Let's Go To Court! - 152: Embezzlement and Sisters

Episode Date: December 16, 2020

Rita Crundwell had just about everything. She owned multiple properties. A kick ass RV. 400 horses. A freezer full of horse semen. How did she support herself? Well, that depended on who you asked. Some people thought her parents had been early investors in Campbell’s Soup. Other people thought her side hustle brought in good money. One thing was certain -- Rita’s salary as the treasurer of Dixon, Illinois, wasn’t enough to cover her lavish lifestyle. Then Brandi tells us a terrible story that begins in a doublewide trailer in Florida. The bank had recently foreclosed on the trailer. Neighbors said that the two sisters who occupied it hadn’t been there in months. But when a father and son crew arrived to clean it out, they discovered a horrible stench. The body of Debbie Burns had been wrapped in several blankets and a shower curtain. Her sister/caretaker, Barbara, was nowhere to be found.   And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: The documentary “All the Queen’s Horses”  “Rita Crundwell” entry on Wikipedia In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “The Saint: Barbara Burns was devoted to her disabled sister” by Lane DeGregory, Tampa Bay Times “The Sacrifice: Barbara Burns wanted her life back, so she took another” by Lane DeGregory, Tampa Bay Times “She cared for her sister her whole life. Then she killed her.” by Lane DeGregory, Tampa Bay Times

Get ready to experience an all-new Don Valley North Lexus. Don Valley North Lexus has temporarily relocated around the corner to 7200 Victoria Park Avenue while they build a brand new dealership for you. The deals don't stop though. Get loyalty rates as low as 1.9%, delivery credits up to $1,500, and save up to $7,000 on select demonstrator models. Don Valley North, Don Valley North Lexus. And save up to $7,000 on select demonstrator models.

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

history. And I'll be talking about sisters. Sisters. Sisters. They were never such devoted sisters. You're welcome, everyone. Sisters, eh? Yeah. Okay. I don't know anything about your case. Do you know anything about mine? No. Nothing. I'd been hoping that, because mine's kind of based on a documentary, and I was like, this is not a documentary that Brandy would clickety-click on. No, uh-uh. Nope, I don't think I know anything.

You're more into straight-up porn. Yeah, it's just murder documentaries and porn for me. And apparently a Muppet Christmas. I did watch a Muppet Christmas Carol this morning with London. I hated that as a kid. She loved it. She was glued to it. Well, yeah, I mean, anything with, you know, colors and sounds.

Yeah, and songs. She loves music, so. Okay, okay. Yeah, so she was just like. Be bopping. Swinging away. Watching it. Loving every minute of it.

I mean, who fucking knows? She's just a baby, so like maybe she hated it, but she can't tell me she hated it. I'm just glad that she's around because the rest of your family isn't. Because you killed them. I did. I murdered my entire family. Brandy has finally become the thing that she loves the most, a family annihilator.

Do you want to tell them about it? We did Pits vs. Pounds trivia. That's our maiden names, by the way. In case you're wondering. Chris's family versus my family on Friday. Which, by the way, my family, we had no chance. And you guys kept saying that to Casey and I, and Casey and I were like, it is not going to be a bloodbath. And it wasn't.

They won. They beat us. Well, it was a bloodbath, but it was the other part that was bloody. No, but here's the deal. It came down to the final question. It was, yeah.

I guessed, okay, I thought that I knew the answer. My family didn't think that my answer was correct. They believed it was a different answer, so the question was, it was a picture of like a historical, a date in history. And it was a picture of baby Jessica being pulled out of the well.

And you had to guess what year. Within one year, it took place. And so I guessed 1987 because I thought that it happened in my lifetime. And my dad and James. What'd they say? They thought it was earlier in the 80s. And so our official guess was 1983. How did it feel when the correct answer was revealed? The correct answer was 1987. And it felt terrible because we would have won. And you went into a blind rage

and you remember nothing. I remember nothing. I blacked out. And then when I came to, nothing. I remember nothing. I blacked out. And then when I came to, there was blood everywhere. And my family was dead. Sorry. No, I didn't really kill my family, but I was pretty upset. You know, there are some people who are listening to this right now

and they're like, I don't know, man. They're joking about murdering their whole family. And if you're not scared by that and you want more, join us on Patreon. How was that? That was pretty good. Pretty good. Okay, guys.

$5 level, you get bonus episodes. You get into the Discord. To chitty chat away. That's right. At the $7 level, you get all that plus bonus videos. Bonus. What? Videos.

I was going to say a bonus episode, but you get that at the $5 level, too. So we already said that. See? Because I know how our Patreon works. Yeah, we just launched this thing, guys. That's why she doesn't know it all, you know. You get a card with a sticker. I know all about that.

Uh-huh, yeah. And then we've got the Bob Moss level. And that's where you get your episodes a day early. You get them ad-free, and you get 10% off on merch. Woo! Woo! Woo! We're super drunk right now.

We haven't had a drop to drink. We had really bad cheesecake. Oh, my God. We're, oh, God. You guys, we tried a new place for lunch today. Yeah. I'm good. We're handling it like adults, though.

We're fine. We're fine. We're fine with it. My fries were really good. Well, thank God they couldn't fuck up fries. Yeah. But we ordered cheesecake and I didn't know you could fuck up cheesecake. I've never met a piece of cheesecake where I took one bite and was like

nah, probably good. I don't need a second bite. Until today. Okay, you know what I'm just now remembering? Yeah. So you and I are usually like, even if food is bad, we're still like, I'll power through. Yeah. I can think of two occasions where

you and I both took one bite and then we were like, nope, done. It was that cheesecake we ate today. Yeah. And do you remember a long time ago we had those chicken wings that were really bad. Yeah, that made Norm shit his pants. And Norm kept eating and then he shat his pants later. And this cheesecake, Norm ate the whole piece because we were like, we're good.

We're done. It was chewy, guys. Yeah. That's how you know it's a bad cheesecake. Cheesecake shouldn Norm ate the whole piece because we were like, we're good. It was chewy, guys. Yeah. That's how you know it's a bad cheesecake. Cheesecake shouldn't be chewy. I mean, it was the texture of like a string cheese that had been melted slightly. It was bad. It was real bad.

Norm finished it. Prayers for him. Prayers for his butthole. Thoughts and prayers. To that butthole. Sorry, I'm trying to be a politician. Does that make sense? Oh, Brandi, do I have a case for you?

Do you? I hope so, because that's what we're required to do when we come here. Required? Really? Trying to box me in? By Lou Pearlman. Don't mention Lou Pearlman. Two episodes in a row.

Are you going for a streak here? Yeah. Okay. First of all, thank you. Tell me about Fraud. I realize I said this was a gift to you. It's really a gift to me. I love Fraud.

I was going to say, this is your thing. Yeah, this is totally me. You're going to hate this. Thank you to Corey and Faith is a Hooker for suggesting this case. And also, this is basically all about the documentary All the Queen's Horses. Oh. Quite a good documentary.

Also, Wikipedia entry. Don't sleep on it. You sprinkle a little Wikipedia over it? You know how I sprinkle. Like the salt guy? The salt guy? Yeah, the salt meme guy. I'm doing this motion.

You have no idea what I'm talking about? No. You've never seen the chef meme with the salt? No. Kristen. What? Crawl out of your hole and get on the internet every once in a while. Pull your head out of your ass, Kristen.

Impossible. Google salt meme. I guarantee. Okay. Yes. Oh, yeah. Okay. I do know this.

But you did a weird thing. Look at him. He's got like a. Okay. But But you did a weird thing. Look at him. He's got like a... Okay, but you were doing a weird thing. No. You know what? This is like when last week I sang Alanis Morissette and I sang it so poorly that you didn't know what it was. You imitated that meme so poorly I didn't know what it was.

These people can't even see me and they knew the fucking meme. Kristen, I guarantee it. Honestly, I think not seeing you would have been helpful to me. No! You shut up! Yes, because you did like a weird slam dunk, you frunk thing. Is this better? Yeah, it is.

I will remind you that you are not on video, so that was wasted on the audience. What? I'm just recalling that this is kind of a ridiculous long intro about nothing, but we just recently had a ridiculous long intro about butthole licking, and someone reached out to us and said that was their first ever episode listening to us, but that they'd be back because they enjoyed it very much. Well, that person's clearly a freak, and I'm glad we lured in the freaks. Not enough freaks in our audience.

No, we need to up the freak quotient. We're getting rid of the racists right and left. They're dropping like flies. Which, kind of sad that they felt so at home for a while there. Goodbye, bitches. Okay, are you ready for this? Yes. Picture it. Dixon, Illinois.

Population, 16,000. Oh. That's not small. Sure is. I have a weird connection to Dixon, Illinois. My great-grandfather was born there. Oh. I'm also familiar with their cider company. Dixon Cider.

Is that a joke? Yes. Oh, God. You're really bringing like your bottom of the barrel material here today, aren't you?

You want to know something weird and dumb that embarrassed Kyla, legit embarrassed Kyla yesterday? I was like, do you know our connection to Dixon, Illinois? Because she's seen this documentary.

She loves the documentary. She's like, no. And I was like, okay. Mom's dad's dad grew up in Dixon, Illinois. Yeah. You know, the whole family was from there. And when he decided to move, he moved to Dixon, Missouri, because it was the same name as his hometown. That's the reason he moved there.

Which, that's the same branch of the family where, you know, my grandma named all the kids rhyming names. So it all comes together. It all comes together. They love cute shit. Okay. Dixon. What? Nothing. Okay. Dixon. What? Nothing.

Continue. What were you going to say? I was going to explain my Dixon joke to you, but. Really? You want to revisit that? Let's hear it. Nope. I've decided not to.

As a punishment to all of you, I've decided to stop talking. Dixon is the hometown of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Oh. In fact, Ronald Reagan once called Dixon a place to come home to. Hmm. And Dixon was so proud of that tremendous compliment that they put it on the little welcome to Dixon sign. Yeah, I think it's from California. Well, it seems like he got the fuck out of Dixon.

I mean, if the nicest thing you can say is it's a place to come home to. Couldn't you say that about any place? Yes. Yeah, I feel like Ronald Reagan was just stating a fact and they were like, thank you. Yes. That's so nice of you. Get that on the sign, Margie. That's so nice of you.

Get that on the sign, Margie. The city of Dixon is so proud of Ronald Reagan that if you go downtown, you'll see a glorious statue of a young Ronald Reagan on horseback having just won a wet T-shirt contest. I'm sorry, what? In this statue. I'm sorry, this has nothing to do with the case. I just had to sidetrack because this is unbelievable. In this statue, Ronnie's shirt clings like cellophane to his ripped torso. So much so.

He sees nips? No. This is very interesting to me. Very interesting. You see the outline of the pecs. You see about three-fourths of his six-pack because he's got on some high-waisted jeans can't see nips huh brandy i don't care how liberal you are if you look at that statue long enough i guarantee you you will get horny for trickle down economics guarantee okay now for real right now i want I want you to Google Ronald Reagan Dixon statue.

Do you see him up on that horse? I do. Oh, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Are you telling me this sculptor wasn't hashtag horny for Ronald Reagan the whole time they were doing this? I think he was. I need to get to the root of the nipples. Why are there no nipples? Why do you think?

People find it too titillating. I think that's it. Yeah. I think this artist was really pushing the envelope with, you know, how titillating this statue is. You add nips. Yeah. Too damn much.

That's right. All right. Crazy how big that horse's dick is. But you know something? Ronald Reagan is not Dixon, Illinois' only claim to fame. Dixon is also the birthplace of world-class embezzler Rita Crunwell. That sounds like a fake name. It does. Crunwell? Crunwell. Sounds very unfortunate. Let's talk about Rita. Rita grew up on her family farm just outside of Dixon,

and in 1969, when she was a junior at Dixon High School, she began working at City Hall. And man, oh man, it was just great. Rita was well-liked and seemed to have a knack for government work. She was a real Leslie Knope, if Leslie Knope had been secretly evil. Did you ever watch Parks and Rec? I loved Parks and Rec. I, yes. Okay. The only thing Rita loved more than working for Dixon City Hall was horses.

Rita loved horses. She loved showing horses. She loved petting horses. She loved that song by Genuine, Ride it, my pony. She loved it all. Did she? No, I bet she hated that song.

I'm sure she did. She seems kind of like an uptight white lady. Panties all in a bunch. I'm afraid so. She's got the look. She's got the look. Several people asked me to sing more. Did they?

Several people. People are saying they love my singing. did they? Several people. People are saying they love my singing. In 1983, she climbed her way up the bureaucratic ladder and was named treasurer and comptroller of Dixon, Illinois. Amazing. It was a perfect job for her. And man, she must have loved it because once she got that job, she did not let it go. And why would she let it go? The elected city officials loved Rita. She was so personable, and she would explain the budget to them, and after city council meetings, she'd invite them all over to her house for cocktails and barbecue.

And you did not want to miss a party at Rita's. Because Rita's place. Nice. Nice. Real nice. Real nice. She had a pool. Oh. Need I say more?

It was in ground. Oh. Did I say place? Yeah. I meant places. Because even though Dixon is the size of a postage stamp, Rita had two houses in town. A home away from home? I don't know.

Maybe she rented the other one. Maybe you just have two houses because you get sick of one, you go to the other one. All right. I guess I haven't had the pleasure. Yeah. Did I mention she also had a place in Florida? It was also very nice. And when people at work asked about her trips to Florida, she left them with the impression that she was staying at, like, her boyfriend's mom's place or whatever.

