Let's Go To Court! - 216: A Hollywood Scandal & the Disappearance of Annie Le

Episode Date: May 25, 2022

Patricia Douglas had been misled. She, like all the other girls and young women who’d answered MGM’s casting call, thought she’d been hired to dance in a movie. Instead, she was taken to a wild party, held in honor of MGM’s salesmen. Patricia did her best to avoid a creepy salesman named David Ross, but he followed her into the parking lot and attacked her.  Then Brandi tells us about the disappearance of Annie Le. Annie had a lot going on. She was a busy doctoral student at Yale School of Medicine’s Department of Pharmacology. In a few days, she was set to marry the love of her life. But then she disappeared. Surveillance footage showed her entering a Yale building, but never leaving.  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: “It happened one night…. At MGM,” by David Stenn for Vanity Fair The documentary, “Girl 27” “Visiting film salesman freed of ‘haymow’ party charges,” San Bernardino Daily Sun, June 18, 1937 “Figures in the probe of film party scandal,” the Kansas City Times, June 17, 1937 “Movie colony party trial starts today,” The Cushing Daily Citizen, June 17, 1937 In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “The Vanishing Bride-To-Be” episode A Wedding and A Murder “Lab Murder: The Brutal Slaying of Yale University Student Annie Le” by Kym L Pasqualini, soapboxie.com “Annie Le: The Yale Lab Murder” by Kristal Hawkins, The Crime Library “Annie Le couldn't wait to get married. On her wedding day she was found murdered” by Nama Winston, mamamia.com.au “Annie Le: Yale grad student touted as 'next Einstein' was murdered by lab technician days before her wedding” by Pritha Paul, meaww.com “Raymond Clark III "Control Freak"; Did It Lead to Annie Le's Murder?” By Edecio Martinez, CBSNews “Read the full statement Raymond Clark III made about killing Annie Le” New Haven Register “Murder of Annie Le” wikipedia.org YOU’RE STILL READING? My, my, my, you skeezy scunch! You must be hungry for more! We’d offer you some sausage brunch, but that gets messy. So how about you head over to our Patreon instead? (patreon.com/lgtcpodcast). At the $5 level, you’ll get 30+ full length bonus episodes, plus access to our 90’s style chat room!  

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 be talking about a Hollywood scandal. And I'll be talking about the disappearance of Annie Lay.

I find disappearances very intriguing. Do you know this case? No. I bet you do once we get in it Oh Is it super famous? I don't think so. Okay But I'm just so knowledgeable

No, I bet you've heard about it. And beautiful and effortlessly chic? Yeah, all those things Oh, yeah Thank you for saying that about me. Of course You're so kind I'm going to say that unprompted. Everyone, we're in moods today. This is the second time today that you've made somebody call you effortlessly chic. Brandi, I have to tell you something. In the past week, I have read not one but two

books about French women and how to be more like the French. And I couldn't be less like a French woman is what I've discovered. It's like I've learned about their makeup routine and it's like, oh, just a little mascara at the base of your lashes. You don't want people to. That's how my girl Sammy does it. I know. I know.

Just a touch of mascara on my outer lashes. And everyone, when she says my girl Sammy. This is a woman who does not know that I exist on TikTok. Just to clarify. Brandy's close personal friend. No, so I'm like reading these books and I'm just in love with like, oh, oh, just effortlessly chic. And so I threw together an outfit to walk the dogs this morning, and I thought I was looking pretty good. Norm made no comment, so I had to ask him, would you say I look effortlessly chic right now?

And he confirmed. Yeah. So it was nice because he didn't have to say that, but he did. That's right. I complimented your outfit the minute you came flowing down the stairs today. Yeah, I believe you said I looked effortlessly chic. Isn't that exactly what you said? Exactly.

No, everything I'm reading is like, okay, so minimal makeup. Well, that's not me. Effortlessly chic is actually exactly how I would describe my like, okay, so minimal makeup. Effortlessly chic is actually exactly how I would describe my new best friend, Sammy. That's the rudest thing I've ever heard. I will never be one-tenth of how cool she is. Yeah, I mean, everyone, if you're not following Sammy on TikTok, we don't know what to tell you.

She dresses really cool. She does her outfit of the day. She's got amazing tattoos. She wears all this jewelry, which I can just never wear. It's a sensory thing for me. I tried to start wearing a second ring.

David got me this beautiful, little meaningful ring for, I think, Valentine's Day. I tried to start wearing a second ring. David got me this beautiful little meaningful ring for I think Valentine's Day. I can't remember. That sounds terrible. And I really love it. But like I can only wear my engagement ring if I have a ring on any other finger. I feel like my

hand is going to swell up and it's going to cut off circulation. I just spat everywhere. And the same thing if I wear a a bracelet or if I wear like necklaces. I think it's a sensory thing. Huh. So that's why you refuse to purchase the heart of the ocean necklace. I knew you were going to say that. Everyone, several years ago we went to the Titanic Museum in Branson, Missouri.

And naturally in the gift shop they sell, first of all, we went to the Titanic Museum in Branson, Missouri. And naturally, in the gift shop, they sell – first of all, they sell survivor bracelets, which doesn't seem right. But also a Heart of the Ocean necklaces. And I tried to convince David to buy one for Brandy, and she ruined the whole thing. Yeah, I didn't want it. That's why she doesn't have nice things. But you've got a birthday coming up. Oh, I don't want that. That's very rude, Brandy.

When someone gets you the heart of the ocean, what? That's what I should wear for my wedding jewelry. Oh my god. What's what I should wear for my wedding jewelry. Oh my God. What's funny is you're always pretty minimal with your jewelry but on your wedding day

you get a $15 heart of the ocean necklace given to you by your long-term friend. That's right. It's my something blue. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. All right. Well, we got that figured out. I'm not wearing that. You know what I realized right after I whipped my boob out? That we were recording an ad? No, that wasn't what I was thinking. Oh, okay. Great. I realized I had a dream the other night that I walked around naked in front of you and it just felt very normal. Uh-huh. And so part of my thinking when I was like, oh, gosh, I've got a hair that fell into my

bra yet again. You're like, well, I just walked around naked in front of her, so it was no big deal. Which I still maintain it's not a big deal. But I realize that that didn't actually happen. It was just a sexy dream. Super sexy dream. Super sexy dream. That's right. That's right.

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You know, this program doesn't just happen. We work tirelessly to bring you this program. Brandi had to kill a man just to come record the podcast today. That's what she told me anyway. I mean, I don't understand why it was necessary, but... Well, it was like that I Know What You Did Last Summer thing where like... What about it? Were you Drew Barrymore?

Were you like... Drew Barrymore's in Scream. Oh, right. No, I know what you did last summer is where the group of kids are driving and like,

they hit a man with their car instead of like, calling the police and reporting it as an accident. They just throw his body in the river. Like you do.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. How is that? Like this? I hit a man with my car and threw his body in the river. Like you do. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. How is that like this? I hit a man with my car and I threw his body in the river. You know, that makes a lot more sense than what I thought you were

saying, which was like, you were standing in front of your glass patio door, you looked out while you were like, talking on the phone, maybe ordering a pizza. I don't really remember the movie very well. I think that's pretty close. She's making Jiffy Pop, not ordering pizza, but sure.

Wow. If Jiffy Pop is close to having pizza delivered to you, hmm. She was looking out a patio door and then the lights turned on

and her boyfriend was all tied up. His letterman jacket, he's bleeding. Oh, yeah. Harrowing time. She just had to get the answer

to the trivia question right. Kristen, you'd be dead so fast. You know what? The killer would be so pissed at you. First of all, you'd be really good at it, but you'd also be excited. You're like, oh, no. Oh, wait, trivia? Oh, great.

I love trivia. Okay, lay him on me. David, I'm going to get you out of this. Who is Jason's mom anyway here we go you ready for this? I am Hollywood scandal yeah is this old timey?

it sure is okay alright I bet you've never heard of it before I bet I haven't you're supposed to argue with me but fine alright so this you know I always hit up the I bet you've never heard of it before. I bet I haven't. You're supposed to argue with me, but fine. All right. So this, you know, I always hit up the newspapers.com. Always very helpful. But, I mean, this one really comes from It Happened One Night at MGM, which is an article David Sten for Vanity Fair.

Very good. And then the documentary Girl 27, which was also done by David Sten. He did an article and a documentary? This is quite a tale. Okay. And thank you to David Sten. How are we spelling Sten? S-T-E-N-N.

Oh, I think you're pronouncing it right. Yeah. You wanted to criticize, didn't you? No, I just couldn't picture. I couldn't picture how it was spelled. Nothing to criticize because I'm effortlessly chic. That's not right. Yeah. You wanted to criticize, didn't you? No, I just couldn't picture. I couldn't picture how it was spelled. Nothing to criticize because I'm effortlessly chic. That's right. Just like my new best friend, Sammy.

I'm going to get hand tattoos and be just like Sammy. You know what? What? I was talking to Sammy the other day. She thinks you're kind of lame. She probably does. She said some really horrible things about you. Great.

In her sweet British accent. I know. So at first I was like, oh, this is nice. But then I really listened to the words and I was like, wait, dumb whore isn't a compliment. Oh, my God. Poor Brandy. Oh, so embarrassing. Maybe she should stay my best friend

instead. Okay, also start this with an apology because this is a terrible story. Oh, okay. Start to finish. Oh, good. Oh, good. I was going to say great. I know. And good.

But my brain didn't make the full change. And so Grood came out of my mouth. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to clip my hair up. Oh, this is like reverse porn. Yes. Yes. Rissa felt she was too hot to tell this story.

I started this tale by showing you my boob and now I'm clipping my hair back up. You are watching this in reverse. Pretty soon I'm going to come to your door with a pizza. I've seen porn. Here we go. Picture it.

1917. We're in Kansas City, Missouri. Oh, shit. Yeah. Just a few years later, we're getting the hell out of Kansas City, Missouri. Oh, shit. Yeah. Just a few years later, we're getting the hell out of Kansas City, Missouri. Because Mildred Mitchell had big dreams. You know, it's one of those things no one else would mention. That she was born in Kansas City, Missouri. It felt really cool to me. Yeah, I agree. Anyway, well, just forget about that. Her name's what now? Mildred Mitchell. Mildred Mitchell, okay.

Mildred was a common... It was. It was like a hot girl name. Yeah. I had a great grandma named Mildred. Was she hot? That is a terrible question. Obviously, she was hot. Duh.

But Mildred, can you believe that? Mildred was like the hot girl name. Millie. Okay, that is... Millie's a hot girl name. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

We'll allow it. Anyway, she wanted to work in Hollywood. Specifically, she wanted to design gowns for all those glamorous women on the silver screen. So Mildred and her young daughter, Patricia Douglas, headed off to Los Angeles. Mildred never quite realized her dream of designing gowns for starlets, but she did design gowns for high-end sex workers. So, I mean, that's pretty awesome. That is awesome. So she designed gowns

and got married and got married and got married. In fact, over the course of her life, Mildred got married eight times. That is several times. And that's just a guess. But Patricia in the documentary was like, I think my mom got married eight times, which, you know, yeah, after a while, you're going to lose count. Yeah. Mildred didn't seem to make much room in her life for her daughter, Patricia. Patricia later said that she felt like her mom treated her like a novelty. Once the cuteness wore off, so did the love. Ooh. So Patricia was definitely neglected.

She was a bit of a loner. She used to go to the movies as a child just so that she'd have people around her. It made her feel loved. Oh, that's really sad. Yeah. When she was 14, she dropped out of convent school. That means she was going to be a nun. This is why you're so good at trivia.

