Let's Go To Court! - 44: That’s My Foot & The Tyneside Strangler

Episode Date: November 28, 2018

When Shannon Whisnant bought a storage unit at auction, he got a whole lot more than he bargained for. He discovered a severed human foot tucked inside the unit’s BBQ grill. Turns out, the owner of the foot was alive and well, and he wanted it back. But Shannon wasn’t willing to let it go. He’d bought the foot fair and square. And plus, it might just be his ticket to fame. Then Brandi tells us a story that’s as creepy as it is disturbing. In the late 60s, four year old Martin Brown died from a terrible accident. Later, in that same neighborhood, three year old Brian Howe went missing. But when police discovered his body, they quickly realized that Brian was the victim of a twisted killer. And in hindsight, perhaps Martin was, too. As police hunted down the responsible parties, evidence pointed them toward a surprising set of suspects — two young girls. And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: The documentary, “Finders Keepers” In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Mary Bell” by Shirley Lynn Scott, Crime Library “Mary Flora Bell” murderpedia.org “The mob will move on, the pain never can” by Nicci Gerrard, Richard Brooks, Jonathon Calvert, Lucy Johnston and Andy McSmith, The Observer “Mary Bell” wikipedia.org  

One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts. I'm Kristen Pitts. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court. On this episode, I'll talk about a severed foot. And I'll be talking about the Tyneside Strangler. I'm sorry, I know you hate it when we make those noises. No, I love it. Okay. I'm really excited about a severed foot. You should be. This is crazy. So, first, gotta say, I got this entire thing from this amazing documentary that's on Netflix

right now. It's called Finders Keepers. Excellent. Norman had heard about it, and he was like, it might be good for the show. I don't know. He watched it on the plane ride from Kansas City to Atlanta, texted me in the Atlanta airport and was like, you have to do an episode on it. Oh my gosh.

So this script comes entirely from the documentary. Excellent. But I'm leaving a ton of stuff out. So everyone should watch it. It's 2007. We're in Maiden, North Carolina, which has a population of about 3,300 people. Wonderful. Shannon Wisnot is at a storage unit auction, and he is pumped.

The dude loves to sell stuff at a profit, loves a deal. So he sees this unit, unit number 48, and it's filled with all kinds of stuff. It's got furniture, knickknacks, a smoker grill. He's like, all right, that one looks good. He bid on it. He won it. So he loads up all the stuff that was in the unit, takes it all home. And the last thing that he unloaded was the smoker

grill so he's standing around at home looking at this grill he opens it up and there's something inside the grill oh no is it a foot so he thinks it's driftwood at first oh god um so he picks it up do you smell it i don't know he didn't mention sniffing it like well oh god you guys she's sticking her tongue out like she's licking you know archaeologists they like do the tongue test on stuff when they're determining if it's bone or not somehow that's less gross to me when it's something that's been in the ground for like hundreds and hundreds of years.

It's been in a smoker for who knows how long. Exactly. Yeah. So if they, like archaeologists, when they uncover something and they're trying to determine

if it's, I don't know, nothing, rock maybe, or bone, they'll stick their tongue to it. And if their tongue sticks, it's bone.

If it doesn't, it's something else. You know what I think? I think an archaeologist told you this and was messing with you. I don't think that really happened. It's real. It's real, I swear. Uh-huh.

So he picks this thing up. And that's when he realizes it's a human foot. How much of the foot? Quite a a bit i go back and forth in this script between calling it a leg and a foot um it's it's kind of like knee down so it's quite a bit whoa that's more than just a foot i agree i agree okay all. So he freaks out and he immediately calls the police. Here's how the call went. Dispatcher. What's the problem there?

Caller. I got a human foot. Dispatcher. Have a what? Caller. A human left foot. That's very important. Include which foot it is.

Dispatcher. What's your name? Caller. My name's Shannon Wisenot and it's Plum Nasty got me grossed out. Plum Nasty? Oh my gosh. Rap name idea. Plum Nasty? I'm Plum Nasty.

These are my sick beats. So police come. They confiscate it. Everyone's kind of like freaked out, grossed out. They start investigating. And it doesn't take very long to figure out why there was a human foot in a barbecue grill. Yeah. figure out why there was a human foot in a barbecue grill yeah and weirdly there was a perfectly innocent explanation really because it seems to me like probably somebody was trying to

burn a dead body it does sound that way hold on to your hat that's not what's happening that would be like the most normal, horrifying explanation. That's not what was going on here. Okay. So John Wood was the original owner of the storage unit. And also the original owner of the foot. He's the one who fell behind on his bill for the storage unit. So that was all of his stuff that Shannon got.

So let's talk about John. John and Shannon are about the same age. I believe when this all started up, they were kind of like late 30s, early 40s. But they had very different childhoods. John was the coolest. Oh. John had everything. And it was all thanks to his dad tom tom was a character he owned a local furniture company which employed a ton of people in town and he bought his kids anything they wanted so i didn't write all this down, but I believe like their basement was a roller skating rink.

What? Yeah. I mean, they had this huge house. I mean, it was quite the deal. They had go-karts, all kinds of stuff. We used to roller skate in your basement. You could say that your basement used to be a roller skating rink. And then your parents finished it, and then we couldn't roller skate on it anymore.

The Berber carpet really slowed us down. Do you remember roller skating down there? Oh, yeah. I loved it. Yeah. Because we would like, because it was a pretty big basement. Yeah. So we would turn up the boom box.

And, you know, it was like just a party. Man. And then it had like the support. Yeah. We would twirl around. So you would twirl around it. Yeah. You know, in a way, i was just as privileged as tom

or john rather okay so tom the dad was successful he was an outdoorsman he was adventurous john admired his dad so much his approval meant everything to John. After high school, John went to boot camp and his dad was super proud. But then when John was on leave, he got into drugs and got kicked out of the military. So this triggered a really nasty cycle. John would do drugs, disappoint his dad, and then he would self-medicate with more drugs. Fast forward to January 17, 2004. John has been sober for about a year. And Tom has decided to sell the family airplane. Oh my gosh!

Do you remember my family airplane drawing? I do! We used to go all over the place in your family airplane. So it was this little little plane and he already had a buyer but they wanted to take it out for one final ride so tom and john and tom's brother-in-law and his son all got into the plane oh god did a crash it crashed right they took off he lost his leg in the crash and everything was fine okay at first, no. The engines started to sputter. Tom was the one flying the plane.

And at one point, he turned to everyone and said, okay, make sure your seatbelts are on tight. And that's when they took a nosedive. Oh, no. They crashed into the ground. And as they were plummeting, Tom had a fatal heart attack. What? Yeah.

He didn't die of a plane crash he died of a heart attack yeah holy shit yeah which i wonder how common that is i mean at a certain age i would think that's expected almost so something similar to that happened not too long ago there was like i don't know okay i remember 14 of the details i was gonna say this is we're on a rocky start there was a bus accident somewhere and i feel like it was because there were icy road conditions and somewhere where typically they don't get snow i want to say atlanta but i don't know that that's true okay bus accident for sure in atlanta a man died in the accident several people were injured one man died but it was determined that he did not die due to injuries from the bus accident.

He died of a heart attack due to the panic of the bus accident. Oh my gosh. That's so sad. Horrible. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, yeah,

same thing. Yeah. So Tom dies in this plane crash. The other three were injured. They were rushed to the hospital. And that's when the doctors told John, hey, we're going to have to amputate your leg. That's when John got an idea. He asked if he could keep it.

Uh-huh. So the one thing I want to pause and say is that John and Shannon are both very funny people so this is like this is a kind of serious story but they're hilarious people so just keep that in mind okay so John's like you know what I would like to keep my leg and he has this idea in his head for getting this leg back and having it just be the skeletal remains. And he thought maybe it would be a cool memorial to his dad somehow. So he asked the doctors, could I keep the leg? And the doctors were like, okay, man, sure.

