Entertainment. Yep. So he could produce all of his own stuff. And he starred in Employee of the Month.

And then he had one. With Jessica Simpson, right? No. What? Yes, Jessica Simpson. But who else? Dax Shepard. Okay, you can't give me that look as if he really is your close personal friend.

You don't know the man. Good Lord. Did you see this film? Of course. Is it good? It's pretty funny. Okay, okay. He headlined Dave Attell's Insomniac Tour.

He hosted the Teen Choice Awards. Oh, wow. He sold out Madison Square Garden. He won the highly prestigious Big Entertainer Award from VH1 and the Best Comedian Award from the Teen Choice Awards. And Rolling Stone named him Hot Comic of the Year. Okay, do you remember this time? He was the top of the Year. Okay, do you remember this time?

Oh, yeah. He was the top of the world. And he starred in Good Luck Chuck, and then Dan in Real Life, and oh, what's this? Another comedy special? Okay. This one was called Rough Around the Edges,

and it was also at Madison Square Garden. And he did another album, and he performed for the troops. Sorry. He performed porn for the troops. And I'm sure some of them liked it. Dane's career was on fire, but his personal life was rocky. His mom, who had always been so supportive of his career, died of cancer in 2006.

And his dad died from cancer the following year. Yeah, real rough. That sucks. Both of those losses were devastating. But, you know, Dane kept pushing forward, kept working. And in case it isn't already obvious, let me tell you that Dane Cook was rolling in dough. It was just cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching. And this was an especially big deal because apparently he grew up on food stamps. So... Yeah, there were seven kids in his family. I dare you to not grow up on food stamps with seven kids in your family.

Yeah, yeah. But as I always say, Brandy, mo' money, mo' problems. Yeah? Yeah, I invented that. You wrote that? Yeah, I did. White people love to take credit for stuff like this. Oh, God.

And I'm no different. By this point, it was 2008, and Dane Cook had been living in L.A. for quite a while. But he was buying a house in California, and he was in a little bit of a pickle. You see, his business was still being run out of a P.O. box in Massachusetts. That wouldn't fly anymore, because he'd be living in California, where the taxes are higher, and he couldn't pretend like his business was located in Massachusetts. Blah, blah, blah. You get the idea. So he called up his brother, Daryl,

and proceeded to have a very awkward conversation with him. He was like, hey, you know, I'm getting this place in California. I found this new business manager. He's, you know, I don't know if it was he or she. I found this new business manager out here to run things. Don't worry, you're not out of a job. I'll find something else for you to do within the company. At that point, Daryl was being paid $12,500 a month to be Dane's business manager. Shit. For all you math nerds, it's cool 150K a year.

That's pretty good. Yeah, not bad, right? Yeah. But, you know, Dane didn't want to leave Daryl without a job, so he told him, I'm thinking you can be

like my merch fulfillment guy, you know, whatever. It doesn't matter. Bottom line is, I've got a new business manager out here in California, and I need you to give all the relevant documents

and whatever to this new person. I know you can't see this coming because you have no idea what's going to happen next, but things got a little weird. No, did they? They sure did. But, you know, people can get weird when you tell them they're going to have a new job and it's unexpected.

So just calm down. Yeah. Wipe that smug look off your face. But, you know, people can get weird when you tell them they're going to have a new job and it's unexpected. So just calm down. Yeah. Wipe that smug look off your face. So this actually made Dan feel—made— So this actually made— He dropped the E now. It was good that I did. You're losing your job.

I'm losing my E. We've all got problems. And you're losing your job. I'm losing my E. We've all got problems. So he felt really bad because he'd always considered his brother his first best friend. Oh, yeah. So in this podcast, he said he wrote his brother a letter.

But I think he meant email because, I mean, I don't know how they, you know, anyway, I'm going to say email. And he was like, look, it's all going to be okay. I've got some business ideas, and you're going to be taken care of. I'm envisioning this sort of Rocky II moment for my career. It's all good. And I've not seen any movies, so I assume that's a good thing. I don't know what that means either. I've not seen Rocky or Rocky II or Rocky IV.

I've not seen any of them. Oh, I thought you were going to get on me about this. No, I don't know the Rocky movies. That's not my thing. I went up those steps in Philadelphia to the museum. Okay. That was pretty cool. It was also with my college friends. Did you, like, dance around at the top with your arms in the air?

I mean, of course. Were you in a gray sweatsuit? No. That's the end of my Rocky knowledge. Oh, I got one more. What's that? Adrian. Yeah.

That's it. That's it. Okay. That's all. I'm tapped. Well, I'm glad we had this conversation. So, you know, Dane writes him this email, and Daryl responded, and it seems like things were good.

He ended his letter on an upbeat note. The last sentence was, to the future. Okay. Yeah, it's weird because Dane was actually talking to Buzz Lightyear. He just didn't know it. That was on a Friday. On the following Monday, Dane Cook woke up, sat up in bed, woke up his girlfriend, who I'm sure was a literal fetus. Have you seen? Does he date really young women? It's disgusting. I didn't know that about him.

Write this second. Google Dane Cook girlfriend. Okay. You are going to see pictures of these two on the beach, and it looks like a dad who's trying to bone his daughter. Ew. Well, I'm sorry. That's just the truth.

Oh, God. Hold on. I got distracted when you said he'd bone his daughter. Pictures of them on... Oh, yeah. That's not good. 26-year age gap. Oh, I don't like it.

They started dating when she was 19. Oh, no. Are they still together? Yep. Yeah, what has happened to his face? Um, he's messed with it. He has messed with it big time. Stop it.

You guys, Brandy's doing an impression and it's really scary. That's what his eyebrows look like. I know. They look like... They've been stapled back. Yeah. Oh boy. Okay. And she's a young looking teenager too. I know that's a weird thing to say about a teenager.

Kelsey Taylor. Yeah. That's her name. Yeah. Yeah, it looks like she's kissing her dad in this picture. Yeah. So he makes some jokes in his stand-up about how much younger she is and I don't know. I'm not really with him on it. It's like if I told a self-deprecating joke about murdering somebody.

I don't know that people would really be on my side. Yeah, he's got cargo short swim trunks. Money can't buy you taste, Brandy. So, you know, he and his brother have had this good email exchange. Yeah. Monday morning, he wakes up and he turned to his girlfriend and he said, I think my brother stole all my money.

What? And she said, goo-goo-ga-ga. Yeah. Okay. Brandy, you look so mad. Oh, no. Okay, so this all may sound like it came out of nowhere. Yeah.

In a way it did, but the bottom line was that Dane had been feeling kind of weird about this, and that was partly based on his brother being a bit of a weirdo. But it was also based on this new business manager saying things like, hey, you know, I'm trying to get this really basic info from your brother, And he's just throwing up these roadblocks. He's being kind of a pain. It's strange. I don't understand why this is so difficult. So all of that had been percolating in the back of Dane's head. And he woke up that Monday morning with a really bad feeling. Woke up that Monday morning with a really bad feeling. So he got up and went to his local Bank of America.

Oh. And the manager of the Bank of America brought him into a private office and sat him down. And Dan was like, yeah, I want to look at my accounts. So he gave her his federal ID number. And she was like, clickety-clackety-clickety-clack. That doesn't work. So, you know, he tries another password tries another clickety clacky doesn't work clickety clack doesn't work doesn't work doesn't work but somehow perhaps by being like I'm Dane this is my company the manager did give him some information. She said, I'm really sorry, but I'm looking at your corporate accounts here. There's nothing in here.

This was the first time that Dane had ever looked at his bank accounts. Oh, my gosh. So he'd gotten monthly statements from his brother, and I assume he looked at those. But he'd never, like, logged into his bank accounts and actually looked at the activity. He'd always trusted his brother. What do you think of that? I think it'd be very easy to do that. Yeah, I think so, too.

You glance at the statements when they come through. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sure he was getting a huge ass salary, so he, you know, whatever. Yeah, absolutely. Turns out, on the day that Dane told Daryl to hand over the books to the new business manager, Daryl forged himself one last check from Dane's account. How much? It was for three million dollars. Oh my gosh. Dane was shocked and hurt and pissed. So he called up the Massachusetts Attorney General, who he actually knew, and was like, look, my brother has been stealing from me

and I don't know if this is of interest to you guys, but if he's stealing from me, I'm sure he's not paying taxes. Yeah. There's no way this dude is paying taxes on the money he's stealing. Yeah. So how about we Batman and Robin this thing? And the attorney general was like, sure thing, I'll get in the sidecar. And the police went out.

I thought he was going to say, sure thing, I'll grab the tights. I'm sorry for not doing the joke that you envisioned for that moment, Brandi. And then he made them out of the curtains. You hated that joke last week. You are not allowed to bastardize

it. I was so proud of that joke, too. You were cold-blooded. You just looked at me when I said it. So, police went out. They arrested Daryl. They arrested Erica. But, you might be asking yourself, how much had Daryl and Erica stolen?

A shit ton. And where was the money? Turns out they bought houses in Wilmington in Maine. They bought jewelry, antiques, nice cars. They'd gone on vacations. And they'd also stashed some money away for a rainy day. Like how much money? Well, like they literally stashed money away.

Under a bed. Oh my gosh. In a flower pot. In the attic. In the freezer. In a jar of American chop suey what okay now I was gonna ask you is that do you remember that stuff like from the 90s is that those little thin hang on I'm I'm I have no idea what that is googling

American American... Oh, blah, blah, blah, blah. Ew, what is this? Looks like goulash. Oh. Well, at any rate, they had money stashed away in that. In their goulash? Well, I'm sure it was emptied out, Brandy. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Well, I'm sure it was emptied out, Brandi.

Investigators also reported that they found money stashed in a designer purse, which sounds like solid detective work to me. Come on. Investigators determined that Daryl and Erica stole more than $10 million between 2004 and 2008. Holy shit. But in subsequent interviews, Dane estimates that the correct number is more like tens of millions of dollars. Because he started as Dane's business manager in the early 90s. Yeah. And I mean, when he was like rocketing to the top, he was doing so much stuff.

And if he wasn't looking at his accounts, I mean, come on. Ugh. Daryl and Erica didn't fight the charges. They both pled guilty. In court, Dane said his brother had dead shark eyes.

The fuck are dead shark eyes? Like just dead inside. You know those beady little eyes? Yeah. He said he was like a guy he didn't even know. At Daryl's sentencing, Attorney General Martha Cochley said, For several years, Mr. McCauley abused his position as a family member to gain Mr. Cook's trust and stole millions of dollars for personal gain. and stole millions of dollars for personal gain.

And in her separate sentencing hearing, a reporter for the Lowell Sun noted that Erica arrived in court wearing an ill-fitting green t-shirt, a ponytail, and no makeup. Which is also a crime. I thought that was the bitchiest thing I've ever seen! It was like an ill-fitting green t-shirt. My God. Through her defense attorney, Brad Bennion, Erica said that she was extremely embarrassed by what she did. And extremely embarrassed for showing up in court without a stitch of eyeliner.

