Let's Go To Court! - 147: MURDER!

Episode Date: November 4, 2020

When Bruce Rouse didn’t show up for work one summer morning in 1980, his employees immediately knew something was up. So they called his house and Bruce’s teenage children went to their parents’ master bedroom to check on them. But the scene in their parents’ bedroom was shocking. Their mom, Darlene, had been shot in the face. Their dad, Bruce, had been shot in the face, too. He’d also been beaten and stabbed. A sheet covered their bodies. Who could have done such a thing? (This is a total Brandi case, so we’ll give you one guess.) Then Kristin tells us about Julia Phillips -- a Southern lady who was pumped to celebrate her birthday. She got a bunch of Mike’s Hard Lemonade, bought some sexy new lingerie from Victoria’s Secret and headed to her boyfriend, Melvin Roberts’ house. But as she was getting out of her car, a man came up from behind her. He was black. Or was he hispanic. He had an accent. Maybe Indian? It was all a blur as the mystery man wrapped duct tape around her wrists, legs, eyes and mouth.   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: “Death in the Driveway” episode of Dateline “Julia Phillips, convicted killer of former York Mayor Melvin Roberts, dies at age 72,” by Andrew Dys for the Herald  “Prosecution Rests its Case,” by Jonathan McFadden for the Herald  “Phillips found guilty; sentenced to life,” by Jonathan McFadden for the Herald  In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Family Secrets” by Mark Gribben, The Malefactor’s Register “Murder Mansion: The Shotgun Slaying of Bruce and Darlene Rouse” by Tori Richards, The Crime Library “Murder Thy Father and Thy Mother” by Marie Kusters-McCarthy, Crime Magazine “Man Confesses To Brutally Murdering Parents 15 Years After Squandering His Inheritance” by Benjamin H. Smith, Oxygen “Rouse’s Defense Tries To Implicate His Brother” by Shirley Salemy, Chicago Tribune “Judge Gives Rouse 80 Years, Wishes It Were More” by Gary Mays, Chicago Tribune

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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 a murdered defense attorney.

And I'll be talking about the Rouse family murders. It's a very murdery episode. Woo! Murder all over the place! Well, it's not all the time that we both do a... You rarely do murders. Yeah. I do murder left and right. High and low. Never not doing a murder.

Inside out. Boy, you turned me. Round and round. Brandi, how you doing? I'm doing real good, except I just get hit right between the eyes with a little piece of plastic. I wonder how that happened. That's weird. You threw it at me.

Maybe you shouldn't have had your face in the way. You guys, I have terrible aim, but it was beautiful. I threw a piece of plastic at Brandi, and it hit her right betwixt the eyes. Don't say betwixt. And just pew! Went off her noggin. She tried to throw it back at me. She can't find it. No, it's on the floor somewhere.

Mm-hmm. In our sex dungeon. I can't find it. Do you want to explain that? Okay, so we just recorded a bonus video, and we were going to record it in the space where we record the podcast. But we've got all this, like, soundproofing stuff up, and it's all black. And so, like, we set up, and then Norm, who films our bonus videos for us, he's like, okay, it looks like we're in a sex dungeon. We've got to go somewhere else. Which I had tried to say I feel like it's going to look weird in the studio.

And he was like, oh, no, it's perfectly normal to record in an all-black room with foam padding on all the walls. And we're both wearing black, so. Yeah, and, you know, we have to sit super close for the bonus videos. So anyway. Anyway. Any who's there. Anyway, this isn't your problem, folks. Hey, next month there's going to be a whole new bonus video.

You know how I know? How do you know, Brandi? You just recorded it. You know, when you sign up on our Patreon, you might think that you're just getting the honor of giving us money. But no, you get something in return. At the $5 level, you get a monthly bonus episode. You get into the Discord to chit-chat with us. At the $7 level, you get all that plus a monthly bonus video plus a sticker, our lovely autographs.

You get inducted on the podcast. That's right. Well, you're really contributing here. You're doing some heavy lifting. And then at the $10 level, that's the Bob Moss level, You get all that. Plus, 10% off on merch and early ad-free episodes. That's right.

Mmm. Mmm. Woo. Tell them what you got. Merch-wise, Brandi. Woo. We got shirts with our logo on them. Retail value, $10,000 on those, but we're selling them for $25 a piece. That's right.

We got stickers with some fun phrases. They can't see you doing jazz hands. They knew it. I guarantee you people knew that I was doing that. Okay. With, you know, some fun designs and catchphrases from the podcast. Someone in the Discord asked if we have a spreadsheet of all the catchphrases that we've used. Oh, yeah.

We're super organized. It's just spreadsheets on spreadsheets on spreadsheets around here. That doesn't exist. And that's pretty much the extent of the merch. Why don't more commercials end that way? We have upwards of six stickers. Count them. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

Collect them all. That's right, like Pokemon. Gotta catch them all. Yeah, I'm sure that's not trademarked. Is that it? Yeah, I think we did an excellent job. For the butt plug part of the program. I think people are going to be like, my God, I've got to sign up.

I think so. What have I been doing with my life? That's right, and you've got to give me some merch while I'm at it. They have upwards of six stickers. What if when you played our episodes backwards, you heard a Patreon plug and a merch plug? It'd be just like that episode of Saved by the Bell. What were they buying? It was like tickets to the Valentine's Day dance, didn't they?

You want to go with Zach. Oh, gosh. Kind of a dark plot when you think about it. Brainwashing people. Well, obviously, Kristen. Well, I mean, this is something I've not thought about in, like, many years. Have you seen the preview for the reboot? No, I don't.

Wait, no, I have because people's skin looks amazing. Did you see A.C. Slater? No, but you know how I feel about A.C. Slater. I know. You liked him when he had a mullet, so. Loved is more like it. You should see him now. You know what? What?

I just figured it out. What? The common denominator just figured it out. What? The common denominator between your crushes. Mm-hmm. Dark hair. Nope, that's not it. Yes, it is.

Muscles. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Tank tops. Crunchy hair. Crunchy hair. Explain. Heath Ledger Crunchy hair

No A.C. Slater Crunchy hair I think a jerry curl is kind of more oily than crunchy But okay I bet that there was some serious crunch happening I bet he used white rain hairspray on that Probably

Norm doesn't have crunchy hair Norm does not have crunchy hair now. But back in the day, I was thinking. I bet he had some crunchy hair. He was a tank top gamer. Yeah. With some crunchy hair. Perhaps.

Perhaps. Ew, don't say gross things like you have a crush on your husband. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Hold the fucking phone. You had to get called out on Facebook by your own sister. I had to come in and back her up because you and David are one of those couples. You guys, we all have one of these couples in our lives.

He's just like, oh, here's the latest adorable picture of us looking really cute. And then in the comments are like, you're sexy. You're cute. Oh, no, you're gross. I didn't say that. We all said he was handsome. We all we all got're cute. Oh, no, you're cute. You're gross. I didn't say that. We all felt it. I said he was handsome. We all got the vibe.

It was a cute picture of us. I agree. In the snow. Uh-huh. With some beautiful fall leaves. Yeah, that makes it all the more obnoxious. If you were like two ugly people in an ugly setting and you're like, I think you're cute. People would be like, that's great for them.

But since that's not the case. These two uggos found each other. But since that's not the case, we're all like, all right, just have to be honest with you, Brandy. Just have to. Everyone has these friends. Everybody knows. Whatever. I'm glad I could be that friend for you. I think David's handsome. Oh, God. I haven't talked to you nearly enough lately about his bubble butt. How strange is it that both of our men have bubble butts? I know! I mean, white men with bubble butts are like unicorns.

Do you know how hard we had to look? That makes it sound like we were only looking within white men. That's not the case. It just happened. It just happened. All right. This is enough. You think once we started to delve into maybe unintentional racism, that's the time to, you know, change topics to murder?

Yeah. Let's talk about something less offensive. Let's talk about murder. Let's talk about something less offensive. Let's talk about murder. Let's talk about murder. All right. I'm going to talk about a murder. In a house. A Rouse family house?

In a Rouse family house. All right. Thank you to Mark Gribben. Oh, my God. Are you just obsessed with this man? He's got this really great website where he just puts up, like, crime stories. Okay. It's really great.

All right. It's great. So thank you to Mark Gribben as well as Tori Richards. Both of them, excellent articles on this case. It was around 8.30 a.m. on June 6, 1980, when 16-year-old Robin Rouse answered the phone. On the line was one of her father's employees. Bruce Rouse hadn't made it into work yet, and they were calling to check on him. Robin was pretty concerned.

It was only 8 a.m. So it was very unusual for her father to still be at home by this time. Okay. So he owned a chain of gas stations slash service stations. Oh, yeah. So you would be there early. Yeah. So he usually left for work by like 6 a.m.

Okay. So Robin, job I could not do. No, I'm kidding. I can't be at work at 6 a.m. David leaves for work at like 5.30. Some people are freaks. Yeah. What time do you leave for work?

It depends on the day. Yeah. Yeah. So two days a week I work at. So two days a week, I work at 10 and two days a week, I work at noon. Three days a week. It doesn't matter. Please, go into more detail.

Nobody fucking cares. I speak for everyone. We care so much. I don't think anybody cares. I stagger my days so that I have morning hours and evening hours. There we go. Riveting information.

You tell an excellent tale. I mean, I could really picture you leaving for work around like 9.30 two days a week. I saw that. Anyway, Robin got off the phone and went to her parents' bedroom. She went inside, and what she saw would haunt her for the rest of her life. There was blood everywhere. It covered the walls, the floor, the bed. It covered the walls, the floor, the bed.

The bodies of her parents, Darlene and Bruce Rouse, lay in the bed, covered with a blood-soaked sheet. Darlene had been shot in the head with a shotgun at point-blank range. The top of her head was gone. No, no, no. Bruce had been shot in the face. His jaw had literally been blown off. Oh. But that wasn't all.

The shot had not been fatal. So the attacker had pummeled his face. It hadn't been fatal? No. That's the thing with these shotguns. I know. So the attacker had pummeled his face with the butt of the gun. Oh.

And then stabbed him multiple times in the chest. But then covered them both with a sheet. Mm-hmm. That's interesting. It is interesting. I'm catching on quick, Kristen. I have a true crime podcast. Which brother or sister

did this? Yeah. Also, I've got your number, lady. I know the kind of stories you like, you weirdo. The police were obviously called and the homicide investigation was well underway by the time word of the grisly murder quickly spread through

Libertyville, Illinois. The affluent Chicago suburb where the Rouse family lived. And the Rouse's sprawling 13-room home was quickly dubbed Murder Mansion. 13-room as in 13 bedrooms? I don't think 13 bedrooms. Yeah, that'd be crazy. Yeah, that would be insane. But it's a big house.

It's a big ass house. Okay. So the house has since been torn down. I only found one picture of it and it's not very good. It's really a police car's outside the house. Okay. It looks fucking big though. All right, all right.

Language. So the Rouse family had this, like, they love to talk about how established their roots were in Libertyville, Illinois. They could date their lineage back to the 1880s. But at the same time, they were kind of a self-made, like Bruce was a self-made businessman. He had inherited a gas station from his father at the age of 21 in 1957. But then he had grown that business and turned it into a chain of gas stations. He'd invested in real estate. He'd invested in a concrete business. He'd gone into a partnership with a cable television station. So what? Okay. I don't mean to take anything away from this man. Yeah, obviously, that's he took something and he made something huge out of it.

And that's great. Being handed a gas station when you're 21, that's not self-made. Yeah, I agree. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But, I mean, it could have been like a failing gas station. He turned it around.

No, I still, yeah, even if that's the case, you're still not self-made if you're given that kind of a leg up. In my mind. Yeah. So he. I often like to talk badly about. In my mind. Yeah. So he. I often like to talk badly about people who are brutally murdered. I already told you this man was brutally murdered.

His jaw was blown off, Kristen. I see. And I don't consider it talking badly. I just like, I'm real careful about the way we talk about business people, especially white business people, you know. I'm assuming he's white, right? Yeah, I believe he's white. All right. All the articles describe him as being self-made, Kristen. Yeah, I mean, that's the way we love to talk about business people.

Yeah. But again... Yeah. Do you hear my point? Yes. You're seeming like you want to move along with the story. So Bruce and Darlene had met. What time do you leave work most nights?

So Bruce and Darlene had met, I don't know, in high school, right after high school. Unclear to me exactly. But they'd fallen in love and gotten married when they were 18. Oh, God. And almost immediately they had their their first son, Kurt. And then a couple years later, they had a daughter named Robin. And then a year after that, they had another son, William, who they called Billy. So Bruce's business during this time when the kids are growing up, you know, are growing and growing and he's investing and growing his business.

And so he was able to move his family into that big 13-room mansion. And it seemed like they were living the American dream. But with the success of Bruce's business also came a lot of responsibility. And so Bruce often worked 14-hour days, which left Darlene home a lot raising the kids by herself. That sucks. It does suck. Because by the time Bruce would get home from work, he'd eat dinner and like— Yeah, he'd be ready to crash out.

Go to bed, exactly. So by 1980, the boys were kind of into some trouble. And when I say into some trouble, I mean a lot of trouble. By this time, Billy was 15 and had been expelled from school after some vandalism and setting off some fire alarms and some drug use and whatever. He was going to an alternative school by this point. He also was heavily into drugs and alcohol at 15.