I'm shocked that they let him keep it. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess it's his leg. Yeah, I don't know. I guess it's his leg. Yeah, I guess. I wonder if it's one of those things where, like, you've never been asked that question before, so you just kind of panic and you're like, okay. I guess so, yeah. So after the surgery, Dwayne, the mortician, drove out to John's house with a white trash bag in the back of his minivan. They didn't say this, but it sounds like one of those glad bags with like the little red string.

Yeah, the red drawstring. Uh-huh. That's what I'm picturing, too. Was it like the ones with like the force flex where they, you know, real sturdy? Describe force flex. They have like, it has like a, you know, a pattern in the bag that allows it to stretch when you put something sharp against it, like say like a foot. I would hope so.

Or at least double bag it with one of the shitty bags. So Dwayne hands it to John and drives off. John opens the thing up. And again, he's thinking he's going to get like just the skeletal stuff no it was his whole damn leg oh god disgusting i mean flesh attached yeah what tendons he thought that they were gonna clean it up clean it up for him no this is this is the privilege of like oh i had a go-kart growing up. You know, you just think that.

So it's disgusting. It's like the nastiest thing. So John was stunned. This was not what he had in mind. The quote I wrote down from him was, shoo, damn. He's like, I gotta get this thing in the freezer. So he goes to his freezer. He doesn't have room for it oh no you know it is a leg yeah uh but he had a friend who worked at hardy's

what he put it in their walk-in so he took it to her and she said yeah i can store it for you for a few hours while you figure things out. So she takes the leg. John drives off. He gets like a quarter mile down the road when he gets this phone call. The manager of the Hardee's is pissed. The manager is. She wasn't the manager? No.

And she's just like, yeah, sure, I'll put your leg in the freezer. No, to be in management at Hardee's, you've got to be smart enough to know we're not keeping your body parts in here sir so john comes back don't care how many go-karts you had as a kid he goes through the drive-thru they pass him the leg through the drive-thru window no that's what he said and i'm i going with it. I think it's great. Yeah, I'll take number three curly fries, diet Coke, and my leg. A side of foot. So now he's like, well, what am I going to do with this thing? He thought and thought and thought.

And finally he got an idea. Maybe he could mummify his foot. So he did. He took it out to his shed. Your face. He took it to his shed, put it in a roasting pan, got some embalming fluid from a friend at the mortuary,

and he started basting his leg with embalming fluid. Okay. Like a turkey, if you will. I don't think it works like that. You can't just rub it on the outside. Oh, how does it work, Brandy? You have to inject it into the body. Well, it seemed to go okay then he took the screen off his front door wrapped the screen around the leg hung it up high in a tree for six months to dry it out it's so i mean what did he google like how to mummify my amputated leg i have no idea how he

came up with this he's just like here's what i did he even i think in the documentary he said he put it in a possum tree which i don't even know what a possum tree is but um he a tree where possums live i guess he. He seemed pretty confident. And that's what he did. But as his leg is mummifying in this tree, John isn't doing well mentally. He had a lot of guilt over the plane crash. So he had been the co-pilot that day. And even though everyone has said, like,

there's nothing he could have done. But he blamed himself. He thought, what if i'd taken control earlier you know he just was constantly running through all these different scenarios where he could have saved his dad at the same time you know he'd been sober for a year until the crash but then when he got this operation he was given oxycontin oh shit, shit. So he, of course... Relapsed. Relapsed, got into alcohol again, got into drugs.

He was addicted in, like, no time. So he was living with his mom at the time, and she was taking care of him, but she said that as he got more and more addicted to the pills, he started stealing stuff from her. And eventually she was like, no, I'm done enabling. I'm kicking you out.

At this point, he moves to South Carolina. And OK. Even though I just watched this thing yesterday, I can't remember. I think he moved to South Carolina for rehab. I might be wrong. OK. But anyway, he moves to South Carolina. And before he left, he put all his stuff, including the severed leg, into a storage unit. His mom paid the fees on the unit for the first few months, but then she was like, okay, I'm done. Time to be a big boy, John. You know, time for you to pay for it. So that's how Shannon ended up with John's leg.

So by this time, police have investigated. There's obviously no foul play. It's weird as hell, but no one's murdered anybody. It's just a fucking crazy story. So they're like, well, what do we do with this nasty leg? I guess we'll do what we always do when we have a dead body. We'll take it to the funeral home. So they take it there.

But Shannon is like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I bought that leg. It is mine. Yeah. Yeah. That is exactly. That is exactly what he said. He was like, not so fast.

I paid for it. I've got the receipt. That is my property. Oh, my gosh. The funeral home is like, whoa, hey, calm down. We're not giving you this other guy's foot. Like, just cool it. Well, Shannon was like crazy mad. Super, super pissed. Because ever since he was a kid, Shannon dreamed of being famous. He wanted to be on TV. He wanted to be in movies. He wanted a bunch of money. But here he was, a grown man, and his dreams hadn't panned out. He had been on Jerry Springer once, and that was wonderful, but it was just one show.

When he found John's foot in that smoker grill oh my god shannon thought he'd finally found his ticket to fame yeah well here we are talking about him on our world-renowned podcast christian uh how do you determine world-renowned i mean we have listeners in countries around the world, Kristen. That means we are known around the world. Man. Hence, world renowned. We really are more amazing than anyone ever gives us credit for.

That's right. Could we pause? Yeah. And so earlier this week, you sent me exciting news about our ranking. Will you tell the folks about our exciting ranking? Oh, yeah. So we have our podcast has officially charted in the world in iTunes.

So the lowest spot that they chart to is 300. So the lowest spot that they chart to is 300. Guess who has the 300th most popular comedy podcast? The United States, folks. Wait, wait. In the United States? Yes. No, when you texted me, we were the 230th in South Africa. And I also said the 300th in the United States.

I didn't know that. Yes. Oh, my God. Yeah, so we're the 300th in the United States for last week. It changes every week. Okay. So Yeah. So we're the 300th in the United States for last week. It changes every week. OK. So last week, we were the 300th in the United States. And now we're dropped off.

I don't know. It won't come out for a few more days. OK. And like 224th in South Africa. OK. So I was over at Kyla and Jay's house this week. Yeah. And we're just talking about how the week's going.

And I was like, hey, here's this for funny news and i started telling them like you know kyla gets just as excited as i do so i'm like you know they do rankings in itunes and she's like uh-huh and i was like and you know they do the categories like comedy uh-huh and i was like so brandy and i are the 230th and she's like she's like already jumping up and down. And then I was like, in comedy in South Africa. We are ready for our world tour. Love it. For the five people in South Africa who are listening.

Thank you, South Africans. Americans, get on it. Come on. Yeah. Yeah. 300. We should be at least 289 at least easy okay anyway i guess i should get back so shannon has this lifelong dream of being famous and when he found john's foot in that smoker grill he was like like, this is it.

This is, you know, here's my destiny. It's all tied up in this foot. The story got a lot of media attention, obviously, because it was crazy. So Shannon got to be on TV. He got to be on the local radio. He started thinking, hey, this is a money and fame making opportunity yeah he started making plans about how he was going to display the foot he made a sign that said bbq foot smoker oh with a little arrow pointing toward his house and when i say he made a sign, I mean like literally it was like paper, pencil. Yeah. He didn't like have a sign made.

No. Excellent. No. He planned to charge kids $1 to see it and adults $3. Excellent. How do you feel about those rates? Pretty fair rates, I feel like. I'd pay three bucks to see a foot.

You totally would. I 100% would. I would pay three bucks just to talk to this guy i mean he when i read the synopsis for this documentary i thought oh my god this is like good versus evil yeah but i really felt you felt like it's good versus good no not it's more like weird versus weird because i kind of felt i well anyway we'll get into it so he makes him gets a personalized license plate it says foot guy foot smoker he has t-shirts made um one said i am friends with the foot man and it had a picture of shannon's face on it with like two severed feet on either side of it. Oh, God. He had another set of t-shirts made that said,

Foot Smoker BBQ Grill. And it had a picture of a severed leg on a grill. Excellent. Do you want one? Yes. I'm sorry, you can only wear Gaming Historian t-shirts. That's part of our contract here. That's right.

