Let's Go To Court! - 20: The Case of the Missing Pants & the Chicken Coop Murders

Episode Date: June 13, 2018

When Roy Pearson landed a new job as a judge, he knew he’d have to wear suits to work. But his budget was tight — and so were his pants. Rather than buy a new wardrobe, he took all of his dress pants to Custom Cleaners for alterations. But when he came back to the store a while later to pick up his pants, Roy made a shocking discovery. Custom Cleaners had lost his pants! So he did what any logical human would do. He sued them for $67 million. Then Brandi tells us about the disappearance of nine-year-old Walter Collins. His disappearance had all of Los Angeles speculating. Was he kidnapped? Did he run away? Surely he wasn’t being used for ransom — his parents didn’t have much money. Maybe whoever took him wanted revenge on his incarcerated father. Five months later, police found Walter in Illinois. But when Walter and his mother were reunited, she knew he wasn’t her boy. Police advised her to take him home and “try him out for a couple of weeks,” so she did. The story gets even more odd from there. 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: “Judge in pants lawsuit sues to get job back,” CNN Pearson v. Chung appellate court decision “Wearing Down the Judicial System With a Pair of Pants,” Washington Post “54 million dollars lawsuit against South Korean dry cleaner over pair of trousers is in full swing,” Associated Press In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Walter Collins: The Changeling” Joan Renner, DerangedLACrimes.com “The Boy Who Vanished— and His Imposter” by Cecilia Rasmussen, Los Angeles Times “During the 1920s, Boys Became the Prey of a Brutal Killer” by Cecilia Rasmussen, Los Angeles Times  

One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts. I'm Kristen Pitts. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court. On this episode, I'll talk about the case of the missing pants. And I'll be talking about the disappearance of Walter Collins.

Okay, are you ready for the tale of the missing pants? I couldn't be more ready. You know how much I love pants. You do have a weird thing about pants. Do you want to explain it? There's really no explaining it. It's really all about the word pants. I just love the word pants have since I was like 12.

Yes, you have. I used to have a license plate on my car that said pants. Really? Yeah, it's my favorite word. And your Twitter handle is BrandyPants182, which is also Blink-182 is my favorite band. Also, before I get started, I should mention, because Norman wanted me to mention this, that he is the one who found this case for me. Excellent.

We would not be here today without Norm. Let's take a moment to appreciate that. If you also appreciate Norm, you can pick up The Gaming Historian Volume 1 on Blu-ray today. Yes. Head on over to TheGamingHistorian.com. It has 16 classic episodes. Oh, she knows it. Plus never-before-seen footage

that will never be uploaded to YouTube and a very special Cooking with Norm segment. Norman is a really good cook. I suggest you check that episode out. And also, if you don't want to go through the website and through PayPal,

you can order it on eBay. How do I get it signed? You just ask for it in the comments section. Love it. By the way, are you wearing lipstick today? It's a chapstick with a little bit of a tint. It looks really good. Thanks.

I don't ever wear anything on my lips. I know you don't. Yeah. Because I feel like this is a deep dive here. People don't give a shit about. I do a dramatic eye. And so I feel like i look like a street walker if i put too much lip stuff on so i typically wear nothing on my lips okay so today

they were feeling a little chapped i was reading through my episode at home and like my lips were getting kind of stuck on my teeth when i was talking so time for some chapstick that's right you know when you walked in today I thought you looked like a hooker I prefer sex workers I didn't mean to offend you by being politically incorrect okay are you ready I'm ready for the pants bring on the pants okay or the missing pants yeah I was gonna say if you're looking for pants, this is going to be a really sad story. This is quite the tale.

I am ready. It's April 2005. Roy Pearson just landed a new job as an administrative law judge in Washington, D.C. What's an administrative law judge versus an actual regular judge? Yeah. I don't know. It's, you know, two-year term sort of thing. It's the kind of job where you need to wear suits at work.

Yeah. Here's the thing, though. Roy's budget was a little tight. And so were his pants. He put on a little bit of weight recently. He didn't have the money to go out and buy all new suits. So he's like, I know. I'll go to Custom Cleaners, my local dry cleaner, and I'll get them altered.

Perfect idea, right? Yes. Okay. So he decides to get them altered one at a time because he can't afford to do all five of them at once. So that's what he does. The second pair of pants that he drops off are magical pants. They're part of a Hickey Freeman suit. I don't have any idea what that is.

Neither did I. It's an expensive suit. Turns out, don't know a lot about men's suits. My husband is a mechanic. Doesn't wear a lot of suits. Yeah, I was thinking of this as I was writing this one. Norman has one suit. We bought it at an outlet mall.

I'm going to say seven years ago. He's worn it to many a wedding. Yes, Zach also has one suit. I believe it was purchased at JCPenney's. How long ago? Actually, not like just a couple of years ago. Okay. Okay.

Like two, three years ago. That's a brand new suit right there. That is. That is as good as new. I mean, it's been worn maybe twice. Yeah. Weddings, right? Yeah. Weddings only. Yeah. Okay. So they're part of a hickey freeman suit they're burgundy and they have blue pinstripes

those sound hideous they do a burgundy and blue pinstripe suit it was 2005 but i think still that sounds still yeah maybe they did him a favor. He bought the suit at Saks Fifth Avenue. It was quite expensive, if you want to know. Yeah. So he drops the pants off at Custom Cleaners. And, okay, the couple who owns this dry cleaner, they're from South Korea. Once again, I can only pronounce names from... Jones, Smith.

Yeah. Definitely more along your comfort lines. I'm Midwest ignorant trash. So I'm just going to say that up front. So I'm going to do my best with the names. Sue Chung, S-O-O. Yeah. Okay.

Sue Chung, who owns the dry cleaners with her husband, gave Roy a ticket, which said he could pick up the pants on Friday. And Roy's like, that's no good. I really need these on Thursday. She's like, okay. Scribbles out Friday, writes in Thursday. Roy shows up on Thursday. He's like, I'm here for my fancy pants.

My fancy pants. And Sue tells him that she hasn't gotten around to altering them yet. Roy is angry. Yeah, I can imagine. Very angry. What's he supposed to do? Go to work with no pants on? I'd say maybe he wears one of the other four pairs that he has, Kristen.

No, his only option is to go in. Like Winnie the Pooh. He's got his shirt and his tie and his suit coat, but no pants. He still has like the black socks pulled all the way up. And then those weird things that old men wear around their calves to keep their socks up. Sock suspenders. I have no idea. Is that what they are?

Do they keep the socks up? I hope that's what they're doing. Otherwise, I don't know. So Roy's angry. He's like, forget it. I'll just take them back as they are, unaltered. Give them back to me. And Sue's like, well, I actually have already done the work.

They just need to be pressed. And Roy's not happy with that answer. He's like, okay, I'll just go back to the back of your store and I'll get them myself. I want my pants. Well, first of all, that's not how it fucking works. You don't get to go behind and like watch the clothes on the carousel and pick your pants out. We should all be so lucky. That sounds so fun.

But Stu's like, we accidentally sent them to another store. So they're not back here. They're not in the back. But I promise they'll be here tomorrow morning by 730. Next morning, Roy shows up. 730 on the dot, don't you bet? Oh, yeah. Oh, yes.

Sue's like, bad news. No pants. I can't find your pants roy is pissed he's like that suit was a thousand dollars well you got ripped off because it sounds hideous roy have you heard of jc pinnacle have you heard of an outlet the men's warehouse that you're gonna love the way you look. They guarantee it. She's like, hey, be cool. If you bring me in the matching blazer, that'll be a lot easier to find your missing pants.

What, I can match it up with the bucket of lost pants back here? Sure. Don't you think? That's how I take it. I think that's weird, though. What would be a better way to do it? Well, I would just assume the pants have been sent home with somebody else. I would assume they're not in the place anymore.

They accidentally got sent home with another customer. Maybe. Do you think she has a bucket of lost pants? I do bet they have a bunch of articles of clothing that don't, maybe the tags have popped off. And they have multiple locations, and I'm sure they send some to different locations. All right. All right. All right. Several days go by.

