Let's Go To Court! - 50: The Wood Chipper Murder & a Robbery Gone Wrong

Episode Date: January 9, 2019

If there was one thing Helle Crafts’ friends knew for certain, it was that Helle’s husband Richard was a violent sketch ball. So when she didn’t show up for work one day, they got suspicious. Richard’s explanations were less than reassuring. Was she visiting her mother in Denmark? Or was she with a friend on vacation? The story kept changing, but one thing remained the same — Helle was nowhere to be found. Then Brandi continues her Johnson County, Kansas, series with a robbery gone terribly wrong. It all started at the She’s a Pistol gun store in Shawnee, Kansas. Becky Bieker owned the store with her husband Jon. She was behind the counter on January 9, 2015 when four teenagers entered the store. Two of them were armed. One of the teens punched Becky, knocking her unconscious. Shortly afterward, Jon came out of a back room, gun drawn. A gun battle ensued. Later, one of the teens’ lawyers mounted an… interesting legal defense. 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: “50-year sentence imposed in wood chipper murder,” New York Times “Wood Chipper Murder” Crime Library “The Disappearance of Helle Crafts” episode of Forensic Files “23 years ago Richard Crafts was more willing to part with his wife than his money,” NewsTimes.com “Crafts unconcerned at wife’s disappearance, her friends say,” Hartford Courant “Chopped to bits,” Daily News “Richard Crafts denies killing his wife, says he believes she is alive,” Hartford Courant In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Owner Killed, Three Shot in Attempted Robbery at Gun Shop” Associated Press, NBC News “Co-owner of Shawnee gun shop dies; three suspects shot during attempted robbery” by Michelle Pekarsky and Megan Brilley, Fox 4 “Suspect in ‘She’s A Pistol’ murder to plead guilty, while 3 alleged accomplices prepare for murder trial” by Michelle Pekarsky, For 4 KC “Four Charged With Murder In Gardner Man’s Death” Danedri Thompson, The Gardner News “She’s a Pistol gun store in Shawnee is closing” by Tony Rizzo, The Kansas City Star “Judge denies defendant’s self-defense claim in She’s a Pistol killing” by Tony Rizzo, The Kansas City Star “Owner of She’s A Pistol tearfully announces store’s closure amid mounting expenses” by Shannon O’Brien, Fox 4 KC “Trial begins for ‘She’s A Pistol’ gunman who claimed he shot store owner in self-defense” by Kerri Stowell, FOX 4 KC “On day three of his trial, She’s A Pistol suspect pleads guilty as charged” by Nick Sloan and Natalie Davis, KCTV5 “One man convicted for role in deadly shooting at ‘She’s A Pistol’ sentenced to ‘Hard 25’ for murder” by Andrew Lynch, FOX 4 Kc

One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts. I'm Kristen Pitts. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court. On this episode, I'll talk about the Woodchipper murder. And I'll be talking about a robbery gone horribly wrong.

Everything in your cases goes horribly wrong. I'm sorry, do you want me to talk about bunnies and rainbows? There's tons of court cases about bunnies and rainbows. You know, I would love that actually. Is there like a My Little Pony lawsuit? Brandi, it's been a while. It has been. Glad to be back. Feels like home. I mean, is home free? Feels super homey to me I feel like I could just get in bed right now you've been off traveling the world I've been seeing 8 million

family members yeah you're on the world tour of Johnson County that's right I flew to Florida for a wedding a beautiful wedding what a beautiful wedding sorry What a beautiful wedding. Sorry. Wow.

Was the bride a whore? Oh, God. That's the next lyric in that song. Oh, shit. Okay, I'm cutting this. No, so my cousin Jenny got married to a wonderful guy named Rob. Excellent. Very exciting.

Happy wedding. Happy wedding. Best witches. Best witches to both of you. May your marriage be spooky and fabulous. And I'm going first this one. You are? I'm so glad that you remember.

Because I know numbers. That's right. Are you familiar with this one? Only because somebody tweeted us it, right? You are so right. And the person who tweeted us was Kate. I'm not going to say her full name because I don't know if she wants me to say her full name. Kate reached out to us on Twitter.

That got caught in my throat. Kate. Kate. Thank you, Kate. Thanks, Kate. Thanks, Kate. Anyway, Kate reached out to us on Twitter, and she was like, hey, have you guys thought about doing the murder slash disappearance of Hela Crafts? And I was like, ooh. I had never heard of it.

I didn't know about it. I'm pretty sure. So I watched an episode. Bull this bullshit this couldn't be bad i was trying to like loosen them up looked like you were trying to get down a grapefruit in one that's what you did. Now are you thinking about the grapefruiting video? Yes. Should we talk about that or is that too horrifying?

Yes. Okay, if you've seen the grapefruiting video, you 100% know what we're talking about. Yes, you do. If you haven't, you've got to do yourself a favor. Not at work. Not at work. Not safer work at all. Do it with headphones on and like a blanket over your phone so nobody sees what you're looking at.

It's this woman who is demonstrating what she claims is a great blowjob technique. It involves a grapefruit. Norman showed it to us and we were for the first like 45 seconds we were like the hell are you showing us but if you hang in there it is hilarious the noises yes my god yeah you gotta listen volume up uh anyway anyway that was relevant okay so hella crafts yeah here we go okay you were actually like on the way to tell us something oh right okay hang on we got distracted so i watched an episode

of forensic files for this and i'm pretty sure it's like the first forensic files episode ever ever yeah it's like episode one i think so wow i did here's the thing i did all the research and writing for this before florida now it's after florida so i'm a little fuzzier on the details i'm pretty sure it's the first episode excellent okay pretty sure it's a murder that happened uh the defense says it's a disappearance so who knows in the fall of 1986 hang on no i'm talking about what's that noise in the background oh i just did a load of laundry maybe that's it oh it's on spin cycle i bet okay i'm sure it won't pick it up but okay According to Norman, nothing will be picked up by the mics.

Tons of stuff is picked up by the mics. Yes, yes. He's always wrong. If you listen closely on the last episode, when we were like, I don't know if it was the last episode or episode before. I don't know. Some former episode where we ask if Norm is yelling at the top of his lungs. If you listen closely, you can actually hear him.

And you know, here's the crazier thing if you listen to our episodes backwards you can hear the best witches wishing you good wishes on your marriage check it out folks you won't be disappointed okay back to it In the fall of 1986, 39-year-old Hela Crafts had a problem. She was unhappy in her marriage. She suspected her husband Richard was having an affair, and she was pretty sure she knew who he was cheating on her with. So Hela got an attorney. She hired Diane M. Anderson, and she told Diane,

Look, I'm the mother of three young children. I'm pretty sure my husband is cheating on me. He's also been violent with me. I want out. And Diane said, okay, first things first. If you suspect that he's cheating, let's get to the bottom of that. We can hire a detective from

the Mayo Detective Agency. And the detective can determine whether or not... is that a song you're making up on this no it's from bedazzled it's a really you watch bedazzled no like a million years ago when it came out we watched it together we i have never seen bedazzled we saw it in the theater elizabeth hurley is the devil brendan frazier has like i don't know 10 wishes you wish you saw you saw that alone in the theater just like you saw beauty and the beast you were there we were in middle school and we saw bedazzled yeah what movie do you think it is

no i i'm pretty sure i okay i'm gonna be honest at first i thought you were talking about that christina aguilera and share a movie burlesque but now i'm with you i know which which movie you're talking about and we 100 saw it in the theater here's why you're here's why you're probably right there were only so many things to do in johnson county growing up it was either go to oak park mall or go to the movies. Or hang out in my basement. And you know, you've got a few days in the week. Once you do the Oak Park Mall, once you do...

What was the name of that movie theater? Westland. Sorry. Didn't realize you had an ownership. It's called something else now. It's called B&B Theater Shawnee 18. Kate, do you guys want to do a tour of our lives? We recommend the popcorn.

Anyway, how do we get on that? Mayo, mayo, mayo. Oh, yeah, thank you for that. Pretty soon, private investigator Keith Mayo was on the case. Hella provided Keith with a pretty big lead. She said, I've been looking at our phone records, and there's one number that keeps popping up. It's a long-distance number, and I don't know who it's for. Keith immediately got started, and this was not a tough case to crack.

Richard definitely had a girlfriend, and that phone number belonged to her. So Keith goes out, he takes a ton of pictures of the two of them, and, you know, he got pictures of them kissing, pictures of them being affectionate. In other words, cheating for sure. Yes, no doubt about it. Caught red-lipped. You know, because her lipstick came off on his lips.

I gotcha. Yeah. So on a rainy night that fall, Keith took all the evidence to Hella. She was devastated. She sobbed for a solid five or ten minutes. She had suspected something was up, but it was... She's that devastated? She knew it was going on.

Oh, wow. I don't mean... Sorry, that did sound very insensitive. I mean, it's one thing to have suspicions and... You're right. Yeah. Yeah. Good grief.

I'm sorry. That was very insensitive. Can you cut that out? No, I can't. I'm sorry. We don't have the technology. For real, do you want me to cut that out? No, I can't. I'm sorry. We don't have the technology. For real, do you want me to cut that out? No, it's fine.

Everyone who thinks that Brandy is a turd should write it. By the way, we got another email. Guy says he's Team Brandy. And he apologized to me. I want him to know I do not accept. says he's team brandy oh and he apologized to me i want him to know i do not accept so even though she suspected something was up and totally shouldn't have shown any emotion it was hard to have it confirmed they'd been married for 12 years they worked in the same industry uh hella was a flight attendant and richard was a pilot and also a part-time police officer,

which I know. What? I have the same reaction. Those are two jobs I definitely think of. You're one or the other. You're not both. And you're probably full-time on either of those. Yes, yes. All right. I dabble in piloting. I'm no expert now hop aboard yeah so hella was upset but she knew what she had to do she had to file for divorce yeah so she did but this wasn't a standard divorce around rich um no not pilot pilots but i mean he also has a part-time job so he must not be like yeah and i don't know They showed photos of the house. It was just a, you know, a nice like ranch house out in Connecticut. You know, I.