So this was supposed to be his big break that he'd been waiting for all his life. There were a couple big problems. Number one, the funeral home. They were being real dicks. They weren't giving the foot back. And number two, John said he wanted his foot back. What's up? You got a family of elves over there?

I've got so many fun things in this house. You guys, Christmas has exploded in my home. I love it. I love it. I'm looking, Santa and his elves? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I love it.

I'm glad someone appreciates all this stuff. I appreciate it so much. When Norman walked downstairs, he didn't know that I'd been someone appreciates all this stuff. I appreciate it so much. When Norman walked downstairs, he didn't know that I'd been putting up Christmas stuff. Yeah. He walked downstairs and he goes, oh God. He was like,

it looks like you're trying to sell people Christmas stuff in here. This looks like a store. No. So then I tried to sell him some stuff. I was like, it's three dollars to see all this for five i'll throw in a severed foot blah blah john said he wanted his foot back but to shannon it was like okay well too bad so sad

i bought it fair and square and fair and square square. He was like, you must be confused. I have the receipt. Finders keepers, losers weepers, goodbye. And oh, by the way, if you really cared that much about the severed leg, then maybe you should have paid the bill on your storage unit. So there, meh, meh, meh. Also, I did not include this in the story, unit so there meh meh meh also i did not include this in the story but they said that shannon and john hadn't met before this all happened but in a town this small they obviously knew of each other

or at least shannon knew of john and they have this this part in the documentary where Shannon is like, you know, everyone in town, if you were anybody, you had your birthday party at John Wood's house. If you were anybody, you had your party there. Did they not let him? No. No. He never had a party at John Wood's house. See, that's the whole thing. I think, yeah, there was some bitterness yeah john didn't even know about

yeah yeah so he never got to have a skating party in that basement no he didn't probably didn't even get invited probably not bad person to get a hold of your foot that is rough so this thing's getting a bunch of media attention. So John rides back home on his motorcycle from South Carolina. And he tells the media, meet me in the Dollar General parking lot. What the fuck? Why are all of your stories meet in a parking lot of a Chick-fil-A, Joe's Crab Shack? In some of these other stories, I have no excuse. In this one,

I'm going to guess in a town this small, it's like, there are only so many places you can go. That's probably true. But I will say, John's sister and brother-in-law

were telling this story for the documentary and they were like cracking up. They're like, the freaking Dollar General. It's just so embarrassing. But yeah, that's where he had

his news conference. He was like, you guys, I'm going to read a statement. Not like, let's meet at the courthouse. Nope. Let's meet at the Dollar General. Okay.

Because I believe the Dollar General was across the street from the funeral home. So I don't know. Proximity to the foot. I don't know what. Maybe he just needed some. Proximity to the foot. Maybe he needed some stuff. Maybe he needed to pick up some paper towels when he was there.

So he starts reading this statement. And apparently someone in the media let shannon know hey john's gonna be reading a statement at the dollar general so shannon shows up he's got his shades on he is like pissed he's like staring john down so john just explains he wanted his leg back he didn't want it to be part of some tourist attraction and he's standing there saying all this meanwhile shannon is just glaring at him and by the way shannon is a big dude like that lady was glaring at me earlier yeah do you want to tell people about how you were intimidated so i pull up here to kristen's house today and my parking spot i have a regular parking spot that i park in

every week yeah yeah it's my parking spot well this bitch is in it and so i have to park in front of the neighbor's house well there's this lady standing in front of the neighbor's house apparently the bitch that took my parking spot as it turns out she's standing in front of the neighbor's house and she's like staring at the house and staring at her phone like going back and forth and then she sees me pull up and so now guess who she's staring at me and she is like mean mugging me hard and so i'm like gathering my stuff up out of the car i got my computer and my water and all that and and so she's like watching me she watches me get out of my car she watches me as i walk across like the sidewalk to Kristen's house she watches me wait on Kristen's porch for her to come to the door I was like what the hell is that when Kristen opened the door I was like

thank god get me out of here get me inside she was giving you such a scary look that I got scared just watching her through the window I know I don't know! I don't know what she's... I don't know what... I feel like she's still in her car out there. Did she leave finally? Yeah, she's gone. Thank goodness. Yikes. I don't know who she thought I was. A smooth criminal.

Clearly! Okay, so he's glaring. He's glaring. So this was their first meeting. Oh my gosh. At this point in time, neither one of them has the foot. It's still at the funeral home. So they're in front of the media and they are pissed.

Afterward, when the media left, Shannon said to John, hey, let's talk. So what they actually said to each other during this meeting is super unclear because, of course, one guy has one story. One guy has the other story. So Shannon says that he told John, let's work together. We can make some quick cash together. And hey, maybe we can split custody of the foot. What? And he says John agreed to that.

But John was like, no, no way did i ever make a deal with shannon that's insane i don't want this to be part of a tourist attraction i don't this is not a money-making thing this is supposed to be a memorial for my dad no no no no no yeah at any rate after the conversation outside the dollar general shannon walks away thinking that they've made this deal together to make some money but john tells the media no way that's not what this is about and that made shannon so fucking angry he said ask anybody who's ever pissed me off. You'll find out I don't fuck around. I do not fuck around. Wow.

Whoa. He starts going on radio shows. He's talking shit about John. He's like, I guess he was born with a silver crack pipe in his mouth. Holy shit. Kind of a low blow. Real low blow. Then he started talking shit about John's dad.

Oh no, uh-uh. Off limits. Not cool. Yep, he was implying that he was some kind of hillbilly pilot. They'd been basically flying around in a beer can that day. Oh my gosh. Not cool. At some point in all of this, John got the leg back from the funeral home.

Word got out. Shannon was angrier than he'd ever been before. So he said, let's go to court. Small claims court. So word of the lawsuit spread like wildfire. So word of the lawsuit spread like wildfire because up until this point, it's my understanding this had been kind of like a quirky local story. But now it was international news. So and it kind of presented an interesting legal question.

Who is the rightful owner of that foot? Yeah. rightful owner of that foot yeah so now john and shannon are getting their 15 minutes of fame and shannon is loving it he's thrilled but john hasn't shown the leg to the media because it's a private thing again he's not in it to make money and that's when he and shannon both get invited to go on the johannes b kerner show it's a german late night show oh yeah they get flown out big fan yeah what's your favorite episode the one where they brought the severed foot yeah well it's a classic i've never heard of this show before no neither had i they described it as like uh the german letterman or whatever yeah so they go john took his drug

dealer with him his sister was pissed because you know the mom had cut him out yeah the sister was going over to his house doing his laundry cleaning up giving him money she didn't have to spare and you know she would have liked to go to europe well yeah but you know dealer gotta take the drug dealer so before they start taping the producers of the show offer john some money to show the leg on tv oh god and john said no but then they all go to the green room and there's like champagne and all this great food and there's liquor so john starts drinking and they're like, have you reconsidered? Yeah.

Yeah. They're like, what if we paid you to come out and just pose for pictures with it? Would you do that? So in that state where he's had a few drinks and might be on some other stuff, John says, yes. It's the grossest. Is it available? i bet it is so i'm going to describe it as you're googling the calf is all yellowy the foot is kind of red the toenails are still on and he did not take good care of those toenails they're kind of whitish yellow they're super long it's disgusting okay

what are you googling genius stuff finders keepers severed foot german talk show oh no no no do um finders keepers documentary and then foot try that oh god it's the first image Oh gross Oh fuck Holy hell That is nasty isn't it Woo Woo The toenails really freak me out

I know they freak me out too They're so bright white And they're very long they're like talons that's a big foot yeah oh i gotta close this yeah that's disgusting oh man folks oh it's bad yeah it's bad so john's family was very upset they were still trying to grieve trying to get over this tragedy and they're like the fact that you've done this makes it so much harder like stop it stop it so his sister who until that point had been, you know, enabling him, cuts him off. John starts living under a bridge. What?