That's wild. Yeah. We were a couple late bloomers so that's just real wild to us. That is super wild to us. Had he ever heard of just like walking around Oak Park Mall with his friends? Kurt, who was 20 by this time, had gotten into so much trouble. And I don't have specifics on what kind of trouble he was involved in.

But it was to the point that they had actually banned him from entering the main house. him from entering the main house. Oh. He lived in the guest house out back and did not have keys to the main house. They changed the locks. And he was not allowed access unless they, like, invited him in. I don't know about that. I know. So it just seems like things had gotten kind of out of hand with Darlene trying to raise three kids.

Three kids herself and Bruce being so focused on his business. Right, that he was completely absent. He was a very absent father and it seemed like that's what the boys wanted was their dad's attention. And so they just acted out a lot and whatever. Robin, by all accounts, was like a great student and like the apple of her mom's attention. And so they just acted out a lot and whatever. Robin, by all accounts, was like a great student and like the apple of her mom's eye and didn't seem to have the same behavioral issues that the two sons did.

Worth noting, it is believed that Billy had an undiagnosed learning disability. He was likely dealing with dyslexia and had a lot of issues with that and possibly even like issues with ADD or ADHD. And so much of that was. It was just not a thing. It wasn't a thing in the 80s. Yeah. While it existed. Yeah. The what to do with it was non-existent. And so a lot of his problems with school were believed to come from there. So when investigators arrived at the Rouse home the day of the murders, they were greeted by

Billy and Robin. Robin was distraught. She had been like, she was the one that called 911. She was bawling on the call. Like she was nearly inconsolable by the time the police arrived there. And Billy seemed upset, but he seemed kind of out of it. But, you know, everyone grieves differently. The two had not yet told their other brother, Kurt, what was going

on yet. So he's, you know... You don't go to the murderer and say, hey... Oh... Well, right? I mean, come on. Kristen, how would he do the murder if he doesn't have keys to the house? I'm sure there's a way to get in there. You sound like the police. Unless it's Billy who did it.

So police actually go to the guest house and they wake up Kurt and he's like, what am I in trouble for? And they have to tell him that his parents have been murdered. And he says, you know, I don't know anything about it. And that's the same story all three kids give. I don't know anything. Didn't hear anything. Didn't hear anything. Didn't hear anything.

So almost immediately. Well, the house isn't that big, right? I mean, it's two shotgun shots. Yeah. So immediately investigators are like, okay, isn't that big, right? I mean, it's two shotgun shots. So immediately investigators are like, okay, this is clearly an inside job. Right. And they talk to each of the kids. So Billy and Robin, their rooms were directly above their parents' room.

Yet both of them claim to have not heard anything the night before and they pinky swore that. Stop it. You quit it with your silliness. So that was the first thing is that these kids were like, we didn't hear anything. There had been

a thunderstorm the night before and that's what both Robin and Billy cited. They're like, well, there was a big storm last night, so we must not – just not have heard anything. Investigators thought that even that would have been very convenient. Like, that would have meant – Well, was there, like, lightning and thunder?

There was, but someone would have had to stand in that bedroom and wait and perfectly time a shot to be masked by lightning and thunder. Unless you just, I know I'm being ridiculous. Unless you just got lucky? No, no, no. I'm giving all the benefit of the doubt when we shouldn't be. Right. But like I'm, so I'm a very heavy sleeper. Once I'm out, I'm out.

Yeah. And I can imagine waking up to a loud bang. And just assuming that it was. Yeah. I mean, that could be. Okay. True story. Last night I left a baking sheet on top of the oven.

And I woke up in the middle of the night. Apparently one of the cats had knocked that baking sheet down, hit the floor, made a huge noise. Obviously I had no idea that that's what made that huge noise. But, I mean, it was so fucking loud. And I didn't think someone has a shotgun in my house. I was just like, well, I'm not hearing footsteps. So I'm going to go back to bed. Well, okay, so you're willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

The police were like, okay, there was a thunderstorm, the benefit of the doubt. The police were like, okay, there was a thunderstorm, but that'd be pretty fucking convenient for somebody to have as a cover.

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What did you say originally? Stop it. Personable? Personable. It was the nicest, friendliest murder. The nicest murder you've ever seen. And that's why you don't see it coming. Stop it. Personable? Personable. It was the nicest, friendliest murder. The nicest murder you've ever seen. And that's why you don't see it coming.

That's exactly right. Well, it's that sheet, right? I mean, first of all, it's... So the sheet being pulled over the bodies was a huge sign. That is a sign that the killer was remorseful. Mm-hmm. sign. That is a sign that the killer was remorseful. If this was some stranger who had broken into the house, you don't get that. Yeah. And it was very clear that robbery was not the motive here. Bruce's wallet was still on his dresser with $300 cash inside of it. And there were valuables all over the house. Yeah. Nothing

appeared to be missing. Nothing except several weapons from Bruce's gun collection. Oh. Yeah. So, there were several guns missing, including a shotgun,

which they believed to be the murder weapon, and it was never recovered. So the night that the murder occurred, Darlene had spent the evening at Bridge Club, and Bruce and his son Billy had been at one of the gas stations installing a spray paint booth. So when I said earlier that he owned gas stations slash service stations, I think that these were more than just like your gas station with a convenience store. They were somewhere where you could go get work done on your car as well. So they were putting in a paint booth so that they could paint cars.

Wow. Okay. Yeah. And so they'd been there like all evening installing the spray paint booth and they'd come home at like 1030 that night. installing the spray paint booth, and they'd come home at like 10.30 that night. And Bruce had gone right to bed because we know he starts his day really early. Darlene had come home about a half an hour later from Bridge Club,

and she went off to bed too. Billy was watching TV in like the family room, and he dozed off in front of the TV. This is all the stuff that he tells the police, that the family kind of tells the police as they're walking through the night before. He told police that sometime in the night, he doesn't really know what time it was, sometime after everybody else was asleep, he'd woken up in the family room and he went upstairs to bed. When he went upstairs to bed, he noticed that Robin was already in her room and the lights

were off, so he assumed she was asleep as well. And then all we know about Kurt is that he sleeps in the guest house out back, and he likely was asleep by that time as well. So this is all, you know, seeming pretty suspect to the police. They're like, all the doors were locked. There's no sign of entry. This is clearly looking like an inside job. So they put together a list of things that show, like, this points to one of the kids. Right.

But how do you know which kid if nobody's willing to talk? So this is kind of the things that they say point to it being one of the three kids inside the home. So the stuff we already talked about. The kids were asleep upstairs and claimed to have heard nothing. They asked each of the children to take a polygraph. Oh, God, of course they did. Fucking 80s. They all said no.

Oh. None of them would do it. Ooh. Yeah. And that was kind of before people knew that polygraphs were bullshit. So as soon as they were asked to take polygraphs,

all three of them said no. They were all asked independently. They all said no. Lawyer up. And they all lawyered up. Yep.

I think that's pretty advanced for 1980. Like, yeah. How'd they know to do that? How'd they know to lawyer up? Yeah. They were rich kids. I mean, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. How'd they know to do that? How'd they know to lawyer up?

Yeah. They were rich kids. I mean, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. At some point, a detective claims that Robin said it was one of my brothers. But that's it. Didn't elaborate anymore.

And refused to speak beyond that. Hmm. I think that's kind of sus. What? Just automatically saying it was one of my brothers. Like, is she just trying to get suspicion off of her? Or does she know something?

Well, of course she knows something. I don't think she did it, though. You don't? I'm very sexist. I don't think ladies do these things. I do think that the fact that he was—it doesn't seem like a woman would beat her father with the butt of a shotgun. Yeah. I think that's—

Ladies love poison. Well, and ladies love stabbings, too. So the stabbing I could, I could see. But the other thing you have to think of is bitches be crazy. So a couple other odd things. The family's dog never barked. That means it wasn't a stranger. They said the dog always barked at strangers. Mm-hmm. Didn't bark that night. There was also some blood

that was found on Bruce's car. Like a little drop of blood on the outside of the car. There were some blood stains on the inside of the trunk as if someone had put a bunch of evidence in there

and then driven away with it. Oh. Also, when the police were looking at the car, the windshield wipers were in the on position. But Bruce had gotten home from work at 1030 and it hadn't stormed until 3 a.m. Oh, shit. Yeah. Uh-huh. Oh, shit.

Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah, so that says that somebody drove the car after the storm had already moved in. Thank you for spelling that out. You're welcome. You're welcome. So they have all of these pieces that point to somebody inside the house, but the kids are all refusing to speak. How do you prove that they did it or which one of them did it? Gunshot residue test.

That became the big problem. As far as I know, they never did that. They needed me on the force. That's right. But I hadn't been born yet, and so they just couldn't do it yet. Within weeks, this case was essentially cold. They had nowhere else to go with the investigation. The sheriff said, I have no idea when we will have a suspect.

He said this like in a press conference. This is not going to be an immediate arrest. And he said, the problem is not so much that we have to find who did it, so much that we have to find who did it, but we have to be able to show that no one else could have done it. Okay. Okay. I hear you, Sheriff. Yeah.

I feel like he's like, listen, you fucking kids. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly what he said. Yeah. But that was kind of it. With the kids lawyered up and refusing to speak and refusing to take a polygraph, there wasn't a place for the investigation to go. Did they have three separate attorneys?

Yes. Wow. Okay. And so shortly after the murders, they all go their separate ways. They all go live with different family members, and they split their inheritance three ways. Wow. They each get about $300,000 from their parents' estate,

which adjusted for inflation a million bucks. Oh, okay. I was going to say I wasn't so impressed, but yeah. A million bucks. Okay. I was surprised by that inflation rate from 1980 to 2020. Yeah. My, how things have changed. Yeah, like the minimum wage.

Oh, please. Hey, hey. Do not get political on this podcast. I come and listen to my murder stories for a break. So, they all go different ways, and that's kind of it. Billy goes to Florida. Kurt

goes and lives on, like, some commune in California. And Robin heads off to I don't even know where. And police, all they can do is basically keep tabs on the kids over the next few years. And hope that one of them turns on the other. Uh-huh.

Okay. Uh-huh. Wait for that money to run out. Exactly. Exactly. In 1983, Robin was 20 years old, and she died in a single car accident. Yeah. She was 20 years old, and she died in a single car accident.

Yeah. She was driving her car at, like, a crazy high rate of speed, crashed into a tree, died. Wow. Yeah. In the months immediately following the murders, both Robin and Billy at different times were hospitalized and diagnosed with PTSD. And so Robin was having a really hard time, I think, dealing with what she witnessed in the room with the discovery of her parents. And she, it seemed like, had tried to separate herself from her brothers. Yeah, but she just, something happened that day.

She died in a car accident. Billy, by that time, was, like I said, living in Florida, and he was heavily using drugs and alcohol. He was burning through his inheritance. So $300,000 by like 1992 was completely gone. And he was living in a

he was living at one point in like a drug house another time he was living in this like run down house boat with like a bunch of other vagrants. That sounds terrible. It does sound terrible. A rundown houseboat. And he kept getting arrested for minor charges.

And every time he'd get arrested, they'd alert the authorities back in Illinois. And they'd, you know, make a little mark about what he's doing. And that was kind of it. Kurt, I think, got married when he was living in California. And then he got divorced. At one point,, got married when he was living in California, and then he got divorced. At one point, Billy got married as well, and quickly got divorced. And then in 1995, Billy was arrested

on suspicion of attempted bank robbery. You're kidding. No. So he's arrested. I don't know. It seems, like, one article broke it down a little bit, and it seems like they maybe uncovered a plot that they were going to rob this bank. Like maybe they hadn't actually caught them at the bank.

I'm not positive. It's a little bit unclear. But he was arrested for a suspicion of attempted bank robbery. Boy, that's weak. Okay. Or in one of the articles it said conspiracy as well. So I think that means they had to have caught him in the planning stages. Yeah.

Anyway, so they arrest him. Florida authorities look into his background. They see all these minor charges. And then they see that he's attached to this murder case in Illinois. And so they let the authorities in Illinois know. the authorities in Illinois know. And the original detective on the case from 15 years ago flies to Florida to talk to Billy. He's like, this might be my opportunity.

To go to Disney World. To go to Disney World. He says, I don't, something about it. He's like, this might be my chance to sit down with him and get him to tell the truth. Exactly. Something about it. He's like, this might be my chance to sit down with him and get him to tell the truth. Okay. And so by all accounts, it seems like Billy's in an interrogation room in Florida. This investigator from Illinois who covered the case at the beginning walks in the room.

Billy sees him. And immediately he starts crying. Oh. Yeah. And then he confessed to murdering his parents. He said that night he had gotten in a big fight with his mom. She'd confronted him about his drug use, and she'd said that they were sending him to military school. And so she'd gone to bed, he'd gone to his room, and decided that he was going to

kill his parents. So he smoked a bunch of pot, ate some mushrooms, and then grabbed his dad's shotgun and stood outside his parents' room for 10 minutes before he worked up the— Smoked a bunch of pot? Yeah. Does that seem— I don't know. I mean, I've—you know me. My experience was one time I had some pot and I told Norman—

You'd divorce him if he didn't get you a pizza. Yeah, yeah. So I just can't imagine being like, I'm going to smoke pot and that's going to help me kill two people. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's the combination of the pot and the mushrooms. Yeah, I didn't have mushrooms on my pizza. Man, people are cracking up right now. I bet they are.

Just dying. I bet they are. They're just dying. I bet they are. And so he stood outside his parents' room for ten minutes, working up the courage to go in. He went in, shot his mother first. She died instantly. Shot his father.