Connecticut, though, like. Very fancy people in Connecticut. And I mean, I think like any house is expensive in Connecticut. Did I ever tell you? So my brother in law, Jay, is from Connecticut. Yeah. And the first time my grandpa met Jay, after the meeting was over, grandpa goes, he has an excellent grasp of the English language.

People from Connecticut, they're fancy. Even if they've got modest-looking homes, very pricey. See, you might be right. They probably did have, you know, good money. It's not your average divorce. Not your average divorce. Around that time, Hela told her friends, if anything ever happens to me, don't think it was an accident.

What? Yeah. That's so scary that she thought yeah something was going to happen if you ever said that to me i would lock you in my basement and no one would be allowed right yeah yeah where's brandy i don't know brandy who never heard of her but you two are long-term friends. I don't know the meaning of that. She said the same thing to her lawyer. I mean, it sounded like she let everyone important in her life know,

something happens to me, please be suspicious. At the same time, Hela decided... Sorry. What the hell was that? It was a throat clear, but I did it right into the microphone. I'm very sorry. It's okay. Around that same time, it happened. Scared the shit out of me.

I'm so easy to scare. This week in Florida, you know, six-year-olds, they want to scare the adults. They want to go, boo. And it never works on any adult because what adult, like, screams. You were playing peek-a-boo and you were legitimately scared. I was sitting out on the deck and Allie just came up to this green door and said, boo. And I about lost my shit. You are too easy to care.

She was very satisfied. Let's see. Good grief. Hella decided to stay in the house while the divorce proceedings were finalized. She told her friend that if she were to leave, Richard would have a, quote, well thought out plan to find me. would have a quote well thought out plan to find me she also said that she was afraid if she moved out she might lose custody of her three children so she stayed in the home and also when you're in an abusive relationship leaving is the most dangerous time so i wonder if she thought for my safety yeah i'm not going to rock the boat too much here. Then, on November 18th, 1986,

Hela arrived home from an international flight. Her best friend dropped her off. A few days later, Hela was scheduled to work. But she didn't show up. Oh, no. Didn't even call in. Oh, no. Yep, her friends were like, oh, shit.

Something has happened to her. He did something to her. They called the Crafts home and they got Richard. But Richard was not worried. He said, oh, Hela flew to Denmark. She visited her mom. Her mom's sick. Mm-hmm.

OK. Where's the tickets? And show me some proof. Give us a phone number. Brandy, calm down. Hey. You know. You're getting real nosy so he stuck to that story for a while and then he changed it

oh yeah well hella is on vacation she's in the canary islands with her best friend did he tell her best friend that? Hela's friends were like, no, no way. She's definitely not. No. And they were all pissed because they all thought they were her best friend. And here she is on vacation with some other bitch. That's exactly. They're like, well, I'm done with her.

And that's why this went unsolved. So they're all getting these different stories. They don't trust Richard. So they called hella's attorney diane they said hella is missing diane by that point was like okay i know hella well enough that she wouldn't just leave her three kids yeah and richard is a massive sketchball so what did Diane do? She called her buddy Keith Mayo of the Mayo Detective Agency. Keith was like, oh,

well, you know, who we should really be calling is the police. Right. So they go to the Newtown Police Department to report Hela missing. But according to Keith, the police really didn't give a shit. Yeah. He said said they turned a deaf ear on us but keith wasn't deterred he was like okay if you don't want to investigate i will

he starts interviewing people and one of the people he talked to was the craft's live-in nanny don thomas can you pause one sure this has nothing to do with the case. What did you look up? Well, that's where Sandy Hook happened. Yeah. That's the only reason I knew how to pronounce Newtown. Yeah. Because to me, it looks like Newton. Newton. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. She had some interesting insight. She said that shortly after

Hella disappeared, she noticed big dark stains on the carpet. And by big, I mean like grapefruit size. Not to bring up the video again, but you know. She mentioned one just inside the master bedroom. That's concerning. Yeah.

She said it was fairly sizable and definitely new. And then, oddly, even though that carpet was fairly new, Richard ripped it out. Mm-hmm. When Don asked him why,

he said that Hela wanted new carpets in there. But Don was like, mm, Hela really liked that carpet. She told me so. Mm-hmm. Keith soon discovered other things. Richard and Hela always had a big freezer in their garage. Is it missing?

Mm-hmm. Because she was inside of it. Then there was Richard's credit card statement. It showed that shortly after Hela went missing, he rented a wood chipper. Oh, no! He bought a deep freezer. He also bought a new comforter for his bed. Oh, no. At at some point the police did

get interested in this case i don't know when but i assume keith was like hey i got all this sketchy information i mean i think the sketchiest item on there is the comforter for the bed because what man that's a good point is buying a comforter for the bedroom i would die of shock and be suspicious as hell if i came back from vacation and norm had like a new duvet yes i'd be like what the fuck yes most suspicious item on that list for sure so like i said at some point police did get interested in the case and they brought richard in for a lie detector test. And he passed. He did? Yeah.

He's a pilot. He's got like nerves of steel. Also a part-time cop. Yeah. He knows how to beat a polygraph. Okay, I wish I could remember what podcast I listened to on this, but it was by the person who created lie detector tests, and he is now a crusader against them

because they're so easy to beat i've heard him speak before yeah yeah i i was fascinated i mean he talked about like you know the person was interviewing him and he was like and they were like well but wouldn't it be kind of difficult and he's like uh no here's how simple it is think of a happy place that calms you. Okay, now anytime I ask you something uncomfortable, think of the happy place. Can you do that? Sure you can. Yep. So anyway, skeptics were like, hmm, he has experience with the police force.

He did a stint with the CIA's Air America. Maybe he's got the skills to pass a lie detector. No, you think? Police are in a bad spot. Hella is missing. And even though a lot of people are saying it has to be Richard, they don't really have, they don't have a body. They don't have anything.

Yeah, because it's been through the wood chipper. Ooh, Brandy. Maybe he was just doing some home improvement. So they called in the director of the connecticut state forensics lab dr henry lee which i had the craziest moment because i read this script and then i re-watched i'm re-watching the staircase on netflix right now um they call him in for that one too yeah huge fan yeah i i might do the staircase oh yeah at some point it's gonna be like a multiple parter though wouldn't it it's such a long it's a really long one but oh my god i love it so much

so do i it's so good do you think he did it i know we've discussed this before but i have questions see norman was making fun of me last night because he's like oh are you watching that thing about the guy who murdered his two wives? And I was like, first of all, the first one was not his wife. It was his friend. Yeah. And yeah, it looks pretty bad. Doesn't look pretty bad, but.

I've got questions. I do. I think there's still questions. Yeah. He. Yeah. Okay. Well, we'll save it.

We'll save it. How about we stop this entirely, talk about a totally different case, and then jump back into this one, huh? So on Christmas Day, 1986, Dr. Lee went with police to search the home. Richard had taken his kids to Florida for the holidays. So police went into the home and poured over everything. The place was a mess. There was missing carpet.

There were bare mattresses on the living room floor. Oh, yeah, just normal stuff. Yeah, because his wife hasn't been home to... But even then, why would mattresses be... Yeah, weird. Yeah, I don't know. Then Dr. Lee found something. Five tiny stains on the mattress.

They were so small that you couldn't see them. But he did. Because he's a trained... And he had his like... I mean like to the naked eye you couldn't really... Do you like how I was using... He did this. I was using my microphone as a microscope.

That's how he did it. I'm sorry. He put a mattress under his microscope. He has a huge novelty microscope. He put the mattress between two glass slides. Why is this so hard to understand? This is science, Brandy. Then Dr. Lee noticed that all the towels were super clean.

They'd all been recently washed. So he gathered them up. When he took them back to the lab he ran some tests and discovered that at one time they'd been soaked with blood then he ran tests on the mattress it was human blood and it was the same blood type as helicrafts so this is before dna stuff so you know he also determined that the blood on the mattress wasn't period blood. It was circulation blood. Uh-huh.

Which would be important. Yeah. Yeah. Because honestly, that was my first thought was like. Yeah. Like that doesn't mean anything necessarily. Yeah. Yeah.

Got blood on my mattress. No one's been killed there. That's too much information, Kristen. Oh, you don't have blood on your mattress? So, I was reading like old articles about this yes there was this one i i want to punch men who are just like about period stuff because this one guy wrote this article and it was like the blood on the mattress was determined to not be from a female medical issue and oh my gosh you can't say were you like menstrual i honestly was like a female medical it what does that mean and then like it took me a minute to be

like oh my gosh that's just like going out of your way to yeah not say period which like by the way it's such a normal thing. Let's all calm down. Anyway. He also determined that because of the blood spatter, it would have had to come when someone with Hella's blood type was kneeling beside the bed. He also found a six-inch smear of blood on the side of the mattress. Based on his expertise and the angle of the splatter, it looked like she'd been hit with a

blunt object then they found the freezer or at least they thought it was the freezer where'd they find it you know i don't know if we'd done this episode like a week ago i'm sure i would remember but i don't anymore that's. I could tell you all about the wedding. They had, I love it when people do this, the little things of tomato basil soup with little grilled cheeses. So good. On closer inspection, the freezer they found was old. It wasn't the one that he just recently purchased.

Oh, God. But was it the one that they always had in their garage? Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. So there's, so he has purchased

two freezers. I know. Why, so where's the other one? Did he need two? Did she not fit in one? Hmm. Hmm.