Roy has been waiting for word on his pants. It's crickets. Did he take the blazer in to match it up? I think he did. All right. He's on his pants. It's crickets. Did he take the blazer in? I think he did. I think he did. All right. All right. He's doing his part.

Finally, he goes to the store. And she's like, no worries. They turned up. You're going to love them. She holds up a pair of gray dress pants with cuffs and double loops, which I assume it's like double belt loop. I don't have any fucking clue what that is. But those are not burgundy with blue pinstripes, Kristen.

You got that right. Roy's like, these are not my pants. I've never worn pants with cuffs in my life. Oh, give me my pants. And Sue's like, those are your pants she pulls the ticket number and it matches the ticket number on his receipt yeah because she just like stapled it on a different random pair of pants roy is so mad he feels like custom cleaners is trying to trick him with pants that are not his own. To top it all off, Custom Cleaners has the gall to hang signs in their establishment saying things like, satisfaction guaranteed and same day service.

He's like, mm-mm. I am not satisfied. Not at all. This gives Roy an idea. He's like, you know what? I have really suffered here. Has he? Brandy, did you not hear what I just told you?

He needed his pants. And I feel like you're starting to not sympathize with Roy so much. I mean, I understand the plight of the pants. I get it. Okay, yeah. Imagine the trauma of losing your favorite pair of pants. Uh-huh. Yeah, it would be tough.

But you know what I'd do? I'd probably, I mean, I don't have any thousand dollar pairs of pants. I will say that. But I'd probably just go buy a new pair of pants. Well, you're nothing like Roy. He thought, you know, this has been inconvenient. The satisfaction guaranteed sign is clearly misleading. And I've suffered mental anguish.

sign is clearly misleading and i've suffered mental anguish that is a bit of a stretch much like the waistband he felt there was only one thing to do he said to himself let's go to court okay i've got a question for you How much do you think he sued for? Okay, so value of the pants is half of the suit. So if the suit was $1,000, the pants are 500 bucks. Yeah, but I mean, well, okay. I would argue that the suit is now ruined, so he needs to sue for the entire... Although you can wear a blazer with jeans and stuff, but...

All right, $1,000. Okay. Monetary, like actual damages emotional distress how much what would you put on that how long did this go on a couple of weeks yeah i'd say a couple weeks if i had to guess 25 000 67 million dollars i'm sorry what that's right 67 million dollars is what he sued for what the fuck okay first of all i doubt custom cleaners or whatever the fuck they're called uh-huh has 67 million dollars but that's the amount of damage they caused brandy it's not always about what they have it's about the pain and suffering this man went through as a judge uh-huh he should

know that you have to have realistic goals in life and you can't get blood from a turnip. So I think he should go in much lower. And the chance of actually seeing some money would be much higher. I think the facts. Even if it's awarded in his, like, even if the judgment is awarded in his favor, he's never going to see $67 million from this, even if they have multiple branches this small family-owned dry cleaner and i hear what you're saying because it's too bad because he does deserve 67 million dollars he does not deserve 67 million dollars that's not at all what i'm saying i hear what

you're saying brandy and i i completely agree i'm just saying, mistake number one. Okay, fair enough. Okay. He came to that figure, and I'll give you more details on how he came to that figure. But for now, just know that his math was roughly like mental suffering, inconvenience, discomfort. Plus, he needed money to go toward leasing a car every weekend for 10 years so that he could drive to a different cleaners. I'm sorry. What? What?

The gymnastics that your eyebrows are doing in this story, Like perfection. Perfection. Oh my gosh. Your reaction is a bit like the Chung's. They were like, holy hell, we are a small family business. They'd come to America from South Korea to pursue the American dream. And as their attorney put it, they got the American nightmare. Su Chung lost a lot of weight from the stress the lawsuit was a huge financial burden yeah obviously they had tons of attorney's fees it got so bad that they were considering just moving back to south korea they were like we're done yeah and as much as they felt that roy was wrong and that sue had found his missing pants. Remember, she was like, no, these really are your pants.

They didn't want a legal battle. Yeah. So they tried to settle with him. They offered him $3,000. Roy was like, no. I feel like that's three times the price of the pants. Yeah. I feel, I don't know, that's reasonable.

I agree. They offered him $4,600. Nope, he wouldn't take it. They offered him $12,000 for his stupid missing pants. Roy's like, no. He can go buy himself 12 hickey whatever suits. They tried getting a summary judgment, which of course is when the judge says, this is easy, I'll make the decision. Save us the trouble of a

trial. From what I've seen, judges did try to minimize this case as much as they could because this was embarrassing to the entire judicial system. It became a laughingstock internationally. So on some issues, they were able to issue a summary judgment in favor of the Chung's. But they couldn't totally wash their hands of this thing because Roy was a judge. He knew the law. He knew how to bury people in paperwork and he apparently had a legitimate legal argument that could be brought before a court of law i feel terrible for the chunks i know i know this is a nut over a pair of pants very nice pants though though. $1,000 pants. Yeah. Most of this legal argument came down to what?

I don't know if I added up the cost of all the pants in my possession. If it would add up to $1,000. I can guarantee you mine wouldn't. Yeah. Because, I mean, first of all, I don't have a ton of different pairs. Yeah. Yeah, no. Yeah. Because, I mean, first of all, I don't have a ton of different pairs. Yeah. Yeah, no.

Yeah. So most of this legal argument came down to the satisfaction guaranteed sign. Roy claimed that a satisfaction guaranteed sign is an unconditional warranty to the customers that requires the business owner to honor any claim without limitation based on whatever would satisfy that particular customer there's no way that that's legally true let's see so he his point of view was by leaving him unsatisfied the chungs violated the consumer protection procedures act i am Protection Procedures Act. I am. I don't even know what to say about this case.

This is terrible. Uh-huh. Like I said, this became international news. And weirdly, when word got out about this case, people were not very sympathetic to Roy. Imagine that. I know. I know. It's like they don't have a special pair of pants in their life. got out about this case people were not very sympathetic to roy imagine that i know i know it's like they don't they don't have a special pair of pants in their life they're like this guy is abusing the legal system yeah he is and maybe there's a problem with our legal system if somebody can sue for so much over something so inconsequential. Yes!

Word gets out through the media that the Chung family is thinking about going to South Korea, going back to South Korea, and everyone's like, no, not okay. So somebody set up a website where people could donate to their defense fund. Was it GoFundMe? Well, this was 2007, so like old-timey GoFundMe. Old-timey! So they raised about $35,000, which was very nice. Yeah. Not even close to enough.

No, because... So this happened in 2005. The trial took place in 2007. So this dragged on. Yeah. Meanwhile, people were getting kind of upset with Roy. They thought he was being over-the-top greedy. Yeah.

So because of all this pressure, Roy decided to do the decent thing. He lowered the lawsuit to $54 million. Oh, that's the decent thing? Fuck off, Roy. There, I said it it is that not enough no the trial began in the summer of 2007 it lasted two days roy requested a jury trial and the judge was like hell no you'll do this in front of me or not at all we are not wasting everybody's time like that then roy's like i want to call 26 witnesses what could there be 26 witnesses to testify about

exactly the judge was like the judge kind of looked things over and was like this is duplicative testimony no no i'll let you call four witnesses. Oh, man. I'm smelling an appeal. These are all just setting Roy up for an appeal. Is that his name, Roy? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. See, he's going to get his, it's not going to go his way. And he's going to appeal and say, I didn't get to bring in these witnesses i wanted to bring in i was told i couldn't have a jury poor me it's just going to keep going on meanwhile the chungs are just drowning in legal fees okay let's see take it away kr, Kristen. Prove me wrong, I dare you. Challenge accepted. Also, you should know that Roy represented himself. Of course he did.

Cheaper that way. Gotta save money for those pantsuits. That's right. I don't think they're called pantsuits when guys wear them. Oh, really? Oh, they're just suits. They're just suits. He's probably gonna sue me now. Probably.

The trial was amazing. Hmm. Over those two days, we get the full, dramatic saga of Roy's turbulent relationship with custom cleaners. Are you ready for the full story? Brandi.

I don't think I can handle the full story. Kristen. Hold on to your ass. You know what? I meant to say, hold on to your pants. Lucky for you. That's where I keep my ass.