But she kept a lot of the values she'd learned there. She grew older and she didn't drink. She didn't date. She was fairly introverted. And even though she was surrounded by showbiz, she didn't dream of becoming famous or even being in movies. But she had this talent, Brandy. Could she touch her tongue to her nose? She was nothing like you.

No, she was an excellent dancer. Yeah, so she picked up choreography. Like pop and walking? That was what was popular in the 30s. That's right. Very good. She also did the stanky leg.

Invented it, some say. Some do say. She picked up choreography very quickly, and in L.A. at this time, that meant that Patricia could easily find work at MGM. MGM was, like, the movie

studio. They were the ones raking in the cash. Other movie studios were doing horribly thanks to the Great Depression. But MGM had done this really boring thing where they like changed the fees structure. They charged movie theaters, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All you need to know is they made money. Yeah.

Other studios were like, you know. Yeah. That's what happens when a big company isn't doing well financially. They cry. Yeah. They get the boo-hoos out. That's what happens when a big company isn't doing well financially. They cry. Yeah. They get the boo-hoos out. MGM had money.

In fact, they had everything. MGM had its own police force. They had their own elementary school. They had their own lion. They had – well, yeah, they did. Probably multiple in case one kicked the bucket. Or, yeah, ate somebody. Well, you case, you know, one kicked the bucket. Or, yeah, ate somebody. Well, you could still keep the lion. That's true.

They also had their own private railroad. Although most places, when a lion eats someone, they blame it on the lion and then they kill the lion. You're going to hear this story about MGM and think, no, they would have kept the lion for sure. Okay. The documentary also mentioned that they had their own acting school, but, I mean, to me that's not surprising at all. No. Don't tell me that, and also tell me they had their own police force?

Yeah, that's really weird to me, but okay, great. Anyway. The acting school makes total sense. Just about everyone in town worked for MGM. So it was just kind of a happy accident. Patricia Douglas was a teenager living in a town where the vast majority of people were employed by MGM. And so even though she wasn't obsessed with the idea of being in movies, she kind of fell into it. By the time she was 15, she'd already been a dancer in two big movies.

One was titled Gold Diggers of 1933. Haven't seen it. Wow. You're so uncultured. The movie starred a lot of super famous people, Brandy. Such as? Ginger Rogers. Oh, shit.

That's the name I recognize. But everyone else had their own Wikipedia page, so they had big deals. Such as? Ginger Rogers. Oh, shit. That's the name I recognize. But everyone else had their own Wikipedia page, so they had big deals. Oh, okay, great. The film featured such song and dance numbers as Petting in the Park. Oh, shit. And Wearing the Money. And for that one, all the dancers wore very little clothing and danced with coins. It was kind of scandalous.

That sounds scandalous. Well, partly because, you know, it's in black and white and they've got like a giant coin over the vagine. But like there were coins kind of behind it, kind of like a flower petal effect. So it looked like a bush. Oh, OK. Consider me scandalized. In the middle of that song, Ginger Rogers switched to singing in pig Latin because highway

Oatnay. Because highway Oatnay. I'm not very good at pig Latin. I legitimately thought you were saying highway. I know. It's shameful. By the way, I would now like to read you some of the lyrics from Petten in the Park. Hold on.

I have a Pig Latin fun fact for you. Okay. David and I regularly speak Pig Latin to each other so that our children won't know what we're talking about. XA? No! What?

What kind of stuff are you saying? Usually about, like, hey, what do we want to give the kids for dinner? Oh, okay. I didn't realize you guys were so lame. Sorry. We don't have a lot of sex talk in front of our children. Well, it's not. It's pig Latin sex.

Exe. Anyway, would you like to hear the lyrics? I would. Yes. Petting in the park. Saturday in the park. Think it was the 4th of July That's such a great song.

Here's this one. Okay, great. Petting in the park Bad boy Petting in the dark Bad girl First you pet a little Let up a little

Then you get a little kiss Petting on the sly Oh my Act a little shy Oh why Struggle justly oh my act a little shy oh why struggle just a little then hug a little and cuddle up

and whisper this okay I got a little rapey there all of these songs are rapey so creepy I need to tell you more about this. Okay, great.

Tell me more. Like, did he have a car? Uh-huh. Okay, so in that part of the movie, as they're singing that song, a little person who is dressed as an infant and is in a baby carriage, sits up and blows darts at people. Oh, like Cupid. And at one point, it starts raining, and all the women get wet. So they get naked behind a screen because they're taking off their wet clothes.

All right, you're picturing. But that's when the baby raises the screen. And, oh, what's this? The women aren't naked. They have metal dresses on. And so all the men are super upset because they can't take the clothes off the women because the clothes are made of metal. It's a chastity suit. And the scene ends with the baby handing one of the men a can opener.

And the guy opens a woman's dress with a can opener. So I was totally unprepared for any of that. Oh, my gosh. I was totally unprepared for any of that. Oh, my God. I mean, you hear petting in the park and you think, well, that's going to be a little. Yeah. I thought it would be more sweet.

Yeah. It was just weird. Maybe some dogs would be involved. No, no. No, you start with the petting of the dog and then. It's a slippery slope. I hear what you're saying. Yeah. Next thing you're

raping a woman in a metal dress listen i don't write the song folks i didn't write it so that was a super popular film it's being protected by the library of congress it was such an important film oh i think preserved maybe not protected It's being protected by the Library of Congress. It was such an important film. Oh. I think preserved, maybe not protected. They're stopping bullets. They have armed guards around this film. And Patricia Douglas also danced in another very popular film called So This is Africa.

Oh, no. I realized I said that like there was a question mark in the title. There's not. But it is like, so this is Africa. Someone has uploaded it to YouTube and I did not watch the whole thing. I did skim it. Yeah. No black people in Africa.

Yeah. Yeah. Fun fact, these movies all came out in the pre-code era of Hollywood, which is something I had to look up. Do you know anything about this? No. Okay, it's this weird point in time before censorship guidelines kicked in. Okay, it's this weird point in time before censorship guidelines kicked in. And so a lot of these movies from the 20s and early 30s are like way racier than you would expect. We're talking abortion.

Ooh. Sex. Ooh. Homosexuals. Ooh. Bisexuals. Violence. Interracial relations.

Pure tea filth okay it was wild because I was watching that pet in the park I was like how this is kind of wild like what the hell and yeah so I learned alright

anyway because of her involvement in the industry, young Patricia spent a lot of time around big stars of the era. And the area. True. They were local to her area. She went bar hopping with Bing Crosby and Bill Frawley. That was Fred Mertz. Fred Mertz. God, Sammy was right.

You are a dumb ho. She drank lemon Cokes with Dick Powell. Who's Dick Powell? I don't know. And George Raft once told her that he could not maintain an erection. Except for when he was in the ocean. So you get the idea. Patricia was living her life.

She was dancing. She was hobnobbing with the stars. That was the idea. Patricia was living her life. She was dancing. She was hobnobbing with the stars. That was the original. That's the original name of the TV show, Dancing with the Stars. That's so stupid. I hate that I laughed so hard. Why did they change that? Welcome.

Because people thought hobnob sounds like handjob. Wow. Wouldn people thought pop-nob sounds like handjob. Wow. Wouldn't that be a show? Yeah. They rate

your handjobs. A live audience is there to judge you. They're your half-time talk about

pressure. It's like the Ferris with the Gallagher show. Some of the people in the front row sue.

But the jury's like, you know what? You were asking for it. You knew what was going to happen on Hobnobbing with the Stars. Come on. It's in the name. It's in the name. Come on. It's in the name. It's in the name. But Patricia was still very straight-laced.

She lived with her mom. She didn't drink. She didn't date. You know, that was fine. And on May 2nd, 1937, she got a casting call. MGM claimed that they wanted a bunch of young women to come and be in one of their movies. And a ton of girls and young women ranging in age from 15 to 25 answered the casting call. But what the girls and women wouldn't

know until it was too late was that there was no movie. What? Yeah. Say goodbye to the laughs we had of her petting in the park. Yep. there was no movie. What? Yeah. Say goodbye to the laughs we had over petting in the park. MGM was holding a five-day convention for their wonderful salesmen. By the way, this convention was not like a normal, boring office convention. Okay, Brandy?

This was a five-day-long, balls-out party. No rules. Just a bunch of wealthy, powerful white guys doing whatever they wanted. Oh, God. Mm-hmm. The whole time, MGM made sure to surround these men with girls and young women who'd perhaps been lured to the convention under false premises. Cool. I think I meant pretenses.

I think you did. They'd been lured onto the premises. Good God. Under false pretenses. The sad thing is I hit that line with such attitude. The attitude was all there. The words, not so much. Anyway, people listen to this podcast for the attitude, not the words.

In his welcome speech, Lewis Mayer, who was the final M in MGM. Metro Goldwyn Mayer. This is why you're so good at trivia. That's ridiculous. That is so ridiculous. Do you know how deep I got into this story before I figured it out? I was like, so what's this Lewis guy's title again? He told the men,

Our fine chief of police remarked to me a moment ago that I must thank a lot of these men to have sent the beauty that he sees before him. These lovely girls, and you have the finest of them, greet you. And that's to show you how we feel about you and the kind of good time that's ahead of you. Anything you want. Hello! And so, the men got anything they wanted. Oh my gosh! It was a wild, boozy time.

And on May 5th, 1937, things were about to get even wilder. That day, there was to be a Wild West show. The convention program described the event as a stag affair out in the wild and woolly west, where men are men. So yeah, it'd be just men, all hanging out at a 10-acre ranch, which was owned by an MGM producer.

Can you explain your face to the people? You can't just be making – Horrifying. But it's all men. Okay. But was it just men? No, it sounds like it wasn't. Yeah, so MGM put out that casting call for young dancers to come be in a movie.

MGM also placed a classified ad asking for party hostesses. Anyone interested in the job would need to show up at the Hal Roach Studios in Culver City. Patricia Douglas was one of the 120 women who shined up. By the way, I keep going back and forth. Young women, girls, you know, we're talking 15 to 25. Yeah, yeah. It all started out okay. I mean, they're under the impression they're going to be in a movie.

They were told they'd get a free hot meal and they'd be paid $7.50 for the day, which adjusted for inflation is like $150. Okay. The women were all given their costumes, which included cowboy hats and boots and short skirts and little jackets. They had their makeup done. And then they were all bussed a few miles away to the remote ranch. But that wasn't alarming because MGM did a lot of films at this particular ranch. Once they got there, the women and girls were all instructed to go

sit in a large banquet hall. So they were all kind of divided up at these different tables and they waited there for like two hours. Do you know the name of the ranch? I think it's the Howl Roach Ranch. Why? Well, because the Manson family

frequented two former movie set ranches and I was just curious. What were they called? The Spahn Ranch and the Barker Ranch. Yeah, I know. Just fun stuff. The Mansons were not riding their dune buggies around this area. It wasn't the same time period.

Well, yes, but later. Come on, lady. Anyway, Patricia would later beat herself up for being naive. She said that at that time in her life, she trusted everyone. She had no reason not to trust people. She had no reason to suspect that anyone wanted to harm her. And she says that it didn't occur to her until way too late that there weren't any cameras on the ranch that day. But at around 7 p.m., roughly 300 men showed up at the ranch. And of course, they'd been told

that this event would be for men only. So they walked in the door and saw all these beautiful, costumed young women and girls. And and they to quote the Vanity Fair article treated the girls and women like party favors. Oh my gosh. There wasn't much that the girls could do about it. There was no phone on the ranch. They had no transportation. They'd all been bussed there. So they'd been tricked into coming to this event and now they had no way of escaping. And these men thought they were entitled to do anything. There were a few different forms of entertainment that night. There was an orchestra. There were a few boxing matches. The Dandridge sisters performed. There were also... Like Dorothy dorothy dandridge yeah she was 13 at the

time wow there were also 500 cases of scotch and champagne for 300 men that's way too much it made me wonder okay when we say 500 cases of scotch and champagne, 500 scotch, 500 champagne or 250? It's got to be 500 total, right? I would. I mean, yeah, I would think. But that's still way too much. Patricia tried to make the best of the situation. At one point, she went out on the dance floor and did the latest new dance craze, truckin'.