Yeah. Wow. Yeah, the addiction issue is really, yeah. And, you know, his mom had stopped supporting him. His sister stopped. So, you know. Yeah. Run out of people.

John's living under the bridge. Shannon still has the lawsuit in the works he is thrilled with the fact that he got a free trip to europe i gotta say shannon was like show up to these interviews in like a suit i mean he really wow he did his best you know so he's thrilled about the, but he still doesn't have that foot. That's when Shannon gets a phone call. It's from the Judge Mathis show. Oh, God. Yeah. The producer said, hey, we heard about your lawsuit.

What about instead of going through the traditional legal system, you just bring your case to our show? You know, we have cameras and an audience. And we'll pay you. Shannon, of course, was like, absolutely. 100%. So that left John. He had to agree to it, too. He thought it over. And one of the things that appealed to him about going on the judge mathis

show was that the rulings are final because his fear with this lawsuit with shannon was that you know let's say he wins you know shannon's gonna appeal yeah it's just gonna appeal appeal it'd be you know just years and years and years of this thing tied up so john said you know what i can go on this show. I could be done with Shannon forever. Let's do it. Their episode was the season premiere of the Judge Mathis show. Oh, my gosh.

Of course it was. OK. Have you ever watched the Judge Mathis? Yeah, Judge Joe Mathis? Yeah. 100%. See, I'm more of a Judge Judy. I mean, yeah.

But, you know, sometimes she's not on and you've got to watch Judge Mathis. Maybe his name's not Joe. I think it is Joe. I think it is. Yeah, I mean, he's good. Yeah. But. No one's as good as Judge Judy, Kristen.

I will never forget the time she said to a woman, that is not a court dress, madam. Oh. I loved it. She kicked her out because she was in spaghetti straps. Oh. Oof. Also,

I'm the boss, applesauce. It's good stuff. Good stuff. So both of them go into this courtroom and they're confident. They're both confident that they're going to win.

Shannon was the first to talk. He admitted it was a bizarre case. And again, he's dressed nicely. Admitted it's a bizarre case, but said, the leg is mine. I want it back. So Judge Mathis is hamming it up. He's like, you want his leg back? And the audience starts laughing.

And the judge tells Shannon, step out from behind the podium. Step out. So Shannon does. And the judge looks at him up and down. He goes, you don't need one. So then the judge starts looking at pictures of some of the T-shirts that Shannon has made. And he goes, you're just trying to get famous off of this man's leg. Yeah, but I bought it fair and square.

Basically. So then the judge turns his attention to John, and he starts asking things like, did you receive notice that the storage unit was being auctioned off? What did you do when you got that notice? Meanwhile, John's eyes are like as big as saucers. It's clear he's messed up on something. But he did admit that he got notice that the storage unit was being auctioned off.

But he was like, oh, it was like five days. You know, I was down in South Carolina. And even though he was clearly messed up, he was a little funny. He said, I've had this leg for 42 years and i'm still trying to keep up with it in his closing remarks shannon said well as the auction man said before he started all sales are final and at this point everyone starts laughing, even though Shannon is very serious. So I'm going to pause right here. What are your thoughts on this?

I think that Shannon owns the foot. Yeah. I do, too. I think that the ownership rights transferred when he bought that storage unit. that storage unit one of the things that shannon said was like if you if you buy like a mattress and it turns out there's money in it you know the the person can't go after you for it you bought it fair and square yeah i think he bought it fair and square yeah what do you think judge joe mathis did i don't know so you know sh Shannon says this thing about, you know, all sales are final. It's mine. And Judge Mathis goes, quite frankly, you're right, sir.

I am going to grant you a monetary judgment, but you're not getting that leg. I'm not giving you the man's leg. So I think maybe just because, like, because of what it is. Yeah. You know. So he awarded Shannon $5,000. Immediately after the taping, a lot of people wanted to take Shannon's picture.

And in the documentary, he got so worked up about how wonderful that was that he started crying. Oh my gosh. He was just like so, so happy in that moment. Meanwhile, John got his leg back, but he was still homeless, still addicted. And that's when something kind of incredible happened. The producers at the Judge Mathis show and Judge Mathis himself recognized that John had a problem.

So they got him into a rehab center in Atlantalanta like a really nice rehab center holy shit so he went and he did really well like for the first time ever he started dealing with all the guilt he had over this plane crash he decided that you know i still want to do that memorial to my dad using my severed leg but i never envisioned still having the flesh on my leg so i really just want to get down to the skeleton remains so he starts looking into it he finds out it's going to be like fifteen thousand dollars to get the flesh stripped away can you just boil it that's okay here's the thing i was surprised by that too because i was thinking these are like outdoorsy diy folks surely i, I don't know.

But, oh, God, can you imagine? I mean, it wouldn't smell great, but you boil it long enough and that skin's going to fall right away. It'll fall right off the bone. John, if you're listening, take notes. So he realizes, that's my goal. I can't afford to do it. And he realizes, that's my goal. I can't afford to do it.

But on the day that that Judge Mathis episode aired, a forensic veterinarian named Katie Wilk was watching the show. And on the show, John talked about what he wanted to do with that leg. And she was like, wow, I have the exact skills that could help with that.'ve never applied them to actually like helping somebody but i'd like to yeah so she reaches out to john and she's like i want to help you and i'll do it for free oh my gosh so things start getting better for john but things went downhill for shannon shannon got cast in the reality tv show duukes of Haggle, which I'd never heard of. I've never heard of it. But they showed a clip of it in the documentary.

And it got weird because Shannon was super excited. He was thinking like, oh my God, this is my big break. You know, it was so exciting. But then like once they actually started filming, it was clear he was the butt of the joke. I think they're just making fun of him. Yeah. So like at one point they have this auction where he's auctioning off a leg lamp and he's really

jacked up and really excited but people are laughing at him and the guy who buys it like they do a side interview with him and he's like no i just bought it because it's the leg lamp from the christmas movie it's iconic it's cool and like, the guy buys it, and Shannon is like, do you want me to autograph that for you? And the guy's like, no. That sucks. I don't like that. No.

And so Shannon got embarrassed, got really upset, but he went along with it, I think just because, like, he wanted it so bad. Yeah. So where are they now? John is sober. He's working on making amends with his family. He still hasn't finished the memorial as he envisioned.

So Katie did what she could, but it wasn't quite what he wanted. But he basically decided in the end, the best memorial to my dad is just to live well and yeah which i'm so glad because who oh no kidding cares about that fucking foot like yeah oh my god john's sister said in some ways i'd like to thank shannon for being the douche that he is because in a way it was a catalyst because they were saying like any other person in this situation would have just given the leg back. But Shannon was, like, the one person who'd be like, no, I'm keeping this human severed leg, and I'm going to make a tourist attraction out of it.

And because of all that, John was able to go to this amazing rehab center and get his life together. John got married in 2014 but shannon continued to struggle he and his wife were talking about divorce in 2016 he announced that he was running for president what which i mean shannon uh then in november of that, he died at the age of 42 from a heart attack. Oh, that's sad. Yeah.

So that's the story. The thing that was so weird about this is there were a couple people in the documentary who I felt like you were supposed to have certain feelings about or it seemed natural that you would really not like shannon i felt so bad yeah though yeah because he really was funny i mean he was kind of an ass well a super ass yeah but they gave you enough of his backstory about his bad relationship

with his dad that you kind of felt like god i just like i wanted the guy to get a youtube show and i wanted it to take off and then this morning i was like i wonder what he's up to now i was like oh oh great he died yeah thank you for ending on that high note i know they also like the other person who they kind of focused on was john's mom because the kids were upset because like they never had a funeral for their dad they never had a memorial service she had him cremated and you know he's just in a box which they were very very bothered by that but then they started talking about their marriage and how he had basically treated her like an employee had cheated on her and she just you know i i didn't think she was so bad either

yeah you know yeah real you really root for the underdogs christian i think i do i mean they like she was definitely cold yeah um and they talked about how like, you know, who can just turn their son out like that. But I don't know when someone's got an addiction like that. Yeah. At some point you have to. You can't enable somebody forever. Yeah. Or he would have just died of a drug overdose.