So I guess she was just super modest. It's nice to be modest, Brandy. Especially when everyone else in City Hall is dressed in JCPenney's finest. And you've got a closet full of sequined jackets and top-of-the-line cowgirl hats. Oh, God. So Rita had nice stuff. And she had nice jewelry, and was all about the spa treatments. At the risk of sounding like a giant B word, Rita may have had some good spa treatments in her day,

but she had a face like a baseball glove, so let's all remember sunscreen is important. Sorry, this lady's an asshole. Face like a baseball glove? You would not believe. I mean, clearly, no sunscreen. So Rita had all this property, and she was going balls out at Zales. But her main passion in life was her horses, and everyone knew it. Rita loved horses so much that she had 400 of them.

What? What? 400? Yeah, she had 400 of them. What? What? 400? Yeah, she had about 400 horses. The fuck are you doing with 400 horses? What are you not doing with them? Her horse farm was incredible. It was truly a sight to behold.

There were stables and other horse stuff as far as the eye could see. Kristen, you can't name one other horse thing. They had all this B-roll in the documentary, and I was like, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. And then I sat down to describe it, and I was like, I know the word stables. Pasture. The bottom line, very nice. Very nice. Stables, et cetera.

Uh-huh. The bottom line is very nice. Very nice stables, et cetera. Uh-huh. And you can just fill in in your mind the rest of that B-roll footage. In fact, Rita loved horses so much that she encouraged them to love each other. Oh. With her very own horse breeding program, which she called RC Quarter horses brandy the look on your face i don't like it what you don't like horse love horses need love too brandy nay means nay rc quarter horses was very well known in the fancy horse community oh which is probably why you've never heard of it because you're not fancy enough i am i well known in the fancy horse community, which is probably why you've never heard of it.

Because you're not fancy enough. I'm not in the fancy horse community. And when Rita wasn't supervising and initiating horse sex, she was showing. I actually don't know that that's how you mate horses. I don't think you. Aren't they artificially inseminated? Probably, yes. That's how you mate horses.

I don't think you, aren't they artificially incinerated? Probably, yes. I was picturing more of a candlelit dinner, but that's probably not how it goes. Swishful thinking, Kristen. Okay, so when she wasn't doing that, she was showing her horses. This was where she really shined. In her job as Dixon treasurer, she dressed kind of drab. But man, at those horse shows, she put on a real spiffy cowgirl hat and a fitted sequined jacket that hit right at the hips. And she'd get a pair of black pants and black boots and she'd

go out into the arena with one of her exceptionally beautiful horses. And gosh, other folks showed their horses in denim and an ill fitting top, but not Rita. She and her horses looked good. And you know something? Rita was awesome at naming her horses. They had just the cutest names. Would you like to hear a few? Obviously. Here it goes. Okay, tell me if you pick up on a theme. I'm money too.

She scores. Packin' jewels. Me, myself, and I. Jewelry by Tiffany. Careful who you invite. Ain't I a natural? Oh, my gosh. I found a penny.

I hate these names. Okay, so despite their god-awful names, these horses did very well in competitions. In fact, Rita's horses won 52 world championships. Wow. Rita's Horses won 52 world championships. Wow. And the American Quarter Horse Association, which we've all heard of and admire greatly. Very familiar with.

Named Rita Crunwell the leading owner eight years in a row. Wow. Yeah. So why don't you act more respectful as I tell this story? Excuse me, Miss Cronwell. Rita had so many awards and trophies that one of her rooms in one of her homes was just all trophies. A trophy room, if you will. I don't know if you've gotten the vibe, but Rita Cronwell was living the life.

La Vida Loca. She'll push and pull you down. And you may be asking yourself, gee, how did a city comptroller afford such a lavish lifestyle? Well, calm down, bitch. It's rude to ask about someone else's money. And first of all, Rita made 80 grand a year, which is nothing to sneeze at. No, but that's not enough for all of that. Brandy, that is very rude.

Very rude of you to even say that. Maybe she was independently wealthy. Did you ever think of that? I didn't. She told some people that her parents had been early investors in Campbell's Soup. No. Good. Campbell's Soup's been around forever.

Yeah, and they were at the very ground floor of it. When they were babies? Maybe. Maybe. A lot of people assumed that her horse empire was very profitable. They saw stories in the newspaper of her selling this or that horse for hundreds of thousands of dollars or, you know, winning some big show and getting some money, and they thought, oh, that's why she's wealthy. That big horse empire. There was also a rumor that she dated a wealthy, much older man, and he died and left her a bunch of money.

wealthy, much older man, and he died and left her a bunch of money. Regardless of what story people heard, the belief in town was that nothing sketchy was going on. She'd gotten some money and invested it well, but, Brandy, I don't know how to tell you this, something sketchy was going on. Oh, no. I know you didn't see it coming rita was stealing from the city of dixon at a rate you would not believe and her scheme was shockingly simple here's how she was doing it okay first off rita's job was like a lot of jobs in small county governments or even in small businesses.

She wore a lot of hats and hats. Literally. Yeah, she did have a bunch of hats! You know, that shit's expensive. Yes. It looks ridiculous, but it's very pricey. I've priced out cowgirl hats because I

look so good in them. And I just can't afford the habit. Perfect ears to support them. Okay. Oh, my. You know what? There was a BOGO deal. You're not getting the other one.

So she had a lot of hats, very little oversight as comptroller rita did everything from no shit picking up the mail to making deposits updating ledgers preparing and signing checks moving money into different accounts that's bad why brandy can't leave all that to one person and have no oversight why because then they're going to start taking that money, funneling it into their pocket and buying 400 horses with it. Just as an example. Just something that might happen. Off the top of my head here.

She could do basically anything. So that's step one. As you have pointed out, step one in Brandy's business tips, don't leave all the money to one person. Step two was the actual embezzlement. So the city of Dixon had six legitimate bank accounts. And Rita would routinely move money from several of those accounts into the capital development account, which was a legit account. Which was a legit account. But at some point along the way, she created a fake account, which she called the Reserve Sewer and Capital Development Account.

So it sounded like a legit, boring city account. Yeah. But it wasn't. Oh, my gosh. And then she created these fake invoices from various contractors. Oh, sidewalk repair. Got to get various contractors. Oh, sidewalk repair, got to get that done. Oh, road work, got to get that done. And she'd take the money from the legitimate capital development account and transfer it into the bullshit reserve sewer and capital development account. And once the money was in there, she'd use it however the hell she wanted.

She paid for spa treatments. She paid for jewelry. She made out huge checks in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, payable to simply treasurer. Yeah. She made these transfers 179 times over many, many years. How much money? You're going to have to wait for it.

Uh-huh! Do I look like Aaron Burr, sir? It was an incredibly effective and very simple scheme. And naturally, when you have a cash cow like that, you don't let it go. And naturally, when you have a cash cow like that, you don't let it go. So Rita stayed on as Dixon's treasurer slash comptroller for nearly 30 years. Holy shit. And she had no plans of leaving.

Uh, yeah. And that was great because people loved her. One city council member was so impressed by her work that he said, quote, she looks after every tax dollar as if it were her own. And you know, thank God someone was looking after those tax dollars because the city of Dixon was struggling. The city was operating at a deficit. They borrowed millions of dollars a year just to stay afloat. And frankly, the charming little town began to look like shit. There wasn't any money for basic road repairs. The police department couldn't afford new radios. City employees were being laid off left and right.

Because even though Dixon really needed those employees, they couldn't afford to keep them. To put it mildly. She was robbing them blind. Yeah. And you should see some of the footage of these roads. I mean, it looked like a crater had dropped down. I mean, it was terrible. And they just couldn't do anything about it. Holy shit.

To put it mildly, Dixon was in the shit. They couldn't afford to do the bare minimum that a city should do. The bare necessities. The simple bare necessities. Forget about your roads and your potholes. It's... But none of this made sense. Right next to Dixon is Sterling, Illinois.

Oh, yeah. Oh, Brandy, don't be an asshole. Like anyone's ever heard of Merriam-Kansas. I wouldn't expect anybody to hear Merriam-Kansas. Uh-huh, just pipe down, ma'am. Sterling has about the same population as Dixon and about the same annual budget of roughly $9 million. And yet Sterling had a surplus of like $8 million and Dixon had a deficit of like $4 million. Wow.

There was no logical explanation for that difference. And around 2009, the city manager of Sterling became so concerned about Dixon's financial status that he reached out to city officials and was like, hey, something's up here. What's going on with you guys? We're over here, basically your twin, but we're doing great, and you guys have potholes that look like sinkholes. You're not covering the bare necessities, and then he sang the whole song,

which I think was a waste of time, and then he was like, what the hell is going on? But the city officials didn't know what was going on, and I don't know if they just didn't bother to find out or if maybe they went to Rita with their questions. Yeah, and she probably brushed them off. So Rita always had an explanation for everything, obviously. For example, when she was asked why Dixon was constantly in the red,

she usually blamed the state. She said the state was late paying its share of tax revenue. But then, why wasn't it late with Sterling? Why wouldn't there be the same problem in Sterling? I think they didn't push hard enough. Hindsight being

2020 and all. So she'd brush them off and then be like, oh hey, want to come to my pool party? And they'd be like, absolutely. So things were bad for Dixon. And the people in charge all just seemed to accept it. Times were tough, but that's just how it was. But thank God Rita was there to just help them through it.

It was sad to talk about layoffs and wage freezes, but on the city documents for budget requests or proposed cuts, Rita would lighten things up with some clip art. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Fuck off. Yeah, so she would put like a cartoon scissors cutting into a cartoon dollar sign. Fuck right off, Rita. Or a cartoon man clinging to a life preserver. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. It was sure nice of her to lighten the mood like that, right? Oh, yeah, real nice.

And, you know, that's what she did when she bothered to show up for work. That was the thing about Rita. She had developed so much clout and was so well loved that for some reason she was allowed to take like four months off work a year to go to Florida or show horses or whatever the hell she wanted to do. OK, the look on your face. Yes. Let's pause because they didn't really explain this. And I do want to pause for our international listeners. That is not even close to the norm in the United States. Okay, the norm in the United States, and you're lucky to get it, is 10 business days. You get 10 business days off a year for vacation. Yes. Which is stupid and criminal and it shouldn't be that way.

But yeah, the idea that you could have a full time job making 80 grand a year and you get four months a year off. Yeah. Is insane. That is insane. Who the fuck was running this? She had to be. What year is it? So at this point, I'm talking like 2011.

Yeah. So she has to be like offering like a remote work situation, don't you think? Like to be doing that? Like, oh, I'm getting. Don't worry. Getting all my projects done. All the bills are getting paid. I'll just be doing it from Florida for the next couple weeks. I don't worry. Getting all my projects done. All the bills are getting paid. I'll just be doing it from Florida for the next couple weeks.

I don't know. Because honestly, a really small town in 2011 does not strike me as the type of place that's like, oh, yeah, we love telework. You're right. I think it was she's this super rich lady who's super nice because she has to be. Yeah. She's super nice. She's super generous with what she has.

And we're just so lucky to have her. Yeah. So generous. She's just letting people get laid off while the money sits in her bank account.

Yeah. Holy shit. I mean, they don't know that. No. They just know that she has them over to her really nice house and, you know.

Man. I know. Fuck her, right? So this is actually super unusual for an embezzler. Usually people who steal from a business, or in this case an entire city, they don't take vacations. I was going to say, because you want somebody else in your business while you're not there uncovering your fraud? Exactly. So one thing she did do was she had all the mail directed to, like, I think directed to her house while she was away.

But even still, I mean, that's pretty ballsy to be like, goodbye. But, I mean, you'd have to be ballsy to be stealing this much money from your city. Can you imagine doing this to the place where you live and watching people get laid off and just be like, hmm, you're going to buy another horse. Yeah. Probably name her, you know, Jewel-Encrusted Vagina or whatever. I think that is one of her horse names. Vajazzle. Yeah, Vajazzle was the name of the horse.

And she's a world champion. Yeah. So in October of 2011, Rita went on vacation and she left the deputy treasurer, Kathy Swanson, in charge. Kathy and Rita had worked together for like 20 years. Kathy really liked Rita. She thought she was smart, personable, a nice boss. So Kathy was working away in City Hall and she needed some bank statements to do her treasury report.

Rita had always instructed Kathy to tell the bank over the phone exactly which statements she wanted. She was never to request, like, everything. Okay. But on that particular day, with Rita out of town, Kathy was super stressed and had a ton to get done. So she didn't do things the normal way. She called up the bank and was like, hey, give me all the bank statements. So they sent them. Including the one for the reserve sewer account. So that's when Kathy noticed this account that she'd never heard of. And there were these three big deposits, and they'd all been done in care of Rita Crunwell,

the city of Dixon in care of Rita Crunwell. Kathy was stunned. She had no idea what to do. For a few days, she did nothing with the information. In fact, she hid the bank statement in her car. But then three days passed, and Mayor James Burke came into her office, and Kathy spilled the beans. Mayor James had been the mayor of Dixon for something like 15 years, and he was pretty calm about the whole thing. He was like, okay, get me that bank statement. Let me take a look. I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for all this. And Kathy was

like, I don't know, man. I've looked at this thing left, right, and sideways, and I don't think there's going to be a reasonable explanation. So then, in the very real world of my imagination, they did an old-fashioned stare down. The plywood walls, the mayor's honey oak chair, Kathy's dangly earrings and fun scarf all faded away. And Kathy was like, Mayor, are you gonna call the police? And he was like, no. And Kathy thought to herself, I get it. This guy doesn't have the nuts. But then the mayor was like, I will take care of this. I will go to the FBI. But we can't say anything because if we're not correct, we don't want to harm Rita in any way. And Kathy gasped because lo and behold, the mayor really did have the nuts.