Daryl was ordered to pay Dane $12 million in restitution. Okay, but how's he going to do that? He's not. I mean, right? Like, with all this restitution stuff, it's not happening. And also, I'm sorry, those folks have money stashed away somewhere. Oh, yeah. They're doing fine.

They got offshore accounts. That's not what I—well, maybe. You think they have a literal mattress full of money? Yes, I do. Yeah. I truly do. It's absolutely possible. Uh-huh.

I mean, if they had it in the chop suey thing, if they had it in the attic— They were hiding money in their goulash. That's right. So he was sentenced to five to six years in prison, and Erica was sentenced to two and a half to three years in prison. They both got ten years of probation. Are you ready for poetic justice? You know I love it. You know how I told you that Daryl had been working as a prison guard before he got the job?

He went to the same prison where he'd been a guard? Yes. That is poetic justice. That sounds terrible. It does. I mean, you better hope you were a nice guard. Yeah. It was all really shitty for Dane. He felt betrayed and he felt panicked as shit because he'd worked like a dog for years and he had like nothing to show for it. He'd been wiped out financially and to make matters worse, he couldn't shake the feeling that those two shitheads had squirreled away some of his money somewhere. Yeah. They'd put it in the

chop suey jar. But where else had they put it, Brandy? Well, about a year and a half later, the police opened up a wall in Daryl and Erica's house, and in it, they found $800,000 cash. Holy shit. So they took a picture of it and they emailed it to Dane and they were like, hey, you just made $800,000. Congrats. But Dane didn't get that money until several years later because, of course, Daryl never paid taxes. So Dane had to first make things right with the IRS, and then years later, he got a portion of the wall money. Oh, my gosh. But I'm telling you, right?

I mean, if it's in that wall, it's in road trip. We go find Dane Cook's money. Okay. In the meantime, Dane was in this very weird position where he had this very famous name, but no money to show for it. And his career wasn't what it used to be. Do you remember he had like he was on top of the world and then

pew! Yeah. I do. Yeah. I think Louis C.K. accused him of plagiarizing some jokes. Terribly nice guy. I was going to say, Louis C.K. shouldn't be accusing anybody of anything. Yeah, he should be, you know, masturbating alone,

focusing on that. Keeping his penis in his pants, probably. Seems like a full-time job. So, you know, his career's not what it used to be. People are kind of shit. You know what I've, what I felt like it was,

was other comedians didn't seem to like him. Yeah. So it definitely, like his career definitely plummeted. So the first two times I saw him, I saw him at the Sprint Center. Okay. And then the third time I saw him was at the Midland. Right. Much smaller venue. Right. And it was like the first show of this little tour that he was doing. And so he did his set. And then he came out and he sat on the edge of the stage and he took questions from the audience. Wow. Yeah.

What did you think? I thought it was really cool. Yeah. Yeah. What year was that? Oh, gosh. I don't know. I'd say probably maybe like seven years ago-ish, ten years ago. I don't know.

Oh, my God, Brandy. What? Was it like 2011? Maybe. Okay, here we go. So, he's got this famous name, but he's got no money. And at the same time, the country was in the midst of an economic crisis. It's like 2010 at this point.

People were being super careful with their money. He basically had one card left to play. His brother had taken all the money that he could, but Daryl hadn't pulled out $325,000 that Dane had invested in stocks. It would basically have been too hard for him to pull out without Dane noticing. So Daryl never touched that money. So during this massive economic crisis, Dane took that money out of the stock market, and he used it to rent like 100 arenas all across America and Canada. And he called them like B arenas, which the Midland would be a B arena. Yeah, absolutely. And he would go like B arenas, which the Midland would be a B arena. And he would go

there on an off night. So you probably went on like a Wednesday. It was in the middle of the week. Okay. That's exactly right. So what he did was he would rent these B arenas for like 70K or whatever. But in return for renting the venue, instead of doing things the usual way where a performer will like work with a venue. I'm saying this like I know. Yeah. You do so many comedy shows. I'm on stage all the time because I'm an actor, Reese.

So, you know, they usually get a cut of things. But this way, he was taking on all of the risk. Uh-huh. Again, like, all the fucking reward because he got ticket sales, he got merch sales. Basically, he paid his crew, and he estimated that he got, like, 84% of the profit. Wow. Which was usually—I mean, these are all estimates that he gave, but, like, you know, book a venue for $70K, walk out with, like, $300K. Wow.

So he did that for about a year and a half. And according to him, in that time period, performing all those shows, renting out all those arenas to the like hardcore fans, he made back all the money that his brother had stolen from him. Oh, my gosh. It's kind of – I can't believe you went to one of these shows. Yes. So, you know, who's to say if it's him just being a little cheesy and whatever, but he said in multiple interviews that that was such a big turning point for him because he felt like those were the fans who like really helped him when he was down.

And that's when he stopped doing kind of the shitty movies and stuff and, like, started saying no to stuff. Now, who knows how much of it was that stuff wasn't coming in. It wasn't being offered to him. Yeah. But still, that's the way he frames it. So there you go. Does he regret hiring his brother? He says that when he hired his brother, it actually put a lot of pressure on him.

He had to make sure that his brother was taken care of, so it made him work harder than he would have otherwise. And so looking back, he's not totally certain that he would have achieved the level of success he achieved if he hadn't hired his brother in the first place. Of course, in another interview I listened to, he was like, somebody asked him his top two career mistakes. And one was just like panicking over the SNL audition. And the other was having people around him he shouldn't have had around him. Yeah. Yeah. Like a 19-year-old, for example.

No, I don't think that's what he meant. I'm putting that in his mouth. You're putting the 19-year-old in his example. No, I don't think that's what he meant. I'm putting that in his mouth. You're putting the 19-year-old in his mouth? Ew, stop it. Oh, gross. Oh, God. You said it, Kristen. I know.

Yeah. Okay, so I had a bunch of stuff in here about his, you know, child bride. It was not his bride, but, you know, we've covered that. So, anyway, that's the story of Dane Cook's embezzling half-brother. stuff in here about his you know child bride who's not his bride but you know we've covered that so anyway that's the story of dane cook's embezzling half brother that was very good thank you i it was a light one folks i enjoyed it in these trying times i thought we could use a light one i enjoyed that very much yeah i was a big dane big Dane Cook fan. I was, too. Yeah. I was, too. I think everybody our age, like, had a period where they, I mean. We all had a period where we wore scrunchies.

We all had a period where we loved Dane Cook. Yeah. We all had a period where we did that toilet paper wrap. Okay, you guys are going to have to listen to the bonus episode to get that. All right. are you... I'm so excited for this. Are you ready? Yes, I'm ready.

To hear about a dream? Okay, you are so ridiculous. I knock at the door. An affair to remember. Twilight calling. I watched a good documentary. I think you have seen the documentary. It's on Netflix.

So anybody who has Netflix, watch it. What's it called? It's called Dream Killer. So a lot of this information comes from that. And then also, I found what I would call a project. It looked to be a college journalism student's project of some kind, where he had written a bunch of articles about this case. He'd gone to the trial and interviewed a bunch of people. So his name is Chris Hamby, the author of those articles, and they were very helpful. I totally thought you were going to say Chris Hansen. Unknown journalist, perhaps you who maybe heard the name around Chris Hansen.

I've caught that name before. No, Chris Hamby and his articles were very helpful. It was a clear black night, a clear white moon. And Warren G. was on the street trying to consume. No, just kidding. Kristen, you don't know that song? No. Regulators? No. Oh, my gosh.

Okay. For real, though, it was actually a clear night with a full moon, as all of the articles will tell you. It was approximately 2.20 a.m. on November 1, 2001. So essentially late Halloween night. And Shawna Ornt, a janitor at the Columbia Daily Tribune in Columbia, Missouri, had stepped outside for a smoke break. stepped outside for a smoke break. She saw two shadowy figures near the car of Kent Heitholt, a sports editor at the Tribune who had left just a few minutes earlier. Realizing that something was going on, but not sure what that was, Shauna went back into the building and got her supervisor, Jerry Trump. And when they came back out, the men were still there and one of them turned to look at

them and yelled something like, someone's hurt out here, man. Could I just ask you not to bring up Trump? We'll try not to do a political comment. I do not believe there's any relation here. And then the two men walked out of the parking lot, through an alley, left the scene. After saying someone's hurt? Someone's hurt over here, man. Okay. Yeah. And they walked pretty calmly.

They weren't, like, running. Like, they just kind of calmly walked away. And that's when the two noticed, the two who had come out, Shauna and Jerry noticed that Kent was on the ground behind his car and there was blood everywhere. They called 911, but Kent was declared dead shortly after emergency crews arrived on scene. He'd been severely beaten with a blunt object, but the cause of death was determined to be strangulation. There was an abundance of evidence at the scene,

including fingerprints lifted from a car door, hairs in Heitholt's hands, and footprints in the blood. And Shauna Ornt had made eye contact with one of the young men that she saw in the parking lot that night, and she had given a very detailed description to the police. So detailed, in fact, that they were able to make a composite sketch. And not just, like, they actually made two composite sketches. One of, like, him, like, head on and a profile shot as well.

Like, she had really seen this guy. Yeah. file shot as well. Like she had really seen this guy. Yeah. She described him as a white male, 20 or 21, six feet tall, medium to muscular build. And then she said he had blonde hair that was spiked in the front. Which described every guy. Oh yeah, exactly. She didn't believe that he had facial hair and he had on a light gray shirt. Despite all of this evidence, this eyewitness account, you know, the detailed description of the man seen in the parking lot that night, the case went cold. Two years passed. And then in October of 2003, the local media covered the murder again, hoping to drum up new leads.

Charles Erickson, who had been a junior in high school when the murder occurred, read about the case in the newspaper. And then he began having dreams about it. He described the dreams as, like, flashes of memories. And he began to question if maybe he'd had something to do with it. Because he couldn't remember anything about where he'd been or what he'd done after a certain point on Halloween night 2001. You know what that means. You committed a murder?

For sure. For sure. Anytime you can't recall exactly what you did at a given time, it's because you murdered someone. That's right. So Charles knew that he'd been out with his friend, Ryan Ferguson, that night. Despite both of them being only 17, they'd spent most of the night at a club in downtown Columbia. Ryan's sister knew a bouncer there, and sometimes he'd let them in. And so on that particular night, they'd met her there and had, you know, bought some drinks, whatever.

But Charles was also under the influence of cocaine and Adderall that night. And at some point, he had blacked out. So I always think of, like, a blackout some point, he had blacked out. So I always think of like a blackout as somebody like literally passing out. No, Brandy. Nope. Nope. He was functioning. He was walking.

He was talking. He was heavily intoxicated. But this guy was not just like laying on the ground. That's why blackouts are scary. Your brain goes goodbye, but your body keeps on moving. So he had no memory of anything, like, later in the evening after arriving at the bar. Cocaine and drinking and Adderall. Why so much?