That's the one where you wag your index finger over your head and you shuffle. Oh, yeah. You've seen Betty Boop do it, right? So Patricia was truckin' and up came this dude. His name was David Ross. And the Vanity Fair writer, David Stinn, describes him as, quote, a roly-poly 36-year-old Catholic bachelor from the Chicago sales office. And Patricia described him as slimy and looking like a Pekingese dog. Oh, kind of smushed face situation.

Yeah. David asked Patricia to teach him how to do the dance. It seems like maybe she agreed to, but she didn't want to. As they danced, he kept crossing boundaries, kept touching her inappropriately. And so to get away from him, she went to the bathroom. She wanted nothing to do with him. He was annoying. He was a creep.

She tried to stay away from him for the rest of the night. But, you know, she's kind of trapped. Yeah. As the night went on, the party got grosser. One of the waiters noticed that the young women kept switching tables to try to get away from the men who were, quote, attempting to molest them. Another waiter said that the party was rotten. He said that the men kept touching the girls without their consent and trying to force liquor on them. At one point, one of the women, who was just 18, ran up to the actor Wallace Beery.

So at the time, Wallace was the highest paid actor in the world. He had recently played the role of Long John Silver in the movie Treasure Island and the role of Poncho Villa in the movie Via Via. And he was from Clay County, Missouri. Oh. And this teenager begged him for help. She said, I'm tired of being mauled. And he was like, OK.

And so this dude, this super famous actor just starts punching creepy dudes. And he got her to safety. Yes. famous actor just starts punching creepy dudes. And he got her to safety. Yes. Unfortunately, this party was chock full of David Rosses and not full enough of Wallace Beery's. So Patricia found herself once again cornered by David Ross and another man. And the men wanted Patricia to drink. But she didn't drink.

She told them no. She kept telling them no. She thought the scotch smelled disgusting. And she'd only seen champagne in movies. And she'd seen it where, like, they pop it and it's this fun thing. But there were pitchers. And she was like, oh, this is just kind of a letdown. No, I'm not interested.

So one of the men held her down and the other one mixed a glass of scotch with a glass of champagne and held her nose so that she'd have to open her mouth and when she did they poured the nasty mixture into her mouth and the men cackled as they did it. They thought it was so funny. Patricia ran to the bathroom to vomit. Afterward, she didn't feel right. She could barely walk. And she sure as hell didn't want to go back into the party. So she went outside.

She stood in the field that was being used as a parking lot. And pretty soon, David Ross came up behind her, put his hand over her mouth and said, make a sound and you'll never breathe again. He dragged Patricia to a car and said, I'm going to destroy you. And he raped her. During the rape, Patricia started to black out. And when that happened, he smacked her. He yelled, cooperate. I want you awake. At some point at around 1130 that night, a parking lot attendant named Clement Soth heard Patricia screaming.

She screamed, I've been attacked. I've been attacked. So he went toward the screams and he saw her. Her eyes were swollen shut. She could barely move. And he saw David Ross run the other way. One of the MGM police officers took Patricia to Culver City Community Hospital, which was right across the street from MGM Studio. And she was seen by Dr. Edward Lindquist. So Dr. Lindquist's practice was dependent totally on people from MGM. Before he even walked in the room, the staff had Patricia undress, which was horribly uncomfortable for her because before this, she had never been naked in front of anyone.

because before this she had never been naked in front of anyone. The staff gave her a douche, which she didn't really – she said it was a cold douche. So not only was it uncomfortable, but she didn't know enough to understand kind of what was happening. And so then the doctor came in and examined her and, of course, the significant physical evidence had been washed away. her and of course the significant physical evidence had been washed away. So he decided in his professional opinion that she hadn't had sex that night, consensual or non-consensual. Afterward, Patricia went home and tried to recover and David Ross fucked off back to Chicago. A few days later, Patricia went to the studio and tried to tell someone what happened to her.

But they gave her her money and sent her on her way. No one really treated her with much sympathy, including her own mother. But Patricia was mad. She wanted justice. She wanted justice. And so in 1937, Patricia Douglas stood up to the man who'd raped her and to MGM Studios. She was like 20 years old. She was still considered a minor, so her mom, Mildred, went with her to the Los Angeles County DA's office to file a complaint against David Ross.

But the DA was a man named Burren Fitz. And Burren Fitz was BFFs with Louis Mayer of MGM, as some of us know. And a lot of Burren's campaign money came from MGM. You couldn't be an elected official in L.A LA County without the support of MGM. So Patricia just waited and waited for the DA to do something, but he didn't. So she went to her friend for help. And her friend happened to have some mob ties, but don't worry about that. Because the friend was like, well, let me hook you up with an attorney. His name is William J.F. Brown.

So Patricia went to William, told him her story, and he appeared to care. He said, I'll represent you pro bono. And then he went to the DA and he was like, hey, here's the deal. Either you take this woman's complaint seriously or we're going to the media. And the DA was like, okay, yeah, right. Like any woman is going to the media to say she was raped. Like that's something that rarely happens today in 1937. That would be nuts.

But that's exactly what she did. She told her story to the media. Wow. And they printed her full name. They printed her picture. And they printed her home address. The media wrote all about her. But nobody had the guts to print the word MGM in connection with this story initially. Nobody wanted to get on MGM's bad side. No one wanted to give them bad press. MGM was asked to comment, and they did,

but their name wasn't attached to the statement. And here's what they said. We have read with astonishment the alleged charges of the girl. It is difficult to make So that's what they said. But the reality was that MGM was freaking the fuck out. I'm sure they were. Because this story could affect their bottom line. They were. Because this story could affect their bottom line. Forget the rape allegation.

Just the fact that they'd thrown this lavish party that teenage girls had been duped into attending was really gross and could hurt their reputation. So they decided that the best way to protect their reputation was to go after Patricia's. They hired detectives from the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Oh, yeah, we know them. We do. And they followed her, looked into her life. The studio wanted the detectives. Like, they had this fantasy that the detectives were going to find all these men who Patricia had propositioned for sex.

And, you know, the men had said no. And so meanwhile, in real life, she's, the men had said no. And so. Meanwhile, in real life, she's practically a nun. Yeah. Mm hmm. That's not going to work out for them. They also wanted to find evidence that Patricia was a drinker. But the detectives looked into Patricia's life and came back to the studio with really bad news.

Yeah. Patricia never drank. And before the night she was raped, she was a virgin. But MGM wasn't particularly interested in the truth. So they went to a doctor that Patricia had gone to. His name was Wirt Dakin. Wirt Dakin? I know.

W-I-R-T. She'd gone to him because she had a cyst on her bladder. But MGM asked the doctor to change his diagnosis. Maybe she hadn't gone to him for a cyst. Maybe she'd had gonorrhea instead. Oh my gosh. The doctor refused. Good! Mm-hmm.

Oh, my gosh. The doctor refused. Good! Mm-hmm. So the Pinkerton detectives went to talk to all the other 119 girls and young women who'd been at the party. They had them fill out questionnaires. They, of course, didn't ask them for any evidence of what might have happened. Instead, they asked if the women had ever seen Patricia Douglas drunk before.

They asked them to detail everything they knew about her morality. They needed the other dancers to portray Patricia as a drunk slut who was therefore incapable of being raped. And they also needed the dancers to portray the party as just innocent fun. And almost all of them did. Because, I mean, their futures were on the line. Patricia's Hollywood friends did the same thing. No one wanted to hang out with her anymore. If MGM didn't like her, then no one did.

So Patricia faced tremendous consequences for coming forward, but it did force the DA to do something. Because now this story was in the papers, and it was a big story. So the DA went to Patricia with photos of like a bunch of MGM salesmen, and he asked her, are any of these the men who attacked you? And she didn't hesitate. She picked out David Ross's photo right away. She said, that's the man. I can never forget that face. And because she had so easily ID'd her attacker, the DA had no choice but to get a grand jury together. So David Ross flew in from Chicago and of course he had all of MGM on his side. This grand jury hearing was horrible. Patricia had to tell the jury about being raped and an attorney named Lester Roth, who was defending David Ross, said to the jury, look at her.

Who would want her? Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Only two of the girls from the party testified on Patricia's behalf. Their names were Ginger Wyatt and Paula Bromley. They said that the party had been a wild, drunken orgy. Two of the waiters testified that the party had been disgusting and that the men had behaved horribly.

But during this whole thing, there was no protection in place for Patricia. There was, like, no common decency because when she left the courtroom that day, she ran into David Ross in the hallway. And photographers from the local newspapers saw the two of them together and pushed them in closer and asked Patricia to look at David while they got photos of her with the man who raped her. Oh, my gosh. Patricia looks incredibly uncomfortable in these photos. And that moment didn't last long because she couldn't take it. She turned crying

and ran down the hallway. And photographers got pictures of that too. But the grand jury had a lot that they needed to hear. David Ross testified that Patricia was full of shit. He'd only talked to her

briefly that night, which was interesting because in earlier articles he said he hadn't been at the party at all. So yeah, weird. Casting director Vincent Conniff submitted a statement saying that it was impossible and ridiculous that Patricia Douglas thought she had been at the party that night to be in a movie. Really? Oh, yeah. All everyone knew they were coming for a party. Oh, did they?

Yeah. So one of the things he said was, because, I mean, it's like they were in costume. Yeah. You did their hair and makeup. So that was one of the things his statement said, was his statement said that makeup was optional. And so, therefore, they should have known. Okay. Yeah.

The parking lot attendant, Clement Soth, had seen Patricia immediately after the attack. He'd seen David Ross running away. But on the stand, he changed his story. He said that the man who he had seen running away was much thinner than David. And of course, the famous actor who'd punched all those gross dudes had signed a statement saying, oh, you know, the party had been totally normal and fine. So the grand jury didn't indict David. But Patricia was stubborn. She knew what had happened to her and she wanted to keep fighting.

So she filed a civil suit against David Ross and a bunch of the other MGM douchebags for, quote, unlawful conspiracy to defile, debauch and seduce her and the other young woman for, quote, the immoral and sensual gratification of male guests. Wow. She requested $500,000 in damages. Adjusted for inflation? $10 million. Good for her. Mm-hmm. MGM was shitting their pants. Yeah. And giving jobs to

anyone and everyone in exchange for their promises of perjury. MGM's legal team managed to delay and delay and delay the case and eventually in February of 1938, February, it took place in Minnesota, a judge dismissed the case. But Patricia and her lawyer, William Brown, kept going. The next day they took the same lawsuit to federal court. They said that what happened to Patricia was a violation of her civil rights.

William Brown was loving the attention he got for representing Patricia. He used the opportunity to talk all kinds of shit about the DA. He let a rapist walk free. He didn't have a backbone. L.A. needed a realA., Brandy. They needed William Brown. William Brown announced that he would run against Burr and Fitz in the upcoming election. But that was going to be tough because this lawsuit against MGM had given him a big platform. But he needed money to win. He needed the support of MGM to win. Yeah.

And so Patricia's lawyer just stopped showing up in court. Three times William Brown failed to appear in court. What? Yeah. So this whole thing dragged on for three years. Oh, my gosh. Patricia's mother, Mildred, was acting as her legal guardian at the time. So Mildred could have done something about William's misconduct.