That's where you held it, huh? Okay. Turns out, he'd been going to them since 1999. And this wasn't the first kerfuffle he'd had with them. He said that in the summer of 2002, he'd brought in a pair of pants, either to be cleaned or altered, he couldn't remember which.

When he came back to get the pants, they didn't have them. He said, those were $150 pants. Jai Chung, J-A-I. Yeah. Jai Chung said, okay, we'll give you $150 to replace the pants.

Yeah. Roy comes back a few days later to get the check. And Jai says, well, since they were not new pants, how about we give you $80? Roy's like, no, we agreed on $150. And Jai's like, okay, fair enough. He gives him $150. Which I feel like is acceptable customer service. Yeah, I agree.

Loss of pants will give you the cost of the pants. And with these $1,000 pants, that should have been acceptable too. We'll give you $1,000. Now, do you think that it should be what the person paid for the item or the value of the item right now? I think that in most cases, it would be the value of the item right now. But I could understand with dealing with a difficult customer that you offer them what they paid for the pants. See, I think you should offer what they paid for the item.

Almost more in like a, hey, we're really trying to do the right thing here. We don't want you to have any ill will. We want to keep your business. Okay. A week later, Roy comes back into Custom Cleaners after this whole thing has gone down. He had some garments that he wanted clean. And at that point, Su Chung was like, we'd rather not have your business. Yeah.

Thank you. Goodbye. Yeah. We reserve the right to refuse service have you had to say that a few times in your life brandy see i was so glad to tell you this story because i feel like you know you deal with customers all the time yeah so i feel like you'll have some opinions on what it means to have a satisfaction guarantee yeah anyway so roy's like you can't tell me that you're not going to serve me because you have a satisfaction guaranteed sign.

And that means that you have to satisfy me every time I come in here. This guy is a dick. There. I said it. Sue's like, no, no, get out of here. Yeah he leaves but he's not done he writes them a strongly worded letter full of legalese about how what they'd just done constituted an unfair trade practice under the cppa blah blah blah blah blah no it doesn't he's wrong and he's just scaring them because he knows how to do legal speak yep there's no nothing legally binding about what he's saying

but they wouldn't know that yeah i feel like he's taking advantage of people who and the other part of this story is that in court the chungs's spoke through an interpreter. I was going to say, there's a language barrier. So my opinion is he's picking on people who he thinks he can scare and get some money out of. He's such a dick. Yes. I'm getting very riled up over a lawsuit about pants.

You know, the funny thing, I was thinking about this this morning. I picked this case initially because I thought it would be hilarious. But the deeper you go into it, you're like, this is horrible. These poor people. So much for the laughs. Welcome to our comedy podcast. Where you feel really terrible.

So pretty soon, Roy gets a phone call from a woman who said she was calling on behalf of the Chung's. And the woman's like, look, you're not happy with the service they're providing. Just go to a different cleaners. It's not that hard. A few days later, Roy takes some clothes into custom cleaners get the fuck out of here roy yeah and sue's just like fine she takes the clothes cleans them this went on for years until the dreaded pants incident are you ready for my favorite part of the story? I don't know if I can handle it. It's so good. Okay, I'm ready. Picture it.

Roy takes the witness stand to tell this tragic tale. He gets to the part in the story where Sue hands him the pants that weren't his. And he cried. Are you fucking serious? I am serious. He broke down crying he called it a twilight zone experience over some pants yes um he got so choked up that he asked the judge for a recess so that he could gather himself. I would be willing to wager that I have an affinity for pants more than most people.

I agree. And I've never cried over pants. I bet very few people have. Yeah. And I think if they have, it's like, damn it's easy. In a dressing room when they don't fit. That's exactly. That is exactly. If you're going to look at times when crying has overlapped with pants, it's like 99% of

the time in the fitting room or like, oh summer i've been wearing dresses now it's getting a little chilly i'm gonna put on my oh damn it but not for roy oh okay roy i don't know if i've said this yet uh-huh is a dick hot new take from brandy allegedly and all that stuff because i don't want him to sue us he's not a guaranteed dick yeah no that's right no satisfaction guaranteed i reserve the right to say my opinion about his dickishness dickishness that's correct, Kristen. He told the court, and I'm quoting here, Is he fucking serious? That has to be what everyone was wondering. That is so insane. I i mean that's just ridiculous i feel like the judge's eyes had to like bug out of his head cartoon character style

and like his mouth drop open when he heard him say that pretty much um in some of the earlier court proceedings uh one of the judges said something to the effect of, I feel like you're acting in bad faith here. Yeah. And this judge, she calls him out on some stuff, which we will get to in a moment. Are you ready for his explanation of why he needs so much money? Yeah. Here we go. He wanted $500,000 in attorney's fees.

Okay, well, he's his own attorney, so... Right. Nope, off the table. $2 million for discomfort, inconvenience, and mental distress. Okay. And $51.5 million to go into a fund to help washington dc residents sue businesses no fuck off that's exactly what the judge said no the judge was having none of his bullshit at one point roy was going on and on about how he was basically this hero. And he was protecting everyone in Washington, D.C.

by using this consumer protection law. And he called himself a private attorney general. He represented the consumer. He's the superhero no one wanted or asked for. So the judge gets him talking about what a satisfaction guaranteed sign really means. And okay, before I tell you that, what do you think? Like if you were to put a satisfaction guaranteed sign in your business, what do you think that would mean for you? It means that if you are not satisfied, we will refund your money. Okay. Or take the equivalent steps to make you satisfied.

It has to be equivalent to the dollar amount you had planned to spend. Okay. That's not what Roy think it means. That's not what Roy think it means. The judge says, let me throw a hypothetical at you. If a customer demands $1,000 for a lost garment, and the merchant truly believes that the customer is lying, does a satisfaction guaranteed sign require the shop owner to hand over a check?

What did Roy say to that? Yes. No! No, it fucking doesn't! Everyone in the courtroom laughed. because that is ridiculous it is ridiculous think of the precedent you could go into any business with a satisfaction guarantee and demand anything you wanted yeah and if they didn't give it to you then they were doing something illegal yeah no great No. Great way to make some money. Roy is a dick. Should that be the title of this episode? I think it should be.

Roy called some witnesses. Again, not 26, unfortunately. Yeah. Because, gosh, that judge was such a meanie pants. He called his son to the witness stand and his son was like yeah you know dad i borrowed some of your suits for my job a while back and the pants did not have cuffs you don't wear pants with cuffs roy also called four witnesses to testify that they were dissatisfied with custom cleaners one person said they damaged her dress. Another said they'd lost a sweater.

But that person also had no claim receipt for the sweater. Another said they discolored a suit. Another said they'd ruined a pair of pants. But then on the witness stand, the person said, well, it's possible that Mr. Chung and I misunderstood each other. In my mind, this is not proof that a business is bad. in my mind, this is not proof that a business is bad. It's just that I think if you're doing a certain volume, you're going to do something wrong eventually. Yes.

That doesn't mean that you as a whole are a terrible business. No, not at all. So I'm pretty sure that Chung's business suffered quite a bit through all of this. Partly, I think, because Roy was trying to drum up all these people who would testify that oh they're doing such a bad job one of the ways he tried to get people was he would post signs on telephone poles all around the area saying if you're dissatisfied with you know the job they did blah blah blah contact me then came the defense's turn. Su Chung gave her own interpretation of the satisfaction guaranteed side, which sounds a little more like your interpretation of it. She said that to her, it meant that they would do everything in their power to fix a customer's problem.

They'd do alterations to the customer's satisfaction. If the customer said, you didn't clean this well enough, they'd clean it again. Yeah. And if the problem couldn't be resolved, then they'd compensate the customer for the value of the clothing. Yeah. Which to me sounds perfectly reasonable.

Absolutely. And she's like, by the way, Roy is the only person who has ever said that our sign was misleading. Yeah. Everyone else seems to understand.

Yeah. What this means. Yeah. And she's also like, those were his pants damn it i didn't swap out his pants they were tagged number 182 that was the number on his receipt and i remember them because they had three belt inserts which is very unusual and by the way i remeasured them and they're an exact fit to his body they are his pants i have a question okay was it really tag number 182 yeah or did you make that up no they really were so his he was roy pants 182 oh my god oh that's so weird. You know what's so funny?