We know that his jaw was blown off. After he shot his father, his father sat up in bed. Oh, my God. And was alive. Yeah. And so that's when he beat him with the butt of in bed. Oh, my God. And was alive. Yeah. And so that's when he beat him with the butt of the gun. Oh, my God. And then he still was alive.

Oh. And so he said he stabbed his father through the heart until he stopped moving. Jesus Christ. Yeah. According to this, so this is a taped confession, and according to it, he said he stabbed him at least six times in the heart. He also said that that was initially what he had planned to do. He was just going to go in and stab them, but he decided he needed to shoot them. That would be easier, I think, is what he said.

Anyway, after he did it, he said he just went into shock. He sat there, and he was like, why did I do this? Why did I do this? And that's when he put the sheet up over them and then he grabbed his father's guns, the ones that were missing from the house, and the knife that he'd used. And he threw those all into the trunk of his dad's car and he drove out to the nearby river, and he threw them into the water. So this was one of the things that was like, okay, this confession is for sure true, because they recovered a bunch of the family's guns from the river soon after the murder. Okay.

But they never recovered the one that was used in the murder. But that could just be because it got, for whatever reason, it wasn't found. It got washed away. It got stuck somewhere in the river. You know, there could be lots of reasons for that. And he said that he'd done it all on his own. His brother and sister had had nothing to do with it and hadn't known what he was doing. So, obviously, they're like, okay, holy shit,

we just got a confession on a 15-year-old murder that we were never going to solve. And so they drop the bank robbery charges and they extradite him back to Illinois to stand trial for murder. He went before a judge a short time later and, like, you know, had his official arraignment and he pled not guilty and he was ordered held without bail. So he was 15 at juvenile court, he could only receive 30 days in jail. Oh, my. Because he's no longer a juvenile, I guess. Oh, yeah. And so they had to go through this whole long process to get it moved to adult court rather than juvenile court. And so his attorney was obviously opposing this and saying, you know, if he does that, then if they transfer him, then he won't get the same like psychological examinations that he would get in juvenile court.

And I think that's really important and important to his case and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Ultimately, a judge decided that he needed to be tried as an adult. And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Ultimately, a judge decided that he needed to be tried as an adult. I think that's such a tough situation because he was 15 when he committed the murder. But looking at him now, you see a 30-year-old man. Yeah, that is tough. But I just don't understand a system where someone can commit a double murder and get 30 days in jail regardless.

But as a general rule, I don't like the idea of us bumping people up. I agree. So I think the 30 days in jail thing is like a weird loophole because you can only be held in the juvenile system until you're 21 or whatever. And so he's already above that. So even if he was convicted, then, you know, that would allow him. I think that's what you get. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're not saying like, oh, you know, murder as a juvenile only carries a 30-day sentence. I think it was like a weird loophole problem that they were trying to stitch up before the trial moved forward.

So it was decided that he would be tried as an adult. And the judge said that she believed it was in the best interest of the defendant that the transfer occurred. Yeah, I don't know about that. So now the defense had to deal with the confession tape. There's a 37-minute videotaped confession in which Billy tells the entire story. And he's angry in parts of it. And he curses. And he talks about how terrible his mother was at times. He's angry at his parents in this?

Yeah. He's talking about how he was so angry at his parents that led to him committing the murder. Yeah. Okay. And he's like cursing at them and talking about all the shit he had to deal with in that house.

And he talks about how his father was absent and his mother was abusive and just not great things. So the defense files to get this kept out of court. Right. He said, so his defense attorney, David Brodsky, he was a public defender that was assigned to Billy because he had no money at this point.

Yeah. He said that Billy had been coerced to give this confession. And he wasn't in a fully rational frame of mind when he gave the interview. And he said that without that tape, there would be no trial. No other evidence existed. Not true, though, because they found those weapons exactly where he said they would be. And his confession lined up with all the evidence. Exactly.

See, this is where I think it's so tough because we know coerced confessions happen. Absolutely. They absolutely happen. I don't think that's the case here, though. I really don't. I think the guilt of what he had done, He had carried it around for 15 years. And then, like you said, this was rock bottom. And he just couldn't handle it anymore.

And it poured out of him. And the whole thing is taped, right? Yeah. It's not one of those situations where the cops... As far as I found, yes. The whole thing is taped. Well, I mean... Yeah.

So the judge ruled that the tape would be admissible. And Billy Rouse's trial began on July 31st, 1996. It's my dad's birthday for anybody filling out their 10 pounds fun fact journal. And man, is he young. He was born in 1996. This was more than 16 years after Bruce and Darlene had been murdered. In his opening statement, Billy's defense attorney... Wait, what's the other brother think of all this?

Has he been... Oh, just you wait. Okay. Just you wait. Just you wait. Alexander Hamilton. So Billy's defense attorney told the jury that Billy loved his parents and that he didn't kill them. He said what he saw in those few moments in that bedroom sent a shockwave through him that he's never recovered from.

As a result, he was never able to make anything out of his life, and he lived penniless on a makeshift raft and drank himself nearly to death. He said that getting that confession that the police got from him hadn't been difficult. He said Billy was putty in the hands of detectives and that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. And then he offered up the real killer. It wasn't Billy. It was his brother, Kurt, who had always had a stormy relationship with his parents. Oh, gosh. Yeah.

So he goes, just balls to the wall and says it wasn't Billy. That that confession not true. They preyed on a man who has carried the trauma of what he witnessed in his parents bedroom with the bloody scene and all of that his whole life. And they drew a confession out of him that that was false. And really, it was his other older brother, Kurt, who committed those murders. Well, I mean, I don't doubt that there's a ton of trauma there. Absolutely. But that trauma makes you confess to murdering your parents.

Yeah, I don't think so. And your confession lines up with all the evidence. Exactly. So the prosecution did kind of the only thing they could do. They called Kurt as a witness and tried to rebut the defense's theory. So by this time, Kurt and Billy hadn't seen each other in more than 10 years. And so Kurt got on the stand and he testified that he loved his parents. Yes, there had been some tumultuous times.

And he believed that Billy loved his parents. Yes, there'd been some tumultuous times, and he believed that Billy loved his parents too. And he broke down on the stand and said he had nothing to do with the murders, and he didn't know who the killer was. He'd never known. Mm-hmm. And then that confession tape was played in its entirety for the jurors.

So they saw a very different version of Billy on this tape than the Billy who sat in the courtroom. So the Billy on the tape is, like, all disheveled, and he's, like, yelling and screaming, and he just seems, you know, kind of off kilter a bit. Right. Very riled up. And then the Billy sitting in the courtroom,

they'd gotten him a haircut and they'd pull a tie on him and polished him up. And this seemed to have obviously a very big effect on the jury. The defense tried their best to call other witnesses who could speak to the relationship that Billy had with his parents. They called family members. A couple of aunts testified that they didn't know that there was any problems in the house. I disagree if Billy is going to an alternative school that no one knew that there were problems in the house. Yeah. That seems a bit far-fetched.

But, you know, whatever. Well, and you've got one son who is not allowed. Is not allowed in the house. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds pretty perfect. He's been banned to the guest house. Yeah.

Yeah. There's obviously problems in the house. The defense also put on a couple of witnesses who had been friends of the Rouses and said that the only problems they knew about were the problems with Kurt. He was the problem child, not Billy. And so it only stood to reason that Kurt was the one to murder his parents. Okay, come on. Right. The jury deliberated for eight hours.

They watched the confession tape three times. Mm-hmm. And they returned with a verdict of guilty. Billy Rouse was sentenced to 80 years in prison for the murder of his parents, two consecutive 40-year terms. The judge said at his sentencing that she was disgusted at not being able to give him more time, but that was the most that she could sentence him to because of when the crime was committed. Well, I think that's plenty.

I mean, it really is, yeah. She said, they gave you life and brought you into this world. They gave you every opportunity for a future. You did the most hatefully shocking thing when you took that shotgun and at close range shot your mother who brought you into this world and then shot your father. Billy appealed his conviction and his sentence, but in 1998, an appellate court upheld it. Yeah. it. Yeah. He is eligible for parole after it's like 39 years. So he'll be eligible for parole in 2035.

The Rouse house, the murder mansion has gone on to have a little bit of a weird history. So after the Rouse family murders happened, somebody like in the Chicago mob scene bought the house and was running an illegal casino out of it. And then there was like a mob hit that took place in the house. Somebody was killed in like a stairway in the house. And then after that, in like the early 2000s, 2000, 2002 or something like that, another family bought the house and a fire happened and it was deemed to be arson and the house like burned to the ground. At that time, the owner said that he had planned to rebuild on that same site.

And he was asked if he thought that the house was haunted or if the ground, you know, if he thought there was bad juju or whatever. And he said, I don't believe in ghosts. Only Hollywood creates ghosts. But as far as I know, nothing has been –I couldn't find anything about a house being rebuilt there. It looked like the city ended up buying the property and tearing it down after the fire. Yeah. And that's the story of the Rouse family murders. Wow.

I think it's interesting that he carried that around for so long and then just like one day confessed. I think it would be so heavy to carry that. Yeah. And obviously it had had a huge effect on his life. Of course. Yeah. And you wonder, I wonder if Robin knew that he had done it. I bet she suspected.

That's exactly. done it. I bet she suspected. That's exactly. I think it's very likely that Kurt didn't know for sure which one of his siblings had done it. But I think that. I bet he did. I bet he did too.

Yeah. But he said on the stand, I've never known who murdered my parents. But maybe you wouldn't want to believe that you're. Well, and I, there's a difference between I've never known and I. I've never suspected. Yeah, absolutely. Because I mean, come on, you've got two siblings. Yeah.

Which one's more likely to murder your parents? You can take a guess. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and I think it's very telling that they all took their inheritance and went totally separate ways. Uh-huh. Yeah, I agree. Yikes. Yeah.

That is a gruesome murder. That's terrible. Yeah. Very brandy case. It is. I'm sorry. You don't seem sorry at all. I hadn't done a really bloody murder in a while.

We were due. We were, yes, we were due. We were due for a murder. All right, you ready for this? Oh, I've got to stretch it out. How am I looking? I'm real good. Super hot.

I'm real good. All right, thought so, thought so. Thank you to an episode of Dateline. I'm not going to say the title yet. I think it kind of gives something away. So keep your pants on. Okay. Picture it.

It's evening time in York, South Carolina. York, as I'm sure you're aware, is a massive city of less than 10,000 people. Yeah, it's pretty small, Kristen. Pretty big city, if you ask me. And on the night in question, February 4th, 2010, it was cold and rainy, which was kind of a bummer because it was Julia Phillips' birthday. But the rain couldn't dampen her shine. No one's going to rain on her parade.

Julia was an older lady, a southern belle, much like my husband. She had a polished-looking blonde bob. She owned a little boutique, so she was wearing a bunch of stuff that was totally in style in 2010, but hasn't really aged well since. Oh, okay. And she was stoked for her birthday. She and her boyfriend, Melvin, were going to celebrate. Hmm.

Worth noting, Melvin was 79. Julia was in her 60s. And I think it's weird to use the words boyfriend and girlfriend with people this old, but it's better than lovers. So here we are. Julia was ready to party. So she bought a shit ton of Mike's Hard Lemonade, and she got some sexy. Is she your dad? You know what? His tastes have matured.

Oh. He's no longer a Mike's Hard Lemonade guy. A little too sweet for him. Oh. Yeah. He's always evolving. Always evolving. He's a 24-year-old girl now who's.

Losing her teeth. Drinks Moscato instead. You guys, my dad is losing his teeth. Drinks Moscato instead. You guys, my dad is losing his teeth. Kristen. He had some dental work done. The dentist told him, okay, you can't eat popcorn.

I don't know for how long he can't eat popcorn. Did my dad follow the dentist's advice? No, and then a tooth fell out. And then another tooth fell out. And then another tooth fell out. And then my father, and guys, don't worry about him. He has money. This is not like a sad thing.

We don't need to go fund me. It's not like he can't afford to go to the dentist. Instead of going to the dentist, you know, they're out RVing. And, you know, evidently there's no dentist anywhere. They went to Walmart and bought dental glue. Just stuck that puppy back up in there. So yesterday, I can't handle it, they came over. We had lunch with them.

And my dad got Pad Thai, and they put scallions on it, which he asked them not to. So he was kind of picking them out, picking them out, picking them out. Well, then he takes a couple bites, and he takes this one bite. And then he goes, oh. And then he goes, damn then he goes damn it spat something out his tooth and then put that in the pocket of his hoodie and i thought it was a green onion and i was like dad what are you doing why are you putting that in your pocket? And my mom goes, it's his tooth. Oh, no. And if you think I felt sorry for him, you're dead wrong.

Man needs to go to the dentist and listen to the dentist's advice. Okay, the thing I took away from that is that your dad eats Pad Thai? Yeah. Wow. He's more adventurous than you are, Brandy. How does that feel? It doesn't feel great. Wow. He's more adventurous than you are, Brandy. How does that feel? Doesn't feel great. So anyway, Julia got a ton of Mike's Hard Lemonade.

And I mean, like, what are the big, you know, two-handle dealies? Yeah. And she got some sexy lingerie from Victoria's Secret. And she headed off to Melvin's house. Melvin lived in a house on the outskirts of York, and his home was at the end of a very long wooded driveway. Julia drove down that driveway and got to the circle drive at the end. And that circle drive was around the back of the house,

and that area was surrounded by a brick wall, not unlike the one that Mexico paid to build. Kristen. I'm sorry, did that not happen? So Julia parked her car and hopped out and started gathering her Mike's Hard Lemonade and her groceries, and according to Julia, this is what happened next. A man came out of nowhere. He spoke with an Indian accent, and he was black. What? No, wait, he was Hispanic.