And that's a 100% true rendition of that story. By the way, what would you do if someone you worked with for 20 years, you all of a sudden realized they were embezzling? I have no idea. No. That would be crazy, right? Have you ever worked with someone who got caught stealing? No. I've not.

Have you? Yeah. Oh, I lied. When I worked at Walgreens, a kid got fired for stealing a cheese stick out of the walk-in cooler. Oh, that's too bad. Cost 39 cents. His mom was a manager of a different Walgreens.

Oh, no. Oh, the embarrassment. You know what? A nepotism hire. Yep. Disgusting. So he walked by the cooler, grabbed the cheese stick. No.

Ate it. There was a manager inside the cooler backfilling it and so the manager came out and said hey did you have a cheese stick and he's like yeah do you have your receipt for it and he's like I threw it away

and he told him where you ring it up because you had to ring up either to get your employee discount you had to ring up either in photo or in cosmetics. He didn't ring it up at either register. Were you working photo or cosmetics at that time? I would have been in photo at that time. Did you give your full description of what you saw that day?

Thankfully, I wasn't there that day. You would have died of secondhand embarrassment. I would have. Yeah. I would have. I would have hated it. Being fired over a cheese stick embarrassment. I would have. Yeah. I would have. I would have hated it. Being fired over a cheese stick is a pretty low blow. Yeah.

And then you have to explain to your mom. Yeah. Uh-huh. And then, like, that lady, now her son is the one who got, you know, fired for stealing a cheese stick. It's called grazing. That's what they call that. There used to be all these signs, like, up in the break room.

Grazing is stealing. Grazing. Grazing. That's what they call it, where you the break room. Grazing is stealing. Grazing? Grazing. That's what they call it, where you're like, oh, I'm stocking the candy bars. I'm just going to help myself to a candy bar. Wow. Yeah. It's apparently a real problem.

Well, I mean, Walgreens is such a big company. Surely you guys could have had a... Grazing is stealing, Kristen. Okay, I'm kind of... Alright. Sorry, my hippie came out. If Walgreens helped every employee to a cheese stick every time they had to walk by the

cooler, Kristen... Listen, there's gotta be a limit to the cheese sticks, if nothing else, because of the cheese farts. But I'm just saying, like, surely you could have, you know, a little snack of something. Nope. Grazing is stealing. If you see something, say something. They were like cartoon posters. Really?

Yeah. Man. Yeah, it's a real story. I feel like I'm talking to the man right now. Mine, I found out, well, this isn't going to be a very good story. Basically, I left a job. Not as good as the cheese stick. No, I mean, you can't top that cheese stick. And I don't even remember what this friend of mine did, but he did something stealing. Mm-hmm.

And, yeah, this is... I'm sorry. What a great story. I'm sorry. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, Kristen. Everyone was. That's why we can't possibly cut it. Everyone's like, my God, what happened?

He stole something and he got fired? Mm-hmm. It's true, guys. It's all true. And I will tell it again if you ask politely. I always want to be part of the drama, but I've never been part of that drama. You know what? I didn't work enough retail.

You didn't. No, that's been my big problem. You never had somebody fired for grazing. No. I've never have even seen a grazing sign in my life. Grazing is stealing. Oh. That's what the sign said. Grazing is just snacking. Steal it. You might think it's just

snacking, Kristen. It's stealing. Okay. Okay. You know what else is stealing? Taking that magazine off the rack and taking it back to the break room with you. You know what? You know what I've heard that called? Finger fucking. I'm serious.

Somebody, I heard of an author. No, you did not. No, no, no, no. Hang on. Well, I mean, obviously there is finger fucking, but this is a different type, a different brand. No, I heard of this author who had only hard copies of his book. And he would like, and people would come up, and they'd flip through,

and then they'd put it back and not buy it. And he would say, they just finger-fucked my book. So I'm with him, you know, yeah. Don't you take that copy of Vogue back to the back room and finger-fuck it. Did you ever do that, Brandy? Yeah, it used to be allowed. Oh, really? Yeah.

I mean, I don't see why not. Yeah, you take a magazine back there and then they, you know, crack down. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And they replaced them with Walgreens magazine. Oh, no. Was that a thing? It was a thing.

It had a big old section in it. It was a cartoon. It had a big old section in it. It was a cartoon. It said, grazing is stealing. My God. Anyway, should we move on? Yeah, I think I've talked enough about Walgreens. You did love your time at Walgreens. I enjoyed my Walgreens job very much.

So Mayor James Burke called up the FBI. Beep, boop, beep, boop, beep. And because he had the thrill of drama in his blood, he said, I think there's a cancer in City Hall. First of all. What? What? Throw it on the brakes. He just called up the FBI.

I know. That's how people always say it in these documentaries. And I'm like, do you just Google FBI? How am I calling up the FBI? FBI near me. I mean, they have field offices kind of sprinkled throughout the country. What? Don't make that face at me like I'm making that up.

I'm not making that up. Then you have to go through channels. You can just go straight to the FBI. Well, obviously you can. Yeah. I guess maybe if you're the mayor. No. There's a number to call for the FBI field office. You want to get a hold of the FBI. Yeah. I guess maybe if you're the mayor. No. There's a number to call for the FBI field office.

No, no. Listen, you want to get a hold of the FBI. Yeah. You can just call the FBI. Shut it. Shut it right now. I'm Googling right now. FBI field office.

Oh, Kansas City. Hmm. Their phone number? Let me see. Let me see. All right. Oh, 816-512-8200. And you call there and you say, hello, FBI.

I'd like to report a crime. You do whatever. I mean, obviously, you talk to the lowest level person or whatever. They send you wherever you need to go. But yeah, you call up the FBI. All right. Boy, you hate being wrong, don't you? I just don't think it works that way.

What do you mean? I think they're going to be like, ma'am, have you explored the other channels before calling the FBI? That's what the person's job is who answers the phone. They deal with the nut jobs like us who are like, I just wanted to see if I could call the FBI. But yes, you can just call the FBI. There you go. I'm skeptical. What is there to be skeptical about?

I just read you the number. Okay. I think you call that number and they're like, stop fucking calling here. This is the FBI. No. They have someone who is paid to be the receptionist. All right. And they're paid to not say fuck it, you.

What if? What if they answered the phone and they just said grazing is stealing? All right. Moving on. So the mayor called the FBI, which is a thing you can do. Right. Brandy, if you're the mayor. No, anyone can dial the goddamn numbers. If you're the mayor.

Ooh, the mayor of Dixon, Illinois is calling. Roll out the red carpet. Stop it. So he grabbed that bank statement and went into the FBI field office, which is a thing that humans can do. Anyone can go into all willy nilly. No problem. And it was like, hey, I hope I'm wrong about this. And the FBI started looking into it, which is a thing that they do.

If you're the mayor of Dixon, but not anyone else. And they were like, buddy, you don't seem wrong. And the FBI was like, we need a grand jury now. And thanks to that, they got a subpoena for all the bank records. I'm sorry, all the bank accounts, which gave them the bank records. Are we all keeping up? Yeah. All right.

I'm following. You look a little slow. And I know it sounds like we're moving fast here, but this wasn't fast. The FBI had to build their investigation. They had to determine the scope of the potential fraud. By this point, Rita had come back from vacation, and poor Kathy had to just hang tight and act like nothing was wrong. Can you imagine?

No. I'd be terrible at this. I wouldn't be able to make eye contact. Yeah. I mean, I'd be like, guys, we have to fake my own death. You know, like, there's no way I'm going to be like, oh, you two. Oh, you good? I didn't call the FBI on you because I don't think you can even find their number online. No, it's only if you're the mayor.

And I'm not the mayor. I'm only the deputy treasurer. Soon to be the regular treasurer because you're about to go to fucking jail. Oh, whoop, whoop. So the FBI had specifically told Kathy and the mayor, look, we are handling this. Don't say nothing to nobody. But yo, Kathy, we're going to need your help. So there Kathy was trying to play it cool.

And every now and then the FBI would reach out and be like, hey, we need X, Y and Z document. Can you get a copy for us? And of course, that was really hard to do without Rita noticing. can you get a copy for us? And of course, that was really hard to do without Rita noticing. So Kathy would have to come in early every now and then and sneak a file or two out of one of the many boxes in the accounting department. And she'd make a copy and she'd put the original back in the box and she'd put the copy in an envelope and she'd seal it up and she'd put it on the mayor's desk and the mayor would get it to the FBI because only mayors can talk to the FBI. You have to be a mayor to go into the field office.

Everybody writing this down? It was all very high stakes and very thrilling. And then Kathy would sit back down at her desk, cool as a cucumber, covered in sweat. Can you imagine? No! Well, first of all, for me, it couldn't be coming in early. It would have to be staying late. Yeah.

So Kathy did all this top secret work in addition to her normal everyday work while also trying to maintain this air of normalcy. So she'd be like, oh, Rita, how are your dogs? How's your trip? You ever heard of sunscreen? And it just really took a toll on Kathy. And it just really took a toll on Kathy. She couldn't even tell her boyfriend what was going on because the FBI told her not to. And Kathy is a rule follower.

But her boyfriend knew something was up. He kept being like, are you OK? Are the kids OK? Something going on with you? You don't seem right. And she had to just be like, yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I'm just real stressed at work. It's not that I'm doing top secret work for the FBI. Don't worry about it.

And they'd be like, can you call the FBI? Is that like a thing? Do you have to be the mayor to do that? She'd be like, everyone knows you can't possibly. Oh, wait. And he's Googling it. He found the number in two seconds. She's like, that's not a real number.

That's not a real thing. That's exactly right. You just dial that and they tell you to shut the fuck up. Okay. Let's put yourself in this scenario. You find out that someone you've worked with for a million years is embezzling. You're working with the FBI. And they tell you don't tell anyone.

Would you not tell anyone? I probably wouldn't tell anyone because it's the FBI. And, like, they'll know if you even think about telling someone. You really? You could go without telling telling someone I think I'd have to what do you mean you'd have to like I think I'd be so nervous that I'd have to do everything exactly how the FBI told me to do it wow you know I'm a rule follower I know this is what made you such a good employee at Walgreens you didn't take a single cheese stick. Grazing the ceiling. Me, I think I would be the one to be like, give me a fucking break, this, you know, billion dollar company. I think I would tell Norm.

You would? Yeah. I shouldn't say I think. I'm trying to act more honorable. I would for sure tell Norm. I would wait maybe a day. And then if I went on a run with kyla i bet i could hold out for a couple miles i could be like what's going on with you and you know we could talk but

if there was like even the slightest lull yeah i'd have to tell her but i'd make a big deal like don't tell anybody and then if you came over, I would wait for Norman to leave the room because I don't want him to know that I'm telling everybody, but I would have to tell you as well. I'd probably tell my own dad, too. Oh my god! FBI, since you're obviously listening to this,

Kristen is not your man when you need someone to do secret work for you. That was very sexist of you. And Brandy's not your man because she's so sexist. I'm not your man because I have a vagina. So. Which smells great, contrary to what was said on last

week's episode. You said it. You said you had a stinky vagina. The truth is, guys, Brandi got herself vajazzled months ago and she doesn't want to wash it off. I keep telling her, you gotta hose that thing down. We're in this small room

for podcasting, you gotta hose it down. She doesn't want to. She says her body, her choice. It's self-cleaning, Kristen. Oh, God, I'm so hot in this sweater. Excuse me. Don't mean to get you all turned on. My titties.

I'm not allowed to say titties? I'm hot. What's that? I'm just, like, cooling off over here. What? You think the mic's getting you? What are you doing? I'm just like cooling off over here what? You think the mic's getting you? What are you having a hot flash? I'm way too young and cool for that I'm 22

God Obviously This thing's kind of off the rails huh? Yeah We gotta rein this thing back in Oh like a horse Like a horse Like the 400 that

Me myself and I Crundwell the 400 that Rita Crunwell Crunwell? Crunwell owns. Yeah. Tell us more about Rita Crunwell. Okay, so meanwhile, the FBI surveilled Rita. By this point, they knew that she'd stolen millions of dollars. Millions? Yep.

Millions of dollars. She had other family members who worked for the city. Were they involved too? How far did this go? All the way to the top? Maybe. Let's find out.

I don't think to the top because the tippy top is the mayor and he's the one that went to the FBI and that'd be real silly if he went to the FBI when he was in on it the whole time. But you do have to be the mayor to go to the FBI, so. The trick is to be mayor and then do whatever you want because you're the only one who can report those crimes to the FBI I think we've taught people a lot today just in the six months the FBI spent investigating Rita they watched her her steal $1.5 million from the city. In six months?

Yeah. Horses are fucking expensive, Brandi. Let this be a lesson to you. You think you're just gonna get a new horse for Christmas? No. Okay, horses are expensive, especially when you have them

by the hundred. No, even just one is very expensive. I know just one is expensive, but like, so, yeah. 400 costs a fucking fortune. Yeah. You're good at math. You know how multiplication works.

I do. Tell you what, I've got a diabetic dog. That is expensive stuff. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But this was torture for Kathy.

Finally, one day she went into the mayor's office and said, I can't do this anymore. I have to stop. I can't keep acting like things are normal. And he told her, Kathy, today's the day. Oh, I thought he was like, get it together! And he slapped her across the face! And she's like, you can't do that!