I didn't ask him. Okay, what does Adderall do? So Adderall is like an ADD drug, right? Right, right. But if you don't have ADD, it's like an upper. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. On top of cocaine?

Yes, and then alcohol. I know. I know. I'm focusing on the wrong thing. Yeah, you really are. Can we do one thing at a time? No. He was, you know, doing it all.

Okay. So he had no memories of that evening. I should say, I am on sinus medication and I took some ibuprofen. So I'm pretty hardcore as well. Yes. Yeah, and did you do the allergy nasal stuff? You know what happened yesterday? What?

You hit that inhaler today, Chris? I was wearing a really stupid outfit, and Norm came into the kitchen, and I was like, did you ever dream you'd ever be with a woman this good looking? And then I spun around and did some dorky dance moves in the kitchen. And then, in my head, the bit was over. But I went and my nasal sprayed and sniffed it up. And that's when Norman really started laughing. And then I realized.

No, the joke was done. The joke was done. I'm obviously gorgeous and amazing. All really hot women use nasal spray. Absolutely. That's right. I use it on the daily. So Charles told Ryan of his concerns.

He told him about the dreams, and he asked him if he thought they may have been involved in the murder. And he's like, no, dude. And Ryan's like, no! What? Absolutely not! He's like, what the fuck are you talking about? He's like, dude, we left the bar that night, like, right after 1 a.m. Yeah.

I took you home. Uh-huh. And that was it. Well, and to be clear, these are two 17-year-olds with no violent. No! Yeah, there's nothing violent in their history. Is it? Well, and to be clear, these are two 17-year-olds with no violent. No. Yeah, there's nothing violent in their history. Yeah, they for sure, for funsies, murdered some dude. Some random dude in a parking lot.

In like a really brutal way. Yes. Charles said to him, it's just, it's crazy that someone had been murdered a couple blocks away from where we'd been partying. And Ferguson's like, okay, dude. Well, yeah, I mean, it is crazy. Yeah, that is kind of crazy. We didn't have anything to do with it. I mean, we're laughing, but, like, this is the saddest, scariest story.

It is the scariest story. It is the scariest story. Stay tuned. Yeah. So, despite. I'm sorry. I just took this water bottle. You hit your vape pen?

Oh, my God. You guys. Someone in the Discord, I can't remember who it was, was like, Kristen, are you hitting a vape pen? And I was never more offended in my life. No, it's my water bottle. She hits it hard. I'm sucking on my water bottle. Could you imagine if I started vaping?

It'd be weird. It'd be really fucking weird. Really off brand. That's a younger gal's game. The vape pen. The jewels. Are you kidding me? Yeah. It's not a mid-thirties thing. No, I don't think you pick up vaping in your mid-thirties. No, I agree. Despite Ryan's reassurance, the dreams didn't stop. Well, yeah, that's the thing about dreams, man. And sometimes the memory flashes would come to him when he wasn't sleeping. Charles became more and more concerned that he had been involved in the unsolved murder he'd read about in the paper.

Then, in November of 2003, he read another article about the case. Was this a year later or was this just later in the month? No, this is just—so he first read the article in October of 2003, and he's like, oh, then he starts having new dreams. A month later, he reads another article. So this one includes the composite sketch that had been done based on the description that Shawna Orton had given. And he thought the sketch looked like him. So he grew more concerned.

And so he began telling people, usually when he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol or both, as we know he likes to do, he started saying that he'd done something bad. His claims started pretty vague, like, I did something I really regret. And then they got more specific, and at least once he'd said he dreamed that he was involved in Heitholt's murder. And then it got more and more specific until the point that he eventually involved in Heitholt's murder. And then it got more and more specific

until the point that he eventually told several friends that he and Ryan Ferguson had killed Kent Heitholt. In January of 2004, police received an anonymous tip that Charles Erickson and Ryan Ferguson were responsible for the Heitholt murder. But for whatever reason, this tip was not deemed credible or taken seriously. Like, nothing happened from this tip. Because it was about some dude who had a dream?

Yeah. Then, on March 10, 2004, police received another call. This one came from a couple of Charles Erickson's friends. And they told police that Charles had been talking about the murder in detail and was claiming responsibility. So police brought Charles Erickson in for questioning. I know. Can you imagine? in for questioning. I know. Can you imagine? I can't.

I can't imagine. You convince yourself? Yeah. I mean, this dude had terrible anxiety, I think. Yeah. And it just gets so much worse for him. I only saw half the documentary. So they bring him in, and investigators tell him, you know, we received some tips saying that you're talking about the murder, that you're claiming responsibility.

And he explained to him that that's not exactly what he'd been doing. He explained that he was concerned he may have been involved as he was having those memory flashes. Yeah. And that he couldn't account for his whereabouts on the night of the murder. But he told the investigator that he, quote, didn't even remember it. So investigators asked Erickson to walk them through what he did remember. So he told the investigators that he and Ryan had been at By George, that's the nightclub that they were at, which was a few blocks from the Tribune.

They'd run out of drinking money and decided to rob someone so that they could go back and drink more. And somehow they'd ended up at the— Was that part of the dream, the robbing someone? Yeah, this is like his— Okay, so this is all— This is all his dream, his memories, his recollections, whatever. So somehow they'd ended up in the Tribune parking lot.

So somehow they'd ended up in the Tribune parking lot. And that, when they got there, Charles said that he hit Kent Heitholt with a wrench or some kind of tool from Ryan Ferguson's car. At that point, he said he got sick, he threw up, and he sat down. And when he looked over, he saw Ryan Ferguson strangling Kent Heitholt. And that's when he saw a cleaning lady. He said he may have yelled at her. And then he said he and Ferguson left the scene and they ran into a friend of Charles Erickson's named Dallas Mallory. He happened to be driving by.

He stopped at a red light. Erickson talked to him for a second and told him that he'd attacked someone. And then Charles and Ryan went back to the club. And Dallas was like, cool, cool, cool. Cool, cool. Absolutely. See you guys later. So he tells him this version of the story.

And then the investigator's like, okay. And he turns on a video camera and he's like, tell me that story one more time. And so Charles starts again. Why wasn't the video camera recording the whole time? Exactly. Yeah, that's a problem like, I don't know. That might be the first problem here. It's one of many.

Uh-huh. So Charles walks him through exactly the same story that he just told. And when he gets to the point where he says he vomited at the scene, the investigator's like, no, we didn't find any vomit at the scene. And he's like, okay, maybe I vomited on the way there or maybe I vomited after we left there. I know I threw up. And he's like, okay. And then he says, I saw Ryan over the guy. And he starts describing the attack. He says that Heitholt was on his back and that Ferguson,

and he kind of demonstrates he was over him, and he motions that he's strangling him with his hands. And the investigator stops him. And he's like, okay, let's talk about that. Let's talk about the strangulation. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about strangulation. So he was strangled, but we know what he was strangled with.

That's some information that I've kind of been holding back from you. Mm-hmm. You tell me what he was strangled with? And this, so this is something that had been intentionally left out of the reports out of the media. So something that only the murderer would know. And so the investigator's like, OK, is it possible that you know what he was strangled with and you just don't want to tell me? And Charles goes, I think it was a shirt or something. And the investigator goes, no, it wasn't a shirt.

I know it wasn't a shirt. Are we playing a guessing game here? Right. And then Charles goes, maybe it was a bungee cord or something from his car. I don't see why he'd have a rope in his car. And then the investigator goes, well, we know for a fact that his belt was ripped off his pants and that he was strangled with his belt. Oh, you were holding that back for five seconds? Five seconds, yeah. Cool.

And Charles goes, and this is on tape, Charles goes, really? And the investigator goes, so is it possible that Ryan could have strangled this guy with his belt, you know, and you didn't know about it? How would he not have known about it? And Charles goes, the guy's, the man's belt? His own belt? And the detective goes, yes, does that ring a bell? And Charles Erickson goes, not at all. Like, he's incredulous at this point.

Yeah, yeah, because it doesn't match his dream. Exactly. And the investigator goes, but you saw Ryan strangle him, though. In a dream, damn it. And that's when Charles Erickson says I thought I did I mean I might not even know

what I'm talking about right now oh but police don't want to hear that nope because they want to solve the case exactly

so this tape recorded well not solve it no they want to they want to close it arrest somebody for the case yeah for the murder. This tape-recorded version of the interview was, like, 50 minutes long.

And at one point, Charles Erickson said, like, very frustrated. He says, I'm making presumptions based on what I read in a newspaper. Wow, I didn't realize he just straight out said that. And the cops were like, good enough for us. Yeah, exactly. Alright, sounds great. So following the interview, three detectives got Charles in a car and they drove him through

downtown Columbia trying to recreate the route that he and Ryan Ferguson had taken that night in an attempt to like jog his memory. And so they drive up to the parking lot of the Tribune and Charles goes, can you tell me exactly where this happened? And the detectives are like, yeah. And they point out the car in the parking lot. Charles needs them to tell him where it happened.

And so one of the detectives points out a car that's parked in the parking lot. And he's like, you see that car right there? That's where Kent Heitholt's car was parked. And he's like, okay. And the detectives ask. So he's, like, looking around. And, like, there's some footage of him sitting in this police car, like, on this drive. And it's very clear that he doesn't recognize, like, any of it.

And so one of the detectives asks him, you know, after the attack, which direction did you leave the parking lot? And he points off and he says, you know, probably that way. And he motions west. But the bloody footprints at the scene had led the opposite direction. They had left on the east direction of the parking lot. And so they were like, no, I think you're confused. Do you think it's possible that you might have gone east rather than west? And he's like, it's possible.

And then. This is so upsetting. It's so upsetting. And then they're like, what did you do after you left the parking lot? He's like, we went back to the club and continued drinking. We stayed for at least another hour. Covered in blood? The bar that they'd been at that night closed at 1.30.

Kent Heitholt was murdered at 2.20 a.m. So being good cops, they were like, wait a minute, this isn't adding up. Right. We've got what we call a false confession here. So we're going to let you go. Yeah, that's exactly what happened. End of story. End of story.

And Ryan Ferguson has nothing to do with it. He's just a hot guy we wanted to mention. Yeah. No, Kristen, that's not what happened. So they're like, fuck, fuck, fuck. Like, no, this is matching the evidence. Okay, Kristen, that's not what happened. So they're like, fuck, fuck, fuck. This is matching the evidence. OK, great. So they get him back to the station and they ask him to walk him walk them through the night of the murder again.

Now, with the new information, they write exactly. And so he's getting frustrated at this point because what experts believe that Charles Erickson was trying to do that day that he went to, like, when he was brought in for questioning, what he wanted to happen was to tell the police this is the dreams that I'm having. And for them to say, well, that doesn't match the evidence. You obviously weren't involved. Yeah. But that's not what happened. Yeah, he wanted them to basically do their job. Yeah. Yeah.