When you were like, did you make that up? I thought, why would I make that up? Sue also cried on the witness stand, but not over pants. Well, and I think that that's very understandable. Yes. Her personal character, her business is being attacked for a shit ton of money. Yes. And that pretty much sums it up. By that point, she and her husband had cleaned out their life savings.

It was gone. She said, he is asking for an enormous amount of money. It has been really hard on us to deal with this. Roy is a dick. Yes. The Chung's lawyer called Roy bitter, emotionally distressed, and said that he has, quote,

irrationally and uncompromisingly pursued this litigation. He wants the Chung's to suffer. I agree. Yeah. I mean, this, this is getting it's so out of control. Yeah, absolutely. Ultimately, and obviously, the judge ruled in favor of the Chung's. She said a reasonable consumer would not interpret satisfaction guaranteed to mean that a merchant is required to satisfy a customer's unreasonable demands absolutely and she's like by the way you haven't even convinced me that they lost your pants i'm still up in the air also she said by the way roy you're gonna pay their court costs good which at this point were like $83,000. Yeah.

So the Chung's felt really good. They filed their paperwork to get their money back from Roy. And all the while, they were super sweet. They were like, we just want to be done with this. And you know what? If he came in here right now and asked for alterations or to get something clean, we'd serve him. That's unbelievable. Instance number 5,000, where we've talked about someone who is way better than me,

because I'd be like, get the fuck out of here. Shake a broom at him. I'd have a shotgun. I don't know how to use a shotgun, but I just have it. So they were really relieved to put this thing behind him, but they were afraid he might appeal the trial court's decision.

So they decided to do something really generous. They fundraised to cover their own legal costs. And it looks like most of their legal costs were covered by institutions that wanted to put an end to frivolous lawsuits yeah and the fundraising worked it covered everything they owed and so once that happened they withdrew the paperwork demanding that roy pay them the chung's lawyer said mr pearson had a choice today to make peace and acknowledge the Chung's amazing generosity and absolving him of paying their fees or to continue with this ridiculous case and meritless appeal. Roy had a choice.

He went to keep Roy as a dick and he continued this meritless case with an appeal. Here's what they should have done. Okay. They should have gone to him and said, we have raised the money for the court costs. We will free you of that judgment, that obligation, if you agree to file no appeals in this case. See, I think that's a bit of a gamble too, because what if they feel like there's a chance he'll never be able to repay this $83,000 or whatever it is. Here we have this money fundraised.

I think I would take the money. And then, you know, if it goes to appeals i don't know yeah i don't know but yeah you're absolutely right roy appealed the decision uh he said that that trial judge made a fundamental legal error would you like to hear more oh he said the court effectively substituted a guarantee of satisfaction with reasonable limits and preconditions for the unconditional and unambiguous guarantee of satisfaction the defendant merchant chose to advertise for seven years. No! That was a fundamental legal error. No!

That's not what fucking satisfaction guaranteed means. Brandy, do not bring your logic and your reason in here. Roy will not have it. Get out of here with that stuff. Oh my gosh. So it went to the appellate court and the appellate court's like, yeah, we agree with the lower court. Yeah. At that point, Roy agree with the lower court. Yeah.

At that point, Roy had another choice to make. Give up and move on with his life? Or request that his appeal be heard again by a nine-judge panel? Oh, for fuck's sake, Roy. He naturally made the totally rational and mature decision and asked the nine-judge panel to hear the case. But they were like, go home. Oh, thank God. No, you're done.

You're not going to believe this, but while all this was going on, things weren't going great in Roy's professional life. Imagine that! They also hadn't been going great in his personal life because at the time of all this, his divorce had just kind of wrapped up, and I should have written this down,

but his wife was also an attorney. And at one point during those proceedings, he threatened to get his wife and her attorney disbarred. And at one point during those proceedings, he threatened to get his wife and her attorney disbarred. And I want to say he was fined $12,000 by the court for just, you know. Being a dick? Yeah, I'm sure there was some legal reason, but that's what it boiled down to. But back to Roy's professional life.

That job he got where he had to wear the pantsuits. I'm sorry, the suits suits because he's a man why are they called pantsuits for women because for men suits for women also also can be a skirt that's a skirt suit nobody calls it a skirt suit i call it a skirt suit no no one on the planet calls it a skirt you're looking at someone on this planet. Well, one person on this planet calls it a skirt suit. It's called a suit or a pantsuit. Why would you call it a pantsuit if it's really a skirt? You wouldn't call it a pantsuit if it's really a skirt.

Right, so you'd call it a skirt suit. No, it's just called a suit. No. Yes. You'd call it a skirt suit. No, it's just called a suit. No. Yes.

Well, because women are expected to wear skirts, Kristen. So you don't need to delineate when they're wearing what they're expected to wear. You only have to give a specification when they're now wearing pants like a man i do not agree with you well clearly that's not really what i believe no no i know that's where the origin of suit for women and pants suit come in okay i can see how that would originate that way um i still call them skirt suits nobody calls it a skirt suit tons of people google fucking skirt suit and oh what you think there's gonna be like zero no you're about to feel very embarrassed this is usually just called a suit oh look skirt suits all over the place skirt suit online at online at ASOS. Skirt suits online at JCPenney. Nobody calls it a skirt suit. Google it, girl.

Dillard's. Oh, here we go. Ann Taylor. Lord and Taylor. Yeah, because it's descriptive of what it is. It's not its fucking name. Then you better tell Ann Taylor at Dillard's and Macy's and JCPenney that they're all wrong. I'm victorious.

Well, gosh, it feels good to be so right. Oh my gosh, I disagree that you're right. Okay, you gotta Google it on your computer now. My Google's gonna have different results i'm gonna describe brandy's face for everyone no no i'm looking something up oh okay so she looked up skirt suits didn't like what she saw images of suits with skirts see this is not

even a word i looked up suit or skirt suit definition nothing comes up suit dress comes up well that's nonsense no one's ever heard of a suit dress suit skirt does not exist skirt suit is what it's called not suit skirt skirt suit that's what i mean that's what i looked up then why skirt suit definition nothing i don't trust you so much that now i'm googling it myself i guess skirt suit skirt definition suit who's victorious now christian podcast over listen if you agree with me i need you to comment okay no i reject all of this. I reject all of this.

I'm suing you for $67 million because this has been very emotionally distressing for me. Do you see a satisfaction guaranteed sign on me anywhere? I'm going to make one for you. I have it as a tramp stamp. Ew! Can you imagine? That's gross! Oh, that would be the grossest tattoo.

That's terrible. Anyway. Anyway, what we have discovered here with our Google searches is that I am right. False. Anyway, what we have discovered here with our Google searches is that I am right. False. Maybe in editing I could figure out a way to make you say that I'm right. So, that initial job that he got to wear his suits,

it was an administrative law judge position, and like said those are two year terms and as the two years were winding down he applied for a 10-year term please tell me he did not get that the commission that oversees administrative law judges did you know there was a commission did not they wrote him a letter and they were like yeah don't count on getting reappointed buddy because you're a dick and basically you're embarrassing the shit out of yes of course he didn't get renewed so he effectively lost his job what do you think he did he probably sued them for wrongful dismissal or some bullshit i think it was like a whistleblower thing. Who knows what he said? But I'm just going to give you the basics.

Yeah. He sued. Lawsuit was dismissed. He appealed that decision. He lost that too. Yeah. Where are they now? I don't know.

I know that Chung's closed one of their dry cleaning businesses um after all this i don't know how they're doing now though i hope they're doing well me too roy i don't know he's just off being a dick somewhere i imagine yeah yeah i wonder if he got disbarred yeah that would be i didn't find anything saying that, but I do wonder. And this case has a serious legacy. When scholars talk about frivolous lawsuits or the need for tort reform, Roy and his... I'm sorry, did you say tort reform? Yeah, do you not know the term tort reform?