He's like, I'm the mayor! What do you think you're gonna do? Report it to the FBI? You can't! Your fingers won't even dial the numbers. And that day, the mayor called Rita on the little intercom. And she came up to his office. And he had FBI agents in there, chilling.

And he goes, Rita, these gentlemen have a few questions for you. What questions? And Rita was like, no biggie. And the mayor skedaddled out of the office. And there were agents everywhere. City Hall was shut down completely. Every stairway was blocked. I don't know what they thought she was gonna do. Run from the building. Well, but I mean, she wasn't a horse. I mean, how far could she get?

She thought she was a horse. Well, that would be terrifying. They rent her her Miranda rights and asked if she'd like to talk to them. And she said, sure. She waived her right to an attorney, which goes to show that you can embezzle money, but you can't embezzle common sense. No kidding. Seriously, how dumb is that?

That's super fucking dumb. She didn't have time to think, hey, if I get caught, what should I do? Yeah. You would think that she would have had a plan. Mm-hmm. She told them, yeah, she was guilty. Guilty of stealing $10 million. But they were like, nice try.

Thanks to our amazing detective work, we know that you've embezzled $30 million over the last six years. $30 million? Mm-hmm. And they all high-fived each other and smoked some cigars. But then they searched her home. And they discovered that in the basement of her home, she had a crawl space. Full of dead bodies? No. How great would that be if it turned out to be a Brandy case after all?

Don't worry, Brandy. I know you're super sad that no one got murdered in this case, you weirdo. Here's a bunch of dead bodies. No. In that crawl space were documents. Documents on documents on documents. On top of dead bodies all documenting her embezzlement oh my gosh and holy shit it was so much worse than they thought it was 30 million yes

here's what rita's own records revealed so i actually think it's worse than this. This is just what her own records. She began stealing from Dixon in 1991. That year, she took about $181,000. And from there, the embezzlement had grown into millions of dollars a year. she had actually embezzled $53.7 million over the course of 22 years. $53.7 million. Holy shit. Can you believe that? No.

And like I said, possibly more than that. I don't think much more than that, but I don't know. She'd been working for the county government for so long. I don't believe that she waited almost 10 years to start embezzling. So in May of 2012, they hit Rita with a new and improved indictment for the much bigger scope of her embezzlement. And they were like, thanks for keeping such detailed records on your crimes. Couldn't have done it without you. When Rita was arrested, the mayor called a press conference, which only he was allowed to do.

Because he's the mayor. And he was like, we're putting her on leave without pay. But breaking news, obviously. Um, some, I mean, you know what happens with police? My eyebrows are up to here.

A lot of those folks, they go on leave with pay. Yeah, that's true. You're right. And, you know, depending on what's worse, em's true you're right and you know depending on what's worse embezzlement or murder you know we can okay i should stop yeah we just

pissed off enough people last week by making fun of racists which i didn't know we're such a sensitive bunch so rita's bond was only 4500 and she for sure had that hanging around. So she got out of jail in like no time. Yeah. And the people of Dixon were livid. How had she gotten away with this for so long while so many of them had suffered? And how is it possible that she was out of jail just living the good life?

they'll just live in the good life. It was all so frustrating, but equally frustrating for the prosecution was the issue of what to do with Rita's unusual assets. Her horses? Yeah. So before her case could really kick off, there was a hearing to determine

what to do with her horses. The horses presented this huge problem because unlike a lot of assets that can be sold off kind of any old time, the horses, you know, they're alive, Brandy, I hate to tell you. And they're expensive as fuck, as you pointed out. Yes. There were 400 of them, many of them world champion horses, and it cost about 200 grand a month to take care of all of those horses. Holy shit. Yes. So before any kind of plea was even entered in this case, a judge gave the FBI permission to seize all the horses and all the horse paraphernalia and sell them all off.

So the FBI held an auction. A horse auction. And they prepared for, quote, the Willie Nelson concert crowd. Oh, gosh. Okay. And, man, did these folks show up. This was a country folk auction. There were auctioneers.

There were cowboy hats as far as the eye could see. A lot of people were doing that thing where they had the sunglasses resting on top of the bill of the hat. Do you know what I'm saying? I do. That's a country thing. You don't see that in the city. Yeah. It's not allowed in the city.

And a lot of big old belt buckles just to let you know how big their dick was. I think that's counterintuitive. Because couldn't you, like, I think you have to have the smaller the belt buckle the bigger the dick you think? yeah because if your belt buckle's too big you sit down you squash your dick right I never thought of it

you could really pinch the trunk of your dick that way you sure could so if anyone's looking to like send a message to the ladies get yourself the teeniest little belt the teetiest little belt. Just the sweetest little belt. Sweetest little belt buckle. And we'll know.

Giant dick in there. Big old belt buckle. We know you're not packing much. No risk of squashing when you're sitting down. That's right. Or slicing. Slicing. Slic slicing. Slicing. Slicing.

Slicing. Belt buckles aren't made of knives. They're made of metal. You're not going to slice through the denim of your pants and then through your Johnson. That's what you think. I bet if you Google it right now, somebody has cut their dick off with their belt buckle. Okay. I'm Googling it right now.

What should I Google for that? I don't know. Belt buckle. Severs penis. Cuts into stomach. Oh. Okay. I'm going to do severs penis.

Penis belt buckle on Etsy. Sorry. I was like, quite overly before. Vintage erotic man penis belt buckle on Etsy. Sorry. I was like, quite a while ago. Vintage erotic man penis belt buckle. I, no,

I feel like this is not a thing. This has never happened. Oh, it can cut into your stomach, but it can't cut into your penis. Wow. Okay.

I'm seeing on Etsy right now a belt buckle that just says the word dick. Yeah, it's like advertisement it's like an arrow this is where i keep my dick right here that's that's kind of sweet like a guy a guy hasn't had any luck with the ladies like he's like the problem is they don't know where my dick is and they don't know that i one. So if I just let them know with this belt buckle. With this belt buckle.

The ladies will come running. That's right. My dick belt buckle brings all the coists to the yard. To the yard. That's exactly what I was thinking when I said that. I was thinking exactly of the milkshakes. Why are we like this? I don't know. I don't know.

I feel like this episode is kind of us at our peers. You know, we started off pretty serious, I would say. Yeah. And now we're just Googling penis belt buckles. So you, you still maintain that this is a thing? I think it's happened. Y'all, write in. Okay, in my defense, I have been watching... What?

David and I just watched all the Saw movies. So stuff's getting severed left and right in those movies. Well, right, but not by a belt buckle. As far as you know. What if the bad guy comes after him and he's like, you can't do any worse. I just lost my dick to a belt buckle accident. Here's the ironic thing.

The belt buckle said dick on it. Should have seen it coming. So anyway, the bottom line, what I'm trying to tell you here is that there was just a real unsettling amount of white people in this crowd. I spotted one black person in the crowd and I was like, oh, one black guy. He was an FBI agent and he did not look happy to be there. If I had to describe them, I'd say they were redneck Maxinistas because they were there for the deal. That's right. They bought saddles.

They bought horse trailers. They bought fake horse tails. They bought frozen horse semen. What do you do with a fake horse tail? Is that like a sex thing? How is that? How is that? Is that a sex thing?

I said frozen horse semen. I'm not worried about that. That's how you inseminate a horse. I've been there, seen that before. You have? What? You know, I told you that they're artificially inseminated. They sell that on the internet. You can buy

frozen horse semen wherever you want, Kristen. I want to know about the fake horse tails. Why would you assume that it's a sex thing? What else are you doing with it? Well, I don't know. Hang on. I'm going to Google that too. Fake horse tails. If it's not attached to a butt plug and a woman's crawling around on the ground with a bridle in her mouth, I'm going to be very surprised.

This is very concerning because it's just like, what are they made of? How do you make one? How do you measure one? So I'm not finding out what people are using them for. I told you what they're using them for. I'm going to trust you. Seen that episode of Real Sex. No.

There was $96,000 worth of frozen horse semen for sale, Brandy. You thought I was going to be shocked by the horse semen? I was shocked. You ready I was going to be shocked by the horse semen? I was shocked. You ready for this part? Yeah. They started out with $100,000 worth of horse semen, but one of the auctioneers came out of the walk-in freezer complaining about the worst tasting popsicles he'd ever had. And no one had the heart to tell him what he'd done.

You know. Someone shared our podcast today on Instagram. And they're like, check out this new podcast I love. And then they had to follow it up with a second mention that was like, hey, this episode talks an awful lot about penises. If that's not your thing, I'm sorry for the recommendation. I think you should still listen to it. So they liked us. Then they got embarrassed.

Are you afraid? Are you saying you're afraid that my joke about an auctioneer accidentally consuming $4,000 worth of frozen horse semen is going to turn some people away? We've worked so hard for, what, three years? Yeah. And I blew it. Hold on, horsey man. I have to tell you, I laughed out loud when I thought of that. So all the horses were sold off at bargain basement prices. I think I'm about to pee myself.

He thought it was a mystery. And he's an adventurous guy, so he's like, okay, I'm game. Okay. Rita had purchased the horse She Scores for $200,000 and it sold for $71,000. Wow. She had purchased the horse Sacred Sierra for $225,000, and it sold for $47,000.

Rita had purchased the horse Pizzazzy Lady for $225,000. How much did Pizzazzy lady sell for here's the thing they couldn't even sell that horse because once it heard that it had been named pizzazzy lady it jumped off a cliff Kristen oh I'm sorry is horse suicide not a laughing matter ultimately the How about the popsicles? Does that seem better now? Ultimately, the auction brought in about $9 million, which was a fraction of what Rita, or rather the city of Dixon, had paid for everything, but it was still something. The whole thing was a well-deserved reality check for Rita.

And she had some decisions to make. She could go to trial, knowing that the prosecution had one hell of a case against her. Oh, yeah. She needs to take a deal. Yeah, and she, yeah, for sure. So here's what she was being offered. Either plead guilty to one count of wire fraud

and admit to money laundering and face up to 20 years in prison, or go to trial and face those charges plus an additional bank fraud wire fraud and money laundering charges and risk being sentenced to life in prison yeah rita was no dummy she took the deal and it pains me to tell you this brandy as a hairstylistist, but Rita showed up in court to enter her plea with her hair up in a hair clip. And that hair clip was cheetah print. And it had rhinestones on it. And it was with that clip in her hair and a creamy white turtleneck and black slacks to finish off the look that she pled guilty.

Three months later, it was time for sentencing. And it's not easy to say this next part. Oh, boy. But she showed up once again with her hair in a hair clip. It was possibly the same one i couldn't tell from too far away for this sentencing the prosecution did an interesting thing by the way what do you think showing up to court with your hair in the cheetah print hair clip with rhinestones It's a little flashy. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, you're still looking flashy when...

You think so? Yeah. Because I think some stuff, you look at it and you go, that's cheap. But it probably wasn't. Yeah. I mean, it was probably a very expensive thing. There's probably Swarovski crystals on there. Swarovski? on there. Swarovski?

The W makes it cheaper. It's still expensive. Don't get us wrong. For this sentencing, the prosecution did an interesting thing. They knew that Rita had embezzled from the city government from 1991 until she was caught in 2012. So they put together one hell of a PowerPoint, and each slide represented one year. And on that slide, they talked about two things,

how the city had fared and how Rita had fared. Ooh, that is a good strategy. I knew you'd love this. So, for example, you know, they'd put stuff up like, we cut the fire department by $7,000. cut the budget for the cemetery by 19 grand, cut the police department budget by 85 grand. And meanwhile, you know, Rita bought herself a Chevy Silverado, bought herself a new house in Florida. It was disgusting, but effective. Year after year, you saw the city laying off full-time employees, cutting funds for ambulances, and you saw Rita buying a $6,000 saddle and a three-pack of those hair clips, which, you

know, easily another six grand. The prosecution also showed how her stealing had grown over time. In the early 90s, she took a few hundred thousand dollars every year. But after 97, the amount she stole steadily grew. And she began stealing millions. Yeah, her fucking horses got expensive. Well, yeah. And in 2008?

Oh, boy! She went balls to the wall, balls out, dick to the wind, as they say. Everyone says it. It's not something we made up. She began stealing in excess of $5 million a year. And why not? We were in the middle of a terrible financial crisis.

So when the city had to cut its budget, no one second guessed it. No. Dixon was in the same shit that everyone else was in. It was not unusual. To be loved by anyone. Ba-da-da-da-da-da. It was a terrific time to embezzle from her hometown. Yay!

Prosecutors argued that Rita had cared more about her horses than she had cared about the people of her town which is true i mean they showed some footage of her talking about she scores this horse and she got choked up just talking about this horse wow and like lady you made people get laid off from their jobs. People in your town, douchebag. They argued that what she'd done was so egregious that she should be sentenced to 20 years in prison, the maximum allowed by law. But Rita's defense team was like, okay, hey, yes, Rita's a sack of shit and we all hate that hair clip, but let's not forget that once she was caught, she fully cooperated with authorities. Please, Judge, sentence her to 13 years. But Judge Philip Reinhardt sentenced Rita to 19 years and seven months.

Wow. And ordered Rita to pay the city $107 million in restitution. $107 million? Yeahitution. $107 million? Yeah. The documentary broke it down. I tend to just kind of wave that. Because they're never going to do it anyway. It's never going to happen.

It's never going to happen. But I get the point, but never going to happen. Yeah. And he was so pissed at her that he was like, I am revoking your bail. You're not allowed to self-report to prison. I'm throwing you in right now. Rita, of course, appealed on the grounds that her sentence was too harsh.