So many questions. Oh. Will we ever find out? You better not. There better be answers to all these questions at the end kristin you are not great about wrapping things up you know what i'm really not i have noticed when i go back like i have this habit of being like let's table this come back to it later we never do no so from now on if i say that i will call you on it thank you because

there have been some things that like i've had some brilliant insight that we've just not gotten to. I'm missing out on it. Because I brilliantly forgot it. Which is weird because I'm such a stable genius. Okay, buddy. By the way, Happy New Year to all my haters. Oh, really? It's not funny.

It's not. It's really just depressing. You have to laugh so you don't cry. I think even just like if it was just we have a president who tweets in all caps, that would be alarming enough. Yeah. But anyway, this concludes the political part if it was like a selfie of him with his like blue blockers on he was like blocking out the hater you know what then i would at least think he was funny but it's bad when someone's like you know if the haters and you

feel like they are really serious oh Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, OK. Let's continue on. OK. Can't talk about this anymore. OK. Where was the new freezer? Where was it?

But more importantly, where was the body? Yeah. And where was the weapon? Police needed more. They looked back at the time period when Hella went missing and remembered that it had snowed that week. So they talked to every snowplow driver they could find. And one of them had some very interesting info. He said that he'd seen a man in an orange poncho

using a wood chipper over a bridge with a U-Haul parked nearby at 3 30 in the morning that's not suspicious at all i you know okay this was before cell phones obviously so i feel like we gotta yeah cut him some slack but don't you think there's some things you see that you would just immediately be like i'm to let the police know. Yeah. And that might be one of them. Police searched the riverbed, but all they found were wood chips. But then buried amidst the wood chips was a piece of mail.

It was addressed to Hella Crafts, 5 Newfield Lane, Newton, Connecticut. You want to look it up? Newtown, Connecticut. Newtown. Thank you. God. Yeah.

What is it? 5 Newfield Lane. Newfield is all one word. Hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Seeing a tree. See what I mean?

It's a nice house. It's not a chunk of property it looks you know what you're right they they probably were pretty yeah well off yeah can you imagine like surely if you live in one of these places it's like a 50 discount right don't you think i feel like in real estate there should be like and there's a 50% discount for how creepy it is

to live in this home would you live in that place would you live in the Amityville horror house oh yeah just because I think the house is beautiful so it all depends on how beautiful the house is

yeah you're not that I'm not into this house yeah I'm with you yeah i don't know that i could live in a place where something like that had happened i think i could i'm very basic white girl about vibes you know i'm picking up on some weird vibes i think it's because i read a bunch of stories in a newspaper people were murdered here i mean if i looked at the house and like felt something weird while i was there i probably wouldn't live there but what if you were in there looking at it everything seemed fine you felt like okay you know whatever

someone has obviously burned sage in here and then you felt a tap on the shoulder. I would have run out of air. And it was me. Okay, so they find this piece of mail addressed to Hello Crafts, which, okay, I just made this big show about how, oh, we're going to talk about stuff later. No, I'm going to say this right now. The defense attorney later says, I couldn't find out if he said this at the trial or if he said it just to the media, but he claimed that that was planted there by police. I do think that's possible. Totally possible. Because, yeah, why would I mean, how small are the wood chips? Exactly.

And how is the address staying intact underwater so they said that this was actually out oh like on the bank but here's the thing so i'm going to tell you the other things they found they found hair they found tiny bone fragments they found a gray piece of metal which was determined later to be like part of a crown yeah so they find all these tiny tiny things but they also find mail yeah like a completely intact address label yeah and i feel for them because like they don't have a body maybe it was planted by the ghost of hello what's her name crafts no i i was kind of like it was like in that movie you know the one bedazzled burlesque glitter um what lies beneath oh we loved that movie didn't we oh man oh we about lost our shit in that movie you did oh man have you watched it as an adult it's

probably one of those things that sucks as an adult no i still like it it's really good okay yeah there's like some good like suspenseful moments yeah yeah what the way you said that did you ever watch jiminy click yeah the way you said that did you ever watch jiminy glick yeah you said that suspenseful moments you had like a little wiggle you know how he would sit in his chair just like thank you you're telling me i look like jiminy glick you asshole that's a huge compliment i don't think so so they found blonde hair tiny bone fragments a gray piece of metal and then as the snow was melting they found a painted fingernail oh yeah was it her color yeah it okay going from memory here it matched the nail polish that was on her nightstand

yeah that's not great no well whose side are you on well it's not great for hella probably means she was a wood chipper okay fair fair yeah you're right you're totally right the good idea is that she's in holland or in saint what's its butt where saint bart's saint what's its butt everyone's favorite travel destination the police sent divers into the river they found a chainsaw with the serial number scratched off when they got it back to the lab there was human tissue in the chain of course there was and some blue fibers that matched the blue five fibers they'd found along the riverbed

so they had this theory like she had a favorite night shirt that she would wear that was blue so their theory was that she when she got home okay i was about to say we'll get to it later no i'm breaking this habit now that when she got home that night she put on her blue night shirt and stuck mail in the front pocket what yeah i know right yeah there's why would you do that in her front pocket so i think that's why i'm i'm kind of with the defense on this because like of the because like that just doesn't make sense to me and then for it to come out of this wood chipper intact i think that they were like this is plenty but maybe it's not enough for a jury here. Let's put a little sugar on top with this.

That's exactly what I think. I mean, I don't think, I don't think they got the wrong guy, but, but I definitely think. Yeah. Pour some sugar on me. What? No! I think that's what they were singing as they planted the evidence. It kind of sucked that the serial number was mysteriously missing from the chainsaw.

But turns out, the forensic team didn't really need it. They applied a chemical solution onto the scratched serial number, and the solution ate away at the first few layers of scratches, and unearthed the serial number. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. It was 592-1616. Did you just make that up right now? No, it's the real serial number. Isn't that kind of cool?

Yeah. And wouldn't you know that a Mr. Richard B. Crafts had sent in a warranty card for a chainsaw with that exact serial number. How does he explain that? Hold on tight for the trial. They examined all the hair they found. More than 2,000 hairs. Many of them looked like they'd been cut, but not by scissors. By a wood chipper or a chainsaw. Yep. And they determined that Hella's hair was microscopically similar to the hair in the riverbed.

Okay, which this microscopically similar stuff, I just started watching An Innocent Man on Netflix. Turns out all I do is just watch stuff on Netflix. I think that's been kind of debunked. It has been. Yeah. Have you watched Bird Box? No, but everyone's talking about it.

Good. Mm-hmm. I enjoyed it very much. Tell me a little bit about it. I can't tell you anything about it. Okay, why is everyone like that? They're like... You don't want to know anything going in.

It's a horror movie, right? Yeah. But it's not, like, I don't want to know anything going in. It's a horror movie, right? Yeah. But it's not like gory. Okay. It's really good. I enjoyed it very much. You going to say that a third time? Did I already say that?

You're limited because you can't say anything more, right? I don't want to tell you too much. Okay, don't tell me anything. So they determined that Hela's hair was microscopically similar to the hair in the riverbed which has been debunked blood spatter also been debunked by the way blood spatter yeah really yeah widely debunked when pretty recently it's still used but there's lots of questions about how i was gonna say the staircase that i'm watching right now i'm i'm all there's i think it's still used, but there's lots of questions about how I was going to say the staircase that I'm watching right now.

I'm, I'm all there. I think it's just kind of like, they're just now like, do we know as much as we think we know? Is it really as consistent as we believe it is? Yeah. Oh,

I'm disturbed. Yeah. And that painted fingernail, they could prove that she had the same nail polish sitting on her- On her nightstand? See, this is why I table everything. But this was before DNA testing. Yeah.

So they couldn't say for 100% certainty that it was Hela. Hela. This story became international news. Everyone thought Richard did it. But Richard was adamant. He was like, no, I have no idea where my wife is. And by the way, I passed the lie detector test. Yeah, yeah. Why isn't anyone impressed by that? Let's talk about the evidence here real quick. Lie detector, debunked. Blood spatter, debunked. evidence here real quick lie detector debunked blood spatter debunked microscopic hair debunked piece of mail on the side of the river planted but if this happened today dna would have taken care of it yeah because it's for sure her yeah yeah

but investigators weren't done dr lee went out and rented the exact wood chipper and put a body yeah he did he put a pig through it oh yeah he murdered someone but he was like hey this is for science everybody be cool. Cool. Sure enough, the pig's remains had the same unique ridges and cuts that Hella's did. Yeah. Or, you know, whoever. Mystery remains.

Yeah. Mystery remains with someone who used the same nail polisher. And had the same blood type. Yes. And the same nail polisher. Yes. And had the same blood type. Yes. And the same nightgown. Yeah. But they discovered something else, too. When the wood chipper spat out that pig's body,

it also spat out parts of a human body. Yeah. It was literally the same wood chipper? Yeah, because he didn't, like, go out and buy a wood chipper. I know he rented it, but don't they rent multiple? Oh. I mean, it was pretty easy to figure out which one he rented. So they rented that exact same one. The one that was covered in blood?

No. Okay. So the other thing was her body was frozen and that's why there wasn't blood everywhere. Oh, yeah. So to counter your catchphrase there was blood nowhere that doesn't have the same ring to it how about this there was blood nowhere no so they examined those parts and determined that whoever had been either killed and then put through the wood chipper or killed by being put into the wood chipper,

which, my God, I really hope not, and I don't think so. No, she was hit with a blunt object first. Had the same blood type as Halicraft's. Well, yeah, because at the very least, he cut her up into little pieces first. Yes, exactly, with a chainsaw. Yeah. But they still wanted more then one day as they were gathering evidence along the riverbed they found a tooth and they matched it to hella's

dental records oh that's good yep that is good yeah with that on january 11th 1987 they got their arrest warrant at 9 p.m night, police surrounded the house. They called Richard Crafts on the phone. They said, come outside and surrender. And Richard said, I'm tired. I'll take care of it in the morning. I don't think you get to do that, Richard. Hey, hey, can we just later...