And so they get him back to the station, and they're trying to get him to walk them through the thing again. And he's like, like I said, I could be just sitting here fabricating all of this and not know it. Oh. I mean, you understand, like, I wouldn't be here if I didn't feel guilty about it, but it's just I don't, I can't recollect it. I mean, it's just a trip for me to have to sit here and try to look at something that happened and I read about it and try to base what I remember off of that, you know? it and try to base what I remember off of that, you know?

And at this point, like, the investigators, like, decide they're going to do, like, a bad cop thing. Oh, sure. And the investigator's like, all right, buddy. Counterpoint, they're all bad cops. He's like, all right, let's just stop right there, okay? Now, one thing I'm not going to do is I'm not going to sit here and listen to this kind of gibberish. Okay.

Yeah. And at this point, he's like, Charles is getting, like, worked up because he's getting yelled at by this police officer. And he's, like, trying to say something, but it keeps getting cut off. And he's like, no, listen. This investigator is like, I'm going to start talking, and you're going to start listening. It keeps getting cut off. And he's like, no, listen. This investigator is like, I'm going to start talking and you're going to start listening.

And now he's like, this investigator gets like this close, like right in Charles Erickson's face. And he says, now you better start thinking very clearly. We're going to go through this thing step by step. And I don't want to hear, oh, all of a sudden, I just think I maybe fabricated this. No. What I want to hear is exactly what Ryan told you. Because that's what's going to keep you

in a position to where you're not going to be the sole individual out here responsible for what happened to Kent. This is so upsetting. Yeah. Yeah. So they started at the club. The investigator asked him, whose idea was it to rob someone to get more drinking money? And Charles says, to the best of my knowledge, it was Ryan's idea. And the investigator stops him, says, I don't want to even hear best of my knowledge.

Okay. Whose idea was it? Let me coach you into the confession of my dreams. Yes, and Charles says, it was Ryan's idea. This is how a false confession happens. Like this is a step by step example of how details are fed

to people and how false confessions happen. It is terrifying. So this continued on like in rapid fire. They went through the events of the night. And every time that Charles would say something that didn't please the investigator, he'd stop him and say, I don't want to hear that. And so he'd back it up and start over.

Finally, after like 20 minutes of this, they ended the interview. The videotape stopped. And Charles was left in the interrogation room by himself and he just kind of like collapsed into his hands in his seat. Yeah. Yeah. By this time, Ryan Ferguson was living in Kansas City while attending college. Was he at UMKC?

No, he went to Maplewoods Community College. Oh, okay. So he arrived home to his apartment complex that March afternoon in 2004. And he was taken into custody. When confronted by the accusations of Erickson, Ryan maintained his innocence. He was like, what the fuck? Of course. Yeah.

And he even told the detectives when he, so they read him portions of the interrogation with Charles Erickson and the claims that he was making, and he told detectives that it sounded as if he was making the whole thing up. Yeah. And it does. That's exactly what it sounds like.

Ryan told investigators that he wasn't involved and that he didn't believe that there was any way that Charles was involved because he'd taken him home that night. Ryan said they'd left the bar around 1.20 and that he'd taken Charles home and then gone home himself. Yeah. And his cell phone records confirmed this. Oh, God. Ryan Ferguson was arrested and charged. They just ignored the cell phone data? Yeah.

Oh, cool. And charged with first-degree murder and robbery. Oh. Charles Erickson was charged with second-degree murder. Charles Erickson was charged with second-degree murder. So weird that robbery was the motive here, right? Because Kent Heitholt's wallet was left in his car. But that's, like, super common, right?

Teenage boys often set out to rob someone and then just, like, brutally murder him. That's the—that is the funny thing. We wanted to rob him. Yeah. So, oopsies, we just went gangbusters. Yeah. We strangled, we beat him, you know, the whole deal. And by the end of all that, we were like, you know what? That was enough.

We don't need money. Right. Investigators were stoked. They'd made two arrests in a case that had been cold for more than two years. They made two arrests in a case that had been cold for more than two years. They practically did cartwheels at the press conference they held announcing the arrests. Plus, this case was going to be a slam dunk. They had all that physical evidence.

Oh, wait. Oh, shit. Those fingerprints at the scene. Oopsies. Yeah, they didn't match Charles or Ryan. Neither did the bloody footprints. No worries, no worries. They still had those hairs that had been found in Heitholt's hand.

Oh, shit. What? They didn't match either of the suspects either? Fuck. You know what I vote? I vote ignore it all. Cool, cool, cool. No problem.

There must be blood in Ryan Ferguson's car. That bloody of a scene, there's no way he's not tracking that blood into his car as they make their getaway. What's that? Not a speck of blood in his car? Double fuck. No worries. No worries. We've got that tape-recorded confession.

Yeah. It's super sketch and-recorded confession. Yeah. It's super sketch and contradictory and all over the place. And, oh, shit, what's that? Erickson's trying to recant it? What? No take-backs. So they couldn't let that happen. So they had to go all in on that taped confession of Charles Erickson.

Polish up that turd, if you will. Oh, Brandy, keep it classy, would you? Charles had very quickly wavered on his confession, but investigators convinced him that Ryan was talking and that Ryan was going to pin the whole thing on him, so he agreed to take a deal. Oh, he would plead guilty to second degree murder and testify against Ryan in exchange for a 25 year sentence.

Whew. What a relief that was because, uh, thank goodness they were able to lock down that deal and have a star witness at trial to testify against Ryan Ferguson. That could have been bad, bad, real bad if they didn't have that. Yeah. It's so upsetting to me. Yeah.

How this investigation was handled. No evidence matches either of the people they arrest and charge with the crime. Just a few bad apples, Brandy. Immediately following Ryan's arrest, his dad, Bill... Okay, let me introduce you to a hero. Bill is really something.

Bill made it his mission to help his son. He knew Ryan was innocent, but he didn't want to take any chances, so he hired this big, fancy lawyer from this very shiny law firm in Kansas City. Surely they'd be in good hands. Ruben's case, Ruben, Connie, I don't cry it. That's a little KC joke for you. In addition to hiring this very expensive, very fancy attorney, Bill made it his mission to learn everything he possibly could about the case.

Did he really hire a good attorney? I thought the guy was kind of an old bumbling fart. Yeah, he sure turned out to be. Oh, so just a really expensive old bumbling fart. Yep. Fuck, I didn't... And they didn't know it until the trial began. Oh, I didn't know that part.

Yes. So... This is terrifying! It's terrible! Okay, so Bill is like, I have to be involved in his defense. Like, I have to know everything about this. He got the 11 boxes of discovery sent to his house so he could learn every bit about the case. He basically worked, offered to work as a paralegal for the attorney. He wanted to set up exhibits for him.

They had all of these charts and stuff they were going to use. They had this big aerial picture of downtown Columbia that they had labeled with all the places that they had been that night. And they were going to lay out this path and show that it wasn't possible and whatever. He learns everything there is to learn about this case. And he keeps offering to help the big shiny attorney from the fancy law firm. No, we got it. We got it taken care of. No problems. We're great.

We're set to go to trial. Which, for the record, I can understand telling someone, no, I've got the professional expertise. I've got this. Yes. Yeah. So by the time that Ryan Ferguson's trial began, and I'm a little bit fuzzy on how this happened. But for whatever reason, this was moved out of Columbia into a rural county in basically like the St. Louis area. It was moved to Troy, Missouri, Lincoln County. County. I believe what had happened is like the first attorney that they had assigned, like a public defender that Ryan Ferguson had been assigned, had it automatically like this was his first move, file for a change of venue. And then it had gone through without the second attorney's knowledge or something like that. So when the big shiny lawyer came in, he was like,

that's not a great move for us because we moved it out of like a city area to a rural area which means we're going to get a whole different type of juror yeah actually creates a big obstacle for us but like what was done was done and the trial was held in a rural county yeah which worked against and it worked for the prosecution really um well and also i imagine it would help the defense if the people kind of generally knew the layout of downtown exactly exactly so this thing was a shit show from the get-go thank you for rhyming absolutely that was just right i I mean, I spit sick beats, as you say, Kristen. You're welcome. So jury selection began on October 14th, 2005.

At this time, there was this weird opt out thing, like juror opt out program in Lincoln County, which is where this was being held, out program in Lincoln County, which is where this was being held, where people who had been called for jury duty could pay $50 and do six hours of community service in exchange for not having to serve on a jury. Wow. Yeah. Oh, I don't love that at all. No. And I think since then it's been that's been done away with because they realize that that's like a big problem. Yeah. Yeah. Anyone who doesn't have 50 bucks to spare. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

And so during jury selection, there was this conversation that was held with the jurors where they talked about the presumption of innocence, which is what our court system is supposed to be based on. You're innocent until proven guilty. One man said, when asked about the presumption of innocence, he said, I mean, they don't just pick a person up off the street, just an innocent person. So I guess I got to believe there could, there would just automatically be a smidge and a guilt. Oh, that man became juror number one. Oh, shit. Oh, So they seat a jury. The trial

begins. Did they have any black people on this jury? I don't know. I only know that it was like, I think it was like eight men and four women is how it was made up. But I don't know races. Okay. I mean, rural Missouri. Why am I even asking? Yeah. Okay.

I'm just saying, you've got to have some people with experience with the cops. Yeah. So as I'm just saying, you've got to have some people with experience with the cops. Yeah. So as you told us, Ryan's attorney, his very expensive attorney, gets up there, and he's basically a bumbling idiot. He can't keep a thought straight. He does okay in his opening argument, and then it's just like fucking all downhill from there. He presents, exhibits the picture of the downtown. It's all mislabeled.

He's pointing out things that aren't on the picture. Like, it's a fucking shit show. And the prosecution did a pretty good job of pointing out their own shortfalls in the case before the defense could do it. In his opening statement, the prosecutor said, you know what? We're not going to present any physical evidence to you that's going to tie Ryan Ferguson to the murder scene. But we've got something better.

We don't need physical evidence because we have eyewitnesses. Eyewitnesses are better than physical evidence? No, they're not. But if a prosecutor tells a jury that, don't you think they're going to believe it? Depends on how dumb the jury is. No offense. DNA. I don't need no stinking DNA.

Exactly. I need one lady who saw someone on a dark night. So it's interesting that you should say that because the one lady who could, who made a sketch did get up there on the stand. She's super fucking nervous. She's almost in tears when she gets on the stand. And the prosecutor's like, how you doing? Are you a little nervous today? And she's like, uh-huh.

Yeah, you would be. Yeah, and she's super nervous. And all they ask her is, did you help the police make a composite sketch? And she says yes. They didn't ask, and is that man in the courtroom today? They sure fucking didn't. And do you want to know why, Kristen? Because she didn't think it was Ryan Ferguson?