Yeah. What you have to do is like have someone buy his severed foot. That's right. And go on Judge Joe Mathis. Exactly. That is how you help people through their addictions. 100%. This is a foolproof method i loved that did you yes i felt like i was kind of cheating with judge joe mathis that's a court okay you know i honestly had this moment of like i can't do it because it's

judge joe mathis why well and thought, wait, this is our podcast. It's our fucking podcast. We can do whatever we want. Hey, come at me. I'm going to get that lady outside to come at you. She would have. She would. She was scary.

I'm still scared a little bit. You should be. She was terrifying. She was terrifying. And what was with her hair? I don't know. I was thinking maybe it was just she'd been out there for like days or something. She looked like she'd

been in a stakeout of some sort. Are you ready? I believe I am. To talk about a strangler. Oh god. That's the grossest. The Tyneside Strangler. Ever heard of them? What is that? No. No. Should I have? I don't know

i bet in like roughly one hour i will have heard everything i need i bet in about two minutes you'll know whether or not you know the case okay i've done a little bit of trickery calling it that really didn't want to give it away right from the get-go i see i looked up the most obscure nickname so is it the boston Oh, oh, excuse me. Nice try. Thank you. I think I'm that obvious. Pat Howe was worried. It was late afternoon on July 31st, 1968, and her three-year-old brother, Brian, had not yet come home. In the economically challenged Scotswood neighborhood

of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, it was common for children, and toddlers apparently, to play in the dilapidated houses and construction sites that peppered the community. A three-year-old? Yeah, is that not nuts? Yes, that's crazy. But they just talk about it in this case. Like, it was just happening all the time. Just three-year-olds out there wandering around. Oh, jeez.

My three-year-old isn't home yet. I mean, it's 1968, so it is a different time. Not that different. I think it is. I think my dad told me. So my dad was born in 1963. So he would have been five in 1968. This actually would have been his fifth birthday.

Oh. July 31st would have been his fifth birthday oh july 31st would have been his fifth birthday okay 1968 he told me when he was five he used to walk to the movie theater what yeah okay i swear he told me that it was so maybe i'm making up his age i don't think i am i think it was just a different time okay okay so three-year-olds are just i don't know living their best lives i guess doing whatever the fuck they want but pat's worried because brian knew to play within view of their house and he knew when he was expected home not that he knew how to fucking tell time i was gonna say i'm lost but okay but she was also worried because just a couple of months earlier, on May 25th, a four-year-old boy named Martin Brown had been found dead inside a condemned house. Though police had been unable to determine his cause of death, it was believed at the time to be a tragic accident. He was just out playing in this house.

Fucking four-year-old. accident he was just out playing in this house looking four-year-old yeah so i guess we'll just continue to let our children do that okay but in the back of her mind pat began to wonder if something horrible had happened to brian too and this is her brother right yeah okay gotcha so pat's going up and down the street she She's calling for Brian. She's looking everywhere for him when she comes upon 11-year-old Mary Bell and her best friend, 13-year-old Norma Bell. No relation. Okay. And Mary's like, oh, are you looking for your brother Brian? And Pat's like, yeah, that's why I've been fucking calling his name up and down the street for the last half hour.

Have you seen him? and calling his name up and down the street for the last half hour. Have you seen him? Mary and Norma told Pat that they hadn't seen Brian that day, but they offered to help her in her search of the neighborhood for him. So the three girls joined forces, searching high and low for young Brian. Eventually, their search led them across the railroad tracks to an industrial area where children often played. Oh, my God.

Kristen, you're losing it over this. This is insane. Kristen, it's 1968. That was not that long ago. The parents were smoking pot, like, wearing macrame vests. They couldn't be bothered. Oh, my gosh. So they go across the railroad tracks to this,

railroad tracks to this industrial area. This area was home to discarded construction materials, old cars, general junk. Things that made the perfect climbing structures for the kids in Scotswood. So they're looking at this construction area slash jungle gym. Basically, I'm picturing like a junkyard in my mind. Yes, that's exactly what this sounds like. And Mary pointed to a stack of large cement blocks and was like,

maybe he's over there. That looks like a fun place to play. Maybe he's behind him or something. But almost immediately, Norma chimed in and was like, oh no, Brian hates the blocks. He'd never play on the blocks. He must be somewhere else. And with that, the girls crossed back over the railroad tracks and Pat headed toward home to let her parents know that Brian was missing. Except he wasn't missing at all. The fair-headed three-year-old boy was... The fair-haired three-year-old boy was, in fact, behind the large cement blocks.

But he wasn't playing. He was dead. Was he dead? He was dead. Police found Brian Howe's body at 11 10 that night during an in-depth search of the neighborhood he'd been strangled to death oh the letter m had been carved into his stomach oh my god clumps of hair had been cut and his penis had been partially skinned what the fuck a pair of broken scissors were found near his tiny body oh with the discovery of brian's body came full-on panic in scottswood who would do this to a little

boy and what about martin was his accident really the work of the same killer was there a strangler on the loose in scottswood upon tyne scottswood newcastle upon tyne actually i don't know how these fucking english city names work well i'm gonna be really mad if you mess them up in any way. So my understanding, so I tried to look this up so I could sound like pretty knowledgeable, but I've already ruined that. So Scotswood is like the town and then like Newcastle is like the city and it's called upon time because that's the nearest river. OK. It sounds it sounds made up. Yeah. It's my understanding of what I put together.

Okay. Police flooded the town as they began the investigation into this heinous murder. But the investigation was unusual from the get-go. Something about the way the body was found led investigators to believe that a child was responsible for Brian's death. Oh, come on. Inspector James Dobson described the crime scene as terrifyingly playful. There was a gentleness in the way Brian had been killed. He was strangled or asphyxiated, yet there was no bruising on his neck.

And the letter on his stomach had been cut with such light pressure that it actually took a couple of days for it to appear oh god yeah and so they began the investigation by interviewing all of the children in the neighborhood between the age of 3 and 15 they thought a three-year-old could have done this i don't know that they thought a three-year-old could have done it but maybe would know something maybe a three-year-old saw anything i don't even go about interviewing a three-year-old i don't know i mean i don't think they should be out in a junkyard to begin with but you know what do i know quickly two girls behavior stood out to investigators as suspicious. They were Mary and Norma Bell.

No! Oh my God, fucked up! Oh no! Norma seemed excited by the murder and the investigation. Oh, jeez. One investigator recalled that she was constantly smiling and laughing, as if the whole thing were a big joke. In contrast, Mary took it very seriously to the point that she was reluctant to answer questions and was evasive. Investigators kept coming back to Mary, asking more questions, digging for more details, until one day she suddenly remembered something mary was like oh yes yes i remember on the day that brian died i saw rupert brimble which is not a kid that's not his real

name i made it up because they didn't give the name she did name a specific boy and you made up the name Rupert Brimble? Yeah, I wanted to get a really British sound. So she did actually say a specific eight-year-old boy. So we're pretending his name is Rupert Brimble. So she's like, I saw Rupert Brimble playing with Brian. Let's just keep in mind, Rupert Brimble, eight years old. Brian, three years old. Yeah, not playing with him. Let's just keep in mind, Rupert Brimple, eight years old. Brian, three years old. Yeah, not playing with us. Probably not. They were over there by the big cement blocks.

And you aren't going to believe this, but I saw Rupert push Brian off the blocks. I also saw Rupert playing with some scissors. Yeah, yeah, that's right. They were like silver scissors, only they were like they were kind of broken, like one of the legs on them was bit or the tip was broken off or something. Wow, she saw a lot. So, yeah, I think Rupert Brimble's your guy. Police were like, great. Thanks, Mary. You've been a big help. Mm hmm. like great thanks mary you've been a big help only there were two problems with mary's statement first rupert brimble was at the airport at the time of brian's murder oh and second that little thing about the broken scissors being found next to brian's body they hadn't released that to the public oh Mary had implicated herself while police weren't sure that Mary had done the actual killing they were sure that she and Norma

had been present when Brian died and they were pretty sure that one of them was the killer so they put the two girls under surveillance. So remember, this is an 11-year-old girl and a 13-year-old girl. Yeah. In the meantime, investigators brought Norma in for another interview. This time, Norma didn't think it was funny. She wasn't laughing anymore. She was very serious.