Let's put a pin in this. Let me get a good night's sleep. Come back in the morning. Yeah, police were like, no, you need to come out. Richard shouted, don't call back. Don't call back! Then he hung up the phone. I am trying to sleep!

Then, and I know this is going to shock you, police called back. Oh, no, and he had really had it this time. He was like, put me on your do not call list. They talked and talked and talked. And finally, at 1230 in the morning, Richard surrendered. His children were still asleep in the house. Which, okay. I'm sure this had to have been the only way they could do this.

But I don't know that I would have tried to get him while there were children in the house if I thought he was a murderer. Yeah. You know? Yeah. A murderer capable of cutting his wife up into little pieces and putting her through a wood yeah i mean wouldn't you wait until he was shopping at the mall or i mean just like at work anywhere somebody else was watching his kids i guess you couldn't do all he's flying a plane hey if we all go down that's just how it has to be. Hope the assistant pilot is really good.

The assistant pilot? Don't they always have two up there? Co-pilot. Co-pilot. I probably offended some people there. You probably did. Sorry, you're all co-pilots in my mind. People who know the English language.

I'm not from Connecticut. I don't have an excellent who know the English language. I'm not from Connecticut. I don't have an excellent grasp of the English language. So Richard was arrested. Meanwhile, investigators were still working out all the kinks in this case. Here's what they think happened. Hela came home from a long flight, tucked the kids into bed,

changed into her blue nightshirt, put some mail in her front pocket, like we all do before bedtime, and started changing the sheets on her bed. As she was kneeling over the sheets, Richard struck her with a police flashlight. Then Richard put her body into the garage freezer. He tried to clean up the blood with some towels. The nanny had the night off, so she came home at 2 a.m. Then very early that morning, he woke up the children and the nanny, Don Thomas. They have a live-in nanny and you didn't think they were wealthy? Yeah, sorry. You know what?

I really thought that was more about her being European. Oh, okay. But yeah, you're right. It still costs money. So very early that morning, he woke up the children and their nanny, Dawn Thomas, and took them to his sister's house. He told them that they needed to leave Newtown because the town was going through a power failure. When Dawn asked about Hela, he was like, oh, she'll meet you guys there. Then sometime that day,

he took Hela's body, which by now was frozen solid, and cut it into pieces with the chainsaw, probably on a secluded part of his property, because as you said, they're on a pretty big

piece of property. Then he put her body into bags, and then the next day when it was completely dark he drove out to the bridge put her body through the wood chipper scratched the serial number off the chainsaw and dumped it into the river pretty soon they were ready for trial by this point the crime was all over the news. So Richard's attorney requested a change of venue, and the judge was like, yeah, duh, for sure. So they moved the trial to New London, Connecticut.

The prosecution was led by state attorney Walter Flanagan. He made the case all about forensics. He put Dr. Henry Lee on the stand, as well as other experts, and they talked about all the pieces of bone that they found, the hair, the fibers, the chainsaw. The chainsaw was huge for the prosecution because the forensic team was able to show how they uncovered the serial

number and then they were able to present Richard's actual receipt from when he bought it back in 1981. Wow. Do you keep receipts? Not usually. Not like that. No. Neither neither do i never bought a chainsaw before though so norman does all our chainsaw buying for the house we have very traditional gender roles do you have an extensive collection of chainsaws we have chainsaws bought by norman um female medical issues by me

then the prosecution called dr constantine carouselus oh yeah k-a-r-a-z-u-l-a-s carouselus yeah hey carousis, that sounds good. That sounds better. Than Karazoulis. Dr. Karazoulis was there to talk about teeth. He said the two pieces of human teeth that the investigators found each told a different story. One looked like it had been removed from the mouth with traumatic force. As in, in my opinion, this fracture occurred by a blunt force that fractured it to the center line and took the jaw with it. Yeah. The second one was that gray piece of metal that the investigators found. Turns out that was part of a metal crown.

He compared it to all of her recent dental x-rays and said, this belonged to Helicrafts. to all of her recent dental x-rays and said, this belonged to Helicrafts. If that wasn't enough, the prosecution called in another odontologist? Odontologist? Yeah. Is that a word?

Uh-huh. Okay. This one was... I think that's specifically like with the bones. Okay, yeah, because I was going to say that. Yeah. Look it up. I could have just made that up. Odontologist.

We've got a big listenership in the dental community. Mainly just your mom. Oh, it's specifically forensic dentistry, actually. Oh, cool. Yeah. Okay. Yep. So this one was Dr. Loa Levine levine and holy shit is he a big deal in 1985 he confirmed

that the body buried in the washington dc memorial belonged to john f kennedy wow and he positive he helped positively identify the remains of the nazi doctor joseph mangle la la mangala mangala mangala mangala isn't there a second e on the end there is i thought it was silent you know what i hope he's pissed in hell right now now i'm wanting to say mean things about nazi doctors but i feel like people know i don't like nazi doctors so that's kind of a given so dr levine swoops in and he's like yes it's me and yes that tooth definitely belonged your eyes do not deceive you it is me do you know how excited forensic odontologist i would be so excited to meet someone who had like positively ID'd some nasty Nazi doctor. Like that's cool work.

Yeah. So to me, he would say, yes, it's me. Calm down. Do you need a glass of water? And I would say, oh, no. But it wasn't all about forensics. A bunch of Hela's friends testified. One of them talked about a conversation she had with Richard after Hela went missing.

She told him, you should call the police. And he told her, you've been watching too many movies. What? Which Fargo hadn't come out yet fargo was inspired by this case yeah they talked about how angry she was when she'd found out he'd been cheating on her even though she shouldn't have been angry she shouldn't have been upset right brandy because she'd suspected it all they talked about what a good mother she was, how she would never willingly leave her children. But defense attorney Daniel Sagren said that whether or not Hela was a good mother is a false issue.

He said that people do things in divorces. Like murder their wife and chop her up in little bits and put her through a wood chipper? No, no, like just leave. Just disappear. Oh, okay. Oh, my bad. And before they leave, they scatter their mail along the riverbed. Yes, in their teeth. In their teeth. Oh, God. When he cross-examined Hela's friend, who dropped her off the night of November 18th,

he asked, Did Mrs. Crafts indicate any hesitancy at all about going into the house? And she said, no. Well, no. She probably had no idea

her husband was about to murder her. No, exactly. Yeah. I mean, she had told them he was a dangerous guy. She told them

she was nervous, but you're not going to be... And Watts didn't have any concern about walking in her house that night either. No, here's the thing. No one would be murdered if you could predict it on that level.

Yes, exactly. That's ridiculous. That's a dumb question. I object. I'll make a note of that. The defense's argument all came down to this. Helicrafts is alive. Hela Crafts would like to make it appear that she is dead, the defense said.

They pointed out that there was no corpse. There was simply no way that they could say for certain that she was dead. Sure, they found hair and bits of flesh and all kinds of nasty junk in that river, but you couldn't say with 100% certainty that any of that belonged to Hela. Okay, but you could say the chainsaw with tissue in it was her husband's. Perhaps that was stolen by some fiend. since the process i think it would have been a better tactic to say that someone kidnapped her and stole the chainsaw yeah you know you're probably right but then i mean i mean you're fucked either way yeah i mean so fucked it doesn't matter but and deservedly so yes yeah I just think this is a terrible defense.

Oh, she's still alive. But what else do you say? I don't know. Please don't convict my clearly guilty client. I hate my job right now. This guy's creeping me out. Yeah. The one good thing I do want to say about this defense

is they did attack the methodology. They tacked, you know, how did, you know, you labeled the evidence this way. Then it came with a new label,

you know, the mail, blah, blah. I think, I think that's, that's a good tactic to take. Since the prosecution's case relied so much on forensics,

the defense attacked the forensics. They attacked the credibility of the prosecution's experts. They attacked the methods used by detectives. Defense attorney Daniel Sagren questioned police about why certain changes had been made on evidence labels. Plus, not all of Hella and Richard's friends portrayed Richard as a bad guy. Well, yeah, there's friends.

Yeah. Diane and William Goldstein both said that they went into the Crafts' bedroom on November 20th, and they didn't see any stains on the carpet. Then Richard took the stand. He did? Yes. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited. You should have told us that a long time ago.

What, in the beginning? Yeah. The defense asked Richard if he'd been faithful to his wife. No. He said, not exclusively no. What does that mean? Oh, oh, you're talking about exclusively faithful. No.

No. The defense asked, have you ever harmed your wife? Richard said, no, I've never raised a finger in anger to Hela in my life. No, sir, I've never done her any harm ever. A chainsaw, yes. But not a finger. Not a finger. You know, it wouldn't surprise me if.

Yeah. When asked why he hadn't gotten himself an attorney earlier when hella first disappeared richard explained that he didn't think he needed one he honestly thought that hella was alive and as for that wood chipper well yeah he rented that wood chipper but you know what he used it for what wood? Wood. Into the river? Oh, I'm sorry. Are you not supposed to do that? Is there like a rule that you're not supposed to show up at a bridge at 3.30 in the morning and start chipping wood?

Is that against the law? Start chipping wood. so he never went on river road with a u-haul and that wood chipper clearly that was some some other guy oh okay what funny timing on july 23rd the jury of nine men and three women deliberated. They'd been together. Pause. Huh? Did they find any record that he rented a U-Haul?