Because the second the prosecutor had talked to her to get her to testify, he showed her pictures and she said, those aren't the guys. Oh. And she said, those aren't the guys. Oh. And so he was like, oh, no, we've got the wrong guys. I better call this whole thing off. Nope. Nope, he sure wasn't. Instead, she said he intimidated her, made her feel like she was a liar, made her feel like she was in trouble, like she was the one on trial.

Yeah. And so she just did exactly what she was told to do. She showed up in court that day. She took the stand. When they asked her, did you make this composite sketch with the police? She said yes, and that was it. And do you know what Ryan's very expensive, shiny attorney didn't ask? Well, I'm guessing he was asleep at the time.

Yeah, he didn't bother to ask. Is this man the person in that sketch? Because had he asked that, she would have said no. Okay, in that guy's defense, that might be a little bit of a gamble. It definitely is, and that's why he didn't ask it, because he didn't know how she'd answer it. Yeah. Do we ask him to put on the glove or no? Right.

Exactly. Exactly. He thought it was too big of a gamble, so he didn't ask her. So the prosecution also put the other janitor from that evening on the stand, and they told the jury. Was there another janitor who saw the— Yeah, Jerry Trump. Oh, right, right, right. Okay, I'm sorry. But he had told police from the beginning. I didn't getitor who saw the— Yeah, Jerry Trump. Oh, right, right, right. Okay, I'm sorry.

But he had told police from the beginning. I didn't get a good look at them. Mm-hmm. I couldn't—I don't think I'd be able to identify them. Okay. But what's weird is that when he got on the stand, he had a—I guess his memories of the evening had just become a lot clearer. Maybe he had a dream. And he had a different story to tell.

And before the prosecutor put him on the stand, he did tell the jury, you know, we're going to call a witness here. The defense might say bad things about him. They might say he's a child molester. Oh, no. And it's true. He has served some time for endangering children. But doesn't mean he didn't see two guys. That's right.

Exactly. That doesn't make him any less credible as a witness. Okay. So Jerry Trump gets up there on the stand and he says that while he was in prison serving time for those child molestation charges or – so some articles refer to them as child molestation charges. Some refer to it as child endangerment charges. OK. Tomato, tomato. I see. Yeah.

He says that his wife sent him an article. And he opened his envelope and out came the article. And it was folded in such a way that he could see the pictures that were attached to the article but not the headline. And when he saw those pictures, he gasped. Those were the two men that he had seen in the parking lot that night at the Tribune what an incredible story

yeah unbelievable unbelievable and then of course the prosecution put on their star witness Charles Erickson who Jesus Christ poor Charles I don't

I go back and forth between being like fucking Erickson, who— Jesus Christ, poor Charles. Poor— I don't— Yeah. I go back and forth between being like, fucking Charles. Yeah. Let's kick this kid to the moon. But at the same time, he was clearly— I mean, he had so many problems. Absolutely. So here's what Ryan Ferguson says of Charles Erickson.

Okay. He says that he was clearly used and abused by the system. Absolutely. And that he feels terrible for him. Wow. That is very big of him. That is very big of him. Because Charles took the stand, and if you'll recall from his interrogation videos,

he said over and over again, I don't remember. Might have happened like this. I could be making it all up. Told a very different story. He was an extremely polished witness. Coached? Polished. Coached?

He suddenly remembered exactly what had happened that night and how it matched up perfectly with the timeline that the police had established. And weird, he now recalled Ryan Ferguson taking Kent Heitholt's belt and wrapping it around his throat and then putting his foot on his chest for leverage and just pulling and pulling and pulling until he died. Weird how I hadn't told that story ever before. Well, sometimes for dramatic effect you hold those back. Yeah. And then he also was asked by the prosecutor, and he asked this in just the worst, just most condescending tone ever. just most condescending tone ever he's like at one point you said the memories of this of this crime came to you in a dream do you still believe that today and he's like no

it was no dream we actually did this this. Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. And then the prosecutor asks him, why did you plead guilty? And he says, because I committed the crime. And so did Ryan. Oh, God. Which that would be so compelling. I mean, you know, I'm kind of making fun of this jury. But if you don't see that videotape.

So that's a very good point. Okay. So the defense was like, great. We've got that videotape. We're going to play it in court. The jury will get to see how he was treated, how he was fed the information. They play it on cross-examination. They have like one of those pull-down white screens with a projector.

Sure. And the worst sound system you've ever heard in your life. You couldn't see or hear anything. No. So the message did not come across to the jury. They couldn't have called up the geek squad? No kidding. Or just roll in one of those old TVs that they had in the elementary school?

We remember fourth grade. Yes. Read all about it. Scout down all the clues. Yeah, no. the clues yeah no so this big moment that they had orchestrated to play this you know this you know let him get up there and do his whole spiel and act out you know the whole thing that he suddenly remembered now oh yeah now he remembered very clearly grabbing a tire tool from ryan ferguson's car and hitting kent heitholt over the head multiple times with it.

Yeah, he remembered everything somehow at trial. And so then the defense goes to play this video to, you know, contradict all of that and show, you know, how he said he wasn't sure about anything. And the jury couldn't hear it. Why couldn't they hear it? It was so garbled. Like the audio they hear it? It was so garbled. Like the audio was so terrible, it was really garbled. And then with all of the bright lights in the courtroom on that, and then the projector on the white screen, you could barely see the picture.

Okay. That fancy pants lawyer could not have paid for a transcription service, a captioning service on that. They couldn't have dimmed the lights. No shit. For some confession tape and chill. Yeah. To Bill Ferguson, like, this was the moment when he was like, oh, no. Yeah, we're fucked.

We're fucked. That was supposed to be, like, the moment that the jury saw what, how mishandled the investigation had been, how all of this information had been spoon fed to the star witness. Making a murder. Yeah. When when they showed the clips from Brandon, is it Brandon Darcy? What's a kid's last name? Brendan Dassey. Very close.

I think Brandon Darcy's his cousin. Joe Geronimo. When they played that tape of the cops talking to him, to me, that's like all I need to hear. All I need to see. Yeah. Yes. Completely. I completely agree.

Same thing in this case. Yeah. That's all I needed to see, to know that this was a coerced confession. It was a false confession. It was barely a confession. It was barely a confession. It wasn't a confession. It was, here are some dreams I am having. And I'm sorry if those numb nuts had been doing their jobs,

they would have said, well, it doesn't really match up to anything, buddy. Go on home. Yeah. In another really great moment for the defense. Oh, cool, because it's all so good. This awesome defense attorney that they'd spent all this money on. How expensive was he? I don't know.

You just know that he was. Yeah, that's how. I mean, any amount of money. That's how Ryan's father kept referring to him like this. We'd spent all this money on this attorney. So I imagine it was a lot of money. Yeah. Oh, side note that I should have included.

It just occurred to me. I didn't include it in my notes. I didn't write it down. When Ryan was arrested and charged with one count of murder and one count of robbery, they requested bond. Okay. His bond was set at $20 million.

$20 million? The highest bond at that time that had ever been set in the United States. For Ryan Ferguson, who no one's ever heard of? No prior, nothing. Maple Woods Community College student? Yes. $20 million. Why?

No idea. That's insane. No bond had ever been set that high for one count of murder and no priors. Well, but he had his own private jet, right? No. This was a middle class family. That's what I'm stuck on is like, why did they even think it needed to be that high? Yeah.

Well, they didn't. It was for show. Yeah, exactly. Okay. to be that high. Yeah. Well, they didn't. Yeah. It was for show. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so in this really great moment where the defense attorney gets up and he's cross-examining

Charles Erickson, he calls him Mr. Ferguson. Oh, fuck. Yeah. And the prosecutor has to correct him. Oh, God.

Oh, God. Terrible. How old was this guy? I mean, he looked pretty old. I don't know. Okay. And another really great moment for the defense. Just a lot of fun.

Just a lot of great moments from this trial. Yeah, that Ryan's family did not know was going to happen. Ryan took the stand in his own defense. Oh, shit. Which his dad was like, as soon as he saw stand in his own defense. Oh, shit. Which his dad was like, as soon as he saw him do it, he was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't do it.

Like, that's like a Hail Mary. Like, that's a worst case scenario thing. And it was very clear that his attorney had not prepared him for it. What the fuck? At all. He walked up there. What the fuck? At all. He walked up there. He looked smug as fuck.

Okay, this is a point where I think we do have to say he is very traditionally super hot. Yes. In a way that kind of makes you want to punch him in the face. Exactly. Kind of that frat boy. Yes. He's very bro. Like, yes.

He's super attractive. Yeah, he's the kind of guy that you would look at and be like, huh, that bro. Like, yes. He's super attractive. Yeah, he's the kind of guy that you would look at and be like, huh, that guy's a douche. Yeah. Like, seriously. So if you're a rural jury. Yeah. Rural jury. Sorry.

30 Rock reference. Yes. Yeah. So he, like, smiles at his family. Oh, God. As he, like, walks up there to take the stand. Yeah. They like

the prosecutor on cross-examination asks him some questions and he at one point he says to Ryan

that you've described Charles Erickson as being an odd guy, right? And Ryan Ferguson kind of smiles at that.

And he's like, yeah. What I think is really important to to mention here is that this is the same thing that we've talked about in in so many of these cases where someone has been arrested and they think there's not a chance that they're going to be convicted of something. Right. Because they didn't commit the crime. It's the same thing we talked about with Damian Echols. Like he laughed throughout the trial because he thought there wasn't a chance in hell that he'd be convicted. You know what the real common thread is I'm noticing? It's the white people who are wrongfully convicted. They're the ones who are like, this could never happen. This could never happen.

Yes. Exactly. So he gets this, like, little smirk on his face. Yeah, oh, no. And the prosecutor goes, is that funny? Oh God. And Ryan's like, no, no, it's not funny. And he's like, hey man, it's a free country.

If you want to laugh, laugh. Oh fuck. So the prosecutor says to him, he's like, no, I don't want to laugh. It's not funny. Because he's just a cold-blooded killer, and this is how it choked him. Exactly. So. Oh, no.

At one point, like, the questioning leads to something with Ryan coming back, and he says, I never thought I would be arrested for a crime I didn't commit. Would you believe you'd be arrested for a crime you didn't commit? And the prosecutor goes, I didn't commit one. And Ryan Ferguson says, like, with the most serious, straightest face that he's had the entire trial, goes, neither did I. And the gallery, like, busts up in, like, cheers and clapping. And, like, the judge gets pissed and, like, shuts everything down. And, like, that was, like, the realest moment, I think, where all of a sudden, like, Ryan saw how serious this was.

Yeah. And he's like, yeah, neither did I. Yeah. Like, how did I get here? Yeah. It's amazing to me, and if this is dumb, we can cut this, but like how a smile can be so deadly to a person. So when I worked for a newspaper and politicians would come in for just like getting their little mug shots taken to run in stories, everyone always wants to smile. We would tell them to have a more neutral face because inevitably your picture is going to be included with a tax hike or something really tragic. And you don't want to be there smiling.