But she didn't. And so a federal court judge dismissed the case. It's believed that William Brown was paid off by MGM. Yeah, of course. And so was Mildred. Yeah. After the lawsuit was dismissed, Mildred bought a liquor store and horses and furs, and she married some young guy who gambled away all her money and left her.

William Brown did run for DA, and he lost. But Patricia's bravery inspired another young woman to come forward. Her name was Eloise Spann, and she was a singer, and she claimed that she'd been raped by an MGM executive. She was 19, she'd been a virgin. She became pregnant and she had to get an abortion as a result of the rape. She hired William Brown as her attorney and sued for five million dollars. Wow. And she got the exact same results that Patricia got. Absolutely nothing. Yeah. Trisha got. Absolutely nothing. Yeah. Okay. So in this documentary, Eloise's son was interviewed and you know, he's an adult man. Yeah. It was the first time he'd heard about what his mom had gone through. He had no idea about any of this, but he said it made sense. He said, my mother never felt well. She would be on the couch or in bed.

He wondered if, you know, I mean, obviously it could be depression. It could be that she had a sketchy abortion. Yeah, it's probably all of those things. Yeah. She had been a professional singer, but he never heard her sing. And in 1960, she died by suicide. That's terrible. He finally heard her sing when the filmmaker played some old movie footage for him.

Oh, my gosh. So years went by and no one heard from Patricia Douglas. She was believed to be dead. By the way, if you're curious about David Ross, he was ravaged by rectal cancer. Oh, that's a shame. That's what the Vanity Fair article said. I was like, oh, my God. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

Ravaged by rectal cancer? guy. Ravaged by rectal cancer? I mean, when you think of the things that you want to happen to people like David Ross, ravaged by rectal cancer is on the list.

A lot of really bad things happen to a lot of the people in this story. I didn't even write it all down, but Burrne Fitz died by suicide. I think the mayor guy, he either died of cancer or leukemia.

I mean, it... Yeah. That's weird. I mean, when you're talking about people who are regularly covering up atrocities like this, yeah, I think probably

playing a part in that probably carries a weight and takes a toll. On the rectum. Yes, damn near killed him. It did kill him. He was ravaged by it. But so this writer, David Sten, became kind of obsessed with this story. He tracked down the daughters of Clement Soth to ask them about their dad's testimony in

court. Well, in the grand jury hearing. Yeah. So in that first phone call, they were like, nope, we don't know anything. Goodbye. But later they called him back and told him the truth. They knew their dad had perjured himself. Oh, my gosh. MGM had told him that if he lied about what he saw that night, he could have any job he wanted. Wow. And so he became a driver for MGM and he stayed there for the rest of his life. Wow. Apparently he talked shit about MGM all the time. Yeah.

Horrible. Yeah. Horrible. So pieces of the story were coming together, but David really wanted to find out what happened to Patricia. And he ended up tracking her down. She was in her 80s and she was living in Las Vegas. Wow. And when he called her, she was pissed.

She'd kept the rape and the lawsuits a secret for 65 years. She had a daughter and four grandchildren, and none of them knew anything about what she'd gone through. For months, David kept calling her, and she'd talk to him for a minute, and then she'd hang up on him. But finally, she invited him out to las vegas it was kind of funny he was like really nervous for the interview and he knew that she didn't like a gentleman to wear jeans so he did not wear jeans that day yeah and she told him that she liked a man who wore and some sort of jacket he was like i had no idea what it was but then i remembered like there's this movie from the 50s where they talk about that type of jacket. He was like, I had no idea what it was. But then I remembered like there's this movie from the 50s where they talk about that type of jacket.

So it's like it was like impossible to find. But anyway, he's trying, you know, whatever he can do to like make this okay. But when he got there, she said she didn't want to be interviewed. But he kept trying. He sent her flowers. He brought her coleslaw from KFC, which she said you can't get any better coleslaw than KFC. Such an old woman thing. What do you think that is?

I don't know. That's such an old lady thing, don't you think? To have like their favorite thing and just like some random side dish from a fast food restaurant. Yep. Yeah. I mean, oh, gosh. Yeah. He cleaned her toilets.

I mean, he did whatever. And eventually she said, you know, when I die, the truth dies with me. And that means those bastards win. She told him it ruined my life. It absolutely ruined my life. They put me through such misery. This is really sad because it's, there's no happy ending to this. She said that after all the trauma of the rape and the smear campaign, she went from little Miss Innocent to a tramp. She said, I did it to demean myself. I was worthless, a fallen woman. Oh my gosh.

Over the course of five years, she married three times. It turned out two of the men were bigamists. She had said, I'm not having sex unless I'm married. And so they married her to have sex with her. The marriages were obviously awful. She had a daughter who she was never close with. In fact, she sent her daughter to live with her great grandmother and didn't see her for years. When Patricia was 35 or 37, she decided that she was just done with relationships. She was done with sex. She said she'd never been in love and she'd never had an orgasm.

And I think one of the hardest things was listening to her have no compassion for her younger self. She said she was naive and stupid and she'd been a lousy mother. She said it affected the rest of my life physically. I was a frigid woman and I never changed. Patricia's daughter, Patty, was interviewed for the documentary and she said that... She named her daughter Patricia?

Yeah. I mean, she said she had a child because she thought that having a child would mean that she would have someone who adored and loved her. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. She was interviewed for the documentary and she said that her mom slept through most of her childhood, slept all day, ate dinner, watched TV and stayed up all night. They were not close at all, didn't have a good relationship. At one point when Patty was an adult, Patricia told her, you don't know me.

And so later when she came to visit patty asked her like tell me about yourself mom tell me about your childhood and patricia just clammed up and was like what are you trying to interrogate me like yeah it's sad like she wanted closeness but she couldn't get there yeah but the vanity fair article was a big deal for Patricia Douglas. It was the final word on what happened to her. She said specifically she wanted – like she was OK with getting the word out as long as everyone understood that she hadn't always been a bad person. She hadn't been a tramp. She hadn't been a tramp. She hadn't been this.

And it was just so sad because on the one hand, you're thinking, well, no one's going to think that. But that's exactly how she was painted in 1937 of like, she's a bad person. She's a slut. She brought this on herself. Ugh. So that story came out and Patty saw the article and she said, Mom, I'm so proud of you. And Patricia just didn't respond.

Refused to talk about it. Wow. She died in 2003 at the age of 86, never having talked about the rape with her family. And that's the story of like people call her the first Rose McGowan. Yeah. It's a terrible story. It is. It's so sad.

There was one story I didn't write down, but I thought it was so interesting and weird about this time period in Hollywood where it was all about, you know, keeping up appearances. So Clark Gable and one of his co-stars in some movie, Loretta something, Wyatt maybe? I don't remember. They had an affair. Loretta was a devout Catholic. Clark Gable was married. So it's like, oh, oh it was a scandal but it was really obvious yeah and so there were all these rumors and throughout her pregnancy loretta kept being like oh well i have a stomach ailment i have a stomach ailment Yeah. So then she secretly gave birth, placed her baby in an orphanage, waited 18 months. And then adopted it?

Yes. And everyone knew the truth, but no one would talk about it. I mean, everyone knew except for this daughter. Oh, my goodness gracious. I mean, it's just such a wild story. So this daughter found out like a week before she was going to get married. Like just heard this rumor that her dad was Clark Gable and her mom, her adoptive mother was her biological mother, which made sense because they looked exactly alike. And it also made sense because Clark Gable has these

big ears and I guess until she was like seven, her mom always kept her in bonnets because she had those same big ears. And then when she was seven, her mom took her in to have her ears pinned back. Anyway. So she

finally confronted her mom like much later in life and her mom threw up. Oh, my gosh. And said, please don't tell your daughter. But it was funny. This woman was like, no, I don't keep secrets from my kids. Yeah. I'm – and she talked about the freedom of just being like, I know who I am now.

Yeah. Like I'm not keeping these secrets. But oh my god. It doesn't need to be. No. The shame doesn't have to carry on. No. Absolutely not.

Absolutely not. Yeah. And I feel like going back to Patty and Patricia, that's what Patty was trying to tell her mom. Like you don't have to carry this shame. You don't deserve the shame. Right. It, oh, man. It was so interesting because they also talk about Patricia's relationship with her mom.

You know, her mom had been bought off and Patricia was asked about that. But she said, well, I don't know anything about that but the filmmaker was like kind of like no I think she she did know and they lived together forever and Patty talked about seeing this animosity between her mother and grandmother and like the grandmother was like always trying to take care of Patricia, but Patricia resented it. And finally she went and talked with her mom and was like, why are you like this?

And Patricia was like, well, you don't know what's gone on between us, which it's like, yeah. Yeah, you don't. And Patty said, well, you're in your 70s. Yeah. Maybe it's time to get over it. Yeah. But, you know, she refused to say.

Oh, my gosh. Is that not terrible? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Wow. I had so much. I had a hard time these past couple days because like I feel like I do a lot of terrible stories.

But usually there's like. Some redemption in it. Something. A little nugget you can hold on to. There's no fucking nuggets here. This is nugget free. Yeah. Yeah.

Hmm. Yeah. Later in life like. So Patricia was basically a shut free. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. Later in life, like, so Patricia was basically a shut in. Yeah. She never danced again after 1937. The one thing she did like to do was watch MTV. Wow. Yeah.

Because, I mean, if you have that passion for dance and music. Yeah. Yeah. So she loved to watch how the kids were dancing these days. And she said she loved to watch J-Lo dance because it reminded her of how she used to dance. Wow. Yeah. Ugh. All right.

You want to talk about a disappearance? I do. I will be surprised if you don't know about this case. I'm pretty dumb. Stop it. Okay. I watched a new show for this i enjoyed the coverage oh boy here we go what happened sure it's a show for me okay this is an oxygen program

called a wedding and a murder you're just getting how many just getting real specific. I was going to say, how many cases fit into that? Also, an article by Kim L. Pasqualini. I have used her articles before. She writes for Medium a lot. This particular article was for Soapboxy. Soapboxy? Soapboxy. And also an article for the Crime Library by Crystal Hawkins.

Not to be confused with Sophie B. Hawkins. Huh? Anyway, it's a 90s music reference. Okay. Anyway. Great. You're welcome. I'm sure someone will be pleased.

Oh, me down to sleep. This I pray that you will be pleased. Oh, me. Down to sleep. This I pray. That you will hold me dear. Oh, man. There were so many good songs that were all sung by women like. Sunny came home. Oh, yeah.

That's Sean Colvin. Okay, anyway, let's like I'm still busy singing. Cover my case here. Oh, okay. Annie Lay was the type of person that others were in awe of. Much like people are of you. Yeah, I get it all the time.

People are just like, oh my God. That's all they say. That's just like, oh, my God. That's all they say. That's all they say. Oh, my God. Hurricane. Annie was beautiful and smart and kind to everyone. Annie was born in San Jose in 1985 to Huang and Vivian Le, who had immigrated from Vietnam.

Vivian Le. Yeah. That's a great name. Yeah. It is a great name. Yeah. She like amassed a like – What the fuck?

Did you see that? Yeah, it happened. The words got stuck. They would not come out. I think they got stuck in your nose. I don't know what happened. She amassed like a nail empire. She started a chain of nail salons.

No way. That was wonderfully successful. Oh, my God. Okay. Yeah. Very cool. Anyway, they were part of like a very close- Is Vivian Leigh a famous person?

Yes, it is. That's Jamie Lee Curtis's mother. Really? Yes. Wow. Hang on. I got to Google that. Is it really?