I think they did. Again, I'm sorry. It's been a while. But yeah. Yeah. I'm pretty sure. They may have. They may not have.

I'm surprised. Hard to say. I'm surprised he didn't say pay cash for all this stuff, though. You know? Yeah. Well, he doesn't seem real sharp. See, I kind of think he does. I mean, he disposed of the body. Well, he disposed of the body really well, but he did all of the stuff he did was so traceable.

Yeah. They were able to rent the exact same wood chipper. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Sam Woodchipper. Yes. Yeah, okay. On July 23rd, the jury of nine men and three women deliberated. They'd been together for a nine-week trial. They'd heard from 100 witnesses.

Holy cow. They'd seen 650 exhibits of evidence. It seemed pretty obvious that Richard was guilty. Obvious to all but one member of the jury. There was a holdout? One man held out. He said, no way, the guy's not guilty. What?

The other jurors were so frustrated. They were like, this guy is a fucking idiot. One juror later told the press, it was like reasoning with a child the juror said that the guy couldn't retain information oh my god he was just like too stupid yeah to handle this is my dad's big problem with jury trials he thinks that you should be have to like pass some kind of intelligence exam before you can serve on a jury okay yeah and i can see how that could go down a bad road yeah But I kind of agree.

You have to be smart enough to retain information to analyze what's being said to you. My fear is that people who are smart enough will get out of jury duty. And then you just get the dum-dums. And the weirdos like me who desperately want to be part of a jury.

And have never been called. I'm putting my name out there, Casey Moe. I'm ready. No, for real. If I were ever part of that, I would feel guilty and weird forever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So another juror said, it wasn't chaos. It was hell. Wow. The 11 jurors tried and tried to convince the guy for 17 days holy shit but he was stubborn and finally he fled what he said i'm out of there and i'm not going back in there he ran away okay this is the second trial you have talked about where a juror ran away that i mean that is insane right nuts on july 15th 1988 richard craft's trial ended with a hung jury it was a a mistrial. Oh, my gosh. Did they retry him? Of course.

Okay. They were like, hopefully we don't get another fucking idiot. Yeah. Hella Kraft's family was devastated. And so were the investigators and prosecutors and just the public in general. Yeah. But they tried again. Okay.

How did it go? Same evidence. Same witnesses. Are you like wanting to fast forward? I want to know that he gets convicted. So they got another change of venue. Okay. This time Norwalk, Connecticut.

N-O-R-W-A-L-K. Norwalk. Norwalk. The second trial began on September 7th, 1989. You look so tense right now. Second trial, same as the first, same witnesses, same evidence, hopefully different outcome? Yeah. Question mark, question mark, question mark.

Better. Jurors, question mark, exclamation point, question mark. The jury began deliberations on November 20th. After eight hours of deliberation, a jury of 11 men and one woman, one woman, 11 men and one woman found Richard Richard Crafts guilty of murder. Thank goodness. Afterward, they said it was a pretty easy decision. Yeah. It was the first time in Connecticut state history that prosecutors had gotten a murder conviction without a body.

In January of 1990, Richard's sentencing began and he spoke. He told Judge Martin Nigro that he had been wrongfully portrayed as a cold blooded killer. But he never actually said I'm innocent. Yeah, he never said I didn't'm innocent. Yeah, he never said I didn't kill her. Oh my gosh. He said, a great deal has been said

about my apparent lack of emotion. He has ice water in his veins. I have feelings like everyone else. By this point, Richard's sister,

Karen Rogers, had custody of Hela and Richard's three children. She also spoke. And she asked the judge for the maximum sentence. Wow. Yeah.

She said, I am concerned that Mr. Crafts has not publicly nor privately demonstrated any remorse for the murder of his wife. I believe he has paid lip service only to the concerns of his children. I was kind of surprised by that yeah i'm surprised by that too but it seems like karen and hella were pretty good friends and i think karen knew her brother was yeah i mean the fact that she calls him mr mr says a lot yeah before the judge handed down the sentence the defense made a motion to order a new trial they pointed out that by the police's own admission that november phone conversations between suspects and their lawyers had been recorded but richard's attorney thomas farver

admitted that he had no direct evidence that the police had illegally taped any of his phone calls with richard so judge nigro rejected that that motion and then he sentenced richard to 50 years in prison richard how old was he i don't know but richard crafts will be eligible for parole in 2021 and he'll be 84 years old and that's the story of the wood chipper murder oh that was so good that's a crazy story yeah thank you kate for pointing that one out to us yeah thank you yeah it was a good one holy shit oh my god i've been talking for an hour tell me about it i'm continuing my johnson county series i'm so excited with a story about a robbery okay john and becky beaker had a dream they were gun lovers and they wanted to open a gun store that was more than just a gun store oh no they wanted to open a store where men and women

alike would feel comfortable learning about guns and gun safety and where women could feel empowered taking their self-defense into their own hands. And in 2009, that dream became a reality. That year, the Beakers opened She's a Pistol, located at 5725 Neiman Road in Shawnee, Kansas. Why does your face look like that? I like the thing I love about these cases is I always know just like a little bit, like

the tiniest bit. Shawnee is, of course, in Johnson County. It's where I grew up. It's where we went to high school. It's an area we're very familiar with. Yes. I have bought so many guns at that place. JK for all of our international listeners. Neither of us are gun owners or gun lovers. Yeah. I say international because I assume that everyone who doesn't live in the United States

assumes that we all own 15 guns. I assume so, yes. And that they're like just loose, scattered about the house. I would probably think that. Yes. This store was exactly what John and Becky had envisioned. They sold guns and ammunition, had a firing range, but they also sold various self-defense items, held courses on gun safety, and had self-defense classes for women. Over the next few years, the store thrived, and the Beakers focused

on nothing but their growing business. What year did they open? 2009. Oh. Hmm. Why are you doing that? I know I said the political part was over should i piss off gun owners right probably not probably not okay and there's like a statement that becky beaker makes later on that's gonna piss me off no but okay that we should probably respect on this controversial topic okay i'll I'll shut up. All right. So the store was thriving. They were focused on nothing but their growing business. Things were good for the store, for the Beakers, until January 9th, 2015.

So this incident that I'm about to talk about will have happened four years ago to the day when this episode comes out. Whoa, weird. Okay. It was just about 2 o'clock p.m. on that Friday afternoon. 2 o'clock p.m. I know. I don't know why I said it like that. Very early young peas. Are you like writing this for an essay?

It has to hit a certain page number. I said that. I've not written like that in my notes. I don't know. It was around two o'clock on that Friday afternoon when four men, two armed with guns, busted through the front door of the store. Becky Beaker was at the front desk when the men charged towards her demanding money and guns. She reached for her handgun, but the men were right in front of her before she could grab it. Then one of the men climbed over the counter and punched her in the face, breaking her nose.

She dropped to the floor out cold. Oh, my gosh. John Beaker was in the back office of the store, and upon hearing the commotion, he came out, gun cocked and ready, to see what was going on. When the storefront came into view, he saw the armed men, and he saw his wife on the floor. A full-on gun battle ensued. John shot at the men, the men shot at him,

John got off several shots, and wounded three of the men. The men shot at him. John got off several shots and wounded three of the men. One fell to the floor instantly paralyzed. Another was critically injured. The third, along with the fourth man who was uninjured, ran from the store. Hey, he was a pretty good shot. Oh, yeah. Becky came to just in time to see the now paralyzed man shoot john he fell to the floor becky got up grabbed her gun called 9-1-1 and then rushed

to john's side to await emergency personnel minutes later two dozen police cars and ambulances sped through old shawnee town the same idyllic town square where the town carnival is head is held the first weekend of every june it is weird to think about that because it's like it's just like this cute it's this cute little like downtown square yeah yeah picture small town yes There's like an old movie theater. There's the city hall. There's where I got my senior pictures taken. Yes. Surrounding businesses locked their doors and shop owners later recalled that the response was like something from a movie.

Inside the store, police found three men who were badly wounded. John Beaker and two assailants who were later identified as D'Anthony Wiley and Londro Patterson III. They all lay on the floor. They were rushed to the hospital while the surrounding neighborhood was warned to stay indoors as police searched for the two assailants who had fled on foot. Shortly after the search for the two missing assailants began, police received a call from a woman in a nearby neighborhood. She said there were two men pounding on her back door asking for help and that one of them was injured. The police responded to the woman's home, which was just blocks from the gun shop.

And there, the remaining two assailants were taken into custody. They were identified as Hakeem Malik and Nikwan Majet. Majet had been shot at the store and was taken to the hospital, but his injuries were non-life-threatening. He, along with Patterson and Wiley, would eventually recover from their injuries, though Wiley will spend the rest of his life confined to a wheelchair. They were released from the hospital into police custody. The same could not be said for John Beaker.

Late that afternoon, John Beaker passed away due to his injuries that he sustained during the botched robbery. An autopsy later showed that he had been shot four times. The first shot pierced his aorta and settled in his spine, incapacitating him. The other three shots came after he was already down. Oh, God. He was 44 years old. Oh, no.

Following her husband's death, Becky Beaker made this statement. Thank you to my friends, family, and community for their love, prayers and support during this very difficult time. I have lost my husband in this senseless murder. Although tragic, he saved my life because he carried a firearm. Please respect my husband's memory by refusing to turn this tragedy into a political statement in support of banning firearms so i think we should respect that i get that neither of us are pro-firearm yeah at all but i will respect her wishes on this and i i do think that he probably saved her life yeah i mean we we have no way there's no way to know. I would never say, I know you're saying. Say what you're going to say.