No, I thought it was court reform. No, tort reform, because torts... Torts are delicious little pastries. A tort in common law jurisdictions is a civil wrong that causes someone else to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the tortuous act. We are teaching real law terms on this podcast. If you had had one semester of law school you would know about torts

they are not always delicious pastries sometimes they're a horribly boring course you take and you think why did i do this to myself um so yeah anytime people talk about tort reform, which is a term, uh, Roy and his missing pants always come up. Yeah, I bet. The end. P.S. Roy's a dick. That was crazy.

It's nuts. I knew like this much about that case. What did you know about it? That he, the dry cleaner lost his pants and he sued them. Yeah. But I didn't know an amount or anything like that. Yeah. Yeah.

The amount is what is insane to me. And when Norman first told me that, I was like, there's not going to be enough for an episode there. There was. There shouldn't have been enough because that's ridiculous. Yes. Crazy. That was good.

That was really good. Except that you're wrong about suit skirts. Skirt suits. Skirt suits. It's a term. We've all heard it before. Nobody's heard it before.

Skirt suits. I've got one upstairs. I believe that suits with skirts exist well of course why would you not believe that the question is that they're just called suits then why when you look them up online do skirt suits pop up all over the place because it's descriptive of a type of suit. Oh my God, Brandi. Look it up. Find up skirt suit

in a dictionary. Find up skirt... Find it up or look it up. Look it up! Okay, Dillards.com whether you prefer pant or skirt and dress suits so they have three different kinds no which i agree you can have a dress suit skirt suit pantsuit nobody calls this skirt that's it we're gonna start a poll yes please go online to our facebook page and let us know if you've ever heard of a fucking skirt suit before the toll-free number is up now

now i have to tell a heartfelt backstory about myself so that people will feel sorry for me and vote for me. No. Yeah. It's always, well, no, it's offensive. Never mind. Why? It's always like, my dad and I were best friends until he died. And he left me a skirt suit.

That's all I have to remember in my life. Why did my dad leave me a skirt suit. That's all I have to remember in my head. Why did my dad leave me a skirt suit? Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Just know that it's called a skirt suit. All right. Are you ready? Is it going to be slightly more serious than mine?

It is more serious. Slightly or like a lot? Significantly more serious. Okay, let me close my skirt suit page on Google. So you're not shopping for suits while I'm... No, not shopping for skirt suits. Okay, I'm excited for you. Okay, so I was inspired for you. I don't know i was like an old-timey gangster

you guys oh no i was inspired by your disappearance story last week yeah and i told you that it reminded me of this case. Yes. Yes. This case that I've never heard of, but apparently everyone else has heard of. Yes. So this is the disappearance of Walter Collins. There is, as I mentioned on the previous episode, a movie, like a dramatized version. Clint Eastwood directed it. Angelina Jolie starred in it. John Malkovich was in it.

It's good. It's called The Changeling. It's based on this case. Gotcha. I got my info for this episode from this really great website called derangedlacrimes.com. Such a good website. You would find that website. It was good.

I feel like most people would stumble upon it and be like, I got to get out of here. It's put together by this woman named Joan Renner. And she does all of this research about all of these crazy crimes that have happened in the history of LA. So really good. All right. And then also I got my info from a couple of articles in the los angeles times by cecilia rasmussen okay okay let's take it back march 10th 1928 oh it's an old one yes yes we're in the lincoln heights neighborhood of los angeles okay i don't know what that fucking means. Nope. We're from Kansas City.

Yes. Christine Collins. Is it right under the Hollywood sign? Because that's all we know. That's all I know. Yes. Christine Collins gave her son Walter a dime to go see a movie while she went to work as a telephone operator.

He is nine years old. Okay. When she arrived home that evening walter was nowhere to be found panic set in she called the police who were certain that walter was just a runaway but christine was a nine-year-old runaway yeah christine was adamant he would never run away she knew he'd been kidnapped oh my, my gosh. Not convinced that Walter had been kidnapped. Police reluctantly began going around the neighborhood, kind of talking to the neighbors, and they got some tips. A couple of neighbors said that they had seen a boy with a foreign-looking man.

The first tip came from Mrs. A. Baker, who was a neighbor of the Collins. She claimed that she saw Walter in an automobile begging to be released. Oh, my God. Other neighbors gave similar information. They said that days prior to Walter's abduction, an Italian-looking man, along with a woman, were asking for Walter's address. What? Yeah. So finally convinced. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Yes. were asking for Walter's address. What? Yeah.

So finally convinced. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Yes. This woman saw a child begging to get out of a car and she was like, oh man, that's weird. I'm not going to get myself involved in that. What the hell is wrong with people? Well, it's 1928. I mean, I don't know.

No excuse, no. no excuse no I imagine that there was so much corruption and like mob activity going on then you probably just didn't get involved in stuff like that maybe I'm the type that is

too involved but I feel like i would yeah i wouldn't just sit around and wait for the police to come to me yeah ask if i noticed anything yes so police are like all right maybe there's something to this abduction story perhaps so five days after he's disappeared they finally put a notice in the newspaper those first few hours are so critical and And five days. Five days later. And these were the days of morning and afternoon papers. Yes. So they had plenty of opportunities.

So this is what the notice read. We think maybe someone stole a boy. No big deal, though. Don't worry about it. Yeah. You're not far off. Oh, no. Missing or kidnapped boy.

Walter Collins, American, age nine years. Height, about four feet, five inches. Weight, 75 pounds. Husky build, brown hair, blue eyes, fair complexion, rather thick lips. Wearing, at the time of his disappearance, a red plaid lumber jacket, long brown corduroy trousers, gray cap, black shoes. This boy disappeared from his home about 5 p.m. the evening of March 10th, 1928, and may be with a man described as being Italian, 1928 and may be with a man described as being Italian age 35 to 40 years height about five feet nine inches weight about 160 pounds wearing a dark gray suit and a dark gray slouch hat

rather soiled this man may be driving a large sedan color color or make unknown, or may not have a car. At that point, why are you saying it? Yes. He may or may not be in the company with a woman described as being very small. No description of clothing for the woman. Possible that these people may be attempting to take the boy to San Francisco or he may still be in Los Angeles. It is barely possible that the

boy may be found on the streets selling papers. What? Yes! boy may be found on the streets selling papers what yes report any information regarding this case to captain jj jones crime prevention division so you weren't far off kristin he's either in a car or not uh-huh heading to san francisco or not with a man and maybe a woman or not or he's selling papers on the corner who knows and who cares right i also think it's and he's rather thick-lipped that is super weird that's a super weird description but i also think when you're talking about something that if there was a crime happened like five days ago yeah

why even bother describing somebody's clothes right no idea yeah countless tips on walter's location led to dead ends he was allegedly spotted as far north as San Francisco and Oakland. One reported sighting was at a Glendale gas station in the backseat of a car wrapped in newspaper with only his head showing. Oh my. Wait, why did they think that maybe they went to San Francisco? I have no idea.

Oh, okay. Some tip that somebody gave. Okay. The station owner described the driver as a foreign looking man probably italian accompanied by a woman if the witnesses were to be believed there were mysterious foreign looking strangers skulking around los angeles all of them apparently up to no good well and i also like i didn't mention this but when you read the little notice about him

he's described as american which is clearly just code for white. Yes, yes. Police quickly ruled out the possibility that Walter was kidnapped for ransom as his mother was a telephone operator and his father, Walter J.S. Collins, was in jail serving time on robbery charges. The boy's father did have a theory that former inmates out for revenge against him may have kidnapped his son, though there were no witnesses and no proof that that had occurred. OK. The investigation into ex-cons with a grudge wasn't productive, although Christine continued to believe that revenge was the only possible reason for Walter having been taken off their quiet Lincoln Heights street.

There were so few clues in the kidnapping that police were frustrated. Led by LAPD Captain Jones, a former deep sea diver, dozens of LAPD officers dragged Lincoln Park Lake for Walter's body. They didn't dynamite it? They did not dynamite it to dislodge it, no. The search failed to turn up anything of note. Under the command of Jones, 200 LAPD officers began a thorough search of the north. No trace of the boy was found. Walter had been missing for a month. For five agonizing months, Christine waited for news of Walter. Finally, in early August, Christine was notified that Walter had been found in DeKalb, Illinois. What? He was alive and well. Christine paid $70, which would be like $1,000 today.