And the appellate court was like, nice try. Get the fuck out. You're not the mayor. You can't appeal. Exactly. Only mayors can appeal. Only the mayor can't. Here's an interesting thing.

Rita was also indicted on 60 counts of theft on the state level. But the county attorneys were very open about the fact that they only did that on the off chance that the federal charges would fall through. So once it was clear that the federal charges had worked their magic, they dropped the state charges. How are you feeling? I mean, I'm glad she got almost 20 years. Yeah. Yeah. So people got a little fired up about the state charges being dropped. But the state attorney, Anna Sacco Miller, was like, calm down, everybody. It's going to cost the state a lot of money to go after Rita. And she has no assets left.

There's not a drop of horse semen in sight. That auctioneer ate all of it. There's not a drop of horse semen in sight. That auctioneer ate all of it. And according to our sentencing guidelines, she would serve her state sentence and her federal sentence concurrently. So it would be a big waste of everyone's time. So Rita was locked up. But the people of Dixon were angry. And they had a lot of questions.

Obviously, Rita should not have stolen $53.7 million. But how the hell did she get away with stealing all that money without anyone noticing? Over Rita's 20 years of stealing, she'd been through three mayors, three finance commissioners, five city councils. They all came and went. And no one noticed that something was up but somehow the city manager and sterling knew something was up how did no one else know a lot of people in town thought that the mayor and city council were to blame but the mayor and city council were like no no isn't this really the fault of our auditors and maybe also the bank

okay pause what do you think how could i don't know how it could be the auditor yes maybe they should have got something bank i don't think so uh and i i think also yes the mayor should probably know what was going on i think so too i think it's real bad that the mayor didn't catch it, that none of the mayors counted. How many mayors? Three mayors? Three mayors. Yeah. I think, so one of the things they say, and this is true, is that all these city council people in all small towns, this is a part-time job for them. Yeah. They're doing it on the side. So I can, and I can understand how it would be really hard to catch this stuff. Yeah. But on this scale. Exactly. But I think there's a lot of power in someone is nice to me and they're my friend.

She's nice. She's generous. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. I agree. I think if she was a bee. People would be looking into it.

They'd be caught real quick. Mm-hmm. Okay. was a b people be looking into it be real caught real quick okay so in the fall of 2013 the city sued clifton larson allen which was the firm that did their annual audit and they sued fifth third bank which is the weirdest bank name ever it's a stupid name which handle all the city's accounts devin bruce was the attorney who represented the city in the lawsuit, and I gotta say he did a hell of a job. He started by going after Clifton Larson Allen, which is actually a really big accounting firm that just has a local office in Dixon. And this firm did the city's annual audit, but they also provided the city with day-to-day services like bookkeeping, they cut checks, they did payroll.

And in this lawsuit, the city was like, that was a conflict of interest. You shouldn't have been doing both those services. In effect, you were basically getting paid to do a job and then getting paid to tell us whether you'd done the job well. So I agree that's bad. Part of me is also like, but isn't that a little on you? Yeah. Yeah.

Right? Yeah. Okay. So in the lawsuit, the city was like, you guys knew or should have known that the invoices Rita created were fake. But how could they have known? Well, the invoices did look a little fishy. Rita misspelled really difficult words like section, and there wasn't a header on the invoice that had the logo of the supposed company that was invoicing the city,

which seems weird because that's easy to fake. Yeah, that's super basic. In depositions, the attorney representing the city got the accounting firm to admit that they knew about Rita's fake account. Granted, they didn't know it was fake, but they knew it existed. And he also got them to admit that if they'd just taken a look at those fake invoices and said, hmm, this seems weird. It says it's for Project X. Maybe I should just go down the hall and ask the city manager what Project X is. Maybe I should just go down the hall and ask the city manager what Project X is. That something as simple as that could have caught Rita's fraud.

But they'd never done that. They hadn't looked at any of this stuff with a critical eye, which I think is true. Yeah. the current and former head of the Clifton Larson Allen office and discovered that these people not only did the city's annual audit and a ton of the city's bookkeeping, they also handled Rita Cronwell's personal taxes. Oh my gosh. And in 2005, they identified that Rita had acquired more than $300,000 but had no documentation for it. She had no way of proving where that money had come from or how she'd gotten it. And they didn't ask her any questions about it. Because she was nice.

That's bizarre to me. Yeah. That's totally bizarre. In the documentary, they do have a talking head who clarifies that auditors are not responsible for finding fraud. Their job is just to make sure corporations follow regulations. But it sure seems to me like they dropped the ball. Of course, I don't know shit about auditing. I agree. I don't either.

That'll shock everyone. Speaking of dropping the ball, maybe the bank dropped the ball too. Explain that to me. I don't understand how this is the bank's fault. Okay. So in this lawsuit, the city alleged that Fifth Third Bank had acted irresponsibly by just ignoring a bunch of red flags. When Rita opened that bullshit city account, she wrote a ton of checks out of it, paying for spa treatments and jewelry and horses, and that should have raised some red flags. And when she made out checks in huge amounts to Treasurer, that was a red flag, too.

They were so vague. The bank should have looked at that with greater scrutiny. And again, in these depositions, the city's attorney got the bank to admit that they'd messed up. They didn't treat Rita's transactions with the proper amount of scrutiny. Okay. When it's laid out like that, yeah. This woman was taking hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time. Right.

That's crazy. Yeah, you're right. Thank you. I'm a genius. So these depositions were pretty damning. Damning enough that the accounting firm and the bank both settled with the city. Clifton Larson Allen settled for $35.15 million. And Fifth Third Bank settled for $3.85 million.

Holy shit. And another smaller firm, Janus Card and Associates, which is an accounting firm nearby, settled for $1 million. Wow. Yeah. I still don't think that this lets the city officials off the hook. No, I don't either. In the years after Rita Crunwell went to prison, Dixon got a new mayor and a bunch of new city council people. And they had this new

woman named Paula Meyer, who is the town's new comptroller. And Paula seems great because she took the job and she was like, it seems sort of intimidating, but how can I do any worse than my predecessor? Which is true. And she came in and she basically set up whole new systems where she's like, OK, no one is going to have a job where they do everything and have no oversight. We're all going to kind of divide up our duties more. And, you know, she giggled because she's immature when she said duties, which I think is just a shame. Yeah. Because I value seriousness. Where are they now?

Kathy Swanson, the hero of the story, retired a few years ago. The mayor, who called the FBI, as he was allowed to do, has since died from cancer. And Rita Cronwell was scheduled to be released from prison in March 2030, but due to good conduct, it looks like she'll be out a year earlier. She recently filed for home confinement, but withdrew that request and blah, blah, blah. She'll get out when she's in her 80s. And that is the story of the largest municipal fraud case in U.S. history, Brandi. Shit. Yes.

Shit. Mm-hmm. How'd you feel? That was a surprising amount of horse semen, huh? Way more horse semen than I anticipated. You always expect some. Some. Some, yes.

Not anywhere near that much. Are you ready to talk about sisters? Do you want me to sing again? No. Oh. Well. Hmm. Okay.

Okay. No. Oh. Wow. Hmm. Okay. Major, huge, enormous shout out to Lane DeGregory for the Tampa Bay Times. This entire story comes from a series of articles by her.

So today, consider me your poor man's Lane as I retell them to you. Could we not get Lane in here and fire you? tell them to you. Could we not get Lane in here and fire you? The afternoon started just like any other for father and son Philip and Jason McCain. They'd been hired to clean out a double-wide trailer in St. Petersburg, Florida that had been foreclosed on. They arrived at the home around one o'clock in the afternoon and as as they were making entry, a neighbor yelled something about there maybe being a dog inside. And she said no one had lived there in months. But they left their dog in there? Yeah. Philip knew that no one had lived there in months.

No one had paid the mortgage on it in more than six months. That's why he was there. He opened the front door and walked in. Jason followed behind. The trailer was dark. He opened the front door and walked in. Jason followed behind. The trailer was dark. All the blinds and curtains were closed. The air was thick and sour, like rotten food, but worse. Philip clicked on his flashlight and looked around the house. It looked like someone had just walked away from this place and left everything. There was a couch, had just walked away from this place and left everything. There was a couch, a TV, a computer, and Star Wars stuff. Lots and lots of Star Wars stuff. Star Wars posters covered the walls,

and the shelves were filled with Star Wars games and puzzles and magazines and figurines. Philip continued further into the double wide. There was a hall that led to three bedrooms. Two of the doors were open. A third was closed. He pushed the door open and nearly threw up. The smell was so strong it nearly knocked him over. Someone had tried to cover it up. Dozens of cardboard air fresheners hung all over the room.

Well, are you kidding me? There were plug-in air fresheners in every outlet. In the bathroom, empty air freshener cans filled the sink, the tub, the trash can. There were two single beds in the room, pushed together into an L shape. One was piled high with linens. Atop the pile of sheets and blankets were basket upon basket of potpourri. Philip and his son just looked at each other. They'd done cleanouts before, but had never seen anything like this.

One of them said to the other, you don't think someone left a dog in here to just die, do you? Philip reached out to move the pile of blankets off the bed, but he couldn't. It was heavy. Jason tried to help. He tugged on a fitted sheet. The whole pile fell to the floor with a thud. They started pulling back the layers. And then the father and son made a discovery that sent them running from the house. In the middle of all those sheets and blankets, there was a body. Susan Ignacio from the Pinellas County Medical Examiner's Office was on the scene shortly. Penelis, Penelis, P-I-N-E-L-L-A-S. Penicillin. County Medical Examiner's Office was on the scene shortly, and she was in that bedroom, on the floor, unwrapping that body.

Oh, my. There was a Star Wars comforter on the outside. And when you peeled that back, there was a brown blanket. And under that, there was a white shower curtain. Inside the shower curtain was a 2004 star wars calendar when she peeled that back there was a light blue comforter and a faded star wars sheet and then when she pulled that back there was finally the body. There was a skull cradled on two pillows. It looked like the person had been sleeping,

laying on their side. The arm was kind of bent at the elbow and the other was draped across the chest. This body was so badly decomposed, though. Susan couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman, if they were black or white, if they were old or young. What she could tell was that they had died from a gunshot wound to the center of the forehead.

forehead. Oh. Detectives arrived on the scene a little bit later in the evening, somewhere around 530. And by that time, 15 officers were working to process the scene. They logged everything that was in this house. And like I said, it was like somebody had just walked away and left everything behind. They started cataloging everything, all of the Star Wars memorabilia. They put in some calls to figure out who the home had belonged to. A call to the power company gave them the information that the electricity had been shut off seven months earlier for unpaid bills.

In the two months before that, the power bill had gone up exponentially. It was like someone had cranked the air conditioner down as low as it could go. Oh, God. And then left it there.

And the investigators then found something else. They researched the tax records on the double-eyed and they found that it had been occupied by two women, Barbara and Debbie Burns. No one in the neighborhood knew anything about Barbara and Debbie, though. Police went door to door asking anybody. How is that possible?

Right? Isn't that weird? So they got the same answer every time they knocked on someone's doors. All I know is that they were sisters. They never talked to anybody. I never saw them. Hardly ever. One of them would come and go occasionally. Never met them. Never talked to them.

They got that answer over and over and over again until they talked to the next door neighbor. She knew a little bit more. She knew that they were sisters. She knew that they had moved in four or five years ago, but that they stayed to themselves. She said one of them she would talk to occasionally, but nothing more than hello or isn't that nice weather. That was the older sister, Barbara. The younger one, she said, she used some colorful language that I'm not going to use. She said there was something wrong with her. She said you couldn't understand her.

She'd try to talk to you, but she was difficult to understand. But she said that she hadn't seen either of them in months. It'd been eight months maybe since she'd seen Barbara and even longer than that since she'd seen Debbie. She'd asked Barbara when she stopped seeing Debbie if everything was okay and Barbara said yeah she moved out to California she's taking care of our aunt. And the neighborhood thought this was kind of odd at the time. Yeah. It seemed like Debbie was the one that was in need of a caretaker. Right. And that Barbara was the one in that role. But like she said, it had been months since she'd seen any of them, either of them, any, either, you know, whatever.

The whole gang. The whole gang. That's right. Detectives worked on the scene until the early hours of the morning trying to determine who was in the trailer. Was it Barbara? Was it Debbie? Was it somebody else completely? They ran background checks.

They found out that Barbara was 53 and Deborah was 40, but neither of them had ever been in any kind of trouble. They had no criminal records, nothing like that. So there were no fingerprints on record. And from what they could tell from ID photos, so like from their So there were no fingerprints on record. And from what they could tell from ID photos, so like from their driver's license photos that they had. Is that what an ID photo is? Thank you. Yes. On file with the state.

Oh, she's salty. They looked a lot alike. And that was kind of the same story that they got from the neighbor. Yeah. She said, yeah, Barbara and Debbie looked a lot alike. Barbara was older, obviously. But she was like, there was one big difference. Debbie had three teeth. Oh.

Barbara had none. Oh. And that answered the big question for the detectives. Oh, God. Because the skull on the body

had three rotten teeth in it. They knew that they had the body of Debbie Burns and that she had been shot in the head. But what they didn't know was where the hell was Barbara? Yeah. So they started tracking her down. What they knew was that she drove a 1994 Dodge Caravan. They found out that the payments hadn't been being made on it and that the dealership that she bought it from

had been trying to repo it, but they'd been unable to find it for months. They searched for her. Eventually, I don't know if this is the timeline here is a little bit odd to me. I don't know if they found the bus before they found the made the discovery. Yeah, I'm sorry. I don't know if they found the van before they made the discovery in the trailer or if they made it after. But eventually they find her car. It's been abandoned at a Greyhound station and homeless people are living in it. Okay.