What? You know, just your classic black guy, Hispanic guy with the Indian accent. We've all got a friend like this. At any rate, this black or Hispanic dude who bafflingly also had an Indian accent grabbed her, put his hand over her mouth, and shoved her to the back of the car. Over and over again, he said, money, money, money. He wanted money. And then he taped her up with duct tape.

He duct taped her mouth, her eyes, her wrists, her legs, and he dragged her about 60 feet to the other side of the brick wall. At one point, he shoved her face in the mud. They sat there in the cold, in the mud, waiting for Melvin to come home. Soon enough, he did. He drove down the driveway, and of course, Melvin couldn't see Julia or the mystery man, so he parked his car, and the black-slash-Hispanic man with the Indian accent said to Julia, if you say anything, I'll kill you. And then the mystery man walked over to Melvin. And Julia heard a struggle. She heard what sounded like a pipe, maybe,

because she's pretty sure she heard it hit the ground. And it sounded like a pipe or something metal. And then she heard a gunshot. Julia was panicked. She freaked out. Quit the look on your face. I'm not buying this story, Kristen. Well, haters, haters everywhere. She didn't know where the mystery man had gone. Maybe he'd left. Maybe he was waiting for her.. She didn't know where the mystery man had gone. Maybe he'd left.

Maybe he was waiting for her. Maybe he didn't exist. The black-slash-Hispanic man with the Indian accent is very real. Okay. All right. She didn't know if Melvin had survived. But eventually, thanks to the rain, the duct tape got wet, and Julia still had her keys on her, so she used her keys to cut the duct tape, and at around 7.30 p.m., she got free and called 911.

Okay, can you unsquint your face, ma'am? Okay. She told the dispatcher, No, no! I'm just one attacked! Wow. Someone could be a big asshole. And that someone is you. She said, listen to me carefully. I've been robbed. He tied me up.

Oh, please, please, come help me. So the dispatcher sent out police to what they thought was a robbery. Uh-huh. And they went down that long driveway and came upon a car. Yeah, that's a really fucking weird way to call that in. Agreed. There's no mention of Melvin being attacked. So, here's the thing.

I find it crazy hard to believe that she did not mention the attack. Yeah. But in the Dateline episode, they didn't include that part. And in the episode, they had the police there, and the police said they thought they were going for a robbery. Okay. So I guess we trust Dateline on this. All right. But that seems very odd to me.

So they came upon a car, and in that car was Julia Phillips. She'd gotten in the car to wait for them. She still had duct tape around her head and around her wrists. So police went over to Julia, and holy shit, a few feet from where Julia was in the car, Melvin lay dead in the driveway. This was a big deal. The officers on the scene all knew Melvin. He'd been the mayor of York at one point, and he was one of the best defense attorneys in town.

In fact, he was the longest practicing lawyer in South Carolina. Wow. 55 years. Well, I mean, he's 89, so wait. 79. 79, Jesus. And he was a business cat, Brandy. On top of being an attorney, he also had a bunch of rental properties, and he owned a used car lot. Melvin was such a big deal that Dateline also wants you to know that the street he lived on was named after him. Melvin Drive? It was Roberts Avenue. Which sounds much better than Melvin Drive? It was Roberts Avenue. Which sounds much better than Melvin Drive. Which, okay, I think it's actually fairly common on backwoods roads in little towns.

Yeah. Yeah, so let's all keep our pants on. You know, it wasn't the highway. Right. So investigators took one look at Melvin, and they were like, whoa. The cause of death was not immediately clear. Melvin had been shot at, but the bullet only just grazed his ear.

And he had abrasions on his head, or as the detective on the scene put it, some good licks. Oh. It looked like perhaps those good licks had come from a metal object,

although there was no metal object found at the scene. Where's the metal object that she heard hit the ground? It's not found at the scene, Brandy. What's her name, Phyllis? Julia. Were you just going for, like, old lady names? Her last name's Phillips, right? Yes. Oh, good, good, good.

But the thing that actually killed melvin was the zip tie around his neck he had been strangled oh my gosh i know i know it was a pretty wild crime so the investigators began to investigate the scene but their investigation didn't find much. I didn't have my thesaurus open. But they did find fresh footprints in the mud around the house. They were pretty sure the footprints belonged to a dude because they got down and examined the tread markings in the mud, and when they looked closely at the tread, they could just make out the words,

I have a dong at the tread, they could just make out the words, I have a dong in the tread. I thought you were going to say the tread was made up of tiny dongs. Which is another good sign. No, in the Dateline episode, they're like, you know, we were pretty sure it's a man. And yeah, all that means is that the footprints were big and it had like, you know, a very masculine tread. Yeah.

They're trying to act all scientific about it. But I know, I know that they were just in the treads looking for I have a dong there. Then they got the canine unit out. And someone sang, who let the dogs out? And someone else said, shut up, you're wasting time. Yeah, exactly. Don't you watch TV? The first 48 hours are critical.

And the first guy, who was still singing, in fact, at this point, he was on the second verse, was like, okay, but can we sing later? And the second guy was like, all right. And so they all agreed to finish the classic song, Who Let the Dogs Out, at some point within the next few days. But for now, they had to, you know, stop the crime. The party was jumping, so. As I wrote that, I was like, Brandi's going to hate this.

But I will love it. You've got a real weak stomach for lame jokes, I've noticed. Meanwhile, the dogs caught a scent, and the scent led them to a nearby neighborhood and then the dogs lost the scent in that neighborhood so in all likelihood this black slash hispanic man with an indian accent had parked his car in that neighborhood and gone and tied up julia and murdered melvin and then came back to that neighborhood and sped away. By the way, the Dateline episode only mentions the Indian accent, but every other article I read didn't mention the Indian accent.

They only said that she called the man black or Hispanic. So anyway, who—I'm putting it all together here. Yes, thank you for painting the whole picture. Mm-hmm. And the picture of your hole. It's quite beautiful, isn't it? So beautiful. If you need some time alone with it, I will grant that for you.

So that's, like, all they had. Yeah. But they also had Julia. They didn't have hard evidence. That's not quite all they had. What did I say? not quite all they had. What did I say? That's all they had. But they also had Julia.

All right. All right. Is this because I did like a 45-second bit on who let the dogs out? Yes, this is my feedback. Actually, it's because you spoiled my case three seconds into it. Well, I'm sorry. Everyone knew. Anyone who's listened to this seconds into it. Well, I'm sorry. Everyone knew. Anyone who's listened to this podcast is like, hmm, family and I.

Okay, one of the kids did it. Well, I mean, come on. You're right. You're right. You know what that means, guys? Guys, I'm talking to you. I'm not talking to Brandi. She thinks you're stupid because she thinks you didn't have that figured out.

Not at all. It's just that I like there to be a reveal, and I like when you guys pretend you didn't know until I revealed it. Like, oh, my gosh, the police said it was an inside job. What, are we playing hide and seek with a three-year-old? We've got to pretend we don't know what's going on? No, like peekaboo. Pretend that you're gone when you're behind the blanket. Okay.

So they talk to Julia. Oh, I'm sorry. So they've got Julia. That's all they had. Shut up. Except they talk to Julia. Oh, I'm sorry. So, they've got Julia. That's all they had. Shut up. Except they also have Julia. So, they've got Julia. She's the eyewitness.

Now, let's talk about her. Julia and Melvin had been dating for 10 years. Oh, damn. Theirs was a late and late. What? Why oh damn? Well, I think that's a long time. Yeah.

To be in the Mike's Hard Lemonade stage, you're thinking, you know, it's more like where you and David are, where you're still posting the cute pics on Facebook. Goodness gracious. Theirs was a late in life love affair. Melvin was divorced and Julia was a widow. They were a great match. Their families really got along. And even though Melvin and Julia weren't married, they were invested in each other. Literally.

Melvin bought Julia a boutique where she sold Merle Norman cosmetics. Oh, Merle Norman. And women's clothing. Yeah, that is the cosmetics of choice for ladies of a certain age in the South and Midwest. My grandma. Merle Norman. You ever been to a Merle Norman? I was dragged there by my grandma.

There's still a couple of them around. No, they... Yes! Where? There's one by the mall. No! I swear. Is it in an old folks home?

No, it's in a strip mall. Have you ever been in one? No. We used to joke about it when I was in cosmetology school. Yeah, Merle Norman at Oak Park Commons. It's just off 95th Street. Okay. Opens at 10 a.m. tomorrow.

All right. Closed now. Okay, well. Oh, because they're only open 10 to 3. Well. Opens at 10 a.m. tomorrow. All right. Closed now. Okay. Well. Oh, because they're only open 10 to 3. Well, I mean, they know the deal. I'm going there. Let's go there.

And do what? Are we going to buy Merle Norman cosmetics? Do you think they're any good? I think we're going to go there and get an old lady makeover. Oh, my God. And buy all the cosmetics that they recommend. I love that idea. I do too.

I love it. You get like really caked on makeup, I think. Don't you think? They're not going to do a dewy, fresh look. No. Hell no. No. You don't go in there for a natural look, and I'm fine with that.

You and I are not natural looking women. Yeah, we don't go for the natural look. There's no question if we're wearing makeup or not. Have you seen how long it takes people to do no makeup makeup looks on YouTube? My God, who has the time? Just slap it on and go, girls. That's right. Okay, anyway.

And boys, we don't care who you are. Yeah, whoever you are wearing that makeup, I don't give a fuck. If your tread says I have a dong, that's fine with us. So Julia has this boutique, and it was creatively named Julius. And it was located in Gaffney, South Carolina, which is about a 40-minute drive from York. So, in other words, they were the perfect couple. Nothing to see here, folks. Just a couple of old-timers drinking Mike's Hard Lemonades and enjoying one another's company. Banging. Enjoying one another's company. Did

they bang? He's 79. He's 109 years old. In dong years. No, one of the disturbing things about researching this is that I know for a fact... What? What? What? I must have clicked something because the Merle Norman website just came up. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. That woman's makeup looks horrible on the website. That is terrible.

That is terrible. That's the ad? Let's go get Merle Norman takeovers. Okay, we should. Oh, my gosh. We have to do this. That would be a great bonus video. Holy shit.

Hashtag Merle girls. That's it. No. No one who wears Merle Norman is a girl. No. Back to the night of wears Merle Norman is a girl. Back to the night of the murder. Yeah, okay. So they enjoy each other's company.

Oh, yeah. So I was going to tell you. Yeah. Over the course of researching this, yeah. Bottom line, these two had a very active sex life. Oh. Hmm. Tell me more. No.

Tell me more No Tell me more Like did he have a car? Yeah, he had a car lot Yeah Tell me more, tell me more Did she put up a fight? Ew, that's such a gross It is, it's terrible

Yeah Yeah Thanks for saying it You're welcome Back to the night of the murder Immediately after police discovered Melvin's body Officers went out to notify Melvin's adult sons, David and Ronnie. David and Ronnie were super tight with their dad. They had lunch with him, like, every day.

Every day? Yeah, I know. Kind of a life of leisure, I think, if you can just go have lunch with your dad every day, right? My fucking sister does that. Your fucking sister? How do you feel about that? I've got a life of leisure. She has lunch with my dad every day.

Maybe it's not a life of leisure. Maybe your dad is losing teeth right and left and putting them in his sweatshirt, you know? Maybe my dad and sister work together, so of course they have lunch together every day. But probably these guys do too, don't you think? Probably, yeah. They probably all work together.

Yeah. Ronnie in particular, when the officer told him his dad was dead, was like, that's impossible. No. Which I think is really sad. I think that's common. It is really sad. It is a very common response. Yeah.

There's a mistake. Yeah. Yeah. And I just saw them today. Yeah. The officers also had to tell Julia that Melvin was dead. She kind of knew he was dead. She'd heard the gunshot.

She'd seen him on the ground. But she'd been holding out hope that maybe he had survived. Was she? But of course he hadn't. Because she'd killed him. It was horrible. Do you think she killed him? I think there's no way her story is how it happened.

I don't know for sure that she did it, but I think the fact that she can't give a better description of the person who held her captive for however long is weird. Even if she had duct tape over her eyes and she was in shock and all that? Maybe not. I mean, I don't know how I'd react in that situation. Yeah. I think I'd know if he was black or Hispanic or had an Indian accent. Okay, I've been thinking about this a lot. And disclosure, this is a really weird case.

Okay. I felt one way about it, then I felt another way about it, and now I'm back to feeling another way. It's a weird, weird case. Okay. I felt one way about it, then I felt another way about it, and now I'm back to feeling another way. It's a weird, weird case. Okay. But I've been thinking a lot about this old Southern white woman. Mm-hmm. She says some guy of some race she does not know, clearly, attacked her. And I was thinking about my own old white southern grandma.

You think she'd have a similar description? Absolutely. Okay. All right. I kind of do. Yeah. Because listening to the tape of Julia, she's like, you know, she's saying all this stuff that just makes you cringe like, well, he didn't sound American like me.

He didn't sound, and you're like, it's the kind of stuff that makes you go, grandma, no, stop, stop, stop. Yes, yeah. But at the same time, again, I'm kind of like, I can see an old white lady saying that. I absolutely can too. And it doesn't necessarily mean that she's full of shit about this. All right, all right. I'll be more open-minded as this moves forward. Okay.