Yeah. Don't look at me like I'm dumb. She's the star of Psycho. Oh, she's so beautiful. Yeah. She's from Psycho. You watched her. Wow.

Jamie Lee Curtis's dad is Tony Curtis. Not familiar. I am Spartacus. That's all I know. Wait, was she in Gone with the Wind? Vivian Lee? I have no idea. Boy, you'd really fuck that up at trivia, wouldn't you?

Let me look it up real quick. Okay. Yes. Excellent. Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind. She was wind she was yes boom chakalaka that's the same person really okay anyway wait it says vivian lee's children susan farrington is did i make this up? I think you did. She was married to Lawrence... Oh, no. I did mix it up. Janet

Lee is Jamie Curtis' mom and the star of Psycho. I knew this didn't look right. Alright. Boy, well, that was good. That was totally worth it. We shouldn't cut a bit of that. None of that. I was like, that's not right.

Her mom definitely wasn't in Gone with the Wind. You know what's funny is people were probably screaming at us. They probably were. Waiting for us to get it right. Anyway, Annie was raised in a very close-knit Vietnamese community, but she wasn't raised by her parents. She was raised by her aunt and uncle. She grew up with her cousins. She had a brother, but, like, they all kind of treated each other like they were siblings.

Okay. But kind of the whole community raised them. Right. Annie's family had extremely high expectations of her, and somehow she managed to surpass all of them. She was an excellent student and ultimately was the valedictorian of her graduating class and was also voted by her classmates as most likely to be the next Einstein. Wow.

most likely to be the next Einstein. Wow. Her academic performance in high school secured her a $160,000 scholarship to the University of Rochester in New York, where she would major in cell developmental biology and minor in medical anthropology. Now tell me, is that easier or harder than getting a communications degree? I would assume it's much, much harder. That's rude of you to say. Sounds like it requires a hell of a lot of science.

While at the University of Rochester, Annie met Jonathan Wadowski, and the two quickly fell in love. Jonathan was sweet and shy, while Annie was like a little spitfire. She was a little more playful and outgoing. She was also like super tiny. She was like 4'11 and 90 pounds. Oh my God, that's so adorable. Adorable. Reportedly

when, just like in his example of kind of her outgoing fun, loving nature, reportedly when she did not get into the grad school that she was hoping to despite her incredible academic resume, she sent them a Xerox copy of her butt.

I love that. So anyway, Jonathan and Annie were a great match by all accounts. Jonathan's sister, I believe, said they were more than soulmates. It was clearly. Well, what can you. I don't know. All right. Well, that sounds really good.

They were just like meant to be together. And eventually they were engaged and planned to marry on Sunday, September 13th, 2009 on Long Island, where Jonathan grew up. And I think his family all lived there. For some time leading up to the wedding, Annie and Jonathan were in a long-distance relationship. They attended grad school together in Columbia for a bit. And then eventually Annie was accepted into a doctoral program in pharmacology at Yale. Oh, my God.

Which is no big deal. Okay. That's located in New Haven, Connecticut. Thank you. In case you didn't know. I put that here in my notes. Yale. Is that good? We've not heard of it.

Right. So this put about an hour and a half commute between the couple, but they made it work. They met halfway regularly and spent most weekends together, despite both of them balancing a very heavy academic load. I don't know what Jonathan was going to school for, but – Probably something really tough like communications. Yeah. I'm sure that's exactly what it was.

And together they also worked to plan their dream wedding. Annie wanted it to be special. She wanted everything to be perfect. That was kind of her nature. She even handmade her own veil because she couldn't find exactly what she was looking for. Oh, wow. OK. So on this oxygen program that I watched, one of the things that I didn't like about it –

OK. I don't know why I'm shitting on my source right now. But – OK. As like part of – they like interview people who are friends with her, closer, talking about how excited she was for the wedding and all that. Right. They did a lot of interviews with her hairstylist. I am a hairstylist. Was that the only person they could get? I don't know.

I think it's really weird. The hairstylist was like, yeah, you know, she really wanted her hair to be perfect for that day. And, you know, I was going to – we did a run through and it was great. And she just kind of wanted to mix it up and see a couple of different options. And then, you know, the day of, you know. Just telling you normal hairstyles. I know. I was like, is this filler right now?

That's absolutely filler. Was this an hour long show? It was an hour long show. Yeah. Could have been half an hour. I was like, okay. If some, okay. First of all, if something were to happen to a client of mine, would I love to be on an Oxygen program? Of course you would.

You would be there bells on. Of course I would. Did I feel like I needed to be on there? No. Anyway, that's just my two cents on that show. Would you try to do extra stuff to make sure you got into the program? Ooh. Would you act suspicious?

Oh. Ooh. Like maybe I'm a suspect? Yeah. No. No. So as the couple are moving towards their wedding day, things are falling into place. All the plans are made and they are counting down.

Finally, it's September 8th, 2009, five days before the wedding. Annie left her – OK. They call it an apartment. But I think she rented like a big house with like five other roommates. Anyway, she left her domicile that day. I call it an apartment, but I think she rented like a big house with like five other roommates. Anyway, she left her domicile that day. And she took like the Yale transit system to the Sterling Hall of Medicine on the Yale campus. So this is where her office was.

And she arrived there about 10 a.m. She used her – she was carrying like a bunch of stuff, went in, like somebody held the door for her, went into her office, kind of set her stuff down. And then she walked to another building on campus a short ways away, which is where her research lab was. At that time, Annie was doing some kind of medical testing where she was testing the effect of enzymes on mice in relation to cancer, diabetes, and muscular dystrophy. And seeing – I mean working on a cure for those things essentially. Yeah. Important work. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm so glad you specified that she's working toward a cure and not ways to make those all worse. That's correct. She was trying to find a new, worse diabetes. So Annie entered the building where her lab was shortly after 10 a.m. She was seen on the school security cameras. The Yale campus as a whole has some like 70 security cameras all around. And so there happened to be a security camera right outside the entrance of the building her lab was located in.

And she was seen shortly after 10 a.m. entering the building. But Annie never came home that night. She had plans with her roommates, dinner plans of some sort. And she had plans with her roommates, dinner plans of some sort. And by 9 o'clock that night, they were so worried that she wasn't home and that they couldn't get in contact with her that they called the New Haven Police Department and reported her missing. Initially, the police were like, yeah, there's not a lot we can do. She's a 24-year-old woman. Yeah, cool.

I love it when they're really cavalier about this stuff. And they're like, you know, we'll check some security cameras. They asked them to wait until the next day. And the next day, by that time, Jonathan was in contact with them. Annie's family was in contact with them. This was not Annie. But the police are like, maybe she got cold feet.

Five days from her wedding and she just disappears? But the police are like, maybe she got cold feet. Five days from her wedding and she just disappears? But the family and the roommates were concerned enough that they did take it seriously and they started to investigate. Actually, pretty quickly the FBI was called in and the Connecticut State Police were called in because a search of the surveillance footage from that day showed Annie entering the building, as I mentioned. And never leaving? And never leaving. Fuck. Her Yale key card that got her in and out all of the rooms in her lab building was not used past a certain time. She entered a room and according to key card activity, never left it.

OK, well, this has to be pretty easy to solve. So they walked down the building and started searching it, but it didn't turn up much of anything. So they went back to that security footage. Maybe they had missed something. Maybe she had, you know, gone out a side door. Maybe, you know, but both entrances door, maybe, you know. But both entrances and exits to that building had security cameras on them. Maybe

someone had held the door for her. So they watched them meticulously. On that particular day, Annie had on a bright green shirt and a brown skirt. Something that would be easy to catch. Well, if she's 4'11". Yeah. And there was no sign of her on the security footage.

Oh, my gosh. What they did see was like somewhere around 12 o'clock, a bunch of people started pouring out of the building. And several of them were holding their ears. So they determined that a fire alarm had been set off and people were leaving the building. So then they wondered if maybe she'd snuck out during that time. She'd managed to hide behind somebody. But her family insisted no. There was no way she left because they found in her office in that separate building, the building that she had initially entered, her purse and her keys and her wallet and her phone were all still on her desk.

Yeah. She hadn't runaway brided this thing. Yeah. Thank you for that movie reference. You're welcome. I was actually referencing the case about the woman who faked her own kidnapping. I'm terribly sorry. I was thinking of Julia Roberts and Richard Gere as I often do.

Her family was like she wouldn't have done that. She was extremely excited to get married. One of these articles says they even went to the venue and talked to the staff there who had been working with her and planning the event. And those people had been like, yeah, she was really excited to get married. And so they were like, OK. You think that's dumb? I mean, I think it's an unnecessary step.

I don't think so. I mean, probably in hindsight, yeah. She was definitely murdered by whoever pulled that fire drill thing. What's that called again? The fire alarm. The fire drill thing. drill thing. So at first they're focusing on like how she maybe could have sneaked out of the building without being noticed.

It's pretty little. She huddled behind somebody during that fire drill, but they ruled that option out pretty quickly. Because it's so stupid. Yeah, it's not a great one. They then questioned. If I were 4'11", I would hide behind people all the time. So would I. Not a great one. They then questioned. If I were 4'11", I would hide behind people all the time.

So would I. That'd be my favorite trick. They actually brought in some, like, police dogs to try and pick up her scent to see if they could follow a trail. But because she worked in a lab that did animal testing, the dogs were, like, so thrown off by the smell of the mice that, like, they couldn't do anything. So then they kind of zeroed in on a professor who'd done something weird that day at Yale. He suddenly canceled a class in which Annie Lay was enrolled. Okay. And he'd canceled it like right around the time of that fire alarm. All right.

I mean, this sounds. But it turns out that he had a real reason for canceling and I'm not sure what it was, but it checked out and they were like, okay, unrelated. Cool. Then of course they looked into her fiance. They probably looked into her fiance first. I'm going to say, yeah. But he had like a very clear alibi.

He was in school in Columbia. At Columbia. What do you say? At Columbia. Whatever. You know, he wasn't in Columbia, the country. That'd be a really good alibi. He was in New York at grad school.

Did they talk to the hairstylist? I don't believe so. Those people are always freaks. They also checked to see who had like used key cards in the area around her. They found a couple of contractors, cleared them pretty quickly. And they talked to a lab tech who had been in kind of the same area of the building that Annie had been in. But he was super forthcoming and said that he had seen her that day. At first, he was like, I don't think I saw her. And he was like, oh, yeah, I did. I did.

I saw her in this room. I think she was carrying bags of mice food and, you know, didn't really think anything of it. OK. And they were like, OK, great. Where do we go with this? And so they started just treating the entire lab building as if it was a crime scene and kind of retracing her steps through her key card activity she had like gone in and out

of a room like 12 times within a very short amount of time because you had to use your key card to get in and then also exit the room but it it appeared, based on her key card activity, that she'd entered the room and never left it. Of course, there are ways around it. Somebody else could have, you know, opened the doors. The door maybe hadn't closed all the way, you know, whatever. But they start searching this room. And it seems to be like a storage room at the end of a hallway.

Walked in it, didn't see anything in note. And so they decided they were going to turn all the lights off and search it by flashlight. Seems like an odd move to me. I don't know what they're looking for. Did they luminol it? No, they didn't luminol it. They just turned it up, like all the lights off and just. It seems really strange.