And she told them everything she knew. She said that Mary had killed Brian and had brought her to the blocks afterwards to show her his body. She said Mary told her that she killed him by squeezing his neck and pushing on his lungs. Then she told Norma not to tell anyone. Norma said it was clear when she saw Brian that he was dead. His lips were blue and Mary kept running her fingers over them. Ew. Norma said Mary told her she enjoyed killing him.

also told detectives that Mary had led Pat to the concrete blocks that day when she was looking for Brian because she wanted her to be the one to find Brian's dead body. She wanted to see the look on Pat's face when she got that shock. Oh, my gosh. Disgusting. That little monster. Ugh. So police wasted no time. They brought Marion just after midnight that same night after Norma made this statement.

But if investigators thought that they were going to be dealing with someone who could easily be intimidated under interrogation, they were wrong. This little 11-year-old girl. They were no match for an 11-year-old girl. This 11-year- old girl comes in here and so the detective is like um i have reason to believe that you were at the blocks with norma that day a man shouted at some children who were nearby and you both ran away from where brian was found laying in the grass this man will probably know you he'll be able to identify you and mary this 11 year old girl who's being interrogated goes he'd have to have pretty good eyesight what and the detective's like

what why would he have to have good eyesight and mary's like uh because i was at my house. Oh. Oh. Woo! The sassiest murderer of all time. Pretty clever of him to see me when I wasn't there. Then she stood up and she was like, I'm out of here. This is ridiculous. I'm not going to make any statements. I've given you enough already. and you don't believe me anyway. You just believe Norma. And she's a liar, not me.

She's always trying to get me in trouble. Yeah, this girl's 11! Oh, my gosh. Yeah, Norma's a liar. She's always trying to get me in trouble. Classic Norma. Right? It was almost 3.30 in the morning when Mary left the station and investigators had gotten nowhere with her. The lead investigator

began to question himself, second guess himself. Maybe she was telling the truth. Maybe he was looking at the wrong girl. Those doubts and questions would all be squashed soon, though. On the day of Brian Howe's funeral, August 7th, 1968, Mary stood out in front of Brian's house, waiting for the casket to be brought out. When it was, she stood there laughing and wringing her hands giddily. So she's like laughing and like Mr. Burns-ing her hands. The detective was there. He saw it all. And it was all he needed to see. He was like, this is it. Mary is the killer. No question about it. But he also knew that he couldn't wait much longer to arrest her or she would harm someone else. And he didn't believe that Brian was the first victim of hers.

No. No, of course not. So Mary Bell was brought in for more questioning shortly after Brian's funeral. This time, she gave an official signed statement where she attempted to place most of the blame on her best friend, Norma. She admitted to being present for the murder, but claimed it was all Norma's doing. She said Norma had lured Brian behind the big blocks with a promise of sweets, and then when he got there, she grabbed him by the throat and then massaged and squeezed it

until he stopped breathing. Oh, God. So the lead detective saw her statement as a thinly veiled attempt to cast the blame onto Norma. But he thought that she knew too many details. She knew too much for it to not be true. Like for it to be. She had firsthand knowledge of how this kid was killed, not be true. Yeah. Like for it to be. She had firsthand knowledge. Yeah.

Of how this kid was killed. Not just she witnessed it. He was like, I'm not believing it. You're the murderer. So as soon as she entered that signed statement, he placed her under arrest and charged her with the murder of Brian Howe. And Mary Bell was like, that's all right with me. And like shrugged it off as if it was some bit of inconsequential news.

Not that she'd just been charged with murder. Oh my gosh. They also arrested Norma. Because they weren't sure that she wasn't involved. They were pretty sure that the two had worked together. Right. So they bring Norma in. And they arrest her and charge her with the murder right now.

And she, like, freaks the fuck out. She's like, I never. Oh, my goodness. I could not have had part in this. And then she, like, gets mad. And she's like, I will pay you back for this. She says this to who? The detective who charges

her with murder okay so now that mary and norma were in custody the detective decided that he better take a better look at the suspicious death of martin brown that had taken place just weeks earlier now remember his cause of death had been undetermined, but his death was believed to be just some kind of accident. Yeah. But the detective wasn't so sure now. And what he uncovered in his investigation was shocking. Had anyone acted on any of the things that had gone on after Martin's death,

Brian would probably still be alive. Four-year-old Martin had last been seen at 3.15 on May 25th, and his body was found by 3.30. So just like 15 minutes. Wow, that's nothing. Yeah. He was found dead in a boarded-up abandoned house that was in ill repair.

And guess who just happened to be nearby when the body was located? Why, Mary and Norma, of course. Police had found no signs of violence when they found the body, but they did find an empty aspirin bottle nearby. So they thought perhaps he had taken them all or something. With not a mark on the body the criminal investigation unit wasn't even called in and the death was ruled accidental so they look at the body and they're like well it doesn't look like anybody killed this kid so he must have taken those pills yeah

remember this is a four-year-old yeah the four-year-old's going to take a bottle of pills? Maybe. Yeah. I mean, you hear about stories about kids going to the emergency room because they got into some medicine. I guess that's true. I mean, it's possible. And this was a different time, so they didn't have child safety bottles. That's true. That is true.

But in the days after Martin's death, Mary's behavior grew increasingly odd. She told Norma that she had killed Martin by massaging his neck. And even declared on the playground at school, I am a murderer. Oh my God. But her claims were laughed off. Yeah. Then Mary and Norma began pestering Martin's family. They would knock on Martin's aunt's door constantly and ask her repeatedly if she missed Martin, if she cried for Martin.

Oh, my God. Like several times a day day like all these questions but again this was just brushed off as odd behavior by young girls who were struggling with the loss of a kid in their neighborhood oh my gosh then one day mary went to martin mother's house. And when she answered the door, Mary asked to see Martin. So June, Martin's mother, smiled sweetly and said, no, pet, I'm sorry. Martin's not here. Martin's dead. And Mary goes, oh, yeah, I know he's dead. I want to see him in his coffin. Oh, my God. Oh, this is so messed up. Yeah. This is so gross.

Yeah. So June's smile dropped immediately. She was speechless. She slammed the door in Mary's face. But again, this behavior was written off as poor behavior by an unsupervised girl. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, God.

That is so creepy. So creepy. Oh, no, that is so creepy. So creepy. Oh, no, I know he's dead. I just want to see his body in the coffin. And then there was the vandalized nursery school. A couple of days after Martin's death, the workers at a nursery

school in the neighborhood came in to find that the place had been ransacked and four notes had been left behind. They read, I murder so that I may come back. Fuck off. We murder. So watch out. We did murder Martin Brown. Fuck off, you bastard. Wow. You are mice. Why? Because we murdered Martinin brown you better look out there are murderers about so the police were called in and the police took in the notes as evidence but again they wrote it off as a sick joke it wasn't taken seriously oh well okay this stuff's adding up i'm starting to think maybe they're definitely adding definitely adding up. They overlook too much. Maybe each individual case is not enough to think maybe there's something weird here,

but you got to take all this stuff together. Yeah. That same day, Mary drew a picture of a body in her school notebook. Good grief. It was drawn in the same position which Martin had been found, and there was a bottle of aspirin drawn next to it. school notebook good grief it was drawn in the same position which martin had been found and there was a bottle of aspirin drawn next to it mary's teacher didn't seem to find anything odd at all about the drawing just totally normal stuff that kids draw kristin okay but some kids do draw

weird things yeah um but yeah just like the exact position of a body that was just found a couple days before. Did the teacher, well, yeah, they're in a small community. Yeah. Yeah, that's okay. I'm out of excuses for these adults. I tried. I'm tapping out here. here after all of these discoveries by the detective he knew that mary and norma had to be involved with the murder of martin brown no shit they were charged with his murder as well

their trial began december 5, 1968 and lasted nine days. Were they tried together? They were tried together. Media attention grew throughout the trial and by the last day, the courtroom was filled with press. So all the articles about this say like this was nothing in comparison to like what a media spectacle is now and in cases like this but it was unheard of at the time just the room was just filled with press from all over prosecutor rudolph lyons opened the trial by recounting all of the suspicious behavior the girls had exhibited since the discovery of martin's body he said that whoever

had killed brian howe had without a doubt also killed martin brown and he pointed out that those murderers were there in the courtroom a handwriting expert testified that the notes left at the nursery were pinned by both mary and norm. They alternated lines in the notes. Yeah. So they were both involved in the writing of every note. Specifically, the line, I murder because I come back, or I murder to come back. Yeah. I murder so that I may come back was written in norma's

handwriting this is a little bit of a big reveal at trial because it was really believed at this point that norma had very little involvement and mary was by far the ringleader. Right. But a weird thing for someone to write who was claiming to have no involvement at all. Yeah. So there was quite a bit of evidence implicating Mary.