I mean, you don't have to. I'll do as I please. Okay. Tell me what I can do. What are you doing over there? Okay. What? I put that dissolving packing peanut in my pants.

Well, thank God. It has glued my pocket closed. Do you want to tell people what the hell you're talking about? We did some unboxing of some gifts that were sent to us at the podcast today. And the packing peanuts that were in one of the packages, they seem to me to be the ones that are good for the environment, that dissolve in water. And so I bet Kristen that she couldn't throw it in my mouth. By the way, I was sitting literally right next to her. And it took her way too many tries.

Like 17. But she finally got one in, and it did immediately start to dissolve in my mouth. And like a good house guest, you took it out of your mouth and did not throw it on the floor. I put it in my pocket where it continued to dissolve, and now it has glued my pocket closed. You know, that's good because you know what? Women hate pockets. Pockets, yeah. We hate pockets on our pants.

Don't give us pockets. You know what? Instead, make it look like there's pockets. I hate those. I fucking hate those. But then just, you know, staple that shit close. We can't actually put anything in there. That drives me fucking crazy when there's a fake pocket on clothes.

What are you doing? Okay, I'm sorry. Are you okay? I'm fine. So it's getting darker, and so police take her to the station and sat her down to talk with them. They really needed to get something from her because she was the only witness to the crime. And again, for the people in the back, they hadn't found much of the crime scene. Which is not a criticism of the

K-9 unit, because those boys have a rough job, and they do their best. No. No, they don't? Wow, how hateful to the dogs. They absolutely do their best. That was a terrible joke. I'm so proud.

Oh, gosh. So they're at the station and once again, it was 2010, so let's all be cool about the fact that Julia was wearing a white button-down with ruffles all over it that looked like someone had sprayed whipped cream

up and down the front in little rows. Yep, like a tuxedo shirt. Uh-huh. And then on top of it, she was wearing a shrunken, kind of blousey, bejeweled sweater with a deep V. Okay. This is a 2010 outfit? That seems kind of earlier, but okay. I looked at that, and I was like, that looks so stupid. Let's start with the ruffles.

Yeah. I was like, that looks so stupid. Let's start with the ruffles. I was like, that looks so stupid. Then I realized that just from memory alone, I can remember having at least three tops with the ruffles down the front. I had a work shirt that had the ruffles down the front. It was black. Well, naturally. It had a shiny thread through it every so often.

Okay, a little fancy. See-through, you had to wear a shirt under it. I can't think of what that fabric's called, but it was kind of gauzy, I guess. So you had to wear a tank under it. But I'd say that was circa 2006 when I was wearing that shirt.

Okay. My shirt that I remember sounds remarkably similar to yours only. It was red. Uh-huh. And it had, you know, it was sheer as well. Had to wear a tank underneath. Had the ruffles. Uh-huh.

And I looked fucking hot, I must say. I wore it to my first day of work, 2008. See what I'm saying? I see what you're saying. Didn't you also have the same shirt as the colon health lady? The colon health lady? The commercials where the woman

is like in an elevator with someone and she's asking them how their colon health is. It was like a Phillips supplement thing. Did I have the same shirt? I remember you saying that, like that you had the same shirt that the woman. It was like a purpley, satiny shirt.

Okay, that sounds like me. Yeah, with some buttons. I believe it was a short sleeve button up with maybe even like a little bit of a... Oh, that sounds like me. Little bit of like a puffy sleeve situation. That sounds like something I would have worn back then. That tracks.

Well, I've always been quite fashionable. I also remember having the shrunken cardigan. You did? Oh, yeah. Like a crop situation? I'm having trouble picturing the cardigan. So, you'd wear the tank top, and the tank tops were a little longer back then. And then I had, like, they're stupid looking in retrospect.

Yeah. A cardigan that went, like, below the boobs. Yeah, that does sound familiar now that you say that. Yeah. Yeah, I think I had one of those. Okay. Okay. So, in conclusion, we're all cool, and we shouldn't make fun of any of these fashions.

For some reason, in this talk with the police, they had her keep the duct tape on. What? So her wrists were not still bound, but the duct tape was still around one of them. And it looked like she'd pushed down the duct tape that had been around her mouth, and then she'd pushed up the duct tape that had been around her eyes. It's the most bizarre looking video you've ever seen. Yeah, why the hell they didn't cut that duct tape off of her, I do not know. That's super

weird. Anyway, they wrapped her up in a blanket and she told them the whole story that I've already told you. That makes it sound like they're like cradling her while she's telling the story. Well, I'm... And you're thinking that's ridiculous.

The video itself is ridiculous. If you can imagine an old woman who's clearly had a rough time, she's wrapped in this gray blanket, just like draped over her, and then she's got this gray duct tape as like a turtleneck and then up here as a headband and you know her mascara's running because she's been crying and everything. And Merle Norman's mascara is We're gonna find out

how it is. So she looks like Okay. Community theater tin man. That's how it is. So at one point in this video, she said in a voice that sounds like a little kid's, and that's when he grabbed me, put his hand over my mouth,

and he shoved me to the back of the car. He kept saying, money, money. Worth noting, the killer didn't actually take any money. Julia had like 80 bucks on her. Melvin had like 400 bucks on him. And yet this black-slash-Hispanic guy with an Indian accent had duct-taped Julia and beaten and shot and strangled Melvin and not taken any money. Okay.

I should say, because I realized I was saying the thing like, if this really did happen, I can see an ignorant old white woman kind of having an ignorant description of the guy. If this is all made up, I think there needs to be like a special extra crime when white people say this about like, oh, it's a black guy. Yeah. Anyway, that's just my suggestion for all the legal scholars who are out there listening to this podcast. So it was all very strange. Immediately, investigators were suspicious of Julia's story. They found it odd that the killer hadn't used very much duct tape to tie up Julia. He'd obviously used some duct tape, but just not a ton of it.

Perhaps there was a duct tape ration. And the duct tape around her wrist, it seemed to have been placed there kind of gingerly. They also thought that it was strange that Julia said she'd been dragged through 60 feet of dirt on this rainy day, but her pants weren't super dirty. And this is just a Kristen observation, copyright 2020. But as Julia replayed this whole story, she had a rumpled tissue and she sounded like she was crying, but I didn't see any tears coming out. Maybe she'd gone too hard on the Johnson & Johnson no more tear shampoo brandy. Or perhaps she was never meant to be an actress. But at any rate, Julia finished telling them what happened,

and then she told them that she felt lucky to be alive. Hashtag blessed, if you will. She told them. Hashtag woke up like this. With duct tape. Duct tape and all. She told them, I'm the type of person who's up at 5 o'clock in the mornings reading my Bible, and I honestly believe that God protected me from all this. I really do.

Which is logic that people use all the time, but that I have never understood. So God saved you, but God saw what was happening to Melvin and was like, oh, I'm sorry, Kristen, you'd rather have two dead people. That's the argument that they come back with. What? When people say that, yeah. They say. When people are like, oh, so God only saved one of them, not both of them.

Oh, so you'd rather have two dead people? That's not the argument we're having. That makes no sense. Yeah, I just was reading a bunch of comment sections, which is my worst thing to do. Brandy, why do you do this? Okay, so there was recently an Amber Alert. Did you see? Yeah, yeah, God. Worst thing to do in the current climate. Brandi, why do you do this? Okay, so there was recently an Amber Alert. Did you see? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I've been following the case. You know, this dad allegedly killed his two sons and abducted his two daughters. Horrible. Yeah, and when the daughters were recovered and they are not physically harmed. Right. And a bunch of people were like, oh, you know, thank the Lord. He protected those daughters. Praise Jesus.

Like, he answered our prayers. And people are like, what about the two dead boys? And that's when people, the people who have said, praise Jesus, you know, whatever. Yeah. He said, oh, you'd rather all four kids be dead? Okay. That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. I agree.

That is so stupid. Yes. I mean, we can be grateful. Yes. We can be so happy that not everyone died. Yes. But, okay, as a religious person myself, to me, there would be nothing scarier than a God who selectively plucked people who had terrible things happen to them.

Yeah. Yes. I don't understand. You'd rather there be four dead kids, Kristen? Yeah, that's exactly what I thought you said. That's exactly what I heard. Yeah. So, a few days later, investigators asked Julia

to go back to Melvin's house and walk them through exactly what happened. And she was like, sure, sure, sure. At one point, they had her turn around and close her eyes and they dropped different pipes on the ground and asked her if that sounded like the pipe that she'd heard. That part wasn't super fruitful, but she did remember some more stuff about the murderer. She said he spoke with a dialect. Okay. And if you want more specifics on that, too damn bad because Dateline didn't show it. What? What does that mean?

I have no— Spoke with a dialect? Dialect? So she said somewhere else, like, something to the effect of, he didn't sound American like me. Okay. Does she mean accent? She says— Who knows what this lady would be.

All right, all right. He speaks with a dialect. He speaks with a dialect, which is very unique, so. Yeah, okay. At this point, investigators were a little sketched out by Julia, but they needed to look into Melvin. Because clearly this wasn't a robbery. This was someone who had set out to kill Melvin. So they reached out to Melvin's family.

And they were like, hey, did Melvin have any enemies? And the family was like, uh, he sure did. A metric shit ton, in fact. The thing is, a lot of people liked Melvin. But a lot of people hated him, too. He'd been a defense attorney, which had made him some enemies. Sometimes things went bad with clients or with other people in the legal system. And then there were his other businesses.

He had all that rental property. And he'd had to evict some people. He had that used car lot. and sometimes he repoed vehicles. So one of Melvin's sons went to Melvin's work and was like, hey, I need you guys to, you know, just compile a list of my dad's possible enemies. They came up with a list of at least 75 people. Wow. Right. Wow. Right? Wow.

I mean. That's a lot. I know. I know. That is alarming. Yeah. Yeah. In the Dateline episode, the guys were like, well, you know,

he made some people pay child support sometimes and, you know, that can make people mad. But we'll get to some more stories on Melvin where you're like, it wasn't just that he was the crusader for all the good things. Okay. But how hard could it be, really? They were looking for one of Melvin's enemies, and that enemy had to be a black-slash-Hispanic dude with an Indian accent. A dialect, if you will. Pretty soon, they found someone who matched that description. No.

Christian. Obviously, like, no one matches that description. Melvin was renting a house to a couple. According to Dateline, the husband had an Indian accent. Turns out this dude's wife had gotten into a huge fight with Melvin a week before he was murdered. Here's what happened. The lady went to Melvin and was like, hey, landlord, the floor is cracking by the kitchen sink. This needs to be fixed. And Brandy, I don't want you to think any less of this woman, but you should know that she was not skinny.

Oh, well. We all know that that's a crime punishable by death. Absolutely it is. So when she told Melvin that the floor was cracking by the kitchen sink and she wanted him to send someone to fix it, which, duh, is what a landlord should do. Melvin, who was not exactly a wisp of a man himself, said to her, if you weren't such a fat ass, you wouldn't be breaking the floor. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

Cool. Yeah, real nice guy. So investigators thought that maybe the husband heard about Melvin calling his wife a fat ass and he strangled Melvin with a zip tie, shot him in the ear and beat him with a pipe and tied up his girlfriend. Uh-huh. That seems a bit overblown to me,

but you know, hey. So they talked to the guy and the guy was like, no, I was at work. Sure enough,

he was at work. He had a clock-in, clock-out job and his boss saw him all day. So that dude got crossed off the list.

Mm-hmm. But then they heard a story that made them think that perhaps Melvin's murderer was his handyman, Gene Moss. By the way, Gene Moss, just a generic white dude, but I think they were getting desperate. Is Gene his middle name? First name Bob? And he goes by Gene?

Oh my God, it took me so long to get that. He goes by Gene. Oh, my God. It took me so long to get that. Patty, please include all of that every second where you hear my brain just slowly turning. Turns out on the night that Melvin was murdered, he and Gene got into a huge fight. Melvin's son, David, witnessed it. And he thought his dad was kind of being an ass to Gene but it wasn't really any of his business so at some point he just left for the day and he was

like toodles dad love you wish you weren't being such a dick to Gene. What's wrong? That's a really weird question in the discord. What is it? What's it like living in the Biden administration? Oh they're hoping that next week. Yeah. Oh. Do what? I don't know if you've heard this, Brandi, but there's going to be an election. Yeah, I get it.

We're not going to know the results of it next week, Kristen. It's going to be months. Months? Months. That's crazy. It's not. It's not going to be months. Weeks.

Please, just weeks. I think you are living in rainbow unicorn land if you think that— I assure you I am not. If you think that these are not going to be the most contested election results ever— Oh, yeah, they definitely will be. We're talking lawsuit. We're talking all the way to the Supreme Court. Where Amy can weigh in. Sure.

Right? Cool. Cool. Cool, cool, cool. Okay, sorry. Continue. Anyway. You were explaining that question to me. Now I'm too depressed.

Too depressed. Yeah. So investigators interviewed Gene, and he was like, I was at home all night with my wife. And they were like, nice try, oldest alibi in the book. But turns out they could verify his alibi in the book. But, turns out, they could verify his alibi. How? See,

someone had called Gene on his landline. And for all you youngsters, a landline is just like a cell phone except you can't go anywhere and you can't do anything

with it except for make phone calls. It's really cool. Wish we had him again. So Gene got a call on his landline and the caller heard Gene's wife in the background

and it was all around the time of the murder. So, you know, meh, meh, meh. At this point, investigators were starting to worry. Yes, Melvin had enemies, but none of them really matched Julia's description of the attacker because her description was just nuts. Yes, exactly. And they did get some DNA off the zip tie that was around Melvin's neck, and they tested, like, 80 people, but they didn't get a match. So they started looking more seriously into Julia, which made sense.