Okay. Anyway, in doing that, they actually did discover something on the floor that they hadn't seen previously. It's a small brown bead like from a necklace, like from the brown beaded necklace that Annie Lay had been seen wearing on the surveillance footage from that day. And at that point, they decided that. Yeah, something terrible had happened to Annie Lay. Yeah. And that they needed to figure it out. So from that point, they locked down that room and all of the surrounding rooms that she had been in that day and started processing them. And like three days into this investigation, they started looking into the

ceiling tiles. It was like a drop ceiling. So they just started kind of methodically opening the ceiling tiles, looking in, seeing if there was anything stuffed up in the ceiling. And they found bloody clothing stuffed up into a ceiling tile. It wasn't Annie's clothes. Oh my God. Stuffed up into a ceiling tile. It wasn't Annie's clothes. Oh, my God. It wasn't the clothes she was seen wearing. But it was bloody clothing. As part of this search, also an investigator was, like, moving stuff around. And he was, like, down on the floor.

And he looked over and saw the wall. And he noticed what looked like tiny blood particles spattered onto the wall. So they brought in a team to process it. And it was, in fact, blood almost invisible to the naked eye. They determined that this had to be cough spatter. Like that Annie had been strangled. She'd been held against the floor. So it was at such a low level.

Yeah. And she'd coughed blood and it had almost like misted. Oh my god. Onto the wall. So they were sure that she had been killed. They were sure. They were pretty sure she'd been strangled to death. Yeah. They still had no idea where she was. They started checking the trash bins on the campus and tracking them

to like where they were emptied at the dump. But it turned up nothing. Finally, on Sunday, September 13th, the day that Annie Lay was to be married, they brought in a cadaver dog, I believe. And it, again, was kind of thrown off, it seems, by the scents from the animals. But, okay, this is a little bit confusing to me because articles put it different ways. Because articles put it different ways. A detective who I believe maybe was the dog's handler went into a bathroom in this lab area and smelled what they believed to be the faint smell of decomposition. Oh, really? Mm-hmm.

Okay. And so they start looking around this bathroom and they find almost hidden back like by the toilet a wall access panel. Oh, my God. A little metal access door so that you could access like plumbing and stuff like that. Yeah. And so they call in a team. They open that access door. And as soon as they open it, the inside is smeared with blood. And then there's insulation that's been put like directly in front of the opening.

Yeah. So they move the insulation out of the way. Oh. And behind the insulation were feet. Oh, God. It was Annie Lay's body. Annie Lay's body. She'd been folded up, essentially, to fit into that space.

Yeah. When her body was pulled out, it was discovered that she had been strangled. She had also been sexually assaulted. Her clothing was pulled, like her shirt was pulled up over her chest and her pants were pulled down. And there was semen found on her underwear. This was a horrible discovery, obviously, especially the timing of it. She was discovered the day she was supposed to get married to the love of her life. And instead, day her family was told that she had been brutally murdered. Her jaw had been broken. Her collarbone had been broken.

Who the hell did this? So by this time police had a pretty good idea of who must have done it, who had to have done it. Well, if they found the person's bloody clothes, I wouldn't – well, and they found semen. Well, yeah. So they go to work doing some DNA testing, but they have to test it against somebody. But by this, they thought they developed a pretty good suspect. It was that lab tech that they had talked to, one of the three people who had accessed the same rooms as Annie Lay that day.

He'd given them a statement that they couldn't verify. He'd said that he'd seen Annie that day leaving the lab sometime around 1245 holding bags of mice food. But this wasn't captured on her key card activity. It wasn't captured on any security camera footage. And they caught a glimpse of this lab tech during that fire alarm. He'd come out of the building. He exited just like everybody else. And then he'd sat down on some stairs just outside the building. And he'd put his head down in his hands. They thought this was a really weird move. Mm-hmm.

And so based on the activity and his weird statement that they couldn't corroborate, they started looking into him. Yeah. They asked him to come down and do another interview with them. And he did willingly. And he came in. And then they asked him to take a polygraph test. And he said yes. He took it. He failed it. And when they told him that he'd failed it, which we don't put a lot of stock in polygraph tests at all.

When he was told that he failed it, he immediately lawyered up, which – well, that's what I would do. Well, I would never take the polygraph test. But – so they started tailing him. Actually, the day that they found Annie's body, he was playing in like an intramural baseball game with a bunch of other Yale students. He was a Yale employee. He was not a Yale student. OK. Yale students. He was a Yale employee. He was not a Yale student. He worked as a lab tech,

which means his job was to clean the lab and tend to the mice. And reportedly, he had somewhat of a contentious relationship with a lot of the students who did experiments and testing and stuff in the lab because he didn't like the way they left the lab. He had reportedly sent Annie an email in recent days saying that she wasn't keeping her cages clean or she wasn't keeping up after, like she wasn't leaving the lab in the condition that he wanted it left in. Yeah, sounds like a power trip. Yeah, yeah. And so they initially, they were tailing him undercover. And then once he, you know, they felt pretty confident that this was their guy. They started tailing him less undercover and just like letting him know that they were everywhere he was.

Let him sweat. Yeah. And by Tuesday, September 15th, they got a warrant to obtain his DNA to try and match it to the DNA that had been found on Annie's body. And it was a match. Yeah. Yep. Did you say he was a Yale staff member and he was playing with Yale students? Yeah, he was playing in a Yale intramural game.

I don't know if you – maybe you don't have to be a student to play in it. I don't know. Honestly, like I used to work at a university. I cannot imagine like going and like doing stuff with students. Right. That feels weird to me. Yeah. He was the same age as the students.

He was 24. They were 24. Yeah, so I was 25 when I worked at a university. Yeah. Yeah, I'm still thinking. Yeah, who knows? Yeah, okay. Yeah.

So the DNA results come back, and it is a match. This story had obviously made big news in the area at the time. And before his arrest, like, people would show up and heckle him. Wow. Yeah. Finally, he was taken into custody at a Super 8 motel in Cromwell, Connecticut. I don't know if he was like trying to get out of town or what the situation was there, but, you know, that was part of the reason that he was constantly under surveillance so that they would always know where he was so that they could take him into custody as soon as they found out if it was a match. Raymond Clark III was his name.

As I mentioned, he was an employee at Yale and he had kind of a contentious relationship with the students that worked in the lab. And so that became kind of the basis of the theory of what happened here. There wasn't – the prosecution had a really hard time coming up with a motive in this case. I was going to say. I have my theories, but we'll get to that at the end. OK. So here's kind of what the theory is that they put together based on key card activity and stuff like that. Okay.

So Raymond Clark entered the lab like 45 minutes after Annie that day. They were in the same space for some time and that he was in and out of different rooms in that area 55 times from 1040 that morning to 345 that afternoon. When he left the building that day, it is seen on the surveillance videos that he changed his clothes at some point during the day. Yeah, totally normal. Yes. Obviously, it's his clothes that he initially came in that were found up in the ceiling tiles. Obviously, they had clothes.

They had clothes all over them. They were covered in clothes. You know, they had blood all over him. So he stashed them up in the ceiling and changed into something else. There was a bunch. Did he have a change of clothes? I don't know. That's weird.

I don't know if maybe he wore a uniform of some kind and left in street clothes. Oh, you know what, though? If he played intramurals and stuff at the campus, maybe he did have a change of clothes. Yeah. All right. Yeah. They did some other forensic testing on some stuff that was found in those different rooms that he had been accessing that day with his key card. And they found a box of wipes that had

some blood speckling on it. And they tested that blood against Annie's and it was a match. And so they determined that at some point, Raymond and Annie had gotten into some kind of altercation in that room. He'd held her down. He'd strangled her. And then he'd spent the rest of the afternoon figuring out what to do with her body, stashing it in that access panel, and then cleaning up whatever mess he had made. He was seen by a couple of students, like scrubbing the floor, cleaning out a drain. But those were kind of like his normal job duties. So it's not anything that raised any red flags to anyone.

When Raymond Clark III was arrested and charged with Annie Lay's murder, he pled not guilty. That's incredible. He entered that plea in January of 2010. Like over the next year and a half, this case would move forward at a snail's pace. Finally, on March 17th, 2011, there was a pretrial hearing. And at that hearing, this came as kind of like a surprise thing, Finally, on March 17th, 2011, there was a pretrial hearing. And at that hearing, this came as kind of like a surprise thing, Raymond Clark changed his plea. And he entered a guilty plea for the charge of murder.

But he entered an Alford plea for the sexual assault charge. All right. I mean, yeah. What's the point? What is the point? What is the point? Yeah. Yes, I murdered her.

You're going to admit to murder? No, I did not sexually assault her despite the fact that my semen was found on her. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. OK. He had worked out a plea deal, as it turns out, where he would plead guilty to the murder and Alford to the sexual assault in exchange for a lighter sentence. So that hearing happened and then a sentencing hearing happened shortly after. And about 20 members of Annie's family spoke at that sentencing hearing and said all kinds of things about the wonderful person she was and how the whole world was robbed of her because she would have done amazing things. She could have cured cancer.

Like legitimately she could have cured cancer. Like legitimately she could have cured cancer. She could have made vast movements in the medical field. Yeah. And even if she hadn't done any of that. Yeah. This jackass had no right. Exactly. Reportedly Raymond Clark cried openly while the family gave their victim impact statements. And then he gave a statement of his own. He said, I take full responsibility for my actions. I alone am responsible for the death of Annie Lay and causing tremendous pain to all who loved and cared about Annie. I've always tried to do the right thing and stay out of trouble, but I failed. I took a life and continued to lie about it while Annie's friends, family,

and fiance sat and waited. I really never wanted to harm anyone or cause emotional pain to anyone. All I wanted was to be a good son, a good brother, and a good fiancé. But again, I failed. I blame only myself, and there are no excuses for what I have done. Annie was and will always be a wonderful person, by far a better person than I will ever be in my life. I'm sorry I lied, I'm sorry I ruined lives lives and I'm sorry for taking Annie's life wow yeah so

he was really emotional when he gave this statement and he took responsibility but he didn't do the one thing that Annie's family was really hoping for was to explain to them why he had done this. And he's never said that. His father also gave a statement at the sentencing and said,

the tears we cry are tears for the Lay family just as much as they are for ours. He said, this isn't the child we raised. This isn't the Raymond we know. We don't know who this person is. Well, he probably couldn't tell them why he did it, because then if you're doing an Alford plea for rape, I mean, you can't fully admit to your motive if you're not being fully honest with how you're pleading. The judge said the suffering and the anguish of the families is heartbreaking. He did say that the plea agreement was appropriate and was substantial enough and that it saved Annie's family from having to go through an emotional and painful trial. He then sentenced Raymond Clark III to 44 years for the murder and for the attempted sexual assault 20 years, but they would run concurrently. What do you mean attempted?

Yeah. They called it attempted. I know. I mean, they're fucking semen, man. Yeah. And she was discovered with her clothes all askew. Yeah. Yeah.

No, there was no attempt. It happened. Yeah. So he will serve 44 years. He'll be 68 years old at the time of his release. There's been a lot of talk in this case about the motive. What was the motive here? And all of the articles say that it had to be like a power trip, that he was unhappy with the way a lot of students worked in the lab and that they didn't take his guidance to heart when it came to

what he expected the conditions of the lab to be and that there was lots of butting heads and that he had sent emails to lots of the students who use these labs and that yeah that it had to have become some kind of argument there had to be that some kind of confrontation that day with Annie in the lab and that she was so small and he was much bigger than she was. He was like 5'9". And that, you know, just got out of hand. Where did he go to school? He grew up in Connecticut, but he came from like a working class family. And I'm not sure if he went to college or anything like that. Okay.

I have a theory. Okay. And this could be totally off base. All right. When I saw just a mention in an article about how like he was like a totally normal kid in high school. He was in the Rotary Club. Everybody liked him. He was quarterback on the high school. He was in the Rotary Club. Everybody liked him. He was quarterback on the football team.