Of course you looked it up. In travel expenses, and the authorities in Illinois put him on a train back to Los Angeles. By himself? Yes. Oh my God, what is wrong with people? Christine was ecstatic at the prospect of being reunited with her son.

Of course. Mother and son were brought together in juvenile hall. And the first words uttered by Christine were, I don't think that's my boy. Yeah, because how would they have known? Oh, here's some random thick-lipped boy in Illinois. She was sure that the boy in front of her did not look, sound, or feel like Walter. Yeah.

That wasn't what Captain Jones wanted to hear. And he wasn't going to let Collins get away with humiliating him or the LAPD. Oh my God. He insisted that the child was Walter. He was just a little worse for the wear due to his harrowing experience. And the kid was adamant that he was Walter. Oh. Jones strongly advised Mrs. Collins to take the boy home and try him out for a couple of weeks.

Oh my god. Yeah. You're not sure you're ready for a dog? How about you foster him for a couple weeks? See how things shake out. Emotionally drained and shaken by the public reunion, Christine caved and took the boy into her home. For three weeks, Christine made an effort to accept that the boy was Walter, but ultimately could not reconcile what she knew to be the truth. No, because he's nine. I mean, your features are kind of set by then, and it had only been five months. Yeah. No. This boy was not her son.

So she returned him to the police armed with proof in the form of her son's dental records and a troop of friends who agreed that the boy was not walter collins still failed to convince captain jones that the boy was an imposter no not failed to convince like he was being a dick which is a theme in this episode he decided not to be wrong what are you trying to do make fools out of us or are you trying to shirk your duty as a mother and have the state provide for your son oh shut up you are the most cruel-hearted woman i've ever known you are are a fool. You're the most incompetent detective. Oh, shut up.

Jones allegedly told Collins. Oh, I'm so mad. I'm so mad. Yeah. He should have stuck to deep-sea diving. So what do you think he did? What do you mean? She's like, this isn't my son.

Take him back. And do you think he took the kid and was like, all right, continue on your way? No. He was like, you have to take the kid. He was like, what do you mean he's not your kid? You took him into your home three weeks ago. You took a picture for the paper of your reunion. And now you're saying this isn't your kid.

Yes, that's exactly right. You're following this. Well, yeah, I'm going to put you in the Los Angeles County general hospital psychiatric ward for evaluation. No.

Yes. He threw her in the psych ward oh i should have seen that coming yep yep oh that's terrible so while christine was in the psych ward one article i read said she was in there for five days another said she was in there for 10 either way fucking terrible A 1920s psych ward. Yikes. Yeah. Jones interrogated Walter, in air quotes. Mm-hmm. The boy from Illinois confessed that he was actually 12-year-old Arthur Hutchins of Iowa. After his mother died, he had gone to live an isolated new life with his cold fish of a father and a malicious stepmother. He ran away, hitchhiking around the country and working odd

jobs. While stopped at an Illinois roadside cafe, Arthur said a diner told him how much he resembled the kidnapped boy from Los Angeles, whose picture had appeared in newspapers nationwide wow Arthur quickly seized on an opportunity to see Hollywood turned himself into authorities and carried out the charade by assuming the identity of the missing boy you know I am surprised and impressed that the detective actually interrogated him. Right. Because to me, this sounded like he was just dead set. Right.

Yeah. But yeah, I'm okay. So the search for Walter was back at square one. Mm-hmm. After being released from the mental hospital, Christine filed a false imprisonment complaint against the city, police chief James Davis,is and captain jones yep more than 1 000 outraged angelinos packed the council chambers in the newly opened city hall to hear davis and jones testify in their defense against collins allegations before the city's Health and Welfare Committee. Angelinos?

Yeah, like people who lived in Los Angeles. Oh, okay. That's what they call them. Okay, I didn't know that. The crowd was in an uproar. Broken microphones kept them from clearly hearing all of the witnesses. Bystanders kept yelling, louder, louder, as the family dentist testified that the real walter had several fillings and the boy claiming to be walter had never seen a dentist in his life

it would have been something that would have been so simple for the police to look into confirm his identity before forcing him on Christine. Yeah. Yeah. In addition, Collins told her story to the police commission who refused to discipline Jones. And also she testified before a grand jury before she finally was able to bring this to court.

In the meantime, the complaint against the city and the police chief was dismissed and jones was suspended from the police force but this didn't stop collins from going after him she was not giving this up she's like you falsely imprisoned me in fucking psych ward yeah for telling the truth yeah this was not my kid. More than two years and two trials later, a judge finally ordered Jones to pay her $10,800 in damages. Okay, how much is that in today's? $154,000.

I don't... Not enough. Yeah, I don't think that's enough. Yeah. It's fine, but not enough. She said she planned to use the money to continue to look for her son. Yeah. But Jones never paid up.

He was reinstated to the LAPD after a four-month suspension, but claimed to be constantly broke. suspension but claimed to be constantly broke nevertheless collins remained a constant thorn in his side summoning him back to court every few years to explain his failure to pay and to have more interest tacked on to the judgment that she would never receive she never received a dime from him. That is such bullshit. Absolutely. And I guess this was before the days when the government would just maybe seize your wages. Yeah, yep.

Yeah. So back to Walter. Where was Walter? Back in May of 1928, Walter had been missing for two months and no faux Walter had come forward yet. And at this point, Christine was working all day. She couldn't afford to not go to work. Sure.

She was working all day, waiting for word about Walter and going through the motions of day to day life. If Christine had read the papers during this time, she may have seen a story about two boys who had gone missing from Pomona. The boys, Nelson and Louis Winslow, had vanished after attending a meeting of the Pomona Model Yacht Club. Nelson was described as 10 years of age, light hair, blue eyes, four feet in height, dressed in a blue shirt and knickers. And Lewis was described as 12 years of age, four feet, three inches in height, light hair, blue eyes, dressed in a regulation Boy Scout uniform. According to their family, the boys had not been in any trouble, and there was no reason for them to have run away from home.

Nelson and Lewis had been gone for a couple of weeks before the Winslows finally received a note from them written on a fly leaf torn from a book issued by the Pomona Public Library. The note said they'd left Pomona and were off to Mexico to find gold. Pomona police sent telegrams to the border authorities asking them to detain the boys if they found them attempting to cross into Mexico. There were no sightings of Nelson and Lewis at the border and no further clues to their whereabouts surfaced. Mr. and Mrs. Winslow found themselves in the same position as Christine Collins, waiting for word of their boys, but losing hope with each passing day.

Because the Winslow home was 30 miles east of the Collins Lincoln Heights bungalow, police didn't make a connection between Walter and the Winslow boys. Between Walter and the Winslow boys. The authorities also had no reason to connect the disappearance to the disappearances to the discovery of a headless body of a Latino boy found on a roadside and La Puente. Oh, the seemingly unrelated cases would come together in a perfect storm of horror in September, 1928.

It began when a young Canadian woman, Jessie Clark, decided to check up on her younger brother, 15-year-old Sanford. She'd been worried about Sanford ever since he'd left with their uncle, Gordon Stewart Northcott, two years earlier. Jessie was concerned enough about her brother's welfare to travel to Northcott's ranch in Wineville, California to see for herself exactly what was going on there. Jessie spent a short time at the Wineville ranch,

but it was long enough for her to confirm that her uncle was terrorizing and abusing Sanford. And it was just enough time for her uncle to assault her too. When she returned to Canada, she told her mother, Winifred, all about the terrifying visit to Wineville. Her mother immediately reported Gordon, who was her brother, to authorities in the U.S. On August 31, 1928, two United States Immigration Service inspectors,

Judson F. Shaw and George W. Scalorn, visited Northcott's Chicken Ranch in Wineville. They found 15-year-old Sanford Clark at the ranch and took him into custody. Northcott had seen the agents driving up the long road to his ranch. Before fleeing into the tree line, he told Clark to stall the agents or else he would shoot him from the tree line with a rifle. During the next two hours, while Clark stalled, Northcott kept running. Finally, when Clark felt that the agents could protect him, he told them that Northcott had fled into the trees which lined the edge of the chicken ranch property.