Yeah. Because even though you're not smiling at the tragedy, people misinterpret it. Yep. And this guy, he was a teenager at this point, right? Or was he in his early 20s? He was. Okay, so he was 17 when he was arrested. No, no, no.

He was 17 when the crime was committed. He was arrested. You mean when he committed the crime when he got that belt, yeah. He had been arrested two years after it. So he's 19 then. And then another almost two years had gone by. He testified in court the day after his 21st birthday.

He took the stand the day after his 21st birthday. Oh, God. But he'd been, yeah, at that point, like he hadn't, yeah, he was a kid. Yeah. He's a kid. And he received no coaching. No coaching, no preparation,

no let's run through this, you know, because this is what you're going to be facing. This is what you have to be prepared to answer if you're going to take the stand. Yeah. Which maybe you shouldn't. Maybe you shouldn't. It's what you say is exactly right.

It's scary how deadly a smile could be. The juror, like that was it for the jurors. Yeah. Yeah, they already think you're guilty and then you come up looking cocky yep yeah they deliberated for five hours oh before they found ryan ferguson guilty on both counts they found him guilty of second-degree murder and first-degree robbery. But they didn't—what? I know.

They left the wallet there. They left the wallet there. I mean, and by they, I mean the real people. There were, however, the murder weapon and Kent Heitholtz's keys were missing from the scene. Oh, so they robbed him of his keys. But neither of those were ever recovered. Shocker, because they don't have the right suspects. Brandi, you're presenting this in a really biased way. I am.

You're right. I 100% am. I love this case, and you're doing such a good job with it. Thank you. Ryan Ferguson was sentenced to 30 years for the murder and then 10 years for the robbery to be served consecutively. So 40 years. Good God. From, like, that moment on, Bill made it, like, he changed his focus.

Like, it had been his mission to prove his son's innocence, and now he had to exonerate his son, which is a way harder thing to do. It's so much harder once the justice system has its teeth sinked into you, sunk into you. Sorry. It's nearly impossible. That's why you always lawyer up. That's one semester of law school's advice for you people. So Bill did everything that he could think of to start the appeals process, to get any kind of information. They spent all of their money on that fancy lawyer. So they contacted the public defender's office.

They got Ryan assigned a public defender for his appeals process. And Bill started working through the prosecution's case himself to find inconsistencies. Okay. Stop me if I'm wrong. He was a realtor, right? He's a realtor! Okay, so, but the funny thing about being a realtor is you do have some downtime. That is what he said. He said never in his life did he appreciate being a realtor more because it gave him the schedule that he needed to be able to go and follow up on this or go check out that or whatever. He started walking the crime scene over and over and over again. He read through all of the police reports, all of the files. He knew everything basically by heart. Oh. basically by heart. And it was like one day, he's like in downtown, he's in downtown Columbia, and he's at the intersection where Charles Erickson said that he saw his friend Dallas Mallory that night

stopped at a red light and they talked to him and told him that they'd attacked someone and then ran off. Dallas Mallory was never called to testify at the trial, which is weird if somebody ran up to you that night and confessed to just attacking someone, right? Right, and they'd be covered in blood, and it'd be a very memorable moment for everyone involved. And so Bill Ferguson is standing at this intersection, and he's like, there's just like this feeling, he said. Like he knew something about that intersection was important. So he's looking around, and he's looking around, and he's like, there's just like this feeling, he said. Like he knew something about that intersection was important. So he's looking around, he's looking around, he's looking around. And he sees it.

It's this flashing yellow light at the intersection. Dallas Mallory wouldn't have been stopped there because it's a flashing yellow. It's a caution light rather than a stoplight. Oh, because it's a flashing yellow. It's a caution. It's a caution light rather than a stoplight. And so he goes and talks to Dallas Mallory. And he's like, yeah, I never saw Charles Erickson that night. And I told the police that.

And they yelled at me and they told me I was lying. And they made me feel like I was on trial. It's the same fucking story. They told me that they did voice analysis on my story and that it determined that I was on trial. It's the same fucking story. They told me that they did voice analysis on my story and that it determined that I was lying. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

And so he said, I told them I'd say whatever they wanted me to say, yet they never called him. Mm-hmm. And then he sets up this website for people to send in tips. Like, if you know anything about the case, please, anything. You might think it's nothing.

It's something. And someone gets on that website and leaves a note and says, I have information that I think that you would like to know. It's like a forum, basically. Right, right. And so he reaches out to the person, and it turns out it's Shawna Ornt. And this is when he finds out that she told prosecutors that there was no way that Ryan Ferguson was the man she saw in that parking lot that night. Yeah. She had told them that they had the wrong guys.

that they had the wrong guys. And she said to Bill Ferguson, she said, when they told me that, that someone had confessed and so they were sure that they had the right guys, I thought, false confessions happen all the time. Like, I feel intimidated talking to you right now so I can only imagine what someone who's under arrest would feel like. I wonder if there's also an element, if you are the type who you really trust police, and I think there are a lot of people out there who do, wouldn't there be kind of this

thing of like, okay, they've got the right guy. And if I don't go along with this, then am I letting a cold-blooded killer off the hook? Absolutely. I think there's definitely, that's a real possibility. You know, the other thing is, like, there's, you know, she's saying, it wasn't the two guys I saw. Those two guys she saw might not even have been the ones who killed her. Well, that's exactly it. Yeah.

That's exactly it. That is a very real possibility and a working theory on this case. Is that the two guys that were seen in the parking lot that night were likely not the murderers. They had happened upon the scene. Right. And we're like, hey, someone's hurt over here. Yeah, I mean, if you were the murderers, would you shout that and then walk calmly away? I don't think so.

No, I don't think so either. So it's totally possible that these guys are also unrelated. Oh, God. So Ryan Ferguson says that they believe, based on their investigation, that they know who really committed this murder. Really? Yeah. But he won't say. He said if you read the police reports, if you read the stuff, you'll come to the same conclusion.

Well, so here there is one person who is believed to be the last person to see Kent Height hold alive. So I think that's who it has to be that he's referring to. OK. A person who worked under him in the sports department at the paper. Okay. He admits to being in the parking lot that night at 2.20. He even says that he went over to Kent Heitholt's car and talked to him before leaving. And he's changed his story several times according to court documents.

Police never looked into him. Why not? Because they got a confession, I guess. Well, yeah, like a year later. Two years later. I mean, that's the thing, is the way this man was murdered, it was obviously not some random thing. We've all watched Law and Order.

Yeah. It's personal. That's right. So, Bill is working to tear apart the inconsistencies in this case. He's talked to Dallas Mallory. He wasn't there that night. He never saw them. He talked to Shawna Ornt.

Not a chance in hell. Ryan Ferguson is who she saw in the parking lot that night. That leaves one other witness that placed Ryan at the scene, Jerry Trump. And so he starts looking into his story. And his story was that his wife had sent him a newspaper article. Folded up like origami. Yeah, folded up perfectly so that he didn't see the headline, just the pictures. Sure.

And as soon as he saw those pictures, he knew those were the guys that he had seen in that parking lot that night. And so, oh, my gosh, on this documentary, Bill Ferguson talks about this. And it is just, like, such an amazing thing to hear him talk about this because he's like, I decided, you know, my detective skills had gotten pretty good at that point. I'd watched a lot of Perry Mason. And so I wrote up this outline of questions and I decided

I was going to track down Mrs. Trump. And I did it. I found where she was living and I created this question process that I call a figure eight. You ask a series of questions

and then you loop back around and you ask the same questions in a different eight. You ask a series of questions. Oh, Bill. And then you loop back around and you ask the same questions in a different form. And if they answer them the same way, they're telling the truth. Okay. So he's like, I went to Mrs. Trump's house. I rang her doorbell. I said I was following up on the Tribune case. I had some questions for her.

And she was reluctant at first. She didn't want to talk to me. How did he identify himself? He said, my name is Mr. Ferguson. Oh, okay. Yeah. And I'm following up on the Tribune case. And she's like, I don't know anything about that.

I've already told everybody I don't know anything about that. And he's like, I know, I know. I think you might, there's a chance that you have, you know, just a little nugget of information that might be, you know, exactly what we need. And so he starts asking her questions. and he does his little figure-eight thing, and she answers them all the right way, and so he knows she's telling the truth. And she says, I never sent Jerry any newspaper article in prison. I was as shocked as anybody else to hear that version of the story. You know what we call that?

Triple Axel. Triple Axel. Kristen. I'm sorry. And then, so she's like, yeah, I never sent anything to him. I don't know where that story came from. Wow, the child molester made it up, huh? And so she's like, what'd you say your name is?

And I said, oh, no, I just spat everywhere. What'd you say your name is? I said oh no I just spat everywhere what'd you say your name is? and he said my name's Bill Ferguson she goes you're Ryan Ferguson's dad I should not be talking to you and he's like it's fine it's fine it's no big deal

calm down lady so did she spit on him, too? She did not. We're going to have to hose off this mic. So while he's doing all this, he's making, you know, good headway in breaking apart this case. But, you know, the appeals process takes forever. It's 2008 before they have an evidentiary hearing where they get to produce this new stuff. What's the word?

Anyway, they couldn't produce the new evidence. That's not the right word. They couldn't. I don't know what fucking word I'm looking for. Produce is not it. Introduce. It's a long, complicated word. So it's like, it's 2008, 2007, somewhere around there, the public defender argues it. They do a good job.

You know, Shawna Ornt comes in and says, you know, they're able to present whatever, all of this stuff. And that I've just laid out for you. Introduce all this. Introduce all this stuff. But it's really hard to get an appeal, like, at the local court level because they're basically protecting themselves. Sure. And so it's just immediately denied. And somewhere around this time, Ryan had begun, like, exchanging letters with some girl who told him that she'd just seen this episode of, like,

Dateline or 48 Hours or whatever. Right. And this super lawyer was on there. Her name? Kathleen Zellner. It was Kathleen Zellner. And she'd gotten all of these exonerations for all of these people who'd been wrongly convicted. And so Ryan called his dad and was like, you've got to look this lady up.

And Bill did. And he sent her an email like at 10 o'clock one night and was like, this is my son's story. You know, this is what we're dealing with. Like, we need help. We can't get anywhere. I'm in the motions court and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. She responded the next morning. And she was like, I know the case.

I saw it covered on like 48 hours or whatever I wrote your son's name down she had told her husband at that time if they reached out to her that she was going to cover that case pro bono hell yeah yes and so Bill was like come out walk the crime scene with me look at the stuff that I've put together, see what you think. And she did like the next weekend. This is amazing to me. These people who are like super busy, but they're like, you know what? Priority one.

And that's what Bill Ferguson said. He said, so Kathleen did, and she came out, and she's like, absolutely, this is a miscarriage of justice. Like, we have to fight this. We have to get him out. We can't like, absolutely, this is a miscarriage of justice. Like, we have to fight this. We have to get him out. We can't have this miscarriage. Miscarriage of justice. She had really weird speaking style. And so she decides she's going to take the case.