And so that's kind of a dead end. They don't know where to track her from there. They talk to everybody she'd ever worked for. She'd had several jobs around St. Petersburg. She'd worked there for years. Every supervisor she'd ever worked for described her the same way. She was super nice. She always picked up extra shifts. Every supervisor she'd ever worked for described her the same way. She was super nice.

She always picked up extra shifts. Really all she did was take care of her sister. Nobody knew where she went. She had worked at Lowe's until August of 2004 when she suddenly came to her supervisor and said she needed to quit, she had to go take care of a sick relative. She'd quit like that day and hadn't been seen since. And that was in August of 2004, eight months before Debbie's body was found. Two days into the investigation, detectives found out that someone was still cashing Debbie's disability checks.

They were going into a bank in Virginia Beach, Virginia, into the account of a Barbara Ann Burns. Oh. She hadn't even bothered to change her name. Well, come on, man. I know. I think that's kind of weird. The bank statements also showed that Barbara was receiving paychecks from a 7-Eleven in Virginia Beach.

So they called up the convenience store and found out that, sure enough, Barbara Burns was on the schedule for the next night. Wow. Right? I mean, she did get away with this for a long time. Eight months? Yeah. Yeah. Which is just sad because it shows how isolated her sister was.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So they head on out to Virginia Beach. Virginia Beach. Virginia Beach. They head on out to Virginia Beach and they stake out the 7-Eleven. Barbara was working the overnight shift. And so they parked outside and they watched her. They watched her worker shift. They watched her run the register all night she sold cigarettes and lottery tickets and then when her shift was over in the morning she walked out and detectives walked up to her and they said we're from florida and we want to talk to you she looked at them and she said, OK.

She didn't seem surprised. Almost seemed like she was expecting them. No big deal. So they put her in their car and took her to the Virginia Beach police station. On the way, they asked her, you know, about her house and her family and what she was doing in Virginia Beach. And she said that she was living in a homeless shelter. She said she'd never lived in Florida. Oh, come on. Never owned a mobile home.

And she didn't have any family. They asked her over and over again, and she said she never had a sister. Oh. said she never had a sister. Oh. They sat her down in an interrogation room inside the Virginia Beach Police Department and just started talking to her. An hour went by and they pulled out the deed for the mobile home. They pulled out bills in her name for electricity, for cable.

She said, I've never seen these. I've never lived in St. Petersburg. I've never owned any double wide. And the detective said, OK, Barbara. At this residence, we found a body. Barbara said, a body? The detective said, yes. And she said, okay, I don't know.

I couldn't tell you. And the detective goes, you couldn't tell me? And she said, well, whatever you're asking, I don't know. The detective then pulled out some pictures. There was a picture of Barbara holding a dog. In that picture was Debbie with her. Barbara, her face fell, her expression went blank and she just kind of looked down

at her lap the detective pushed the picture over to her and said can you pick that up can you look at it and she did she said do you recognize the person in the picture with you and Barbara said honestly I've never seen her

and that's not me in the picture right with you. And Barbara said, honestly, I've never seen her. And that's not me in the picture? Right. The detective pulled out more pictures. Everybody that they had talked to could confirm that Barbara had a sister. That they were always seen together. Yeah. Wherever, Debbie

never went anywhere without Barbara. And the only place Barbara went without Debbie was work. Yeah. She kept looking at the picture, but she kept denying over and over again that she had a sister. She'd never seen this woman before. She'd never lived in a double wide in St. Petersburg, Florida. Finally, a detective who'd also been sitting in the room says,

okay, okay, Barbara. While he while they've been asking you questions, I've been sitting here. I've just been observing you. I've just been watching. And every time you look at that picture, you tear up. Barbara listened and she it was clear that she was hearing. She wouldn't look up. And she said said I do three hours had gone by at this point when all of a sudden finally Barbara admitted yes she'd had a sister her sister's name was Debbie Debbie loved soap operas and Star Wars and she had a sister her sister's name was debbie debbie loved soap operas and star wars and she

had a little dog named leo and debbie was so sweet and when barbara had left debbie was fine she said i left when she was fine and the detective said you left when she was fine and barbara said yes deb yes, Debbie was just fine. The last time I saw her, the day I drove away, I just got in the van and left. I told her I needed some downtime. That's what I told her. And she said, okay. Barbara said that she'd waved goodbye to her sister.

And her sister had stood in the front bedroom window. And she said she'd just never called Debbie after that. She'd just left her. Well, yeah, because you killed her. So why would you call someone you killed? Right. The detectives obviously kept pressing, and they were like, everybody we've talked to said you were her caretaker.

Your family members have said you were the person that had always taken care of her. You would just walk away from someone you loved, someone who needed you. We don't get the impression that you're that type of person, Barbara. She said, I don't know what to tell you. And they started talking about what they knew of Debbie. They said, everybody who describes you, Barbara, they describe you as a nice person, a generous person, someone who will do anything for anyone. They didn't describe Debbie that same way. They said she was difficult.

They said you treated her well, but she was demanding that she required all of your attention. I feel like I'm watching a weird episode of Law and Order. I know. I understand why you killed her. Let's talk about it. I know. I hate this tactic that they're using with her. It makes sense.

Yeah, it does. And she starts to open up. She's like, yeah, she was really demanding. She was really demanding. And they said, okay, you know, so tell us about it. Tell us what happened. Tell us, help us understand how you, the saint who took care of your sister for all those years, tell us how you did this. And she just starts sobbing.

And she says, I was a saint. Okay. What's the name of that saint who shot that person in the face? Right, exactly. That's me. And then she told detectives what she had done and why. So Barbara had grown up in Maryland. Her dad, like, worked overnights and drank during the day. And her mom stayed home with the kids.

But Barbara was the oldest of four kids. And so she became like a caretaker for the younger kids. I believe Barbara's dad died when she was pretty young. And so Barbara's mom had to go to work. And so when Barbara was 13, Debbie was born, like I think right before her dad died. And so Barbara became like a mother figure to Debbie. She took care of her from the time that she was born. And when Debbie was two, she got scarlet fever.

She had this high fever that caused brain damage. had this high fever that caused brain damage. And so Debbie never developed past a six-year-old mentally. She was developmentally stunted because of the damage the scarlet fever did. Whenever the dad died, the mother couldn't afford care for Debbie. And so it became 100% And so it became 100% Barbara's responsibility from a very young age to make sure that Debbie was taken care of. At like 16 years old, she's a full-time mom to a three-year-old. Yeah. They ended up moving out into their own place and it like really became Barbara and Debbie for the next 40 years. Oh, my God. Mm hmm.

Barbara got jobs to help support Debbie. She worked first as a dishwasher at Howard Johnson. She apparently loved that job, and she just continued working up the ladder at Howard Johnson. Like, she worked as a dishwasher, and then bussing tables, and then as a cook. And she always made sure that she worked the day shift so that she could be home in the evenings to take care of Debbie. So at some point they move away from the family and they end up very isolated in Florida. Just Barbara and Debbie. And Barbara is solely responsible for Debbie. In the fall of 2000, Barbara and Debbie's mom died. So they were completely on their own.

They had nothing to fall back on at that point. But a few days after that, like literally within days of their mother dying, they get a call from a lawyer. Their brother John had also died. What? But he had left his entire estate to Debbie to make sure that she was taken care of. Okay. It was about $350,000. Oh, wow.

Which to Barbara and Debbie, who'd never had anything, this seemed like a fortune. So Debbie had always been very into soap operas, very into Star Wars. And now that she had money, she became hyper-focused on those things. So she wanted to collect all the Star Wars stuff. Hold on. This wasn't in some sort of protected. It was not. It was just like, here's $350,000.

Oh my god. Yes. Yes. Oh. And so one of the ways that people described Debbie was excitable and when she got focused on something it was nearly impossible to change her

focus from it. And so she became hyper focused on collecting Star Wars memorabilia. She was buying memorabilia like crazy online. She was in chat rooms talking about soap operas, and she became obsessed with trying to meet soap opera stars. And now that she had all this money. She wanted to do all these things. And so Barbara. Let her do them. Helped her do them.

You know. So she bought a pinball machine. A foosball table. A dartboard. A skateboard. And then she wanted to go on trips. She wanted to go to this general hospital fan club convention. That was in California.

And so they went and did that and they stayed in a fancy hotel room and they had a great time with that. And then they came back from that. And now Debbie found out that the star of General Hospital lived in Australia and she wanted to go to Australia and meet the star of General Hospital. And so Barbara booked them a trip to Australia. And so they flew across the world and had this Australian adventure. And then they came home from their travels. Wait, did they meet the star? No.

They went to Australia and they didn't meet the star? No, because you don't get to just go and meet the star. I bet you Debbie didn't take it well. That she didn't meet the star? Yeah. I'm sure she did not. I'm sure she did not. When they came back, they needed a new place to live. They've had money. They needed a new place to fit their new lifestyle. So they bought an $81,000 double wide trailer. Well, they took out a loan and a mortgage. They didn't just pay cash for it. At this point Barbara had quit her job and was

just fully relying on this inheritance. Live in La Vida Loca as they say. They went out to fancy dinners. They had... Where'd they go? I don't know. Macaroni Grill is the only place I saw mentioned.

Okay. Because, I mean, you said fancy dinners. And I'm like, mm-hmm. So they bought this three-bedroom double-wide trailer. Only Debbie was scared of being alone. She was scared of the dark. She had the mentality of a six-year-old. And so Barbara did what she'd always done.

She took care of her sister. They turned the master bedroom into a bedroom for both of them. They put two twin beds in there. That would be really weird. They were probably used to having lived in the same room, like a studio apartment, their entire lives. Yeah. And so they put their two beds together. They slept with their heads together every night. And Barbara said every night she fell asleep listening to her sister breathe.

By this time, Barbara was 50. She'd never dated. She'd never had friends outside of work. She'd never dated. She'd never had friends outside of work. She'd never had any life other than taking care of Debbie. In three years, they blew through the $350,000. That actually lasted them longer. Longer than I expected as well. Yeah.

Barbara tried to fix the situation by declaring bankruptcy. She went back to work. She started working as a cashier at Lowe's. She took extra shifts. She had to try and cover that mortgage. That mortgage that they had taken out when there was all this money in the bank. Now she had to cover. And despite working all the time, working all these extra shifts, she was making $7 an hour. Yeah.

Yeah. And Debbie was furious because she was home alone all the time. She didn't understand why Barbara had gone back to work. And so Barbara got her a dog to keep her company. But Barbara couldn't balance it all. She couldn't work enough to cover all the bills and she couldn't. Working all the time made Debbie angry. And she had a really hard time dealing with Debbie when Debbie was angry. And Debbie didn't understand that the money was gone. She knew they'd had the money, that they'd gone on all these adventures. They'd gone out to dinner all the time. Why weren't they doing that anymore?

Yeah. So she was mad a lot. And she yelled at Barbara. Yeah. And Barbara didn't really know what to do. She explained to her over and over again that they'd gone through it all. They'd been to all those restaurants. They'd been on all those trips.

And it was just gone. It was just gone. But she just had to explain this over and over and over again. And it made her mad. It made Barbara mad. Yeah. Because her sister's at home all day watching soap operas, ordering pay-per-view movies, and then complaining when Barbara comes home late because she had to work overtime to try and pay the bills. It was just a terrible situation. Yeah.

And terrible for Debbie, too. Yeah. Debbie has no... Debbie needed an outlet. Absolutely. Debbie had no care outside of her sister. She has no connection to anyone outside of Barbara. She's not leaving the house. Yeah. Barbara got to the point where she felt like she was in a hole and there was just

no way out. She was tired. There was no one to help her, no one to talk to, no light at the end of the tunnel. And so on August 15th, 2004, Debbie's 40th birthday, Barbara had taken Debbie out for dinner. They'd gone to Macaroni Grill and they'd gotten in a big fight. Debbie wanted to do things. She didn't understand. She didn't get a birthday present. And she didn't understand that. She didn't understand why they weren't going on trips.

And Barbara was tired of explaining it. She tried to explain to her over and over again that they couldn't afford it. But Debbie just wanted more things. And she got angry at Barbara when she told her they couldn't afford it because she had money. Yeah. She knew they must have money because Barbara's working all the time. Yeah.

They fought all night. They fought through the news as they watched them. And finally, when they went to bed that night, Debbie fell asleep and Barbara lay there. She lay there awake almost the entire night. And then at some point, she got up. She pulled a revolver out of her dresser that she'd bought to ward off intruders, is how the article put it. And she loaded a single bullet into the gun, and she shot Debbie in the forehead from two feet away.

Oh, wow. For the next six weeks, she continued to live in the trailer with Debbie's body. She wrapped her in the shower curtain and her favorite blankets and put her Star Wars calendar in with her. And she said she cried a lot. Oh. She immediately regretted what she'd done. Yeah. And obviously couldn't take it back.

And she didn't know what to do. And honestly, she didn't know how to live without her sister. Yeah. She just went to work every day and came home and. Yeah, she was dependent on her as well. Yeah. Yeah. She just went to work every day and came home and. Yeah, she was dependent on her as well. Yeah. Yeah. I can't even, I can't even grasp how helpless of a situation this would feel like.

This is a really sad story. It's really sad. It's really sad. sad. When like six weeks had passed and she hadn't made payments on the trailer, she knew it wouldn't be long before people came asking for their bills to be paid. And so she figured it was time for her to leave. And so she told her boss that lie about having to go to take care of a family member. And she packed up a suitcase, drove to the Greyhound bus station, left her van there and took off for Virginia Beach. It was an area that they had lived in when she was a kid. It was the last time in her life that she remembered being happy.