They felt from the beginning that her story was a little off. So they took a trip down to Julia's boutique. Julia's? Mm-hmm. And they were like, this place sucks. What? At one point in time, it had been a really nice store, but apparently Merle Norman had pulled out, and by 2010, Julia's was basically a thrift store. Wow.

They were like, why did this place take such a nosedive? Turns out, Julia had an addiction to prescription medication. So they don't say this, but I think it's safe to assume that it was prescription-strength ibuprofen. Kristen! No, I mean, probably pain pills, right? Yes. So they learned that she'd started taking money out of the cash register and buying pills off people on the street. And they found a bunch of pill bottles everywhere and a bunch of pharmacy receipts everywhere.

And she'd actually gone to rehab for this issue a few years earlier. Yeah, so investigators started narrowing in on Julia and developing a theory that she had hired someone to kill Melvin. But whom had she hired? Whom? Indeed. They suspected her son, Hunter. Hunter had a criminal record.

He had a drug problem. He had an Indian accent, and he was half black, half Hispanic. Boy. It's amazing they didn't find him sooner. He also had... An alibi! Oh, what? Shit, yep, that's right.

Apparently, at the time of the murder, Hunter was 40 minutes away doing a computer repair job on a retired cop's computer. And you know, there are no bad apples on the police force, so police took the retired cop's word for it. What, Brandy?

Kristen. That's just my toe coming up to the line. Is that what that is? That's just on the line. But surely they could find the murderer. They looked at Julia's bank records, but they didn't find any sketchy activity. So they searched her phone, but they didn't find any sketchy activity there either. So naturally, three months after Melvin was murdered, police arrested Julia in the parking

lot outside her boutique. What? Encharged her with what? Murder? I can't remember what her, um, what her actual charge was. Shit. How did I not write this down? But yeah, they believed that she had hired someone. Oh, conspiracy to commit murder. Okay. Okay.

Holy shit. Again. They have no evidence of that. Okay, see, this is exactly, you are doing the same thing I did. It's called mental gymnastics, Kristen. Pew, pew, pew. Oh, I'm on the high bar, the low bar, the high bar. No, this whole fucking episode of Dateline, I hated it

because they had you thinking she's the one who did this. Oh, she's sketchy, she's sketchy. And I wrote this whole thing making fun of her. I had to totally revise this thing because she may have done this. Yeah.

But they don't have shit on her. Wow. And I just, I don't know how you produce a show on this and make it seem like it's so obvious she did this thing. And make it seem like it's so obvious she did this thing when all you've really got is she struggles with a pill addiction. How many people struggle with that? It's a huge problem in our country. And they're not all, you know, doing murder for hire anyway. No. I think very few of them are doing murder for hire.

Let's hope. So there was no evidence to tie her to the murder for hire plot? There's no evidence of a murder for hire plot. That's fair. That's fair. There's no evidence of it. And they had no idea who the murderer was. Holy shit.

But they were pretty sure she was involved. Pretty sure. Well, yeah, I'm pretty sure that she was sketched, but I don't have any, I can't arrest her. I don't have any evidence saying that. You're also not a police officer. Well, I could do a citizen's arrest, Kristen, and I wouldn't do it because I don't have anything other than a gut feeling. Yeah, it's. And some sketchy behavior. It's bizarre. That is crazy. So I don't. Is that not nuts?

It is nuts. Cocoa nuts. So there are things that I think are weird. Again, I do think her description of the guy, that is weird to me. Yeah. I'm making fun of that a lot. But again, I. You think you're.

I think an ignorant old white lady, that might be how she describes a guy. You're right. I think you're. That's very possible. Listen, I know ignorant old white lady, that might be how she describes a guy. You're right. I think that's very possible. Listen, I know ignorant old white people. I'm a sexy young ignorant white person myself. Go ahead and confirm. It's super sexy. Yeah.

Old. How dare you? Wait, did you say you're a sexy old or sexy young? I said young. Oh, I'm sorry. I also said ignorant, but, you know, you don't have to confirm that. So, you know, they've arrested her, charged her. And you may remember that Julia was a widow. Well, her stepdaughters from her previous marriage found out about Julia's arrest.

So they came out and said they suspected that maybe Julia had killed their father, Bryant Phillips, as well. What? So, I believe his, um, they all thought he died of a heart attack. But now, with this new information about Julia, they thought maybe she'd poisoned him. So, Bryant's body was exhumed. But, I mean, they must not have found anything because nothing came of it. Oh, my gosh. Meanwhile, a few years passed with this charge looming overhead, and Julia's defense attorney, Bobby Friedrich, tried to argue that she was mentally incompetent to stand trial.

By this point, it had been three years since Melvin's murder, and Julia was suffering from dementia. She looked totally different than she had three years earlier. Her hair, you know, still on point, but she'd lost a bunch of weight. She looked frail and confused. But after some testimony from doctors who said that she understood the charges she was facing and she was capable of assisting with her defense, a judge was like, no, we're going to have a trial. Wow. And obviously they didn't have it in York because everyone in that legal system knew Melvin, so they would have had to recuse themselves. Julia's trial took place in August of 2013, three years after Melvin was murdered.

I can't believe this made it to trial. I cannot either. This boggles my mind. Yeah. I'm super uncomfortable with this. Wow. And man, when you read some of these articles, I mean, everyone is just so confident she did it. And maybe she did.

Yeah. Maybe she did, but it doesn't seem like there's any evidence. Right. There's no evidence that a murder for hire plot existed at all. Right. That's completely a theory. Right. There's no evidence that a murder for hire plot existed at all. Right. That's completely a theory. Right.

Holy shit. One theory was that Melvin was just such an important person in this town that they had to arrest somebody. Mm-hmm. Yeesh. Yeah. Don't love it. Whew. So her trial lasted one week, and prosecutor Chris Hodge, who I must say, she's got great hair, great bone structure, loved her outfits, and is definitely ready for her own TV show.

That's my prediction. She contended that Julia had hired someone, you know, we don't know who, to murder Melvin and tie her up. And the reason she did this to her... And paid him with what money? Unimportant. Okay. The reason she did this to her boyfriend of ten years was that their relationship was on the rocks.

Uh-huh. You see, Melvin wanted to dump Julia, but if he dumped her, she'd be screwed financially. Like, really screwed. So it turns out Melvin wanted to dump Julia, but if he dumped her, she'd be screwed financially. Like, really screwed. So it turns out Melvin had paid all of Julia's bills, including her health insurance, and he paid for her store to stay in business. But recently, he'd said, you know what? You need to pay the bills for your store. It's your store.

You should pay the bills. But when he said that, Julia's bank account had less than $2 in it. Oh, gosh. Yeah. So, I mean, this, a lot of the things the prosecution says make sense to me. Yeah. Here's the other thing. If Melvin dumped her, she'd be cut out of his will. And that'd be super bad because in his will, he was leaving Julia the building that housed her boutique. Retail value, $150,000. And any car she wanted from his car lot, except his Cadillac. That was the motive. Yeah, I don't think it's great.

Yeah. I don't think it's great. But don't worry, the prosecution also presented some evidence. Okay, what do we got? They said that a small amount of gunshot residue had been found on Julia's sleeves. Not her hands, her sleeves. And by her own admission,

she hadn't fired a gun in like five years. Mm-hmm. So perhaps she hadn't been behind the brick wall when that shot was fired. Perhaps instead, she'd been standing off to the side, watching the whole thing under an umbrella. So obviously, there was not

enough residue to say, oh, she fired the gun, which I'm sure that would have, I mean, that would make, that would be their dream, right? But they're so little, they have to make up this thing like, she didn't have much mud on her, she didn't have much rain, so she was standing off to the side, just enough to get a light dusting of gunshot residue. Right.

OK. OK. But the defense contended that there wasn't enough residue on her sleeves to do an accurate test. So the results of the test, in their opinion, was bullshit, which I'm leaning toward that, too. Which, I'm leaning toward that, too. I mean, if there's so little on there that the prosecution's theory is that she's standing off to the side when it's happening. Yeah. I don't know.

Prosecutor Chris Hodge also showed the jury the video of Julia being interviewed in the police station. And in this episode of Dateline, this prosecutor, who has zero evidence, presents this next bit of information like it's a smoking gun. So everybody buckle up! Click. In the video where Julia's talking to one of the officers, one of the officers said, Can I get some pictures right quick while we're in the warmth? And Julia

said, Now we're gonna use these for Playboy. And he says, no. And she smiles. What's your reaction to that? I have no reaction to it. I mean, I just think it's like a weird, you know. Exactly.

It's like a weird little joke thing. Okay. I think the same thing. Yeah. I think it's super weird. Yeah. And, you know, we all have these things of like, well, if that happened to me, I wouldn't be making weird jokes. But you don't know.

I bet I would be making weird jokes. I kind of think I would, too. Yeah. I say weird shit all the time. I do, too. And especially— And sometimes we put microphones in front of ourselves and record it. Yeah.

I think I would be making weird jokes. do too i do too that's that's the evidence what is that evidence of that she wasn't she wasn't she's cold and she was calculating she's inappropriate she's you know okay she's just having a good old time. Fuck. Yeah, so the defense is like, okay, yes, it's weird, but maybe our client is just weird. Last time we checked, being weird is not a crime. No, it's not. But I swear to you, in Dateline, the prosecutor recounts the moment she first saw that part of the video, and she says, right there, boom. I'm like, no, that was totally inappropriate.

Okay. Sure, it's inappropriate. It's not great. It's not evidence of anything. Nope. The prosecution called a friend of Melvin's. Are you okay? Do you feel as weird about this as I do? I picked this one because I thought it would be like a slam dunk, make fun of this, you know, creepy old murderer lady. No, I don't think it is a slam dunk. No, it's not.

Shit. The prosecution called a friend of Melvin's, Diane Rayfield, who said that Melvin and Julia's relationship had become virtually non-existent. Diane had spent time with them in the weeks leading up to the murder, and things seemed tense. Julia had acknowledged the tension, but told her that she'd make things right with Melvin by having sex with him early in the morning. Bright and early. Every day. That's how Melvin liked to start the day. Sorry.

Sorry. He's 118 years old! Yeah, it's gross. Anyway, and then on top of all this. She was on top? Stop it, Brandi, no. Stop. You guys, she's so proud of herself.

We have no evidence to suggest she was on top. But evidently all the morning sex didn't pay off because Melvin had told Julia that he'd booked a cruise with another woman. You want to hear something kind of weird? Yeah. you want to hear something kind of weird yeah when i was a reporter in north carolina there was this um city councilwoman i believe she was married at the time and there was some weird story we got an anonymous tip that like she'd shown up at this prominent guy's house with a gun and like fired and it just sounded it sounded nuts it sounded totally implausible and we honestly weren't even going to track it down because she was also like a minister

it was just like this is clearly made up no turns out she had gone to his house with a gun and gone all nuts and the reason she'd done it was because he said he was going to go on a cruise with another woman wow so i don't know what the deal is with these older dudes taking other ladies on cruises, but I heard about this lady once that put on space diapers and drove. There was no cruise involved. For 18 hours. Because her boyfriend broke up with her. And he started dating somebody else.

Wow. Where on earth did you hear that story? Uh, this podcast. Let's Go to Court. Episode 17. Wow. Amazing. I like the tall one myself. I'm sure you do. So clearly, you know, their relationship was done. The

prosecution also called investigators to the stand who talked about the inconsistencies in Julia's story. She'd said her attacker had a tan jacket, but how had she seen that with the duct tape over her eyes? And she'd given different stories as to when exactly she first saw Melvin's body. These were all kind of little inconsistencies that, you know, to the prosecution indicated that Julia was full of shit. One thing I didn't write down, but I thought this did sound bad. One article I read said that when she first talked about, you know, the guy putting duct tape around her hands, she had said we instead of he and then corrected herself.

I think that's interesting, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, again, I don't think the prosecution, there's a chance they're right. There is a chance they're right, but there's no evidence proving it and that should be what is required to convict somebody.

I thought this was America. Interestingly, and this was missing from the Dateline episode, but the prosecution also called a man named Guy Blankenship. Guy was a police informant, and because it's important to have a side hustle, you should also know that he was also a black market plastic surgeon and a thief. Oh. Yep. Okay.

And Guy claimed that Julia had offered him 10 grand to murder Melvin. There was no evidence to back up Guy's claims, but who are we to question a surgeon? Mm. Mm-hmm. You think he was doing those butt injections? I bet he was. Yes. Yeah.

What? What? You thinking about butt injections? I'm not. Recently, one of the other stylists in my salon had a client who has lost a bunch of weight, and she wants to do that, like, pull-your-pants-up surgery. Pull-your-pants-up surgery? Yeah.

Oh, just like loose skin? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. But it's super expensive in the United States. Oh, just like loose skin? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. But it's super expensive in the United States. Oh, no. So she priced it out in Tijuana. Oh.

And it's like, I don't know, thousands and thousands of dollars less. So she said she got on a forum and had a doctor recommend it to her. So I hope it's not a black market thing and, like, a real certified doctor. Is it guy blanket shit? I don't know. But I got real nervous for her. Yeah, I mean, I don't know anything about the medical systems in other countries. I don't either.