He was really good at baseball. He was in the Asian Awareness Club. I have a theory. Mm-hmm. That he had like an infatuation with cute Asian girls. And that he cornered Annie in a lab that day and she brushed off his advances

and he killed her. Hmm. If you accidentally kill her over an argument about the conditions of the lab that doesn't explain the sexual assault to me. It does if it's a power trip.

OK. And I mean it could be a little bit of your theory, a little bit of the other theory. It's funny because I heard, you know, OK, captain of the football team. He's involved in all this stuff. So he'd been a pretty big deal in high school. Maybe he got his undergrad degree. Maybe he didn't. Now he's working a fairly low-level job at a very prestigious university surrounded by

all of these brilliant people who are his same age but way higher on the ladder than he is. And he's trying to exert some kind of authority over them. Yeah. And he can't because he doesn't really have much authority. Yeah. And so, yeah, it doesn't surprise me that he went after the smallest person. Yeah.

person. Yeah. And yeah, I think another way that people like to get power over women is through sexual assault. That's absolutely true. Ugh. Yeah.

And again, I have no basis for my theory other than just like a couple little mentions in articles here and there. Ugh. How sad. Oh, it's horribly sad.

What a fucking loser. Yeah. Seriously. And that's the horrible story of the disappearance of Annie Lay. What was his name again? Raymond Clark III. Raymond Clark. Okay, hang on.

Oh, gosh, she was so cute, wasn't she? She's beautiful, yes. He's got kind of like a Dennis the Menace haircut here where he's got like the little piece sticking up in the back because his hairstyle is doing doing him no favors on the cowlick maybe she knew he was a creepy weirdo that's very possible i'm sorry i have to do a deep dive into this i'm i'm fully involved okay great were you not familiar with this case no i thought for sure you would have heard of it once I got into it. He had a girlfriend who came forward after this all came out and she said that following their breakup, like their entire relationship, he was super, super controlling. And following their breakup, he reached almost like stalker levels with her to where she was getting like escorted to her car everywhere she went. She was so afraid that he'd just pop up. Oh, God.

And that he continued with that until he started dating someone else. Mm-hmm. And his focus went elsewhere. Well, that's terrifying. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's terrifying. Yeah.

Okay, how am I looking at a picture of this man riding a mechanical bull, but I can't figure out whether he went to college? I don't know the answer to that. I think you really need – he's got a lot of pictures with his bulldog. He has a bulldog? Yeah, I hate to tell you. Okay, I suppose I should probably stop. Move on with life? I mean, yeah. I don't want to.

I think your theory is solid. I think it's – yeah. Very likely that that's the case. I really think so. Yeah. grew up in the New Haven area I'm thinking there can be some tension between the townies and the university kids

especially when it's like a really prestigious university oh she's so cute she's so cute yeah it's just a – It's a horrible story. It's a horrible story and a senseless crime and I don't think 44 years is long enough.

No, I don't either. No, I think you need to go away forever. Yeah. Yeah. Fuck that Alfred Pree. I know. I said Alfred Pree. Fuck them both Pree. I know. I said Alfred Pree. Fuck them both, really.

Right. Yeah. You know what I think we should do right now? Should we take some questions from our Discord? I think we shall. Excellent. To get in the Discord, all you have to do is join our Patreon at the $5 level or higher. This is where we ask for questions each week when we record.

And then we just pick a few and answer them. Oh, my gosh. This is so funny. No court stuff. Just a douchebag. Ask, does it bother you when watching a TV show or movie and the audio and video isn't in sync? It drives me insane to the point that I find something else to watch. Yes. Drives me crazy. Yeah, I can't do it. It drives me insane to the point that I find something else to watch. Yes.

Drives me crazy. Yeah, I can't do it. It drives David even more crazy than it drives me. He will stop it and like try and back out and see if we can go back in. It'll reset it.

He'll throw the TV out the window. Absolutely. Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes. But yeah, if we can't sync it up, then we have to watch

something else. Yes. Ooh, Fendall Fondler wants to know, favorite Starbucks beverage? And does Brandy have a special way of drinking or eating her favorite order? No, I don't really have a special way. I get a venti nonfat iced chai latte.

That is my drink. is if I go, I know the regular Starbucks that I go to if I have to order extra pumps of chai or not. How? Because I go to them so regularly. There's one, like the one that's closest to my house, I have to order two extra pumps of chai at because they go real stingy on the chai and it just tastes like a milky watered down. Yeah. You've got to have the spice in there. All right.

So I don't know if I have to order the extra chai or not. What's your black coffee? I like an Americano wherever I go. Yes. And I also like a nitro cold brew wherever I go. Oh, David loves a nitro cold brew. That'll light you up. It will.

It will. Discount magician. Someone recently suggested I buy a couch from Costco. Have you ever bought furniture from your favorite store and can you back up their recommendation? Do it. First of all, of course I bought couches from Costco. Multiple couches from Costco. Yeah, it's wonderful. My basement couch? Oh yeah, it's really nice. It's super nice, super comfortable. My outdoor furniture? Costco. Super nice, super comfortable. If I had to buy my

living room furniture again? Costco. Yeah. Okay, I have a story about Costco furniture. Yeah. If I had to buy my living room furniture again, Costco. Yeah. Okay. I have a story about Costco furniture. Okay. My parents bought a leather couch at Costco. The leather started peeling on it. What? Yes.

And so they just, like, brought, like, they went and talked to Costco customer service about it. Almost just kind of, like, offhandedly. Like, they weren't even there to talk to them about it. They just, like, mentioned that they'd bought this couch and, like, they weren't happy with how it was wearing. And they were like, bring it back. And they're like, well, we bought it, like, a year ago. And they were like, bring it back. No, they'll take anything back. And so they did.

They took it back. Not sponsored by Costco, but, I mean, what more do you people need to hear? God, what if we did get sponsored by Costco? Oh, my God. That's what dreams are made of. No kidding. What is this? Are you watching The Circle?

Do you watch that? Hell, yeah. I watch The Circle. A junkie jelly. So, Kristen, have you kept up with the new season of The Circle? Yes. And did you freak out as much as I did with the two special guests? Brandi, let me tell you something.

So, The Circle, it's a reality show. It's on Netflix. I know you're not into reality shows because not everyone can be perfect. So, it's a game where, like, people can catfish each other. It's a whole thing. Oh, my God. Scary Spice and Baby Spice were part of the show. Oh, my gosh.

Okay, I do find that very cool. I got so excited that I realized that if I were in the circle and they came to visit me, which they did go visit one very special person. I won't reveal more. I would have cried. Of course you would. And it was so – no, it was so embarrassing because I really – if you said to me, would you cry if you met the Spice Girls,

I'd be like, no, I'd be very excited, but I would not cry. I would cry. It just occurred to me watching this show like, yeah, I would absolutely cry. Anyway, I'm very cool and yes, it's very upsetting to me that I have to wait for new episodes to come out. I want them to drop all of them at once. Yeah, I don't like

this thing that the streaming services are doing now with the weekly releases. Here is the deal. Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max. Here is the deal. Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max. Okay. You created the binging monsters that we are. And now you are refusing to feed the monster.

Unacceptable. I agree. Oh, okay. This is a good question. What? I'm torn on it. I have a hot girl name. Asks Brandy. I was listening to past episodes.

I was listening to the one where the hot mom put on makeup before going out of the house with the police. Yeah, I remember that one. Alice Crimmins, right? Her kids were missing from their beds in the middle of the night. You were not a mom then, and you said you would have put on makeup and whatever before you left the house. Now that you've had London, would you still stop to put on makeup, or would you run out of the house still in your pajamas, bed London, would you still stop to put on makeup or would you run out of the house still in your pajamas, bedhead and last night's makeup on? If London was missing,

I think I would run out of the house exactly as I was dressed if I thought it would get me to her quicker. Absolutely. If the police were coming, and I can't remember the exact circumstances of this. I remember it being a big deal in the case. But if, like, the search was already ongoing and I was, like, back at my house and the police were like, we need you to come with us. Let me solve this for you. I would put my makeup on. You guys, she'd put makeup on.

I would put my makeup on. Oh, 100% she'd put makeup on. Having a child did not change her answer. She would have makeup on. Having a child did not change her answer. She would have makeup on. She's nothing like the French woman that I am. Junkie Jelly asks tacos versus

burritos versus taco salad. What's your choice? Don't make me choose. Don't make me choose. Don't make me choose. Probably tacos. I would go with tacos too. Yeah. But I wouldn't be mad about any of them.

Here's the deal. You eat a taco. You look down on your plate. You got a taco salad left behind. It's truly all in how you look at things. What a beautiful thing to say. I feel like that needs to be in a nice

script. With a pink background. Hmm. This is kind of a sweet question. Miss E wants to know, what made you guys decide to podcast? What do you just like for something for us to do together. And like if it became something that people actually listen to, like cool. I think that might be partially why it did become successful because we've always just been kind of like just us. Like, just us?

Yeah. So I think it's become successful because we stuck with it. Yeah. Which was really hard in the beginning because it's like it's a lot of work. Yeah. Yeah. And we, I mean, did it for two and a half years before we ever made one penny. Yeah. I think that's like the big thing.

Oh, gosh. And, oh, gosh, this is bringing up so much stuff. So it's funny. I saw somebody, I got all upset. Somebody had this mug online that I saw. And it said something like, let me guess, you have a podcast. And I know, like, I shouldn't get annoyed by that, but I did because it's like it's so easy to quit this stuff, especially when it takes so much work to get it off the ground.

But once you get it off the ground, I mean, yeah, I mean, my God, what's better than this? Like, yeah, that we make money doing this? Yeah. It's amazing. It is. It's amazing. But it is tough. Like, in those first few years when you're, like, making nothing and people ask, like, what do you do?

And you're like, well, I have this, I guess. Oh, cool. And do you make any money? No. No. Sure don't. I've made a dime out of it. Twelve people listen.

Actually, I'm in the red because the microphones are expensive. Right. No, but I think you're right. I think it's been successful because, like, we've been consistent with it. Yeah. And we're ourselves. Yeah. Oh, my God. i tried to listen to this new podcast today okay i'm gonna be bitchy okay um it's a popular podcast and it's you know it's a format

we all know and love it's two friends talking about something yeah but it's scripted the interactions between the friends. Yeah. Like one friend says something horrible and the other goes, oh, no. I had to turn it off. Like you can't find people who are genuinely friends. Yeah. Who can just talk to one another like friends. Yeah. That's the thing that I think that I really like about our podcast.

The only part of our podcast that is scripted is our individual stories and neither the other person has not seen that at all so everything is just like else is just

completely organic and often times we fuck up while reading our own story so that's the secret to the magic that is this podcast

right here Nazis are bad what is this podcast right here. Nazis are bad. What is this? I'm sorry. I've never seen that username before. What is the top thing on your bucket list? Mine has been the top thing since I was like 13 years old. What?

I want to pet a lion right here. Everyone, she's pointing to the space between a lion's eyes. That's what I want to do. Are you going to go to one of these creeks? You're going to go to like a terrible Joe Exotic thing. I mean, that's the thing. That's what I battle with is like isn't there like a really nice animal sanctuary where they treat the animals really nice and like. Where you can go touch them?

No. Just right here. No. Right by the lion's massive mouth. No. What about like a baby one? Well, see, that's the Joe Exotic stuff. Yeah, I know.

Yeah, and then they let you pet it between the eyes and then they drown it in a bathtub later that day. I don't want to support that. Yeah, so. Here, it remains on my list. Would you settle for a lion beanie baby instead? No. I'm just asking questions. Don't get mad at me.

Do you have any bucket list items? Yes, I do. And it's quite painful. Thank you very much. Do you read your bucket list items? Yes, I do. And it's quite painful. Thank you very much. Do you make your book public? Yes. So I'm working on my second book now. Yeah.