That's why she picked that area to go back to. She remembered being a teenager there and having friends at the beach and like running and feeling free. Yeah. And so that's why she went there. And so she started living in a homeless shelter. She got that job at 7-Eleven and she just kept doing it until someone came looking for her. Yeah. There is a quote in here when she's after she's been arrested where she says that she doesn't remember killing Debbie. And that her psychiatrist in jail has told her that's a good thing. I don't I don't believe that. I think she doesn't want to remember it. Yeah. But she was able to give

the detectives a lot of details about. Yeah. About the crime. So they you know get her to admit to everything and Barbara was arrested and charged with first degree murder. She was assigned a public defender and at the time of her arrest he said this is just an unusual compelling situation. He was asked if he was going to try and get her a deal or if they'd go to trial and he said I just don't know yet. She doesn't have any prior criminal history at all. And it seems like she was just in a helpless situation where she snapped. Even the detectives on the case described her as the nicest murderer you'll ever meet. Oh, gosh. This I really do think is just like a very.

It is so, so sad. Yeah, it is so so sad yeah it is so sad it's just I yeah a woman who who didn't see any way out of her situation and Debbie paid the price for that it's just it's horribly sad in July of 2006 prosecutors made kind of an interesting decision in this case. It's kind of unprecedented. They said that they believed that this was not a standard murder case and that Barbara didn't pose any threat to anyone. Wow. And so they offered a deal for her to plead guilty to manslaughter in exchange for a 15-year prison sentence.

Wow. Yeah. I'm shocked. I am too. So this decision came after Debbie's two living siblings sent letters to both the judge and the prosecutor in this case. They said her brother wrote in his letter, She is a gentle person. Everyone she comes in contact with likes her.

I don't think she belongs in a prison for hardened criminals. She will not survive. That would be like putting a gentle beagle in a room full of attack-trained pit bulls. Which I don't know that I agree with that, but it was decided that this, she was not a danger to anyone. And so they offered her this deal and she accepted it. In July of 2006, she was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

And with credit for time already served, she would be out in like 12 years. Wow. At her sentencing or shortly after her sentencing in an interview with this reporter from the Tampa Bay newspaper, she said she actually felt relief being in prison. She felt relief being in prison. Mm-hmm. She said it was the first time in her life that she didn't have to work or cook or take care of anyone but herself. Wow. Is that not just heartbreaking?

Yeah. Yeah. Barbara did serve 12 years of her sentence before being released on February 8th, 2018. years of her sentence before being released on February 8th, 2018. In the two years since her release, she said she's been trying to start her life over and forgive herself for Debbie's murder. She said in an interview with the Tampa Bay Times, she said, I'm a loving person. I'm a caring person. I'd give anyone the shirt off my back. I don't know how to make any sense of all of this. I'm enjoying my freedom. I'm finally starting to feel happy like a bird that's never been able to fly before. Hmm. This story was profiled actually just like two weeks ago on an ID show called Twisted Sisters. I tried to find the episode.

I cannot find it anywhere. There was a follow-up article recently done because the show was about to come out. She said she misses Debbie horribly and that she doesn't even have any pictures of her, that she forgets what she looks like, her that she forgets what she looks like and that it's taken her a long time to even try and figure out what life could be like without debbie in it yeah i think this is a horribly sad depressing case yes i think i don't know how i feel about the deal she took someone's life but it was a horrible situation that she was in. I think the deal is a testament to the fact that we have no idea what to do about mental health issues. I completely agree. Yeah.

Yeah. This whole thing is a testament to us not knowing what to do about mental health issues. Yeah. Oh. Here's the one fact that made me decide that I had to cover this case despite how terrible it is. I think this is just so interesting and I think it's like a sign from the universe if you believe in that kind of thing. Debbie was a huge Star Wars fan. Her body was found on May 4th, which is Star Wars Day.

Oh, that's weird. Isn't that weird? Yeah. She'd been in that trailer. Her body had been in that trailer for eight months. She was found on May 4th. Oh, that's, yeah. I don't know how cool that is.

I didn't say it was a cool fact, Kristen. I said it was interesting. I think it's just a really sad case, no matter what angle you look at it from but what about that really cool May 4th angle I didn't say it was cool Kristen I said it was interesting oh yeah that's rough oh it's a really sad one poor Debbie and I know poor Barbara I think yeah I think Debbie and Barbara both had really tough lives. Yeah. Yeah.

First of all, just being 16 and being in charge of a three-year-old. Being given your sister and saying you're in charge of her now. Yeah. Yeah. Developmental delays or not, like, I just can't imagine that. Absolutely. Yeah. You know what I think we should do right about now funk soul brother

right about now I think we should take some questions from the discord oh let's do it oh Kristen I know who have Courtchester Jorge asked did you watch Murder on Middle Beach if so who done it you got theories i've not watched

it but i'm familiar with the case how are you familiar with it i read an article with the sun maybe okay because the sun is who makes the documentary right yeah so for people who don't know it's a documentary kind of a mini seriesies really on HBO right now. It is excellent. Yeah, I know who did it. Oh, you do? You solved it? Yes, I solved it. Should I say it or is it kind of a spoiler? It's your opinion, so I don't think it's a spoiler. It's a spoiler because I'm right.

Oh, okay. The dad did it. Yeah, right? Obviously the dad did it. Yeah, right? Obviously, the dad did it. Now, I say that, and for people who haven't seen the show, you might be like, oh, well, if it's obvious, I don't want to watch it. No, it is very interesting, all the different angles of this case.

But, yeah, the dad definitely did it. When Madison asks his dad, point blank, did you do it? Which he asks a lot of people, did you do it? The dad deflects. Does he really? Yes, which I thought was kind of a dumb thing that, like, they say in detective shows. Like, you know, oh, they'll try to deflect. They'll try to look away.

No, this is legit. This guy was like, said something vague like look at the facts. You'll see I didn't do it. Or something like that. Whereas everyone else is just like, no, I didn't do it. Ooh. The dad's a big fucking weirdo. And a big fucking murderer.

Allegedly. Allegedly. Ooh, sticky situation. Least favorite scent for candles. Allegedly. Allegedly. Mmm. Ooh, sticky situation. Least favorite scent for candles. Do you have a least favorite? That is such a you question. You don't have a least favorite?

No, that's a weird thing to have a pet. I mean, I don't want an overly floral one. Okay. And your whole house smells like an old lady. It's so funny to see you say, I don't want overly floral, with a tattoo of an English rose right there. It doesn't smell like a flower. I know, but it just seems like you seem like the type of lady who likes a flower. I do like flowers. Not too many.

Not too many. Not too strong. Gardenias is my least favorite smell. I think it's very strong yeah i associate it with old women you got a problem with old women no i just don't want to smell like one okay i don't want my house to smell like one just want to say you're getting older by the day i am i'm no spring chicken i believe me i know i got a hip that pops every time i get out of bed do you for real yeah ever since i had london my hip pops every time i get out of bed. Do you for real? Yeah, ever since I had London. My hip pops every time I get out of bed.

Yeah, your body just not the same after popping a kid out of it. Man. My body's not the same ever since I popped a cyst. Yeah. I went to the doctor this week. How was it? Well, they weighed me with a heavy sweater and boots on,

which I think should be illegal. That is illegal! Don't you hate that? I do hate that, yeah. And I was like, oh, God, do you need to weigh me? I was just here. Anyway, I went on a weight loss plan, and the weight loss plan is I got naked and went. Lost a bunch of weight, yeah. Exactly.

I lost seven pounds by getting naked. Exactly, yes. Try my diet today. Ooh. Most and least favorite board games. That's a question from Bed Bath & Backseat. Ooh. I want to hear your least favorite board game.

Ooh. I feel like you've got some opinions. I do. I do. I don't like the long ones. Like? Monopoly. Do. Do. I don't like the long ones. Like? Monopoly. Risk.

I'm not trying to commit to a three-hour game. Okay. I like games more than most people. I still don't want to play a single game for that long. I'll play games for that long. I mean, some variety. Variety is the spice of life, Kristen. It's funny

because you're not a very varied person. Yeah, I'm kind of with you on that. I don't like the three-hour games either. You know what game? Okay, this just kind of sticks in my craw from childhood.

I remember seeing the commercials for Mousetrap and being like, that looks like the coolest game on the planet. Begged for it. Was so excited. Turns out when you have to play by the rules and stuff, it's not that fun a game to play. And it's so much setup. Yes. Yeah. So Jackson got that for Christmas last year.

Yeah. My aunt got it for him. And when we went to play it and I opened the package and there were eight million pieces, I said, thank you for the worst present ever. Yeah. I hope I get to step on this. It takes a ton of setup. Yeah. It's just kind of boring. It's kind of a boring game.

Yeah. Yeah. Suck on that, Mousetrap. Yeah. I'm glad I finally got to tell you off. You got a favorite? There are a lot of games I love. I know, me too.

I love Sequence. Do you ever play Sequence? Love Taboo. I like Taboo. Trivial Pursuit. Okay, here's a game that I think people don't know about. Okay. It's called...

Life. No. It's called Amuit. Okay, here's a game that I think people don't know about. Okay. It's called... Life. No. It's called Amazed. Okay, what's that? It's a Target exclusive game. Oh my God. Designed by Neil Patrick Harris. Really?

Yes. You have to solve puzzles and riddles. It's so good. It's so fun. Casey won't play it anymore, though, because she says it's too challenging for her and I make her feel dumb when she plays it with me. You ruin a lot of things. So my dad and I played.

I love Casey's policies with you on games. Yeah. Didn't play Taboo for years. No. Because you were an a-hole. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep.

Judge Judy said you were an a-hole. Yeah. Casey said that she, like like so you have to solve riddles and you have to solve them like on a timer and she says too stressful to like have the time constraint on solving the riddles so yeah i can understand that yeah she won't play with me anymore what were you saying to your sister i didn't say anything to her you obviously did or said something did you did't. Did you make faces? No.

Did you do the big sigh? No. This is the thing she got annoyed with. Okay. Like, I think we might. So it was my dad and me against Casey and James. And I think we beat them and they'd, like, move two squares. Oh.

You slam dunked the funk. Yeah. Yeah. And I agree. That's not funk. Yeah. Yeah. And I agree. That's not fun. Like. It's not super fun. If it's not like at least competitive. Right.

You know, it's also not fun. When you know that baby Jessica was rescued from the well. Your family doesn't believe you. Yeah. And then Kristen's family, who's notoriously terrible at trivia, beats your asses. Beats us. How'd it feel to have your asses pounded by the pits? I didn't care about losing. I cared that we didn't get the right.

You cared about having fun? Yeah, I just hope both teams have fun. No, I really didn't care about losing. I cared that we lost because my family didn't believe me on the answer. Yeah. And that's why they had to die. That's why I had to murder them. Okay. Scuncherino, in all caps, has asked, how did Norm and David propose?

And then she continues, I ask every week and you never answer, which makes me suspicious that they don't exist. And this has all been an elaborate ploy to appeal to traditional family value Republicans. Okay. So the reason. Yeah. We've talked about this before. We get asked this all the time. We do.

It's just not that exciting. Yeah. It's pretty boring. Here's. Okay. So I'll tell my story. Yeah. Here's the deal.

When you meet a woman as wonderful as me, you obviously propose. And so he had no choice no like it was um it was a really nice proposal um we were getting ready to go to north carolina you're shaking your head you're like this is boring no it's fine i mean it's just a proposal yeah no so we were not the amazing proposal that david for me where he jumped out of a plane oh and held a banner. That was wild. And you were like, we could have bought a new house. And he was like, oh, shit. No, so we were getting ready to leave for North Carolina for Thanksgiving. And I was doing my hair in the mirror, looking lovely. Just picture it. Just picture it. I'm picturing it. You're beautiful. And Peanut walked in and she had a ring around her collar and Norm came in and proposed.

That's cute. It was very cute. Very cute. And we got to tell both our families on the same day. Yeah. Which was in, we got to tell both our families in person on the same day, which we can only do that kind of thing like maybe once a year, maybe twice a year. Yeah.

We, what did you say it was right before thanksgiving yeah david proposed the day before thanksgiving wow yeah it was the day before thanksgiving yes and he proposed that day because he knew we'd see our families the next day and he wanted us to be able to tell them. That's so cool. What is? Is this a thing? Maybe it is a thing. Everybody let us know. How many Thanksgiving proposals do we have?

So I was in bed. I was actually like asleep and he woke me up. He asked me to marry him. And then when I said yes, he gave me a ring and a Swiss cake roll. It was really cute. He did it specifically that way because when I told him that I was pregnant with London, he was asleep in bed and I woke him up and told him. And so it was like, this is the place you told me we were having London.

This is the place that I wanted to ask you to marry me. It was cute. This is the place we bang it out. Stop it, Kristen. We can cut that. Don't sully my propels story. I'm sorry. That was gross.

Fancy Skunch asks, are there any Christmas foods you think are disgusting? Probably. Yeah. Lots of foods are disgusting. Oh, my God. What's Christmas food? Is it the same as Thanksgiving food? Roughly.

Yeah. Yeah. You eat ham instead of turkey? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, we do steak sometimes. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, we do steak sometimes. Oh. We don't do like traditional stuff because we do like at my mom's usually we'll do like a breakfast thing. Sausage brunch, if you will. We don't eat sausage brunch, Kristen. Oh, you don't need to be a snob about it. That should always be said with a sad voice.