Yeah. And Bill Ferguson said, when you are represented by Kathleen Zellner, you are represented by Kathleen Zellner. It's like you're the only case she's ever heard of. Like she's, she's there for you the whole time. And so she said of Bill that the work that he had done made her job so much easier when they're putting together their motions, like she's getting ready to file a writ of habeas corpus to get like his whole conviction thrown out, essentially, based on this new evidence and based on prosecutorial misconduct. Because they believe there was... Are you not supposed to threaten and intimidate the shit out of witnesses?

Yeah, they believe there was a lot of prosecutorial misconduct in this case, if you can believe it. And so she said that anytime she needed something for, to get this, you know, she needed an attachment or whatever, she would call Bill up and be like, I need this file. He'd have it to her in an hour. And she could be like, what, where's this, this, and this? And like, where, where can I find that in the files? And he'd know exactly where it was, you know?

Yeah. Like he just had everything memorized. Like, it's insane to me. So she puts together this amazing appeal, brings in all that new evidence. They have a hearing. Shawna Ornt testifies that she told the prosecutor that Ryan Ferguson was not the guy. Erickson testifies initially

that he is solely responsible for the murder. And when asked why he's changing his story now, he says, I can't live with this on my conscience. I can't live with the knowledge that I've cost somebody their life, that they're spending their life in prison because of something that I said. Kathleen Zellner talks about this on the documentary, and she said it was really upsetting to her to hear his new version of how things happened that night because they still didn't match the evidence but he'd been so convinced

yeah that he was responsible for this and he thought the way to help Ryan was to just take sole responsibility for it and so he got up on the stand and he did that. And then Jerry Trump came in and got on the stand and said, I lied. Wow. My wife never sent me an article in jail. Did they offer him less time or like, why did he lie? No. So he actually stood to be charged with perjury by changing that. He was not gaining anything. So he had recently converted to Mormonism, and it was just like weighing on his conscience that he had told this lie. So he comes in and he says, I saw that article for the very first time. I saw those pictures for the very first time in Prosecutor Kevin Crane's office. Wow. He called me in.

He showed me the article, asked me if I could identify the guys, and I felt like I had to say yes, that that was them. He kept saying over and over again, we think we got the right guys, but we need an eyewitness. We need an eyewitness. And he said at that point he'd been in so much trouble already. He'd spent all his time in, you know, he was at. And so he just did what the prosecutor wanted him to do.

And he breaks down in tears at this hearing telling this. And Kathleen Zellner says, are you doing this today with the hope of getting something in return for this testimony? And he says, yes. And she goes, what are you hoping to get? And he starts crying and he points at Ryan and he goes, I want Ryan's forgiveness. Oh, man. Yeah. Oh, I've got goosebumps. Yeah. And you can see Ryan Ferguson at the time. He, like, moves his hand and, like, covers his mouth. Like, it's clear that it's, like, made him super emotional as well. Yeah.

But this is a man who had a hand in sending him behind bars. Yeah. So they have this great hearing. It goes exactly how they want it to go. They leave Kathleen Zellner's like, we won. We for sure won. Don't get cocky, Kathleen. This here's Missouri.

Yep. They denied. They denied the appeal on the basis that none of the new witnesses, the new testimony that they presented, the new evidence was credible. Oh, give me a break. Yep. By this point, Prosecutor Kevin Crane, who'd argued. Was he a judge now? He was a judge now.

Would you look at that? Yeah. Weird, right? Cream of the crop. Yeah. So they have to move this forward and they have to move this up to the next court, the appeals court, which takes more time. By the time they get it heard there, it's 2012. Oh, my God.

How long has he been in prison for? Almost 10 years. Oh. Almost 10 years. Oh. Almost ten years. Oh. And so they go and they argue it to the appeals court, and they basically argue the exact same case that they'd already presented. All of that new evidence, all the prosecutorial misconduct.

It doesn't need to be better than this. It doesn't. It was the perfect argument. They checked all the boxes that they needed to check. And this time, they vacated his conviction. Wow. Was this at the Supreme Court level? It was at the appeals court level. So not quite. This was the Missouri Western District Court of Appeals. Okay. So just like the next step up. And they overturned his conviction.

His conviction was vacated on November 5th, 2013. And the attorney general said they would not refile charges against him. And Ryan Ferguson was finally released from prison on November 12, 2013. Wow. 11-12-13. Great. But Charles is still in prison. Charles remains in prison. He's actually up for parole this year.

Ryan Ferguson has been working to free him and exonerate him. Yeah. It's really difficult because he pled guilty. Yeah. You basically waive your appeals when you've pled guilty. It's even harder to exonerate him than it was to exonerate Ryan. Of course, yeah. Ryan did file a civil suit against basically everyone involved in the investigation.

Everyone should have been fired. No shit. Kevin Crane remained a judge, a circuit court judge in Missouri until 2018. Fuck. That's disgusting. Yeah. There was like a bench trial to determine Ryan Ferguson's civil case. And a judge awarded him $11 million.

One million for every year that he spent in prison. Yeah. And another million to cover his legal expenses. That's tough because those are the years when you get your life going. Yeah. That's what his mom says on the documentary. She's like, I would just sit up in bed and it would just hit me. Years have gone by and Ryan has had no life.

Yeah. Yeah. And she would just cry. Because you're so powerless. They did all of the stuff that they had to do. Yeah. And it took years to get him out. This is why the justice system is scary.

It is. It's so scary. Kathleen Zellner said that when the initial habeas corpus appeal, when they filed that and lost that case, she said she was so angry. She wanted to call that judge and tell him that he is a disgrace to the profession. And then she's like, nope, nope. I'm going to do better. I'm going to take this to the next level. I'm going to exonerate Ryan Ferguson.

And I'm going to make everybody see what a terrible judge he is. And that's what she did. Yeah. Following his release. Are all those cops still cops? Some of she did. Yeah. Following his release. Are all those cops still cops? Some of them are. Yeah. Some of them are still cops.

Oh. So following his release, Ryan Ferguson, like, moved out of Missouri. He went to Florida to kind of start a new life. We've been so good to him here. Missouri. He went to Florida to start a new life. We've been so good to him here. While he was in prison, he had really like devoted himself to fitness. I know. Don't have to tell me. So his dad said this to him right when he was arrested. He said, I know you're innocent, but while you're in here and you're going to be in here for a while, I can't protect you. You have to do everything you can to make yourself stronger, faster, and smarter to survive. Yeah.

His dad was just his constant cheerleader. Like, they'd have their phone calls, and Brian would be so down, and he'd be angry, which how could you not be? Well, yeah, he's in prison for murder. And his dad would be like, you've got to change your attitude, bud. That's not helping you at all. Yeah. That's only going to make it worse.

And Ryan said, Dad, that's toxic positivity. We don't have to be happy all the time, Dad. So following his release, he became a certified personal trainer. Oh, my God. And he wrote a book, Stronger, Faster, Smarter, A Guide to Your Most Powerful Body. Oh, my God. I'm sorry. I thought you were kidding.

Nope. Okay. This is his real book. And if you Google it, there's a really muscly picture of him on the cover. You haven't spent any time looking at that, have you? You big creep. He also is working with Kathleen Zellner to look into other possible wrongful convictions. And he did a show about it for MTV called Unlocking the Truth where he looked into three cases.

You and I were super into that show. We were super into that show. But, yeah, that's the story of Ryan Ferguson. He's managed to do really well for himself following the worst thing that could possibly happen to someone. Can you imagine being arrested one day and saying, this guy says he dreamed that you murdered someone. Oh my God. And then you get convicted of murder and spend 10 years in prison? Nope.

No! It seems like that could never happen, but it fucking does. Yeah. And it is, once you have been convicted... Good fucking luck. It is so fucking hard to undo it. Yeah. Yeah.

And like I said, he says that he feels terrible for Charles Erick it. Yeah. Yeah. And like I said, he says that he feels terrible for Charles Erickson. Yeah. I mean, when you really think about it, Charles was just a very troubled guy

who thought he'd done the wrong thing and wanted to come clean. Yeah. One thing you wanted to come clean. Yeah. One thing you neglected to mention. What? Ryan's dad was so dedicated he got one of those car wrap things. He did.

He drove around. He essentially drove around the United States in a car that said, free Ryan Ferguson. Another thing that he did that I fucking love and is catty as fuck he found out that Kevin Crane the prosecutor now judge was speaking at a

commencement ceremony at I believe the University of Missouri yeah and so during that commencement ceremony oh my god he flew a plane

outside what that had a thing behind it that said, free Ryan Ferguson. That's pretty fucking awesome. Yeah, it is. I would love to know how much that cost him, but I'm sure it was very expensive. You did such a good job with that.

Thank you. For the record, Kristen said she was going to do that case forever, and then I finally was like, when are you going to do it? And she's like, I'm not going to do it. You do it. I was too scared. I love the case too much. Yes. Like, I really, really love that case.

Yeah. Oh. Whew. Good job, Brandy. It's weird how I fulfilled my promise to you, Kristen, nor did I have to shame you into opening up that new computer today. Oh, my God. Chris has been promising for a month that she was going to switch to her new computer because her old computer sounds like it's taken off in the middle of the podcast. You guys, I'm 87 years old. This is something that I do every time I get a new computer.

I hold on to my laptops for way too long until they basically sound like they're a rocket ship starting off. And so then Norman will force me to get a new computer. I get the new computer, but it doesn't have all my passwords and everything saved. And so I'm just like, you know, I'll get to that another day. Anyway. Norman and Brandy were real bitchy to me. We sure were.

Alright, should we take some questions from the Discord? We absolutely should. You don't have the Discord on your computer, so you pulling it up there, Kristen? How dare you? Would you just, like, calm down? Oh, Heather asks, pumpkin concrete. Did you get it? Worth the wait?

No, I still haven't fucking had it. I have had pumpkin pie, though. And pumpkin pie dip. Brandy, I'd just like to let you know that over 200,000 people have died from COVID in the United States. People are dying, Kim. But yeah, let's worry about your pumpkin pie, Conkrin. Man, people say they want the return of Norm. I know.

People are missing Norm. You guys, I don't know if Norm's going to come back. He is like, you know what the deal was? He figured out how long we take to tape these things. And he was like, hmm. Also, someone was rude to him. And actually, a couple reviews were rude to him. Yeah.

And I think he was just like, why do I have to fucking be here? So blame the haters. Wrong Discord wants to know, what is the age difference between Brandy and David? It is 18 years. Stop it. So it's not as much as Dane Cook and his girlfriend. That's 26 years. So I think it's cute when Brandy, well, she can't walk him to kindergarten anymore because of, you know, COVID.

But one day. Hilarious. Our actual age gap is three years. I am three years older than David. How do you feel, Brandy? Terrible. Innocent or whatever asks, where would you guys hide the bodies? Okay.