I really don't think there are that many people in America who are saying we should ban firearms. Oh, I don't either. I think they're saying gun control laws. Right. And so I think that's a little off because that's what she said, right? Please don't turn i think they're saying gun control laws yes and so i think that's a little off because that's what she said right please don't turn this into a political yeah but i would guess that from someone who is as pro-gun as she is it feels very much like people are trying to ban guns well sure sure i i agree that i don't think that's what's happening

and i could see that that would be her perspective on it uh you can't see that somebody like her who is very pro firearm i totally would see it that way i totally believe that there are a lot of people who think that that's what the opposition wants they want to take all our guns from us right and i think that's a really smart thing to say oh they're trying to take all our guns because that's a lot scarier and that's not really the issue the issue is that people want stronger regulations oh this is gonna this is bad this is super bad um i will say don't don't look at me like that. I just think that we should agree that that's what she thinks and that we don't think that that's the case. Well, I frankly, I've noticed that with a lot of our shootings in America, they happen.

We do the thoughts and prayers thing and there are always a lot of people who are like you know above all else please let's not turn this into a political issue and i think that sounds really good because we all think politics are kind of gross but i think part of the reason that we have this problem is because we aren't turning it into a political issue this is a woman whose husband was murdered this day i think we should respect her issue and not her wishes and not make this a gun debate okay okay okay on january 11 2015 Okay. Okay. On January 11th, 2015, charges of first degree murder were filed against Wiley, Patterson, Majette, and Malik. Malik was 18 and the other three

were just 19 years old at the time. Those charges were amended in April of 2015 to add charges of aggravated robbery, aggravated battery, and aggravated battery with great bodily harm to each defendant. For Becky, the road to getting justice for her husband, John, would be a long one with twists and turns so great that at times she didn't think she would make it through. Immediately following the shooting, the store needed extensive repairs, and so it stayed closed for a time to complete those. And after those repairs were done, she found it too difficult to walk through the doors each day.

The memory of seeing her husband shot down in that store were just too hard to face, so she made the decision to relocate. decision to relocate in november of 2015 she's a pistol opened its new location at 6487 quavira road still in shawnee kansas so this is like right by where we went to high school do you know where this is no okay hold on let me okay is it still open uh no oh okay um you you if you search the address you'll still see it you know where like um the hy-v grocery store was um or where the police station was on yes it's right there okay hang on i'm pulling up oh yeah so the hy-v grocery store is now like an antique mall and a sky zone yes um there's like bait city barbecue is right there norman and i are big fans of that antique mall and a sky zone yes um there's like bait city barbecue is right there norman and i

are big fans of that antique mall wow so that's where she relocated to the community had really rallied behind becky and her great time of loss there were lots of candlelight vigils um there'd been a go fund me account set up in john's name to help with funeral costs. And then fundraisers were done to help Becky get established in the new, larger and more expensive location. And things in court were progressing slowly but going well. The initial hearings had gone well and the judge had ruled that the prosecution had enough evidence to move forward with the trial. All four men would be tried separately. And according to early hearings, it looked like three would go to jury trial

and one intended to plead guilty. But just as Becky felt like she was getting her feet under her, she would be dealt a devastating blow. In early December 2015, DeAnthony Wiley's defense team filed a motion that they intended to plead not guilty by reason of self-defense. What? Yes.

He walked in with a gun, right? Oh, come on, buddy. No defense team claimed that he was incapacitated on the floor, trying to surrender when John Beaker continued to advance on him. So he had no choice but to shoot, kill and protect himself. trying to surrender when John Beaker continued to advance on him.

So he had no choice but to shoot, kill and protect himself. But that wasn't the end of it. I mean, that just blows my mind. You come in there with a gun and now you think that you get to claim self-defense? That was one of my weird takeaways from law school that like at a certain you know if you're defending yourself yeah at a certain oh god if you're defending yourself at a certain point if the power dynamic shifts you have to stop i guess yeah i think that's bullshit i agree you walk in a place with a gun guess what you might get shot and you walk into a gun store you're walking into a gun store what are in a place with a gun guess what you might get shot and you walk into

a gun store you're walking into a gun store what are you thinking robbing a gun store well the point of robbing the gun store is that they didn't just want money they wanted guns as well do they know that they could just rob a quick trip and get the money and then go buy a gun the guns that they had were attained um illegally right we're not legally purchased guns. And so. Where'd they get their guns? I don't, I don't know the answer to that. I wish I did. All that I know,

all that I know is it's mentioned in here at one point that they were illegally obtained. Okay. Okay. So, but this wasn't the end of it. Wiley's defense team also gave official notice to Becky Beaker that they intended to file a civil suit against her.

And she's a pistol LLC for the injuries he sustained that day. Oh, oh, fuck off. Seriously, right? Are you serious? Again, because he shouldn't have because it was self-defense. Yeah, that's that's insane. Yeah, that's insane. It's insane. In response to the motion filed by Wiley's defense team, a representative for Becky had this to say. The evidence will show that these men entered our business to commit a robbery. They had a plan. They had guns. They were prepared to kill to carry out their plan.

They assaulted Becky. They shot John. Their plan just didn't account for John fighting back. They do not get to now claim self-defense just because John fought back and they killed him for doing so. We have faith in the criminal justice system and appreciate the dedicated professional work of each person assisting with the investigation and prosecution of those responsible for this tragedy. I think that that would be so devastating to be like, OK, we're moving along. They've got these guys like I'm going to get justice. And then because D'Anthony Wiley was actually the one who initially in the initial hearings they believed was going to plead guilty.

Yeah. Why? Why did they believe he was going to plead guilty? Because he fired the fatal shot. Oh, OK. They and they have surveillance video that captures. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That's insane. Yeah. So December of 2015, like they're moving along and then she gets this news and she's just like devastated becky is so on january 10th 2016 one day after the one year anniversary of the shooting that killed her husband becky posted this message to the she's a pistol facebook page one year ago today i started my first day facing life as a widow. My world forever changed and having to make funeral arrangements for the one man that I thought would always be mine. A woman in her mid-30s should never have to lose her spouse to a senseless act of criminals.

I know that I'm alive because John is a hero and was so much more than I ever deserved. He saw something in the broken pieces of me and rebuilt me into someone better than I ever was before I met him. He let me love him, really love him, and he loved me in return. He found a way to take all my broken pieces and make me whole. John was my life, my happiness, my everything. My life as I knew it died with him that day. I will never be able to resuscitate that life. No one can. But I'm still living a new, at times much less sunny life. But I'm still breathing and my heart still beats in my chest, though it carries the permanent scars

of his loss. For a very long time, I wished and prayed that I could trade places with him. I would have given anything to be the one that would have died that day so he could live. He was a much better person than I am, and he had so much still to do. I have asked myself so many times why he came to save me. I still say he should have saved himself, but that's not who John was. He would never stand back and watch someone be hurt, especially me. He loved me too much to stay back when I was in danger. He was always there for me. He always caught me if I fell, and he was the one to put me back together when I was weak. I will never know if he knew he saved me from what I believe was death by gunshot that day.

I will never know if he thought I was already dead because he was fatally wounded by criminals with illegally obtained firearms, or if he knew I was just hurt. I will never know if he knew I ran to him and knelt at his side begging him to hold on. Just hold on because help was right outside. I'll never forget his eyes in that moment. I believe that his actions that day also saved an unknown number of innocent lives by ensuring criminals were taken off the streets and now cannot harm others. I know I've changed dramatically this year to a point that I hardly recognize myself much of the time. I hope I'm still the woman John loved and wanted to grow old with,

though now I'm left to grow old without him and just have the memories of his love in my heart. I know this life is becoming my new normal, my new life. I've been fortunate to learn that I have a much larger family than I knew, and that family doesn't mean just those who are related to us by blood. I have a business to run, a roof over my head, and enough of my needs satisfied that I will be all right. I will continue to dust myself off and keep fighting always. Wow.

Yeah. That's beautiful. I think it's really beautiful. Yeah. And I think what's so heartbreaking about that is that there is a good chance that he thought that she had been shot and was killed. Well, that's exactly what I think he thought. Yeah. Because you see four guys with guns.

Oh, yeah. Your wife is out cold. Yeah. You don't know she's out cold. You just know she's on the floor. And you also know that she has a gun and she knows how to use it. Exactly. Exactly.

And you also know that she has a gun and she knows how to use it. Exactly. So when she came to, like she came to and saw John's shot, she got up, she grabbed her gun and there are two, two of the salons were still in the store. Oh, geez. And one of them went to grab a gun and she fired a shot at him while she was on the phone with 911. Oh my gosh. And she's like, grab that gun again and I will kill you.

Whoa. Yeah. And then. Did you hear the 911 call? No1 call no oh no okay i wish i know i bet that'd be good oh yeah sorry that and so then she ran around the counter and those she knelt next to john on the floor who was laying on the floor with these two other men this is not a big store yeah they're within arm's reach of her and she sat there and held her husband until police got there wow i just can't even imagine what that would be like that would be horrible horrible yeah he had some vitals when they took him by ambulance, but he died pretty quickly. Yeah.