Gordon and his mother, Sarah Louise Northcott, had fled to Canada, but were quickly found and arrested in British Columbia. While extradition of the two fugitives was being sought, Sanford Clark was recounting a tale of sexual depravity and unimaginable brutality to the police. Sanford told authorities that Northcott had kidnapped little boys and after molesting them, killed them with an axe, poured quicklime over their remains, and disposed of them on the ranch. As for the headless body that had been found in La Puente, he said Northcott had killed a young Mexican ranch hand, dumped the body there,

but brought the head back to the ranch and smashed in the skull. Yeah. At the ranch house, authorities also found a Pomona Public Library book checked out to one of the Winslow brothers. Clothing identified as theirs and a note one of them had written to their parents

said, don't worry, we're fine. Sanford also led police to grave sites on the farm. The graves had been disturbed and they had likely been emptied by Gordon and his mother, Sarah, and the contents burned in the desert sometime during the month of August. Clark led investigators on a murder tour of sorts from the Riverside farm to the Northcott family home in Boyle Heights and to a cabin Gordon Northcott rented in Saugus. S-A-U-G-U-S? Sausage. Officers found traces of human blood and blood-stained axes

with strands of human hairs at the various sites. Ew. Oh, my God. But the most appalling discovery no was beneath you're like more appalling than this i'm appalled consider me appalled the most appalling discovery was beneath the chicken coop graves filled with bones quick climb bits of blood soaked mattress and a 22 caliber rifle with bullets of the type used to kill the mexican teenager it was here that authorities believe they found clothing and bone fragments belonging to Walter Collins. Oh, no. Clark eventually admitted to participating in the murder of one of the Winslow brothers,

saying Gordon Northcott had forced him, which I imagine that's true. He's being abused up there. He probably would do anything he was told to do. Yeah, I agree. The extradition of the fugitive mother and son was successful, and in December, the pair arrived in Los Angeles to stand trial. On December 3rd,

Gordon Stewart Northcott confessed to the slayings of Nelson and Louis Winslow and the Headless Boy, though he later recanted these confessions, confessing only to the murder of the Mexican ranch hand. Northcott's mother, who said she would do anything to protect her son, confessed to the killing of Walter Collins with an axe.

She was sentenced to life in prison. Northcott seemed to love the attention the press was giving him and he made statements to them often in one such statement he claimed the whole thing was a mix-up there have been a lot of stories circulated about me they are all untrue what awful things to say about a man some people have been suffering too much imagination. And a lot of people will be sorry when this case is cleared up. Mm-hmm. The papers loved Northcott as much as he loved them.

Describing him in their pages in alarming detail made even creepier when you remember the fact that he is a suspected child molester and murderer yep northcott is a good-looking youth and has a disarming manner his fair hair sweeps back in an easy wave from the parting on the left and there is a ready smile on his lips beneath his well-modeled nose. His eyes alone are peculiar. They are deep blue, but possess a fixed staring quality, as if their owner is in a thrall. That's how the papers described him.

And ladies, he's single. Yeah, yeah. That is so weird. So weird. Yeah. That is so weird. So weird. The papers even gave a description of Northcott's traveling clothes as he was being brought back to the United States from Canada. So what were well-dressed child serial killers wearing in 1928?

I'd love to know. On the train, he wore a smartly cut brown tweed suit with a dark brown stripe. His tie was brown with cream-colored spots, and there was a thin brown stripe in his shirt. You know what this reminds me of? What? You know the dumb profiles of actresses in women's magazines? Yeah. And it's always like, so-and-so Ashley Michelle

sashays into the restaurant, she sits down and she orders a burger. Oh, a refreshing change. And she's wearing this. Yeah. That's how it sounds to me. Yeah. They're talking about a celebrity. Exactly.

Dressed to the nines and thoroughly enjoying his infamy, Northcott opined to the press on a variety of topics. Oh, good. He was particularly incensed about newspapers and pre-trial publicity.

Which is weird because Yeah. He's talking to the newspapers all the fucking time. Uh-huh. The newspapers, especially those in the South, convict a man before he comes to trial i do not think there should be so much publicity about crimes before the man charged with

them goes into court i don't blame the newspaper so much they are a competitive business but i do blame the administration that permits the practice. What? I don't even know. I don't even know what to say about that. So is he blaming the government? Yes! Yeah. Northcott was charged with killing Walter,

along with the Winslow brothers and the Mexican ranch hand. His trial began in January 1929. Women were excluded from the jury because the judge believed the crimes were too heinous for the fairer sex to be exposed to. Give me a break. Which wasn't that the case in the Leopold and Loeb trial? There was no jury in that one.

Oh, that's right. But at a certain point, when they started talking about molestation, the judge sent all the female reporters out of the room. That's right oh that's right but at a certain point when they started talking about molestation the judge sent all the female reporters out that's right that's especially funny to me like yeah they can't handle the news so in this particular case women were allowed as spectators they just were not allowed to serve on the jury that doesn't make it doesn't make any sense yes was the thought that like they'd get so emotional that they just couldn't handle it i don't know i have no idea i think it's such a weird decision i think it's very telling of the time i mean it's 1928 but um yeah they're okay to hear the stuff in court but not make a decision on it well i almost wonder if it's more like they would be okay to hear the stuff in court, but... Not make a decision on it.

Well, I almost wonder if it's more like they would be able to make the call if they want to leave the courtroom during particularly gruesome... Well, and the judge could send them out. Yes. But the judge can't send them out. Can't send out a juror. Yeah. Yeah. Former Superior Court and appellate judge John Gabbert, who was a college student at the time of the trial, said,

I waited around the courthouse a long time to get a seat. Interviewed about the trial in 2004, when he was 95 years old, he said, Northcott was a very self-possessed guy, not overawed by the trial at all. During breaks, he kidded around with the prosecutors. He was as much at home in the courtroom as an attorney, Hmm. I think that's a really interesting take on it. He's smooth and he's confident and he's comfortable but he's not smart enough to maybe know what not to say yes not to do okay yes northcott toyed with investigators sending them on wild goose chases for bodies with hand-drawn maps that never led to anything

he fired three attorneys in succession then took over his own defense yes yes i love it go for it buddy growled obscenities at the prosecutor deputy district attorney earl redwine and even put himself and the prosecutor on the stand at the same time at At different times. Playing attorney and witness at the same time, he asked himself questions, then answered them. Yes. Red wine portrayed Northcott as a pathological liar and a sadistic degenerate. Yep. Fearless, defiant, foul-mouthed, and a sadistic degenerate. Yep. Fearless, defiant, foul-mouthed, and full of bravado.

Yep. Northcott's conduct underscored Redwine's case. Uh-huh. Like, could not get a more perfect example of it. No, no. At one point, smiling benignly at the jury, Northcott accused the sheriff of plotting to kill him and of stealing his legal papers he alleged that his family members were liars coerced into testifying against him and moreover he said the judge wasn't giving him a square deal northcott had his mother brought in from Tehachapi State Prison,

where she was serving her life sentence for the murder of Walter Collins, to testify on his behalf. Oh my, what? Her startling testimony was that she was not his mother at all. What? But his grandmother, as her husband, Cyrus george northcott had had intercourse with their daughter winifred who gave birth to gordon stewart northcott winifred then married and had more children one of them being sanford clark oh my god remember winifred is the one who reported northcott to u.s authorities after

her daughter jesse told her of the horrors at the ranch so okay hold on winifred is the mom of this psycho okay gotcha yeah i'm with you yeah the mom and sister as it turns out. Oh, boy. Yeah. He knew all this before he questioned her, right? I don't know. And it's not even really known if it's true. Okay. If it was just something crazy she was saying on the stand.

To maybe get sympathy? Yeah, I think. Yeah. When Redwine asked haggard, gray-haired Sarah Louise Northcott how many husbands she'd had, she couldn't remember. Nor could she recall the names of her five children. She shrieked at the prosecutor, the next time I get married, it won't be to a man like you. From a woman who's just been sentenced to life in prison, mind you. Yeah. from a woman who's just been sentenced to life in prison, mind you. Oh, yeah.

That's kind of an insult. Can you imagine? I can't remember the names of my husbands. Yeah. Or my children. Or my children. Northcott's father testified that his son had bragged of killing many boys and that he had seen evidence of the carnage before much of it was destroyed with lye and fire. He even testified that he had bought the lye.