This is the, I saw this on Reddit once and I think it's the genius thing. I know exactly what you're saying. You call in the tip that a body, you think a body might be located at X marks the spot, whatever. The police come out, they search that spot. Once they've searched that spot, you then go put the body there. You have to have that body in a temporary hiding spot first. I think that's a pretty solid plan. Not bad. Not bad.

Yeah. Do you have an alternative? I do, and it's so good that I don't want to share it because I'm afraid somebody would, like, use it. I also saw it on Reddit. What is it? It's that you bury a body, throw about three feet of dirt on it. Oh, and then you put animal carcasses on top of it? It's that you bury a body, throw about three feet of dirt on it.

Oh, and then you put animal carcasses on top of it? Yeah. Yeah. And then you bury that. And then, you know, they dig down. It's not bad. Ooh, Carly, what's your butt? Ask, have you watched the Murderer Next Door documentary on the Watts family murders?

Yes. Oh, you watched Watts family murders? Yes. Oh, you watched it too? Yes. So David and I watched it when we were home with COVID. Because you were having too much fun, so you wanted to watch the Chris Watts documentary? Yeah, David didn't know the case. And so the whole time I'm like, this fucking asshole. I'm like yelling at the TV, and he was like, can we just like watch the story?

And I was like, no, I'm here to tell you this guy's an asshole and he's going to murder his kids and wife. Spoiler alert. I covered the case already on this podcast.

Oh, and they've all, they've memorized everything. I didn't know there was so much footage of her. So that's, okay, that's because she was an MLM person.

Yeah. And the thing that I thought was so difficult to watch was all the footage of the kids. That's because she was an MLM person. Yeah, and the thing that I thought was so difficult to watch was all the footage of the kids. Yeah. That was really, really tough. I will say I was really glad that I'd heard you do the case before because watching that documentary, you kind of don't know what's going to happen to the kids. No, you really don't know. I mean, you obviously know something's going to happen to Shanann, but. Yeah. Yeah, the kids are. Ugh.

Ooh. Senile Bigfoot asks, best and worst items at Costco? Okay. Mm-hmm. Mine, my answer is the same. What? The best item ever at Costco, it's my favorite thing thing is their meatloaf. It's in the prepared food section.

What? Really? Oh, my gosh. It's so good. Comes with mashed potatoes. You pop that thing in the oven for like an hour. Delicious. Never gotten that, okay? Okay.

So good. Had it several times. Got it once while I was pregnant. Oh, no. Got it. Oh, smells so good. Can't wait to eat it. David puts it on, smells so good. Can't wait to eat it. David puts it on a plate for me.

We're about to eat dinner. So good. I cut into it, take a bite. This particular meatloaf. I've had many a Costco meatloaf. Never had this issue. Don't think that I'm not accustomed to the Costco meatloaf. This particular Costco meatloaf.

Chop full of fucking onions. Oh. Not me. Ruined it. It then became the worst thing at Costco. I couldn't eat it, and I've not gotten it since. Never since then. Costco's on real hard time. eat it. And I've not gotten it since. Never since then.

Costco's on real hard time. Stop it. My favorite thing? Mm-hmm. Hmm. My least favorite thing is obviously the Cork Classic shoes that my dad buys. Yes. And, you know, just when you think they're not going to sell them anymore because no one's buying them, they reappear.

They do. Like, sometimes they're, like, not there and you're like, oh, those things are finally done. And then, yeah, they show up again. But, you know, they raise the price to like $15. So hopefully they'll keep raising the price and my dad will be unable to afford the Costco Cork Classics. Favorite item, the giant bottle of vodka?

How dare you, madam. Well, I'm no stranger to the booze aisle. You know, we don't have those at my Costco. Yeah, because you're in Kansas. Because Kansas has super tight buttholes about alcohol. Yeah, what do they think is going to happen over there? I have no idea what they think is going to happen. Although, breaking news, nobody's going to care about this.

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Kansas Board of Cosmetology, who regulates my salon and all salons in Kansas. Okay. They just got rid of the prohibition of alcohol. You can have alcohol in salons in Kansas now. You can have them in salons, but you can't have them in a fucking Costco. We can't sell it. We could serve it. Right. Yeah.

Yeah, I understand. That's been illegal the entire time I've been a hairstylist. Uh-huh. And all you've ever wanted to do was get sloshed and give a cut. No, but like it's a thing to like get your hair done and have a glass of wine. Yeah, I'm aware. We can do it now. I'm very excited about it. I'm going to show up with a box of wine.

You're welcome to that. And slices of Kraft Singles. Nope. Wine and cheese. Very classy. Just slices of Kraft Singles. Gross. Hmm.

Bad Bad Real Bad wants to know, Brandy, do you miss anything about being pregnant? Yeah, I actually do miss being pregnant. Really? I really enjoyed being pregnant until I had the pelvic girdle thing happen. And even then, I still really liked having that belly. Yeah, I think because it was, there's also so many emotions tied to it. Yeah. Let me hit the whole mic there.

Yeah, sure. Yeah, I just really enjoyed it. I think it sounds terrible to be pregnant. Yeah, parts of it were terrible. I mean, I threw up. All the time. Every night for like 70% of my pregnancy. Yeah, do you remember the time we went to Lambert's and we all had a delicious dinner and then you just.

Threw it up. Tossed your cookies. Sure did. The Bombshell asks, what kind of cocktail won't you drink because you said, I'll never drink again the next morning. So mine's not a cocktail. It's a specific liquor. Fireball.

What would it be, baby? Fireball. Woo! Can't do it. Peeped in my yard. As a grown-ass woman. Yeah, you were in your 30s, I believe. It was... I maybe wasn't – I might have been 30. I think you were – if memory serves, you said you were 30, puked in –

That's very possible. Dirty 30. Mine is Goldschlager. Oh, I've never had that. I had it once. And it was my freshman year of college, and a bunch of us drank it. And I showed up late, so that ended up being a very good thing. Yeah.

And yada, yada, yada, someone pooped their pants. That's how wild that night was. Someone pooped their pants? Just someone? Well, I'm not going to name his name. I'm not going to be like, although I can picture the guy very well. This is a good one. Dadasovich asks, have y'all voted early or made a vote plan yet?

So early voting just opened this week in Kansas. So my plan is to vote early. There's a, I just figured out where my early voting location is. So I'll probably do that this week. Norm and I voted absentee. It's super important to have a plan, super important to vote. It's a big election, guys. Something my friend brought up the other day that I actually hadn't thought about because, like, you know, I was on a call with some of my college buddies.

And, you know, a lot of them are still in Massachusetts. And, you know, one of them was saying, like, it doesn't even really matter who I vote for. But another friend said, you know, if we ever want to get rid of the electoral college, it's really important for that popular vote to show the actual will of the country. And also, you know, it's not just about who's president. Yeah. Although, damn, it makes a difference. Yeah, it does. So, who's president. Yeah. Although, damn, it makes a difference. Yeah, it does. So, yeah, vote.

Yeah. Get the fucking sticker. That's right. It's all about getting that sticker. It's all about the sticker. Cut your own bangs, which is a terrible idea. It says, best Hamilton song. I know what yours is.

What's mine? I think it's wrong. I think I've changed it. What, you don't love your baby anymore? So you don't love Dear Theodosia? I still love my baby, and I do love Dear Theodosia. But I got a new fave. It's not really a new fave.

It's been my favorite for a long time now. May I guess? Yeah. What did I miss? Nope. No? Wait for it. Leslie Odom Jr.

I love Guns and Ships. Yeah. I mean, I love all. Give it up for our favorite fighting Frenchman. Lafayette. Lafayette. David's favorite is the Battle of Yorktown. Oh, yeah.

That's a great one. He loves Hercules Mulligan, so. Yeah. Yeah. We had a spy on the inside. People love to hear what I say. When he gets knocked down, he gets the fuck back up again. Mm-hmm.

Totally identify as a very resilient person myself. Reckenstein asks, favorite holiday treats? All of them. Hell yeah. Just treats on treats on treats. Okay. Brandy wants to know, how are y'all celebrating the holidays this year? It's funny.

We haven't really discussed this. I think it's going to be a grim time. I think it will be too. Yeah. So normally we go to North Carolina for one of the holidays. And I'm not getting on a plane. Yeah, no. Not getting on a plane. No, no. Not getting on a plane.

I don't recommend the traveling. And so, yeah, we're going to be here. I think my parents are RVing to Florida for Thanksgiving, which, you know, who wouldn't? Yeah. Yeah. So we'll be here. Florida. It's an interesting place to be right now, but that's none of my business.

They're going to stay in their RV and just enjoy some sun. I don't think they're going to open mouth kiss any of the COVID super spreaders. At least I hope not. All right. Should we wrap it up and do some Supreme Court inductions? Supreme Court inductions. I've got that right here. While Brandi is stalling, I should tell you all that all that Well, actually Brandi's not stalling

I'm stalling No That if you want to get inducted onto this podcast You gotta join us on Patreon at the $7 level You get a bonus video A bonus episode And buns You get buns

If you didn't have them, they'll just sprout right on you And you get a sticker And you get inducted on the podcast. What more could you want? That's right. It's worth every bit of $7. And not a penny more. Katie Chenet.

A Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzie Lee. Jackie. Furiously Happy, a funny book about horrible things by Jenny Lawson. Amanda Kordson. The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone. Priscilla Carrizales. The Little Prince. Kenzie Duke. The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a Fuck by Sarah Knight. Rebecca Niekerhor. This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay. Krista Pennington. Franny and Zoe by J.D. Salinger. Ellen O'Reilly. The Library at Mount Char.

Meredith Hain. A New Model by Ashley Graham. Christy Burgess. The Power by Naomi Alderman. Rachel Edwards. The Secret Life of Violet Grant. Paige Christman. To Kill a Mockingbird.

Angela Baum. I'll Be Gone in the Night. Natasha Riedel. In the Garden of Beasts. Ali Infante. Tuesdays with Maury. Emily Swintoski. Picking Cotton, colon.

Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption by Jennifer Thompson, Canino, and Ronald Cotton. Chandler Elliott Feely. Anything by Dan Brown. Welcome to the Supreme Court! Thank you guys for all of your support. We appreciate it so much. If you're looking for other ways to support us, please find us on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, Patreon.

MySpace. No, we're not on MySpace, Kristen. Dane Cook was, and he considers himself a bit of a legend. A legend of MySpace. Please remember to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen, and then head on over to Apple Podcasts, leave us a rating, leave us a review, and 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 podcast Your Mom's House, The Lowell Sun, The Hollywood Reporter,

and the podcast Inside of You. I got my info from the documentary Dreamkiller, the court record, 48 hours, articles by Chris Hamby, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and Wikipedia. For a full list of our sources, visit lgtcpodcast.com.

Any errors are, of course, ours, but please don't take our word for it. Go read their stuff. Inside of you. Inside of you. I want to be how I long to be. Inside of you.