After he arrived at the hospital. Well, he was shot four times. Yeah. Yeah. In September of 2016, a hearing was held in Johnson County Court to determine if Wiley, now joined by his co-defendant, Majette, who was hoping to jump on the self-defense bandwagon. The hearing was to determine if they could be deemed immune for prosecution of murder due to self-defense the prosecution of course argued at the hearing that the defendants could not claim self-defense because they instigated the confrontation

at the hearing there's the surveillance video from inside the store was played for the first time. Becky Beaker was in court when it was shown, and it was the first time that she had seen it. Oh, that's horrible. They weren't allowed to view it before. So she saw it for the first time, and this is what she had to say later. Today was a difficult day in court, and it will continue tomorrow. I was present today when the surveillance video was played for, oh, when the surveillance video from the time of John's murder was played. We had not been able to

view the video prior to today. In addition to proving that John and I acted in self-defense, I saw visual proof of what matters most to me, love. What I saw in the video was visual proof of the love John and I shared. I fought back and hoped that my attackers would not get to John because I needed him to be safe more than anything, more than my own life. John ran, yes, ran to my aid straight into a gunfight, a situation most people would run from, not into. I always knew how much love he and I shared. The events of that tragic day serve as one more way John showed me how much he loved me. I believe he continues to love me still as I love him. I hope each of you have the joy of being loved as greatly as John loved me. I also hope you

have the honor of loving someone as much as I love John. Wow. Oh, oh, at the self defense hearing, Lindsay Erickson, one of the attorneys for Wiley argued that the incident should be dissected into two parts. The first part was the attempted robbery and the fight from the robbery, which then ends. Then the second part begins when Wiley is on the floor, paralyzed and unable to flee. At that point, she said he had two choices. He could lay there and be executed or he could defend himself. What do you think about that? I.

OK, here's the thing. That's probably not a bad legal argument. Right. I agree. that's probably not a bad legal argument right i agree but it's a fucking stupid argument in a more general sense you don't get to cut things up exactly you don't get to say okay this is a separate you don't get to you don't get to take these factors into consideration no the guy committed a robbery yeah with a gun yeah and not just any robbery robbery with a gun. Yeah. And not just any robbery. Robbery of a gun store. Yes.

What did he think was going to happen? Yeah. What did he think was going to happen? Exactly. Assistant District Attorney Vanessa Riebli? Riebli? R-I-E-B-L-I. Riebli. I'm Riebo. Riebli. reably r-i-e-b-l-i reably i'm reba reibly a district attorney vanessa r suggested that john beaker was the one who was acting in

self-defense when he saw that his wife had been threatened with guns and now his life was on the line. She said that during the 24 second incident, that's all that this was, 24 seconds. Wow. Wiley continued firing shots even after he was on the ground and there was no evidence that he tried to give up. Under Kansas law, someone who instigates the use of force or who is committing or fleeing from a violent felony cannot claim immunity from prosecution by arguing self-defense. Well, there you go. Exactly. What more do you need? And 24 seconds, that is so key. Because I think the argument gets better if it's this drawn out thing. I completely agree. But no, 24 seconds. or if it's this drawn out thing. I completely agree.

But no, 24 seconds. It's 24 seconds. No. But can you believe all of that happens in 24 seconds? With guns? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, right?

Yes. Yeah. I mean, nunchucks, that'd be shocking. I mean, I agree. That does tell you about guns. Yeah. I am not pro-guns. Guns scare me very much.

Well, yeah. You know, I wasn't scared of guns until this case. So Judge Timothy McCarthy heard a day and a half of testimony and watched the surveillance video before ruling on this motion. Ultimately, he denied the defendant's claim to self-defense. No kidding. In his ruling, Judge McCarthy said that John Beaker was faced with an imminent threat to his wife and himself when he took action. Yes. He also noted that Wiley had shot every bullet in his gun during the incident, meaning to him it didn't

look like he had ever attempted to surrender. Oh, that's a good point. That's a very good point. He never held back. Yeah. With the motion denied, Becky felt like she could breathe a little bit again. It also meant that the civil suit promised by Wiley's defense team would never materialize. It was a definite win, but it still wasn't enough to get Becky back on solid ground. The legal fees she'd encountered preparing for the civil suit that never came had piled up, and she was drowning in expenses from the new store location. Plus, with all of the time away from the store to attend all of the hearings and court proceedings, her labor costs had gone up. It was all too much.

She just couldn't stay afloat any longer. So in December of 2016, Becky Beaker made the announcement that she was going to be closing down She's a Pistol. There was a last-ditch effort in the community to fundraise and help her pay back taxes and penalty fees. And it did help her pay those things off, but it just wasn't enough to keep the store open. And it closed for good on December 31st, 2016. There was a lot of media coverage around this because it had become such obviously a big story in the community. And people were really rooting for Becky to be able to continue doing, you know, something that she loved and something that, you know, connected her to John.

And so there's this interview with her where she's just like, I really wish I could make it happen. But John wouldn't want this. He wouldn't want me killing myself every day to try to save something that's dying. Yeah. So it's really I mean, it's really sad that this I mean, she ended up in the end losing her business, too. Yeah. So it's really, I mean, it's really sad that this, I mean, she ended up in the end losing her business too. Yeah. I feel terrible for her. Yeah.

Can you, I'm sorry, can you imagine being those defense attorneys threatening that kind of civil suit? Oh my gosh. Talk about how do you sleep at night? Seriously. Yeah, that's, that's unreal. Yeah. Ugh. So the first of the four trials for the murder of John Beaker began on May 15th, 2017.

A jury found Londro Patterson III guilty of first degree murder on May 18th, 2017. At his sentencing on July... First degree? Yeah. Wow. Okay okay they came with guns so i think that yeah premeditation yeah yeah i think also first degree murder can be if a murder happens um in the process of committing another felony okay so because they were in the course of a robbery an armed robbery yeah um i mean I'm not mad that he got first degree. No, I know.

At his sentencing on July 22nd of that year, his attorney asked the judge to show mercy as Londra was still a teenager at the time of the shooting and he did not fire the fatal shot. He didn't foresee that the actions of himself and three other teenagers would lead to unimaginable loss for everyone and their families, said his lawyers. It is so sad and so dumb. Oh, they're so young.

They're kids. Yeah. That's just. Yeah. What the hell were they thinking? Exactly. Yeah. I mean.

I think it says a lot that this. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I think it says a lot that this what I mean, I feel like anybody with more sense or a few more years on them would know this is not the crime you want to commit. Definitely not. No, you're going in somewhere where they're obviously going to be armed. Yeah. Yeah. And you're going in in the middle of the day, too. Hmm. I didn't even think about that yeah yeah so clearly there's going to be someone there who has a gun did maybe you'll get to this later did they have a plan for the guns they were going to steal i don't know i don't know they don't go into that at all or i didn't find anything about that okay i really don't know and i think it i don't know what the plan is and i think it it comes down to them being teenagers yeah like oh let's go steal some guns without

thinking through what that means oh we've got guns so we're good right i just think it's clearly not a thought through plan yeah so the prosecutors argued in turn that Patterson was on probation at the time for a gun violation and that a week before the She's a Pistol shooting, he had been involved in another shooting during a robbery in Raytown. Oh, good grief. Yeah. So they're like, yeah, that Mercy, probably not judge. Yeah.

The judge sentenced him to life with a hard 25 meaning he'll have to serve 25 years before he becomes eligible for parole yeah what you got over there well my sentence doesn't next to be tried was hakeem malik um his trial was scheduled to begin on june 12th 2017 oh the holiest of days happy birthday to you and norm yeah but on may 25th during a pre-trial hearing he withdrew his not guilty plea and entered a plea of guilty on all charges yeah might as well yeah on august 25th 2017 he was sentenced to life in prison with a hard 25 as well the trial of d anthony wiley began on october 30th 2017 on thursday november 2nd oh hey happy birthday to me christian's birthday the prosecution was nearing the end of its case

and court went into recess. For unknown reasons at the time, the trial was postponed that day. And when court resumed the following day, a mistrial was declared. What? Yeah, it was all super secretive. Like nobody knew what was going on. We know now that at the time, D'Anthony Wiley suffered some kind of medical emergency and he wasn't going to be able to be present in court. And's why a mistrial was declared wow yeah okay because of hippilas i

don't know what the yeah nature of the medical emergency was one article i said one article i read said that he collapsed and then like in court i don't know. Yeah. Not a female medical issue. Not a female medical issue. We know that for sure. A new trial was scheduled to begin on April 30th, 2018. But on February 27th, D'Anthony Wiley withdrew his not guilty plea and pled guilty to all charges. On April 12th, 2018, he was sentenced to life in prison with a hard 25. The last to be prosecuted was Nikwan Majet. His trial began December 11, 2017.

After three days of testimony, the prosecution rested, and before the defense presented their case, Majet withdrew his not guilty plea and pled guilty to all charges. I mean, yeah. I mean, but I think that's weird. You let the prosecution deliver their whole case, and then you're like, when the defense was about to deliver theirs, he was like, okay, I'm guilty. You know, I don't think it's that weird.

If you're there and you're in court and you're like, wow, they did a really good job. I'm afraid I might, you know. Yeah. Well, yeah, because I mean, the risk would be getting more than, because he ended up with life with a hard 25, but he could have potentially gotten more. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, life without parole, life with a hard 40. Yeah. I've never heard, like, hard 25, hard 40.

I like it, though. Oh. Yeah, Kansas famously has a hard 40 law. Really? Yeah. Like if there's, if you're convicted of first degree murder with an extenuating circumstance, it's like an automatic hard 40. Huh. Okay.

Yeah. I don't know what the extenuating circumstances are. I don't know that much about. Also, you said something mean while you did the murder. So he ended up middle of his trial he's like stop turns out i'm guilty yep and on march 29th he um was sentenced to life in prison with hard 25 so on the day that d anthony wiley entered his guilty plea so that was like the last um the last trial because of the original mistrial so his trial was actually third to start but then there was a mistrial so his second hold on i'm sorry i know the timeline is confusing okay so d'anthony wiley was the third

initially was supposed to be the third one to be tried, but because the mistrial happened, his trial ended up being the last one where he entered his guilty plea. So on that day, Becky Beaker posted this message on the She's a Pistol Facebook page. Three years, one month, and 19 days ago, my husband John Beaker was murdered. Today, Wiley, the last of the four murderers responsible for ending his life, entered a guilty plea. He will be sentenced in April.