She had explained exactly how the boys had been murdered, something the prosecution pointed out repeatedly at trial, and something they asked her about

directly when she took the stand. And Mary was composed. She handled the questioning well. She explained that everything she knew about the deaths of the boys were just rumors that she heard around town and that they just happened to be true. Oh.

But in addition to all the knowledge that she had, fibers that matched her dress were found on both of the bodies she had two different dresses that they were able to like match wool fibers from that were found on the clothing of the boys yeah norma also took the stand in her own defense and she swore that she had nothing to do with the murders in fact both girls denied any responsibility for the murder of martin but both admitted they had been with brian on the day he died and each blamed the other for his murder norma described in great detail how mary had told brian to lay down on the grass and then had squeezed and massaged his throat and pinched his nose until he turned blue and died.

Mary's defense, without taking responsibility for either murder, did offer an explanation as to her odd and morbid behavior around the murders, like asking to see the bodies and all that. Mary was a psychopath. Clean and simple. Clean and simple? Clear and simple. Plain and simple?

Plain and simple. Mary was a psychopath. Plain and simple. You know, that phrase that everybody says. And by no fault of her own. She'd had a terrible childhood where her mother was a prostitute. She didn't know who her father was. And she'd been sexually abused from the age of four by her mother's clients.

None of this surprises me. Not in the least. Yeah, you would have to have been so messed up from such a young age to do that. She was also a chronic bed wetter, which backs up the sexual abuse story. Very common effect of a child who's suffering sexual abuse. And when her mother would find out that she'd wet the bed, she would rub her face in it. And then she'd hang the mattress out of Mary's bedroom window for everyone to see. Oh, God.

Terrible. As the closing arguments neared, the judge explained to the jury that if they chose to believe Mary's defense that she was a psychopath, but still believed that she might have some responsibility in these murders, they would need to consider the possibility of diminished responsibility. The judge explained this concept to the jury. So in 1957, there was an act of parliament, and it said that where a person kills or is a party to the killing of another, he shall not be convicted of murder if he was suffering from such an abnormality of the mind as to substantially impair his mental stability for his acts. So basically he's saying if the jury believes the defense, if they think, yes, Mary's a psychopath and that she's a psychopath because of this and this and this that happened to her in her childhood. But yes, we also believe that she murdered these two boys.

They can find her guilty of a lesser charge by reason of diminished responsibility yeah so basically insanity basically yeah okay not not entirely the same as right because it's not finding her not guilty right right so in closing arguments the prosecution painted mary as a fiend and Norma as her willing accomplice. The prosecutor said, in Norma, you have a simple, backward girl of subnormal intelligence. In Mary, you have a most abnormal child, aggressive, vicious, cruel, incapable of remorse. A girl moreover possessed of a dominating personality with a somewhat unusual intelligence and a degree of cunning that is almost terrifying.

In an attempt to kind of save Mary from being cast off as a bad seed, the defense posed a broader question. Why did this happen? What made Mary do it? It is very easy to revile a little girl without pausing for a moment to ponder how the whole sorry situation has come about. And so he's like asking the jury, like, okay, basically we're conceding at this point. Like, obviously she's going to beceding at this point like obviously she's

going to be found guilty yeah but look at what she's been through yeah and i think that's fair i do too the jury uh made up of five women and seven men took under four hours to return a verdict what's your what's your guess for Norma and Mary? Hmm. Norma's guilty. Mary is guilty by reason of diminished capacity? Diminished responsibility? Diminished responsibility.

Norma was found not guilty. What? Mm-hmm. Wow. And Mary Bell was found guilty of manslaughter due to diminished capacity diminished responsibility for both martin and brian's deaths um she was sentenced to detention for life what's that mean it means that she can be um held for an undetermined amount of time in like a psychiatric facility no in a prison oh so she had a life sentence a life sentence

basically yes norma bell was was given three years probation for breaking and entering to the nursery school she was found guilty of that. They actually charged her with that separately. She really got off easy. Yeah, I think she got off really easy. But they seemed to really believe that she was of a lower intelligence level than Mary and that Mary had manipulated her to be involved in these two murders.

Okay. Do you think that's not possible? Oh, it's definitely possible to be manipulated and stuff like that. But I just, I'm, gosh, I'm just surprised. They said in a bunch of stuff that I read that like while mary was younger normal was two years older than her mary was by far the more mature one oh well you can tell by the way oh 100 yeah i mean yeah yeah so mary's sentenced to life and she's an 11 year old girl oh gosh they have nowhere to put her

oh they can't put her in a regular prison they don't have a women's children's prison so they sent her to an all boys reform school oh no yeah oh where she continued to be sexually abused over the next several years. Oh, my God. Yeah. Do you want to guess? So she's been released. Do you want to guess how many years she served before she was released? Oh, God.

Fifteen? What? Close. I was doing math. Oh i was like close 12 years okay she served 12 years before she was released and then she was granted anonymity they gave her a new identity wow they gave her a new identity and that also protection also carried over to any children that she had until they reached the age of 18. And then their identities were no longer protected. Why don't they get. So here that's actually she ended up having to go back to court for this and ask. She had a daughter.

She ended up having a daughter, I think, in 1984. And actually, so she got out in 80. She had a daughter in 84. And it was actually a ward of the state until like 1992. They wouldn't let her have sole custody over her child. She wasn't deemed. There was like a lot of legal battles over if somebody who was a child murderer could have a child and all of this stuff

and so until she though she raised her her whole life she always had custody of her she wasn't she was officially a ward of the state until 1992 that's interesting i think it's really interesting okay so this daughter's anonymity was only protected until she turned 18 and then mary had to go back to court and ask that it be extended and so she did actually they the mary bell order is specifically like a law that protects them for life yeah so in 1998 a book came out about mary where she was interviewed and she was paid to be a part of the research for this book. And people were pissed about it. Yeah.

That she was paid for her story. She was going to profit for her story. Even the prime minister, who was Tony Blair at the time, made a big statement about it, about how he was going to work to change laws to make sure that wouldn't happen in the future and they did so there's a big serial killer who uh i think his name's dennis nelson who was convicted like right around that same time i guess and they made it for him that he couldn't profit off of his good crimes and stuff oh absolutely so yeah mary's daughter had no idea what who she was until the public found out where they were and found out yeah so when that book came out like the press really became obsessed

with it they became obsessed with finding out who mary was they came to her house one day like just somebody rang her doorbell and it was the press and then like all of the reporters came to their house and they had to like leave under like bed sheets and stuff. I mean, her daughter had no idea who she was until that day. That poor daughter. Yeah. So Martin's mother has said that she doesn't think it's fair that she got to have a new life. Hmm.

What do you think? I think she was 11 and she'd been abused on a level that I can't even imagine. Imagine, yeah. And I think then having to go be in a boy's... Oh, gosh. I mean, I get that they didn't know where to put her but that was not the right choice no not at all yeah yeah so mary bell is the tineside strangler wow what's the more 11 year old there's nowhere by her name mary bell okay i don't know that anybody calls her the time it's like one of her akas on Wikipedia. I'd never heard it before.