I just know there are a lot that are way better than ours. Absolutely there are a lot that are way better than ours. And there are a lot that are worse. Exactly. Yikes. Yeah. So my immediate concern was that it was like a black market situation because we're talking fraction of the price.

But our medical system is very flawed here in the United States. God damn. I think there are some things where I just spend more money. Yeah. If you're getting the boob job, you're going balls to the wall, right? Yeah. If you're getting the boob job, you're going balls to the wall, right? Yeah. Didn't we do that once in an episode where someone had like a $2,000 boob job? Yeah. I was like, nope. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. When the prosecution rested, the defense made a motion to dismiss the case. They argued that the prosecution hadn't presented enough evidence,

which I think is fair. But the judge was like, nah, let's keep this thing rolling. So when the defense took over, they said that the prosecution's case was all smoke and mirrors. Defense attorney Bobby Friedrich told the jury that, yes, Julia had made some quirky, inappropriate comments to police. And that's because she was weird. She had a weird speaking style. She was kind of kooky.

But that didn't mean that she arranged for her boyfriend to be murdered. The defense said that Julia was a victim. The prosecution had talked about the loose, sparse duct tape and the fact that investigators thought that Julia didn't have enough mud on her, given the fact that she told them she'd been dragged on the ground. But the defense was like, hey, that duct tape got loose because of the rain. And the stuff about her pants not being muddy or wet enough, well, the video from the incident showed that her pants were wet and they were muddy. So I want to stop here. The thing about the duct tape and, you know, the guy not using a lot of it, again, devil's advocate. I'm thinking,

You know, the guy not using a lot of it. Again, devil's advocate. I'm thinking, obviously, if this was all real, if this was not like an arranged thing, he only came for Melvin. He only really cared about killing Melvin. And so, you know, you see this kind of terrified older woman. Maybe you do go a little gentler on her. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. Maybe. woman do you go yeah maybe you do go a little gentler on her yeah yeah yeah yeah maybe maybe and i gotta say in the dateline episode every time they talked about how she didn't have much

mud on her pants they showed this picture that didn't show her entire pants it just showed kind of the ankle area which did show just a little bit of mud. And the video that the defense was talking about, you know, it's kind of dark out, so you can't see everything. But her pants do look multicolored, which to me looks like they were wet in places. Yeah, okay. All right. I don't know. So in other words, according to the defense, there was no physical evidence linking her

to the crime. And no, Julia and Melvin weren't on the verge of breaking up she just bought all that victoria's secret and a shit ton of mike's hard lemonade does that sound like an unhappy couple to you i think that sounds like a saturday night fest okay brandy yeah i guess you don't make love after mike's hard lemonade no also this idea that julia did all this because she needed money was bullshit. Her family had money. Her family paid her medical bills. Her family paid her attorney's fees.

There was plenty of money to go around. Okay. Which I will pause on that. Your family having money. Yeah, is not. Is not the same as you having money. It's really not. I mean, yeah, they're going to help you when you're accused of murder. Yeah. But, you know, if it's just that you've got bills to pay and your rich boyfriend is gone, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm not totally with the defense on that. So they're saying Julia did not do this. Julia was a victim, and the police didn't do a good job tracking down every lead. They'd done a sloppy job, and they'd let the perpetrator of this crime go free. The jury deliberated for about four hours, and they found her... Guilty. Guilty. Wow.

I'm including this because I thought it was so fucking stupid. In the Dateline episode, the prosecutor said she thought that Julia arranged Melvin's murder on her birthday as a birthday present to herself. That's stupid. I agree. to herself. That's stupid. I agree. I agree. That's dumb. That is.

Which I guess. That's ridiculous. I guess if you did arrange for your boyfriend to be murdered, you are cartoonishly evil. But I think that's really reaching. Yeah. Julia was sentenced to life in prison for her role in Melvin's murder. Julia was sentenced to life in prison for her role in Melvin's murder. Meanwhile, she got herself a new attorney, retired Dunder Mifflin manager Michael Scott.

Stop it. Okay, his name was Michael Scott. He appealed the court's decision, saying there hadn't been enough evidence to convict her, and her appeal was set to be heard in 2017. But in 2016, Julia died in prison. She was 72. Oh my gosh. When her death became public knowledge,

Melvin's son spoke out and said they were glad she was dead. Melvin's son, Ronnie, said, I hope she died a painful death. I said when Julia

was convicted that she would rot in jail and then she would burn in hell. She is dead. She's not in jail anymore. That means she's burning right now. Last night was her first night in hell. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And of course, I mean, the weird thing about this is everyone acknowledges that Melvin's actual murderer is still on the loose. Investigators say they're still looking into it, but it doesn't seem like that investigation is going anywhere. And Melvin's family has a $10,000 reward for information that leads to Melvin's killer.

But so far they've got nothing. Oh, my gosh. And that's the story of the murder of Melvin's killer. But so far they've got nothing. Oh my gosh. And that's the story of the murder of Melvin Roberts. Wow. I hate it. I hate it. I can't believe she was convicted on that. I know.

It makes me want to know more about the trial. But it just didn't seem like there was much there. Yeah. Yikes. That is scary. I know. The thing that is so scary to me about that is that she was convicted of a murder for hire plot, and there's no evidence that that existed. Right.

Right. There's no money trail. There's no recorded phone calls. There's no emails, text messages. That is alarming. Just a woman with a drug problem. That's scary. It is scary.

It's really fucking scary. Yeah. So it's very clear Melvin's family all feels with 100% certainty that she did this. That she did this, yeah. But it was interesting to hear them talk. So his granddaughter was interviewed for the episode. And she talked about how at Melvin's memorial, Julia was, you know, laughing and talking and, you know, just seemed again, too happy, which a lot of people said she seemed too

happy, which I also think is not, not necessarily evidence of wrongdoing, but her big smoking gun was, she said that, you know, they were there at the memorial and Julia came up to her and wanted to talk about that night, which, yeah, it's weird. Don't talk about that with his granddaughter. Yeah. But I guess Julia had been there with her son, Hunter, right next to her, and she had said, oh, the man, you know, duct taped my hands behind my back. And Hunter said, no, Mom, you said he duct taped them in front of you. So that's the granddaughter's big story. It's like, oh, there, there.

What? I mean, that inconsistency. Oh, my gosh. I don't know. The whole thing makes me uncomfortable. Oh, it makes me very uncomfortable. Well, shall we take some questions from the Discord? I think we shall.

How do they get in the Discord, Brandi? Well, to get in the Discord, you just have to join our Patreon at the $5 level or higher. It is like a 90s-style chat room, except nobody is asking you your age, sex, or location. And then when we record, we send out a little message and say, Hey, guys, we're recording. Send us your questions. And then we answer a few of them. That was an excellent description of what we do here on this very podcast.

Thank you. I'm usually here for it. Dogs Like Bones asked, just got my gallbladder removed yesterday. Any binging recommendations? OK, first of all, I'm so sorry. That sounds terrible. I have watched a couple of things recently. I just watched The Innocent Man on Netflix.

Have you watched this? Describe it to me. That sounds like something I would have watched. It's like a, I don't know, maybe six-episode series. It's John Grisham's book. His only nonfiction book ever is about this couple of wrongful convictions, question mark, in Ada, Oklahoma, who the same prosecutor and detectives were involved in. Did you watch this?

No, but I'm familiar with the book. Cheryl Pilots on it. I'm familiar. Yeah, I knew you knew her. So when I watched it, I was like, I bet Kristen's seen it. Guess not. Anyway, I found that very good. I also just found out that the new version of The Weakest Link is on Hulu.

Oh, gross. No one wants to watch that. It's a game show, Kristen. I've got a fun fact about that. What? Did you know that Colin Jost was once on The Weakest Link and he won like two months rent? I did not know that. I just read his book, guys.

So I've been giving Brandi a bunch of Colin Jost fun facts. Colin Jost fun facts, yes. So a podcast recommendation. So I have always liked the podcast You're Wrong About. I actually avoided it for a while because I was afraid it would just be like two smug white dudes telling

me I was wrong about everything and I was like, hard pass. Turns out it's not that. Much more charming than that. I believe the guy's name is Michael on that podcast. He just created another podcast called Maintenance Phase out it's not that. Oh, okay. Much more charming than that. I believe the guy's name is Michael on that podcast. He just created another podcast called Maintenance Phase, and it's like this subversive, cool podcast about, like, health and

weight loss, and in their second episode, they talked about those stupid presidential fitness tests. Oh, yeah. Do you remember those? I do remember those. So they totally did this deep dive and, you know, spoiler alert, turns out those tests were total bullshit. They served no real purpose. They measured nothing.

And they just humiliated kids. Yeah. And made people feel bad about themselves. And, you know, maybe made them never want to exercise again. Yeah. Do you remember? I had forgotten that stupid thing where you had to sit down. The box.

Yeah. Yeah. The sit and stretch. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, the sit and stretch. Yeah, yeah. What the hell was that for? I don't know. All I know is I was never on that presidential award. But you can always picture the kids.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Skinning little things. One specifically comes to mind. Who's yours? Oh, mine was. Okay, their frames were exactly the same. What specifically comes to mind? Who's yours? Mine was. Okay.

Their frames were exactly the same. Yes. Patty, please bleep their names. Those guys don't need to know that we're thinking about them and their presidential fitness scores. That's right. So, yeah, I like the podcast The Canary. Yeah. Which was Washington Post.

It's about sexual assault. It's really good. And maintenance phase. And, you know, you're wrong about. was Washington Post. It's about sexual assault. It's really good. And maintenance phase. And, you know, you're wrong about it. Don't worry. It's not. What about Let's Go to Court? Do you like that one?

It's okay. Breadmaster96 asks, Do you have friends on Facebook that you only keep around to watch their juicy drama? Oh. Okay. I have to admit that there is someone who I went to high school with who has recently friended me on Facebook, and then I found out that she's, like, a crazy right-winger, and I keep going to unfriend her, and then she spouts some bullshit conspiracy stuff,

and I have to read all the comments. Who is it? Really? She's a – wow. Oh, God. She does seem like the – Yeah. Like a real smug white girl.

Like real – Real nuts. Real conspiracy theory, which just pisses me off. conspiracy theory, which just pisses me off. I get so mad when I see people sharing conspiracy theories as if they are fact. Why? Because it's dangerous. You know, it must be nice to live in a world where you think that Pizzagate was fake.

Did you see the graphic that PostSecret posted yesterday ranking conspiracy theories from like how dangerous they are? It's really interesting. I'm going to pull it up right now. Where is it? It's not on there now. Maybe the conspiracy theorists took it down. Maybe they did. Did I screenshot it?

I wonder if it got too many comments and they took it down. Maybe. It was too controversial. Well, okay, speaking of that, so I covered Pizzagate for an episode a long time ago, and we have gotten weird comments from people who believe that, I mean, it's amazing to me that a guy went into that pizza restaurant trying to find the basement full of chained up kids. Found out there was no basement, period. Never mind no kids.

And yet people will still email us. Yeah. And be like, must be nice to think that child sex abuse isn't real. It's like, that's not what we were saying. That's not what we said at all. Yeah. Conspiracy theories, man. It's dangerous stuff. It is.

Megan asks, favorite and least favorite Halloween candy? Least favorite? Like, I don't know, what, Bit of Honey? Ew. No one gives out Bit of Honey. Some people do. know what, bit of honey. Ew. No one gives out bit of honey. Some people do. Pennies and bit of honey. Okay.

Or, like, a sucker. I don't like to get a sucker either. I mean, I'm saying this like I still trick-or-treat. When I did trick-or-treat, like, getting a sucker from someone, like, that's just a lame piece of candy. Bullshit. Didn't you love those caramel apple suckers? I think that's different. lame piece of candy. Bullshit. Didn't you love those caramel apple suckers? That's different. That's a sucker.

Okay. That's two candies in one. That's caramel and a sucker. You guys, you should see this. She's trying to do backflips here, and you had to swallow, because I said, I'm sorry, that sounds disgusting. But your mouth watered is the point I'm making. What's the best candy? Don't make me choose.

Don't make me choose. Don't make me choose. I like a lot of them. What would you trade for? I always traded to get the Milk Duds. Oh, yeah. And we were always very happy to give you the Milk Duds because who wants Milk Duds? Me.

Exactly. And, of course, I always wanted, like, the sugary, like the nerds. Oh, yeah. I wanted sour stuff. Yeah. Shock Tarts. Oh. That was your candy.

Yes. They don't even make those anymore, do they? Rest in peace. Skeezy Skunchy asks, are we getting Skeezy Skunch's merch? I would love that so much. Someone suggested that we do a scrunchie. Yeah. Like a silk or satin scrunchie that people can, you know, do the pineapple trick that you talked about in the bonus episode.

And we have skeezy scrunchie written on it. And who wouldn't be proud to wear that? Am I right? I'd be absolutely proud to wear it. Oh, I think this is a really good question. Am I right? I'd be absolutely proud to wear it. Oh, I think this is a really good question.

Meg M. Ralph says, November 1st, too early for holiday decorations or not. So I actually just read an article about this today. And the gist of the article was basically like celebrating holidays legitimately helps people with depression and stuff like that. And so in our current situation with COVID and the election and everything, people are recommending putting up your holiday decorations earlier. So as you know, I get great joy out of holiday decorations. I love I want my house to look like Christmas exploded. And Norman is a Grinch. Yeah. I'm sorry to say.