I had a full draft of it. I decided that sucked. And I'm not being modest. It did suck. And so then I started it over. I've been on page 36 for probably six months. And now you and I are getting ready to go on break. And it's like, all right, I'd better get some writing done.

So, yeah, it's going to, oh, God. One day. One day it will happen. Patty Bleep That asks, what's your hot girl summer style hashtag going to be this summer? Okay. So my big thing is that I wear a lot of clothes in the summer because I'm not comfortable with having much of my body exposed because I'm not super comfortable in my own body. So last year I ventured out a couple times in shorts. My goal is to do that

much more this summer. So I think my hashtag for this summer would be, I see fat legs. I'm so glad. Yeah. Our territory is being hot all the time. shit no shit yeah so don't worry and you're gonna look so cute in whatever you choose and like no but like if somebody doesn't like it fuck yeah here's the good news if you think i look fat in what i'm wearing don't worry so do i for real though i've i've been obsessed with tiktoks lately

where women show like this is how i used to dress when i was trying to hide myself yeah and it's like yeah they're wearing like i don't know almost like what you would call like approved clothes yeah and then they decided to dress how they want to dress. Yeah. And they're showing more skin. They're showing more body. And it's like they're so much happier. And they look better.

Yes. Which I know is not the point. No, but yes. You do look better when you're – I think because they feel better. Yes. So that's my – I'm inching my way there. And yours is effortlessly chic, right?

Okay, I have been into the hashtag clean girl look. Oh, yeah. So, like, I don't know. You know how every now and then you catch yourself on a date and it's like, oh, hey, maybe all I – well, no, you never catch yourself doing this, but like maybe all I need is mascara. Yeah, I know. I know. I'm talking to someone who's listening to the podcast, not you. But like that was Sunday for me.

I was like, my goodness. My goodness. Would you look at this? Hmm. So I was like, all right, this is my new life, effortlessly chic, just a bit of mascara. And yesterday I was like, God, I look terrible with just mascara on. Oh, no. Am I sick?

Do I have COVID? So, you know, yeah, hashtag effortlessly chic. Hashtag I see fat legs. You know, yeah, hashtag effortlessly chic. Hashtag I see fat legs. Brazilian Blowout asks, Brandy, you're obsessed with Harry Potter. Have you watched a Harry Potter musical on YouTube or the sequel? They are gold.

No, I didn't even know that existed. Wow, I guess you're not really a fan. I'm a Harry Potter fan, I am. Yeah. Turn in those Lego sets. Yeah. Turn in those Lego sets. Krusty Muffin says, you two talk a lot about going to the mall together when you were younger. Where did you absolutely have to go for lunch at the food court back then?

Oh, man. Okay. This is what we would do. Here we go. Okay. Pretzel time. Loved pretzel time. Pretzel time. You got either the pretzel bites with the cheese. Yeah. Or you got the full pretzel. Mm-hmm. Loved pretzel time. Pretzel time. Mm-hmm. You got either the pretzel bites with the cheese.

Yeah. Or you got the full pretzel. Mm-hmm. Okay. We're not trying to get scammed here, pretzel time. So then you had to go across the way and get your 99-cent drink at the street corner news. That's right. Oh, my God.

I forgot we would do that. We figured out that pretzel time had, I mean, not expensive. It was probably like $1.50 for a drink there. But at Street Corner News, it was $1 and it was free refills. We know what to do. That's right. That's right. Occasionally, if you were feeling splurgy, Panda Express.

Yeah, but we rarely did that because it was expensive. Yeah, I mean, we were working on a budget. Yeah. It took everything we had just to buy, like, the cheapest Abercrombie shirt. There was no money for Panda Express. But, yeah, remember we would, like like share the pretzel bites and stuff. Yeah. Oh, man.

Those were good times. Those were good times. Very good times. Judge Gerstrader says, on episode 38, you mentioned you got an email possibly from Richard Heaney, a.k.a. the Balloon Boy Dad. Did you ever find out if it was him? Unconfirmed, but it was for sure him. Yeah, so that was back when, like, no one was listening to the podcast. Yeah, that guy for sure had a Google alert on for his name, saw that we were covering the episode, listened to it, and was very upset.

Again, we don't know that it was him. Allegedly. You know what's funny is we really haven't gotten any kind of emails like that since. Which, you would think we'd get all kinds of emails from weirdos, and we do get some kinds of emails from weirdos,

but I mean, not like that. Anyway, we have no way ofos, but I mean, not like that. Not like that, no. Anyway, we have no way of confirming, but we're pretty sure. Nappaholic asks, where is that freaking Tupperware lid? I don't know if we are being asked. I'm not sure. Let me brag.

I bought. You bought a new set from Costco, didn't you? Not Costco. I bought two new, two, count them, two sets of like meal prepping Tupperware because I wanted it all the same size. HomeGoods? I got it off Amazon. I know. I'm a terrible person.

Anyway. You don't have to tell people that if you don't want to. People should know that I'm terrible. It's fine. My fridge looks so cool right now. I am so jealous. You should be. Yeah.

My brother-in-law came over the other day and he was jealous. Yeah, I bet. As one would be. Yeah. When seeing all my nice Tupperware. I'm jealous right now and I haven't even seen it.

I'm just picturing it. Because you've been in a real organizational phase of your life. Your kitchen's looking amazing. Thank you. Thank you, my friend. Yeah, I even got – oh, God, now I'm just bragging to you. I even got like little Tupperwares that are, like, just for sauces. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. What are you, made of money? That's exactly what's happening. I'm super rich, and I spend my money on new Tupperware sets. I have a Tupperware set to hold my Tupperware set. Looks like we made it. No, I really need to do that because I've got like one tiny set. I know.

Okay, so when we moved last summer, I got rid of all my mismatchy shit and was like, okay, I'll order like a couple new things. Only I've never ordered a couple new things, so I still just have like one tiny Tupperware set. I need more in my life. Yeah. You certainly do. That's what I'm doing on our summer break because I'm reorganizing my kitchen. Oh boy, we've got big plans.

I'm going to redo my bathroom. Ooh, yeah. I am going to apparently write a book. Yeah. No, I'm not going to. Oh, God. If I can. Oh, God.

I wonder how. Oh, fuck. I'm getting stressed. Anyway, who knows what I'll do. You know what I'm definitely going to do is read some Supreme Court inductions. Absolutely. Oh, my gosh. I'm in the right place already.

Oh, me too. Oh, me too. If you're in the app, so look for it in the browser. Then you just put in your name and your favorite cookie right there in the little box. You're giving a lot of info here. People ask a lot of questions. Also, I think you skipped me. No, it's a long line. It's just a long line. We are very popular. Very popular.

Also, effortlessly chic. That's right. And this week, oh, new topic, we're reading your favorite cookies. Oh, favorite cookies now. Great. Okay. Melissa Sanders. Chewy Pecan Supreme.

Shelby Edgerson. Crumble Pink Sugar Cookie. Rest in peace. Did they discontinue this cookie? I don't think so. Oh. I think it they discontinue this cookie? I don't think so. Oh. I think it's still around. Well, I don't know.

Maybe the RIP is unrelated to the cookie. Amanda Sullivan. Milano cookies with a cup of coffee. You are the second person who has put that specifically. What with the coffee? Yeah, I think it'd be good. They don't eat cookies and coffee together, I guess. Have you ever tried it?

No. Well, because I eat, I only drink would be good. We're going to eat cookies and coffee together, I guess. Have you ever tried it? No. Because I only drink coffee usually in the morning. And then. Oh, you've never in your life had a. Yeah. Okay, no. Here's the real story. Blow it out your butt.

Here's the real story. I'm an old lady now. And if I eat a cookie in the morning, it gives me heartburn immediately. What? Yes. So, yeah, I used to be the type of girl who could just eat a chocolate chip cookie on her way out the door. I can't even eat a fucking muffin in the morning anymore. I get heartburn for hours.

I'm an old woman now. I remember when you were cool. Anyway, Kim Taylor. S'mores cookies. Elsa Elder. Goody Girl mint chocolate cookies. What's Goody Girl? Is this like a...

Off-Brain Girl Scouts? What is this? Yeah, I mean, it sounds kind of like Girl Scout. Wow. Girl Scouts. I'm wondering if this is maybe an international listener, and that's an international version of Girl Scouts. Maybe.

Lee Wisner. Soft chocolate chip cookies. Kristen from Dose Bath Co. Subway macadamia nut. I've checked out your Instagram, Dose Bath Co. I like what I see. Amy Preston. Ew, what?

Chicken crimpies with French onion dip. That's not a cookie. No, Amy. Second of all, what? I mean, it's probably pretty good. What's a chicken crimpy? I don't know. Don't you think it's like a cracker that tastes like chicken?

Or do you think it's like a keto alternative to a cracker? It's actually made of chicken. It's just a nugget that's been crimped around the edges. Yeah, but it's like dehydrated chicken almost, so it's like real crispy. I sure hope not. Only one way to find out. I guarantee you it's a cracker that tastes like a chicken bouillon cube, and it's got the crimps edges.

It's a chicken crimpy. Shapes chicken crimpy. Oh, it is a cracker. You're right. You're right. You're right. It's just like a chicken and a biscuit. Yep.

It's Australian. Australian style! Okay. Anyway, thank you for that, Amy. Mm-hmm. Genevieve Alvarez. Nutty blonde cookies. Jessica Fox.

Salted caramel shortbread. Meg! Cookies and cream. What's a cookies and cream cookie? Is that an Oreo? No. Okay, you know what?

My sister-in-law makes an amazing cookies and cream cookie. It's got, like, Oreos in it. It's like the one time I will eat white chocolate chips, which is very exciting for you to hear. Also has, like, pudding mix in there. It's got like Oreos in it. It's like the one time I will eat white chocolate chips,

which is very exciting for you to hear. Also has like pudding mix in there. It's a whole thing. Okay. Wow. You don't sound excited at all. I'd try it. I'm never telling you anything. Erica. Any homemade cookie that doesn't have nuts. I'll literally die. Okay, great. Penny Winchester. My daughter's frosted sugar cookies. Brooke. Chocolate chip from Crumble. Alyssa. Any cookie fresh out of the oven.

That's my answer, too. Oh, bullshit. You're very picky. That's the only time I like them, is when they're fresh out of the oven. What if it's a cookie that has weird stuff in it? Okay, yeah. Yeah, uh-huh. Kelly and Wendy.

Shortbread cookies. Sasha Landry. Ginger molasses cookies. Welcome to the Supreme Court! Thank you, everyone, for all of your support. We appreciate it so much. Reminder, we have one episode left until we go on our summer break. We did not plan that.

That's just how cool we are. They know. Oh, they know. We appreciate your support so much. If you're looking for other ways to support us, please find us on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Patreon. Please remember to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen and then head on over to Apple Podcasts. Leave us a five-star rating and review.

And then be sure to join us next week when we'll be experts on two whole new topics. Podcast adjourned. And now for a note about our process. I read a bunch of stuff, then regurgitate it all back up in my very limited vocabulary. And I copy and paste from the best sources on the web, and sometimes Wikipedia. So we owe a huge thank you to the real experts. I got my info from the article, It Happened One Night at MGM by David Sten for Vanity Fair,

and the documentary documentary Girl 27. I got my info from an episode of A Wedding and a Murder, an article for Soapboxy by Kim L. Pasqualini, an article for The Crime Library by Crystal Hawkins, Mamma Mia, Mia, CBS News, The New Haven Register, and Wikipedia. For a full list of our sources, visit lgtcpodcast.com. Any errors are, of course, ours, but please don't take our word for it.

Go read their stuff.