Wow. After a 27 day trial, the jury deliberated for two hours. Okay. the jury deliberated for two hours okay they convicted northcott of three slayings all but young walter collins because sarah louise northcott had already confessed to that murder northcott was sentenced to death christine collins refused to believe the northcots had murdered Walter, though, and she refused to believe that there was any evidence of him ever being at the Wineville Ranch. Really? She was just in complete denial about it.

Collins met with Gordon Northcott in the county jail prior to his trial to confront him about the murder of her son. to confront him about the murder of her son. Christine's desire to believe that Walter was still alive was apparently so strong that she emerged from her conference with Northcott convinced that his denial to her that he had murdered her nine-year-old son was the truth. She was willing to believe what he said

and he said, no, I didn't murder him. I can see why. Yeah, absolutely. You don't want to think that your son was molested and then brutally murdered by this monster no you want to hope that maybe he did run away or maybe someone wanted a son yeah oh continuing her search and never giving up hope collins became the first woman in more than three decades to receive permission to visit a serial killer on the eve of his execution at san quentin in october 1930 northcott sent her a telegram saying he had lied when he denied that walter was among his victims yeah he promised to tell the truth if she came to the prison to hear him but upon her

arrival he balked i don't want to see you he said when she confronted him i don't know anything about it i'm innocent oh come on dude he called her fucking there and then refused to speak to her about it yeah but you see it coming though yeah i want to tell you this but here's here are the conditions i have yeah he just wanted to prove that he still had power exactly exactly northcott was hanged on october 2nd 1930 at San Quentin. It's said that when he climbed the 13 steps to the gallows, he had to be supported by people on both sides. He refused to climb the steps. And then he collapsed at the top. He was more or less rolled through the trap door,

and then he ended up being strangled to death by the noose. Because the whole thing with hanging is that there's this drop you're supposed to break your neck but because he had collapsed on the gallows and just like rolled through the trap door it didn't break his neck it took him 11 minutes to die oh yeah a lot of people said that that's what he deserved. Oh, that's what I was thinking. Sanford Clark was sent to a boys' reform school for a period of two years for his role in the killings. But he was... Yeah. He was a victim, too, though.

He was a victim. He absolutely was a victim, too. He impressed the staff with his desire to lead a productive life, and after his release, he did. He served in World War II, worked for the Canadian Postal Service, married, and had children. He died in 1991 at the age of 78. Wow. Though she was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Walter Collins, Sarah Louise Northcott was paroled in 1940 after serving roughly 12 years. What? Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Fucking crazy! Yeah. 12 years is the same as life? No! She died in 1944. she died in 1944 christine collins never stopped searching for walter she refused to believe he was a victim of the northcots five years after gordon northcots execution christine was given a bit of vindication

when one of the other boys he was rumored to have killed was found alive and well. Whoa. That tiny bit of news gave Collins the hope she needed to go on searching for the rest of her life. She died in 1964 at the age of 75. Oh, gosh. Wineville, California, was so traumatized by the connection to Northcott that the city changed its name to Mira Loma on November 1st, 1930, only a month after Northcott's execution. What?

Yeah. Changed the fucking name of the city. Wow. Yeah. Okay. That's the story of the disappearance of Walter Collins. Oh, that is so sad and gross and weird. And I can't believe I'd never heard that.

Yeah. That poor mom. Yeah. Yeah. I think that it would be terrible to know that your son died that way, but wouldn't closure be better than wondering the rest of your life? They found his shoe there. Like, they are in his bone fragments.

They were sure that he was there. Yeah. And somebody was convicted of his murder. But back then, how could they be sure that they were his bone fragments? I get the shoe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree. Yeah, that poor woman.

It must have just been easier for her to believe that he wasn't killed there. He wasn't killed. Yep. Yep. Yikes. That's a rough one. That was a real bummer. Yeah, super bummer

you know I always think of that like when when there will be a case where someone's gone missing and then like 18 years later they show up I wonder what that does to the families of the kids who went missing. Do they suddenly have a story of hope? Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, so he was rumored to have murdered, like, 20 boys. I was going to say, it seemed kind of low. A lot, a lot.

The warden at San Quentin said he confessed to him that he'd killed, like, 22. And so, yeah, one of the boys that he was believed to have killed is one that showed up like five years later alive and well. He really had just run away. Wow. Did they ever find a name for the decapitated? I did not see a name in any of the research that I did. Yeah, Definitely sad.

The movie, The Changeling, it's really good. Okay, I want to see it now. It's really good. I think that Christine Collins would be delighted to know that Angelina Jolie played her in a movie because she was not as much of a looker as angelina jolie is well who is really i mean who's like well she's a dead winner for angelina jolie i think that's a really shitty consolation prize no kidding no it doesn't make it better by any means wow yeah thank you for that one. I had never heard that one.

Yeah. It's pretty crazy. Yeah. A little darker than my pants. Slightly darker than the pants story. Only slightly. Like a dark gray versus a burgundy. With cuffs.

No cuffs. No cuffs, Kristen. How dare you you i would never wear cuffs absolutely not well what should people do if they liked this episode well first i think you should bring everybody up because you did this to us well i don't how do you bring it back up from that kristin i didn't plan my job I didn't plan a fucking joke at the end. But I'm. No. If they like this podcast.

You know what? What? Sometimes the cases aren't all uppers. Kristen, we can't just joke about pants all the time. Yeah, but why are yours always downers? Hey, I did that suck my dick case. That was not

a downer. That was hilarious. We were all delighted by that one. That was a really fun one. Yeah, so that's the only one that I can think of. My favorite part of that was when the guy said he liked white boys with big butts

just really limiting himself suddenly you really sympathized with the guy boy because you also like white boys with big butts kristen no more like gosh when you want something and the heart wants what it wants yeah it, it's like, gosh, I want to meet a unicorn. Boy, that's going to be rough. I want to find the Loch Ness Monster. Good luck with that. Yeah. You love white boys with big butts?

Not a lot of them out there. No, no. They've all been snagged up. Not a lot of them out there. No, no. They've all been snagged up. If you guys liked what you heard, please subscribe to the podcast. Rate us on iTunes. Leave us a review.

Like us on Facebook, LGTC Podcast. No, it's just Let's Go to Court, isn't it? Yeah. Who the hell knows what it is? It's just Let's Go to Court on Facebook. Also, we're on Twitter. Let's Go To Number Court. We to court on Facebook. Also, we're on Twitter. Let's go to number court. We're also on Instagram.

What's our Instagram handle? I don't know. LGTC podcast. And please like us there. And if you're not a Russian bot, we'll be really excited. I mean, i like to think that we've got some really hardcore fans in russia kristin sure norman seems to think that they're all bots but i like to think that we there are giant posters of us in russia it's only a matter

of time until you get out my mink hat and you know i always picture people in russia wearing those hats when you said mink hat in my mind it went mean cat get out your mean cat and go to russia no my mink hat yes and head over to russia i'm just picturing myself like the Golden Girls in Red Square giving a speech why can't we be the Golden Girls when they go on the cruise or something or when they go yeah I'd like to do that too

but for now we gotta go where our fans are we're huge in Russia also I don't know if you saw this our facebook page got some likes recently yeah not one of my friends not one of your friends nope we're officially huge we are huge yes if you've been listening from the beginning maybe time to get your autographs because we are blowing up pretty soon we'll be too good for everything that's correct i'm already wearing a thousand dollar skirt suit right now and i'm just wearing a suit is it skirt is it pants who knows

there'd be an easy way to tell i just use the right terminology anyway if you have um some facts to back up if i am right or if kristin is right in this situation send us over an email at lgtc podcast at gmail and uh drop some knowledge on us drop some knowledge on brandy on k knowledge on Brandy. On Kristen. Because clearly I am correct. And Kristen, by default, is wrong. In case you're keeping track. And join us next week. When we will 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 appellate court decision, as well as articles from the Washington Post and the Associated Press. And I got my info from derangedlacrimes.com

and articles by Cecilia Rasmussen for the Los Angeles Times. For a full list of our sources, visit lgtcpodcast.com. Any errors are, of course, ours, but please don't take our word for it go read their stuff