But yeah, I have thought a lot about like how I think that the darkness and the cold really does affect my mood. And honestly, having the house lit up, having all this fun stuff, like it just makes you feel better. So I don't think November 1st is a second too early i can't wait to put mine up especially so we have little london this year and she's just now like getting very excited about lights and stuff yeah so i think she's gonna love the christmas tree yeah i'm so excited okay marie now you're just fucking with us what is a hot dog a taco

is a pop tart a ravioli? No, no. No and no. How dare you? Kay Burns asks, NSYNC or Backstreet Boys? NSYNC all the way. Yeah, I've got to say NSYNC as well. Although I tell you what, Backstreet Boys, not bad. NSYNC, way better. Okay.

Way better. Okay. Way better. Okay. You're going to tell them? I had a lot of posters. I had all the marionette dolls. Did you have the dolls? Oh, I know exactly. I had a full set.

I had a full set. Sure did. Brandy was in love with Lance Bass. I was. It was those eyes, those dreamy eyes. He had dreamy eyes and that deep voice. Sorry, Brandy, that it didn't ever work out for you. I know.

And it never will. I still find him quite handsome. Well, yeah. Carl's Jr. wants to know, since we're in the future, am I panicking or celebrating next week? First of all, her name is not Carl's Jr. It's Carly J. It's not Burger J.S. It's not a burger restaurant, Kristen. Oh, my God.

I'm sorry, Carly J.S., but, you know, have you thought of upgrading to Carl's Jr.? Am I dyslexic? I mean, I can't read names at all. dyslexic. I mean, I can't read names at all. Well, Carly slash Carl, we can't see into the future, but we have a feeling it's going to be a dumpster fire. Either way, right? I mean, here's my prediction. Okay, great. Everybody buckle in. Is that we still don't know when this episode comes out. I think it's going to be a long time before we know the results of this election. Yeah, so we already talked about this a little on this episode, so who knows what we've cut and what we haven't.

I was thinking we'd know. I mean, obviously in the past, like you kind of know that night. And I'm not thinking it's going to be that. But I'm thinking like a couple weeks. And Brandi's like, you kind of know that night. And I'm not thinking it's going to be that. But I'm thinking, like, a couple weeks. And Brandi's like, no, it'll be years. I am just saying that if it comes out with Biden winning, there's not a chance in hell that Trump doesn't contest the results. Of course. And file a lawsuit.

I'd say just prepare yourself for that. You know, oh, this is dangerous to say. There's part of me that's like, how can 2020 possibly get worse? Don't say that! I know, I know, I know. Suck that back in, Kristen! But don't you feel like, you know, everything that's gone on this year, it's like, well, it can't get worse than this. And then boom.

Yeah. Remember when we thought the coronavirus would be like over in a month? Yeah. Those were fun times. Oh, no backup wants to know, which I love that handle. No backup. No backup. You don't remember that from here?

Oh, yes. No backup. No backup. You don't remember that from here? Oh, yes. No backup. What's to know? What happened to the weird sex stuff in all of Kristen's cases? You know, I saw that one. I don't know what happened. Maybe I got ashamed. Yeah.

And also, I mean, my parents do listen to this podcast, so it— You weren't talking about your own weird sex stuff, Kristen. I know, but it's still cringey. Come on, Brandi. Whatever, you had to say micropenis in front of your dad, so. Oh, God, that was the worst thing ever. I wanted to die. That whole day, I was like, oh, it's happening today.

My apology about micropenises. That was—man, that was quite the punishment. DP style. Misused the term intersex. about micro penises. That was, man, that was quite the punishment. DP style. Misused the term intersex. That was the funniest part was when he was like, I've always thought of guys as an intersex term.

And I was like, that's not what that means. What's, what's sweet to me about it, and I think this is a compliment to the listeners, is no one made fun of him for that. Yes. Of course, I made fun of is a compliment to the listeners, is no one made fun of him for that.

Yes. Of course, I made fun of him a lot once the episode was over. And Patty even cut that part of the episode, and I was like, Patty, put it back in. Put it back in. Really, intersex means whatever you want it to mean. Ooh. Ford F1 Green Picky wants to know, if you had five minutes to communicate with your pet, what would you tell them and what would you want to hear from them? I would want my pet to be able to tell me how they really feel.

I always worry that my pet, my dogs don't, like, feel good and they can't tell you that or if they need something. Like, yeah, that's what I'd want to know. Yeah. Why did you ask that question? Sorry, Kristen. I'm sorry. Cut it, cut it, cut it, cut it. No, it's okay.

I... Oh, fuck. No, I'm sorry. Don't. Don't. We'll cut it. Asshole. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No, I can say it. I would just, like... Stop it. No, I can say it. No, don't answer. It's fine.

I'm so sorry. It's fine. I'm so sorry. That's okay. I hope you feel like a terrible person. I do. Kristen, what's your whiskey of choice? Pixie wants to know. I'm not classy enough. You just order whiskey.

Like, you'll take whatever they... Well, I mean, I know when I'm drinking, like, oh, this is a good one or a bad one. But you know what I don't like? DeWars. I don't even know what that is. It tastes like somebody had some whiskey and then they set a tea bag in it. Oh. I don't.

Okay. Did you know when Lincoln was president, says, my husband wants me to make meatloaf. I keep making jokes about Costco meatloaf and my husband doesn't get it. He's not on Patreon. Okay, I've got to tell you. You brought up the Costco meatloaf and mashed potatoes

in the prepared food section. Said it was great, but also that you hated it because one time there was onions in it. You know, high crimes. I had never picked that up before.

Okay. But after you said that, I was like, well, I've got to try this out. Yeah. Delicious. Yeah. I mean, real good. How was like, well, I gotta try this out. Yeah. Delicious. Yeah. I mean, real good.

How was the onions on yours? I love onions. But were there onions in it? I don't even know. I mean, I'm sure there were. I need to know that that was like a one-time thing so I can try it again. I loved it so much. You know what I recommend?

What? Go ahead and get it. And then if there's onions, bring it to me. Yeah, exactly. And watch me eat your food. Tickle Me Chilmo asks, do you have any prison pen pals? No, but you better believe I have been tempted before. Have you written to anyone ever?

No, I've never. I've never. But don't I seem like the person who would? Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Who has tempted you the most? Okay. Brendan Dassey.

Oh, yeah. Because he, in the second season of Making a Murderer, he talks about how much getting letters from people helps him. And his whole, I had to stop watching. I had to take a break from the first season because his case, his interrogation upset me so much. It was painful for me to watch. It should be so much harder to be a police officer. Yeah. Yeah.

So, yeah, I had really, really considered, and I might still consider. Yeah. I mean, why not? I haven't, yeah. Worst case scenario, you fall in love with him and break him out of prison. You fall in love with him and break him out of prison. But in that second season, you see that woman who was totally using Stephen Avery. That started as a pen pal situation.

So it's been way too long. I know because it's been out for a long time and I just watched it. So he – so in the second season, the first couple episodes, Stephen Avery has this new girlfriend, and she's this hot blonde. And she started writing him after seeing, you know, the first season, and they're going to get engaged. And she comes out and visits him. When the cameras are there. Yeah. And then she goes on Dr. Phil, and she does all these appearances. And it becomes very clear that she's dating him to make some money.

People are so gross. And that started as a pen pal situation, obviously. Yeah. So, no, I'm not looking for that. But I think it would be great to be able to give somebody like like Brandon Dassey some hope that people out there care about his case and believe him and whatever. Hmm. out there care about his case and believe him and whatever. You know, I've honestly never thought about sending letters to someone who's incarcerated,

but I think it's a nice idea. Yeah. I think it's a really nice idea. Hmm. All right. I'll add it to my list of things to do. Things to do. I did a creepier one, thought about it for years, about writing. What?

Charles Manson letter. Brandy. Come on. What's your deal with him? Fascinated by him. What do you want to write to him? I don't know. That's why I never did it.

Brandy. If you wanted to. And then I was afraid that he'd just, like, get in my brain. Uh-huh. So I never did it. Brain. If you wanted to. And then I was afraid that he'd just, like, get in my brain. Uh-huh. So I never did it. What is it about him, though, that intrigues you? I don't even know. Fascinating to me, though. You're about to hop in a dune buggy right now.

That's right. I've got my, um, what's the sword thing? What do you keep your sword in? I don't fucking know. That's right. I've got my um what's the sword thing? Where you keep your sword in? I don't fucking know. A sword holder. I got my sword holder ready to go. Hmm. Yeah, I don't know. He had a similar situation there

right before he died where he was gonna get married to this woman who was like 30. Okay. She just wanted to get his body when he died so she could make a museum. I respect that. Business cat. Yeah, taking advantage of a terrible person like Charles Manson.

That doesn't matter to me at all. Go ahead and prop up his dead body out back. Who cares? Make some money off of it. But like someone who might be innocent and they're incarcerated, yeah, don't take advantage of them. Brandy, quit taking advantage. I haven't taken advantage of anyone. Quit it.

Would you ever want to be on Dr. Phil? You love watching Dr. Phil. Would you ever want to be on Dr. Phil? I don't think so. Yeah, I don't think so. What? You know, I kind of walk back my love of Dr. Phil. Because he's such a known douchebag?

Is everything being ruined in 2020? Can't even love Dr. Phil anymore. Oh, didn't he say bad stuff about Black Lives Matter? Yeah, I think so. I think that's what it was. Yeah. Cool. He made Twitter news for sure about some terrible comments.

I can't. Yeah, it's not good. It's not good at all. Blue Orchid asks, I'm curious what you do with all of your suggestions because people can put in suggestions here. We have a case suggestion page in the Discord. It's called a channel. That's right.

Do you log them in a spreadsheet or just go, yeah, no, yeah, no, yeah. We have no spreadsheets here. We have an extensive spreadsheet. We have so many. It's just all spreadsheets all around us. No. So what I personally do is I read them when someone's got one. And then when I'm looking for a case, I'll be like, what was that one?

And there was like a stepmom and a bathtub. And then I go and I type in those words to search. And then the suggestion pops up. And the problem is there are so many stepmom bathtub ones that then you have to pick and choose. No, so I scroll through there. Usually Monday is when I'm really in there. Because that's typically early Monday morning is when I pick my case for the week. And I look through that spreadsheet.

Yeah. Your spreadsheet that you're keeping from me. Yeah, absolutely. You want to look at my spreadsheet? Too bad, Missy. What if you secretly had a spreadsheet of all the case suggestions but you were refusing to share it with me?

I mean, well, do you ever get in the email? Do you ever look at our email? Uh, no. Then in a way, I do have my own set of suggestions that you're not seeing. Adjusted for Inflation wants to know, I'd like to know your most controversial political viewpoints. Kristen.

Are you trying to get us canceled? How dare you ask that? No, the reviewers have spoken and they do not want to hear my political opinions on this podcast, which is about our legal system. I do. OK, I do just want to say that we have gotten some reviews that are asking us to keep politics out of our podcast because they come here to escape all of that and listen to true crime. But this is a court podcast and our court system is political. It would be impossible for us to talk about our court system without having some kind of political discussion. I also think that part of the fun of the podcast is that, like, we are ourselves. Yeah.

We just let it all hang out. Yep. I can't. Literally, Kristen's tits are out right now. Well, I'm seriously, I can't tell you the story about shitting in a Bed Bath & Beyond bag and not also be like, oh, and fuck Donald Trump. Right. It's all part of the smorgasbord, folks. Yeah.

These are legitimate conversations between two friends, and they're pretty unfiltered. So the more you cut, the more we would cut out of it, the less real it is. And that's just kind of always been our thing are the real conversations that we're having. Yeah. We're like the real world on MTV. That's right. This is what happens when people stop being polite. And start getting real.

On that note, shall we move on to Supreme Court Induction? Yes. You guys, this week we are doing, as per usual, your name and favorite book. Meg. Gone Girl. Tiffany Van Zee. Sullivan's Island. Cheryl. Molokai. Molokai? Island. Cheryl. Molokai.

Molokai? Molokai. Molokai. Isn't it kind of fun that, like, the names are easier than the book titles? By Alan Brennert. Tiffany Unverdress. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. Autumn Noel.

I'm sorry. Autumn Noel. Jesus Christ. I can't read names. Fifth Business. I'm sorry. Autumn Nolan. Jesus Christ. I can't read names. Fifth Business. Let me say her name right. Let me get a clean shot at this. Autumn Nolan.

Fifth Business and the rest of the Deptford Trilogy. Becky M. The Sweet Gum Tree by Catherine Allred. Sidney Boyle. Harry Potter series. Samantha Allen. The Book Thief. Emily Funk. Harry Potter series. Samantha Allen. The Book Thief. Emily Funk.

The Haunting of Hill House. Jen Berry. Of Mice and Men. Jesslyn Reinhart. Watership Down. Kember. Lord of the Flies. Emily Hazelwood.

Fahrenheit 451. Emily Johnson. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Kristen Lohr. Where'd you go, Bernadette? I love that book. Welcome to the Supreme Court! Thank you guys for all of your support.

We appreciate it so much. Kristen is shimmying with her sister Kate, who's got jelly on a plate. I'm so happy. My boobs are dancing. If you're looking for other ways to support us, please find jelly on a plate. I'm so happy. My boobs are dancing. If you're looking for other ways to support us, please find us on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Patreon. And 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 Dateline episode,

Death in the Driveway, along with articles from the Charlotte Observer and the Herald. I got my info from the article, Family Secrets by Mark Gribben, an article for the Crime Library by Tori Richards, Oxygen, CrimeMagazine.com, and the Chicago Tribune. 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. Thank you.