We don't eat sausage brunch in my family. Not anymore. Not since the incident. Okay. Norm today pulled some cookbooks off our shelf. Okay. There is this one cookbook that my mom was going to donate when they sold the house, but I rescued it from the fire. It is a disgusting cookbook from 1987 from hospitals,

from the Liberty Hospital in Missouri. Everybody could pitch in and share their favorite recipe. Norm was reading some of these recipes to us. Talk about Midwest trash. Ham loaf? Ham loaf? You can substitute any lunch meat you choose. Norm was reading some of these recipes to us. Talk about Midwest trash. Hamloaf. Hamloaf. You can substitute any lunch meat you choose. Any ground lunch meat.

Ground lunch meat. Every recipe required sour cream. Every single one. So I propose that we make some of those recipes for a bonus video. Yeah. And then we try not to throw up. I'll eat it if it doesn't have mayonnaise in it. I'll at least try it.

Okay. Will you eat it with sour cream? Yeah. I think I could do it if it's in something. Well, yeah. It's not just plopped on. As long as it's not glopped on top. Yeah.

Okay. I'll do it. I'll do it. Ooh. I feel like you're going to have an opinion on this. Okay. AliciaNC asks, love actually. Love it or hate it?

I've actually never seen it. What? Why is that surprising? Yeah. Don't see anything. I love it. I could see the light in your eyes. Love it.

Love it. I know it's either one or the other, though. People either love it or hate it. Why do they hate it? It's problematic. Oh. I mean, the one guy's in love with his friend's new wife and tells her on Christmas. Alan Rickman has an affair.

It's bad. And that's the one that has the Nazi in it. Which back then was fine, but now we know was not good. Yeah. Yeah, but everybody loves each other. It's love, actually. Hugh Grant's in it. He's problematic enough.

What did he do wrong? He cheated on Elizabeth Hurley. Oh, why did he do that? With a sex worker. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Gosh, it really seems not that bad compared to what we're dealing with now. I mean, seriously.

Although, why would you cheat on Elizabeth? I know. I don't know. I don't know. Grant doesn't strike me as the type of person who has to pay for sex, you know? I agree. But, like, maybe he's, like, a sex addict because that was the deal with Halle Berry's husband cheating on her and it came out that he was a sex addict. Man.

So maybe it's like I— It doesn't matter how hot you are. Exactly. I can't imagine someone being married to Halle Berry and thinking that somebody else would be better. I've got to go bang somebody else. Yeah. Mm-mm. Yeah.

So I think it's got to be a, you know, there's like a real illness behind it. Yeah. It's almost as if being cheated on has nothing to do with you. It has to do with the other person. That's weird. That's weird. I think we've had a real breakthrough today. Ooh.

Do you have a favorite Christmas gift you got as a kid? Reggie with an I wants to know. Malibu Dreamhouse. Oh, wow. Now you're just bragging. Yeah, Casey and I got it for Christmas. Oh, okay. Okay.

Speaking of joint gifts. Yeah. Trampoline. Oh. Mm-mm. I think we got our trampoline for Easter. Really? Yeah.

You know, that does seem like a more easter gift we got ours in mexico though so yeah you know it wasn't yeah no snow yeah felice navidad possum by night asks what case do you want to cover but haven't because there's too much to it oh there's like a million of those so many scott peterson jody arias those are my top two i don't have the nuts um for me central park five yeah um oj yeah uh gosh there's probably oh george zimmerman yeah i actually thought about doing that this week but then i I was like, why bum people out that much? Well, and thank God you didn't with the horrible case I did. Yeah.

Thank God you did kind of a light one compared to the... Yeah, no kidding. Sister who murdered her sister. Now I'm thinking about my case again. I'm bummed out all over again. I know. You know, it's rare for us to just sit and look sadly at one another. My case was really, really sad.

Okay. Nina Evie asks, and this kind of answers somebody else's question, but I don't know where it went. Have you discovered any new hobbies during quarantine? I have, and it was one that I never thought I'd have. So I've been playing a bunch of Switch with David. I've never been a video game person, which somebody else asked in here today. Do you guys play video games? Never been a video game person.

Just not really my thing. But David and I have been playing Super Smash Brothers. We've been playing Animal Crossing, obviously. We have an amazing island. And we just got Mortal Kombat. So it's pretty exciting times at our house. In COVID, I have discovered depression. No, I don't know.

I don't know that I've really discovered anything new. I've discovered a recipe for bread that is fast, easy, and delicious. You have? Why is everybody making bread in COVID? Tell me this. Okay, I have a theory. Okay. I have a theory that, you know how, you know, toilet paper, it was a little touch and go there.

People were freaking about. So I think people started to freak out about the essentials. Oh, yeah. Including bread. And so that brings up, like, well, can I make my own bread? And the answer is yes. I'll share my recipe. I can't tell you how many times on my Instagram feed I've seen someone's sourdough starter.

Oh, that makes me jealous. My recipe is very, very easy. How easy? So it's one that my mom threw together. It's like a can of beer. It's some flour. It's some salt. It's some baking powder, a little sugar.

Wow. And you throw that all together. You put some butter on top, melted butter on top. Put it in the oven for like an hour. It's delicious. Wow. Yeah. I love homemade bread.

That sounds good. Okay. Okay. Okay. Do you love dried out cheesecake? No. I know. It makes me sad to think about it. It was really sad. It was a real bummer. It was also a very small piece of cheesecake. We didn't even address that factor. No. No. That was an $8. No. It was $8. Kristen. You guys, I'm really upset. I ordered the most expensive entree on the menu. A $20 piece of salmon with mashed potatoes and vegetables.

I opened this thing up. Can you describe what you saw? It looked like cafeteria food. It did. They looked like steamed cafeteria veggies and then a weird plop of just mashed potato. these did not look like seasoned potatoes they didn't have little bits of peel in them there wasn't even like you know

they mixed them with really good like cream nope no i handled it like a big baby i looked over because yours looked pretty good norm's looked pretty good i was's looked pretty good. And I was like, mm. I had a grilled Southwest chicken wrap. The chicken was really dry. The black bean and corn sauce on it was delicious. But it was supposed to have like a chipotle ranch on it. And I think they really skipped to it. I think they just went really skimpy on the dressing. The fries were really good.

I'm glad something was good. My God. Yeah. Anyway, we're fine. We're adults. We're all fine. I just think after a year like this, was that really the meal we needed? No. It's not.

Oh. Dick to the Wind asks advice on how to leave someone toxic without being mean. If they're toxic, I wouldn't worry about being mean. That might not be great advice. Well. Hmm. I wish we knew more. I know.

Is this someone? Yeah. I need follow-up information. Yeah. Is this a friendship or like a relationship, romantic relationship, or even like a family member? Because toxic family members are a real thing, too. Yeah. And you are not required to keep them in your life.

Yeah. That's a fun fact. That is a fun fact. It really is. It's a handy fact. It is. I fact. It really is. It's a handy fact. It is. I think that's something that people don't often consider. Honestly, I, here's the reason I wouldn't be mean. And it's not because it's like, oh, you should be nice to everybody. It's because I think if you make it about them and their behavior, then I think it's riskier for them to suck you in to a nasty

argument. That is a good point. Dealt with some toxicity. Yeah. And by that, I mean, I listened to that song by Britney Spears on repeat. Dirty Macaroni asks, question from my husband, Dwayne. Okay. She said he's all pissy because I never post his questions.

So here you go. Okay. Do you guys play games with your husbands where they challenge you to sneak weird phrases into the podcast? Like if you can work in the word turkey jam, I'll give you a foot rub. And then she says, please answer him so he will leave me alone. Okay. I know that probably sounded like a

weird thing I said for some reason. Yeah. No. That's just the way your brain works. Weird things come out of my mouth. Yeah, mine too. Also my butt. I can attest to that. What? You can't attest to that. I've seen some funky farts come out of that butt, Kristen.

But you haven't smelled them, I noticed. Yeah, we, no, that's not a thing we do. We're just weird. No, but it might be a thing now, though. Right? I really enjoy that idea. I don't think that Norm wants to give me a foot rub, though, and who can blame him with these talons? I know.

I think you're so weird about your feet. I have my father's feet. I don't think there's anything wrong with your feet. You and Norm both were like, ugh, I have these terrible feet. Your feet are fine. He doesn't have terrible feet. No, he said that about your feet. Oh, yeah, he did.

Oh, that asshole. You said it first, and he agreed. And he did agree. Oh. Because I was trying to defend you, and he that about your feet. Oh, yeah, he did. Oh, that asshole. You said it first and he agreed. And he did agree. Oh. Because I was trying to defend you and he was like, no, they're really bad. No, I mean, I've got runner's feet. And if you take the toenail polish off of these puppies, you're like Daryl Pitts from the ankle down. It is, it's rough, rough stuff.

They get me where I need to go. But man. And I tell you what, with COVID. No petties. These things have been looking rougher than ever. You should get a petty. Why? Wear a mask.

Because it's supporting a small business. Small businesses like that are really struggling in this climate. I get it. It's difficult. Yeah, I just, I wouldn't put them at risk like I wouldn't I wouldn't put them at risk like that. And I wouldn't put myself at risk like that. I'm not doing anything that I don't have to do. Yeah. I shouldn't say anything. I'm sure I'm doing some stuff. But like, yeah, I wouldn't get a pedicure right now. Yeah. No offense to them.

I just there are a lot of businesses that are struggling right now. Yeah. I'm sure bars are struggling and I'm not going to go to a bar. Yeah, no, I'm not going to a bar either. Yeah. Yeah. There's a way. We should probably stop this conversation.

No, we can cut it. Well, there's another way for bars and restaurants to make money. They can do takeout and stuff like that. There's no other way for a nail salon or a hair salon to make money than for people to come into them. And I think that that's where our government needs to get its head out of the sand and do something about it. Right. I think the government needs to do a bailout for companies like that. I don't think the solution is for people to put themselves and others at risk by going in.

Right. I mean, that's just how I feel. Yeah. But I realize that the chance of our government doing the right thing right now is really, really slim. And that sucks. Tough times for lots of small businesses, for sure. Yeah.

For sure. Should we end on that really sad note? That's super depressing on my end there. Jeez. Oh, I think this is kind of a fun one. Skeezy Skunchy Butthole asks, before you started the podcast, how much time did you two spend together? Not nearly as much as we get to now. No.

That's one of the really great things about the podcast is it gives us a reason to hang out with each other. I think that's the best thing about being adult friends. I feel like all your adult friendships, it's always amazing when you can get together with people. But it's not like you have school or some kind of activity anymore where you have to see each other. And, like, yeah, this podcast is awesome. Yeah, it is. From a listening standpoint, making it, I hate it. No, I seriously, it's like.

Yeah, it's just my social time. Yeah, exactly. It's designated time that we get to talk to each other and have fun. And like, yeah, it's really easy as adults to not make, to not have time, not make priority to. Yeah. And yeah, it's, it's really nice. It's really fun.

Yeah. Let's do Supreme Court induction. Let's do it. You guys, this week we are doing your names and your favorite cookies. Megan O'Mara. Chocolate chip. Sarah Atencio Gonzalez. What?

What? Bisco Cheetos. Bisco Cheetos? Bisco Cheetos? Is that like a biscotti with a Cheeto on top? I don't know what that is. Sign me up. Molly Porter.

Maple Oreos. Devin Jones. Double chocolate chip. Anna Faye. Homemade M&M cookies. Destiny cereal. Maple Oreos Devin Jones Double Chocolate Chip Anna Faye Homemade M&M Cookies Destiny Cereal Snickerdoodles Sam McKinney

Oatmeal Raisin Diana Soma My Grandma's Sugar Cookies Andrew Seedempul Nutella Chocolate Chips Jen Baldwin M&M Heather Amelot

Underbaked chocolate chip. John Tumor. Snickerdoodles. La La. Oatmeal scotchies. Oh yeah. Jillian Manteone. Ooh, seven layer Italian What the fuck is that? That's amazing. Heidi Fleiss' prison lover.

It's just lasagna with sugar on top. Right. Oatmeal raisin. Blair Peterson. Chocolate chip. Shantae Swanson Phillips. Raspberry thumbprint shortbread. Yes.

Do you know? I don't know what that is. Oh, my God. It's like shortbread cookie, very buttery with like the raspberry jelly kind of thing. Oh, you wouldn't like it, but it's delicious. Steph Holdinghausen. Madeline Cookies. Rochelle DeVore. White chocolate chip macadamia nut. Christina Bowman-Sanders. Spelt chocolate chip. What's a spelt chocolate chip? I mean, I don't know. I assumed you knew. Felt chocolate chip. Ancient whole grain chocolate chip cookies. I don't know about that.

I don't know. All right, Christina. Welcome to the Supreme Court. Thank you guys for all of your support. We appreciate it so much. If you're looking for other ways to support us, please find us on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Patreon. Please remember to subscribe to the podcast wherever you

listen and then head on over to Apple Podcasts, leave us a rating, leave us a review, and then be sure to join us next week. Could you say that all again but faster? No! When we'll be experts on two whole new topics. Podcast adjourned. And now

for a note about our process. I read a bunch of stuff, then regurgitate it all back up in my very limited vocabulary. And I copy and paste from the best sources on the web and sometimes Wikipedia. So we owe a huge thank you to the real experts. For this episode, I got my info from the documentary, All the Queen's Horses and Wikipedia. I got my info from articles by Lane DeGregory for the Tampa Bay Times. For a full list of our Thank you.