I just heard this of the case of Mary Bell. God, that was awful. Awful. Yeah. Ooh, thanks for that. No problem. Ooh, that was chilling. Yeah.

I am with you on the craziness of just three-year-old kids wandering around the neighborhood just playing. And then I do think she had a terrible life. I mean, I get that. It definitely brings up the question of like the nature versus nurture. Like, would she have done this anyway? Or was she groomed to be a psychopath? Groomed, for sure.

For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. uh groomed for sure for sure yeah oh man those kids are playing on a trampoline over there we used to play on the trampoline you and i both had trampolines growing up we were hashtag blessed yeah i had the basement that doubled as a skating rink. Yeah. Yeah. Trampolines are the best. Man, they were a good time. I really, there are certain things that I wish it was socially acceptable

for adults to have. Like, why can't adults have trampolines in their backyard? Let me tell you a super embarrassing story about a trampoline. Did you pee yourself on a trampoline? No, goodness gracious. It happens. did you pee yourself on a trampoline no goodness gracious it happens i um

a while back was looking to do a workout that might be you know more fun than just my typical walking i do a lot of walking but it gets really boring and so i was like let me see if i can you know pump up the jam do something that's going to be you know more fun did you buy one of those mini no i wish that's what i did oh my god what'd you do so i'm looking online for like alternative workouts and i find out that sky zone the kids trampoline park right you heard of this place yeah so it's like a place where kids go and there's like all these trampolines they jump all over the place whatever offers skyrobics an aerobics class on the trampolines it sounds so fun it does sound really fun doesn't it so my friend and i go to this uh-huh tasha she's my cousin's wife so we go to this we call it

trampersize we're like we're going to trampersize like we get really excited so we go to this we call it tramper size we're like we're going to tramper size like we get really excited so we go to this class and somehow it didn't list that there were varying degrees of difficulty on the schedule oh no somehow the class we picked was the advanced class and it was like all 16 year old cheerleaders in the class working on their jumps oh no it was horrible i didn't even we made it like through the workout and then i was like excuse me i'm gonna go get some water and we like ran out of that place it was a fucking terrible that is so embarrassing horrible it's horrible so basically uh i can't go back to sky zone so i it's like literally when i went to go get the water the guy that was teaching the class who was also like i don't know like a professional yell leader or something yeah yeah was like okay but make sure you come back like

he totally knew what i was doing he called me the number sister it's terrible was he like what squad are you on i was like listen buddy i looked up the schedule and didn't say anything about this being an advanced fucking class oh my god i don't need this girl who can like jump and touch the fucking ceiling like it's terrible um kyla has dragged me to a few classes that first of all i can't follow choreography yeah i can run and that's about it i can't clap to a beat so i end up looking so stupid in any class i'm at there's this one i won't say the name of it but basically i wanted to die halfway through. Not even halfway through. It's one of those things. You're there for 60 minutes, and you're like,

if there was a little man who came up to me and was like, hey, I'll let you out of here, but you have to run a marathon. I would have done it. Was it Zumba? No. I would never do Zumba. Group classes, turns out, not for me. I need to work out in the privacy of my own home.

Yeah. What do you do? Do you do, like, videos? Jane Fonda? Maybe. I used to love Jane Fonda. Yeah, I don't actually do Jane Fonda anymore, but there's, like, all kinds of workout videos on YouTube,

and so I just pick one. Oh, I'm sorry. I don't have my VHS Jane Fonda. Someone has uploaded them to youtube gotta tell you well it's working because jane fonda is like 82 years old and looks amazing so i mean she's clearly had a lot of work done well sure but still i hope i can look anywhere close to that at 82 i'd like like to look like that now. I mean, she looks really, really good. She does look really good. Yeah.

Yeah. And also, she's always wearing false eyelashes, which I think is the key. Oh, 100%. Yeah. Yeah. And a big, thick swab of black eyeliner. Oh, yeah. And then she's got, like, she always has big hair.

Oh, well, yeah. Yeah. Can't have flat, crappy hair. Mm-mm. Let me, excuse Oh, well, yeah. Yeah. Can't have flat, crappy hair. Let me, excuse me. Let me. I slept in coconut oil last night. I love it. Thank you.

I thought you smelled nutty. Really? Do you have a story to tell her? I'm trying to think. Like last, last week we forgot a bunch of stories and we were pissed. And we were like, we've got to write these down. My dad is very excited to be a guest on the podcast. Excellent.

He is pumped. He found an episode of Dateline that has inspired him. Wonderful. So I'm thinking maybe sometime in December. Love it. He'll want to record with us? Excellent. I said, okay, here's the deal.

For our guest episodes, we like to do themes. Because he was trying to not tell me anything. Yes, we got to go something so we can do a little bit of a theme. That's not the way we work. Brandi and I try to give each other just enough so that we're not doing the same thing. So I asked, okay, what theme could your episode go under? Cheaters. Ooh.

So we're going to be doing a cheaters episode. Love it. In the next few weeks. Excellent. Featuring the man, the myth. The legend, Daryl Pitts. I could not wait for that. He'll be here, cheap shoes on.

Woo, cheap shoes and all. I can't wait to confront him. About what? Him. His feedback on the podcast? No. About what he called us when the podcast first came out. Oh, my God.

Oh. Yeah, tell everybody so okay so when when like our we posted our very first episode of the podcast everybody was really excited for us all of our family members whatever and so a bunch of people were sharing it on their facebook pages and so daryl shared the podcast and he said my daughter kristin and her long longterm friend have started a podcast. Long term. That's you might as well say lesbian lover. That is for sure.

How it sounded because everybody else was like, Oh, you know, like Kristen and her BFF, like that kind of thing. And my dad says long term friend. And it just sounds like he and my mom are really struggling yeah like this is kristin and her special friend we're pretty upset about it we're

trying to be supportive they are roommates um for some reason there's only one bed in their place so we don't we don't get it but we are we're trying to. Yeah, that's exactly what it sounded like. Kristen and her long-term friend. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Yeah, we should call him out on that. We definitely need to confront him about that. And then I don't know how this guest episode is going to go because one of his earliest pieces of feedback

is that our episodes are very very long yeah he hates how long our episodes are so i guess we'll just have to edit his stuff we'll just yeah we'll just edit him out it's fine anyway i'm looking forward to it i think it'll be kristen yeah let me tell you i'm happy to be your long-term friend me too it's uh i mean you might be my longest relationship let me think i mean other than like people i'm related to yeah yeah no for sure yeah yeah absolutely yeah same wow that's weird we are long-term friends we are long-term friends listen We are long-term friends. Listen, folks, if you feel like you're our long-term friend, we appreciate it. Thanks for listening.

You know, okay. I know you're trying to wrap up. No, it's fine. No, take it down. But the last time I was at the salon, Doreen was at the salon the same time I was. She's a listener of the podcast. And she said, I feel like I know you. Yes.

And I was thinking about that i'm like man if someone has listened to this podcast they do know they do know us they know a lot about us they know too much about us yes yeah so stuff listen i mean thanks for hanging in there with all the stuff you know about us guys thank you for being a part of our long-term friendship. And if you haven't already, please join us on social media. We're on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Tinder. No, we're not on those last two. That's fake.

That's fake news. Fake news. Okay. But if you haven't already, please give us a review. Yeah. Leave us a rating. Leave us a review on iTunes. We're still working towards that 100 goal.

So that would be awesome if you could help us out there. And then join us next week. When we'll be experts on two whole new topics. Podcast adjourned. And now for a note about our process. I read a bunch of stuff, then regurgitate it all back up in my very limited vocabulary. And I copy and paste from the best sources on the web,

and sometimes Wikipedia. So we owe a huge thank you to the real experts. For this episode, I got my info from the strange and fabulous documentary, Finders Keepers. And I got my info from Crime Library, Murderpedia, The Observer, 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.