Each of the four murderers will serve life sentences with their first possible chance at parole after no less than 25 years. Some will serve more. It is not enough. It will never be enough time served for killing someone in cold blood, but it is good to know that they will most likely never experience a day of freedom again in their lives. They chose this, not us. I think it's sad to think that the decision that they made when they were 18

years old could mean that they'll never have another day of freedom in their life. Yeah. I I'm not with her on this one i know i think it's i but i get thinking that it's not enough if something happened to norman i'd be oh yeah same way but i oh yeah but i think it's really sad to think that a decision that they made when they were 18 and 19 years old would mean that they never have another day of freedom in their life yeah yeah yeah especially when they pled guilty yeah you know i mean if they if they are model prisoners and stuff they should they would likely get paroled because of their age when they yeah yeah when they were convicted i hope so yeah I do too I think everybody deserves a second chance yeah that was a rough one I remember so clearly when that happened really yeah because it's an area where my family works it's not that far from you know uh lots of areas that I'm very familiar

with and so I remember like when the like breaking news came off that there was this heavy police presence in yeah old shawnee town nobody really knew what was going on yet yeah yeah and then i remember the news story about the woman calling police because they were too so she had her house was like she had like a screened in porch and so the two men that left that ran on foot like they came in her screen porch like she had like a screened in porch and so the two men that left that ran on foot like they came in her screen porch and then were like oh god can you imagine if like someone was pounding on this door um i so this again to me shows their dumb judgment oh yeah because who's gonna let you in oh and they were totally like, let us in. We're hurt. Yeah.

Yeah. No chance. Yeah. I mean. I think it's interesting that two of them were armed and two of them were not, yet they were all convicted of the same charges. You know what? I must have missed that part. Yeah. They only, only when they came in, only two of the four were armed.

And I don't know, maybe they took guns during the process of it. Yeah, you know, I don't think the unarmed ones should have gotten the same. Yeah, I kind of agree. But the self-defense thing. Oh, no, that's stupid. That's stupid. That's ridiculous. Well, if you could use that, then you can do anything to anybody.

And, oh, they fought back, so. Yeah. Pay my medical bills. Yeah bills yeah no that's stupid oh yeah oh so that's another case about uh sunny johnson county god on another topic i have a moral dilemma oh for you okay okay norman and i came down on very different sides of this oh so last night okay we went to taco bell my favorite restaurant of all time so norman was like oh hey you can order your order online oh and then just go pick it up and go pick it up yeah let's do that so we go through the drive-thru say we're picking up a mobile order

we get the stuff get home open up the bag it's not our order oh is it better than what you know it was worse because we were like i realized it wasn't our order so then of course we open up everything like well what these people get and we're kind of like oh because we're kind of lazy and we're hungry yeah and it's like i mean everything from taco bell is the same five ingredients yeah anyway but he's like so do you want to eat this stuff and i was like not really you know i want what i want yeah and as we're kind of talking like what do we do what do we do norm is just eating one of the burritos no no so here's the thing there was an order of nachos. Yeah.

So I popped off the lid, took a chip and ate it. And he was, I mean, you should have seen how he looked at me. He was like, what are you doing? And I was like, well, you know, I'm eating a nacho. Like what? And he was like, no, if we're going to go back, we need to give everything back to them. And I was like, they're not going to. They can't serve this anyway. And I was like no if we're gonna go back we need to give everything back to them and i was like they're not gonna serve this anyway i was like i touched everything they can't give this to anybody else if you would have eaten the whole nachos maybe but one chip well and here see i

kind of feel like i mean maybe maybe i'm wrong so tell me if i'm wrong but anyway so i was like okay fine so i put the lid back on the nach, which I think is grosser to give back something that I've touched, but whatever. And so they had like little things of cheese in there. I was like, well, I'm going to keep one of the nacho cheeses. And he's like, no, you're not. We have to give it all back and then go get it. And I was like, I think you're being kind of uptight about this. I don't think they're going to care.

Anyway, he shamed me because he gave it all back yeah because he was like yeah i kind of i think you're kind of right you're you're half right norman's half right you think so i think don't eat the whole nachos but yeah pocket a little pocket a little cheese for the inconvenience i mean yeah i just didn't think it would be so wrong if i picked, like, something from the order for myself for the inconvenience. But he was like, I used to work at Dairy Queen, and, like, people would do this stuff all the time. Well, yeah, because it's one thing if you, like, eat the whole thing and you're like, this wasn't my order. I'd like my order.

That's bullshit. And especially, like, I have seen that in restaurants where, like, somebody will go eat three-fours of a hamburger, then come back up and be like, I didn't. This wasn't what I ordered. And it's like, come on, dude. Yeah. But if like we took it all the way home. Yeah. Yeah.

OK. Norm had very strong feelings about it that I was very, very wrong. I can kind of see both of your guys' sides. I see. I see. But I kind of like that you kept a little cheese. You didn't keep the cheese, though. He didn't let you do it?

He would not allow me to do it. I mean, he was... And it was one of those things where I was like, okay, well, I'm not going to get in a fight over cheese. Yeah, over some stupid cheese. Yeah. Yeah. Not worth it.

Yeah. So what happened when you took it back? They gave you your new order? They were very apologetic. Did you get it for free? No. No. Did you get any money back? I don't think so. Did you get it for free? No. No. Did you get any money back?

I don't think so. Did you get anything for free? No. Okay, that's dumb. See, I think, so just so every, like the timeline, it was the day, it was New Year's Day. And every hungover person in like a 10 mile radius was at Taco Bell. Yeah, because that's the best hangover food. Yes.

Or if you're me, the best daily food. Yeah. So that's man, your butthole is really good. Brandy, that's very inappropriate. Or just calloused from all of that Taco Bell shoot now. It's more like a pipe now. So I think, you know, Norman was the one who went in with the order and i think he just felt bad for the lady because she was having a rough day and like who wants to get

into an argument over so what do you get from taco bell well if you must know brandy i'm happy to discuss it with you a crunchy taco supreme and then a cheesy gordita crunch. I had to think because multiple times I've gotten up to the drive-thru and out of like stress or whatever, I accidentally panic and order the thing that Norman likes and that I hate. Oh, what is that? Which is the Crunchwrap Supreme. That's what Zach loves.

That's his favorite thing. Yeah, Norman loves that too. Not a fan. It's too bready. there's like some beans in there yeah and every time it happens i'm like damn it apple so i usually make him order because he knows he can always remember yeah you know yeah that's why we're such a good team that's right and all came down to this well i'm glad i was not clearly the asshole in that situation. No, I don't think so. Okay.

I think you would have been okay. Okay. If you didn't eat the entire nachos and you could have kept. Were you going to eat the whole nachos? Yeah, I was. All right. Well, then I think you're wrong. Really?

Okay, now hold on. I'm sorry. I ate the whole nachos before I realized I didn't fucking order nachos. Well, here was my thinking. My thinking was they can't resell the food. They're not going to give it to anybody else. So if I've eaten half, why not eat all of it? No one wants my old half-eaten nachos, right?

No, they're going to throw it in the trash anyway. Right. So why be wasteful? I mean, I get your logic that it's wasted either way i mean it's wasted if you don't eat it and then stealing if you do eat i paid for some food you didn't pay for fucking nachos you sound like normal okay i was wrong i was wrong if you had ordered nachos then the mistake is easy oh i ate all these matches and then realized that my cheesy gordita crunch was missing yeah that's that's not what happened i knew immediately something was amiss okay well i've been schooled.

So the long-awaited DP episode came out last week. Yes. People were very excited. Okay, at this time that we're recording, it's been out for a short amount of time. And the feedback that we have gotten is overwhelming. Turns out y'all like being DP. I mean, they like him more than they like us, I think, Kristen. Are we going to get Team DP? We might be.

I think we're getting phased out of our own podcast. Can you imagine? My dad just takes over and people were like, well, he was really carrying this show. He was really meant to be. Devastating. No, but I'm glad you guys are liking the dps yes thank you thank you to everybody who's giving us feedback on that i mean we're glad that we could make dp's dreams come true let them be on the podcast what else is going on with you brandy you know i don't have a lot to

report okay life is uh i'm like getting over like the little post-holiday, you know, where you kind of like kind of recalibrate yourself to normal life after there's not a get-together every 24 hours. Speaking of, I still have another Christmas get-together. Yeah. Oh my gosh. It was because, you know, like a big chunk of the family left. Oh yeah. So now we're back in town. It's time to do a white elephant, you know, blah, blah, of the family left. So now we're back in town. It's time to do a white elephant, you know, blah, blah, blah.

When are you guys doing that? Friday. Some Friday. Some Friday. Norman. Okay, do you see that massive box that is very poorly wrapped there? I do. That's Norman's white elephant.

And he won't tell me what he got. But he's always very good at getting excellent white elephant gifts did you ever see the photo of him that my sister ended up getting you told me about it i have not seen it sexy norm right oh man so we took it on a trip to colorado we were at the top of a mountain and norman hiked up his shorts so far that like i mean if you've ever actually underwear yeah if you've ever wondered about the contours of that man's ass you know you just see this photo oh is it the back of him oh yeah yeah it's the back of him shorts pulled way up socks pulled way up nice um and he's posed kind of like the Instagram models oh yeah you know they do that pose it's like here's all of my ass in all of its glory

yeah so he brought that to the family white elephant framed I might add excellent and um it was hanging in Kyla and jay's garage for like years and then they put their place on the market and for some reason they took it down weird i know it would have sold the place probably would have gotten several offers above asking if that picture was included yeah yeah well and the thing is there were multiple images that we took in that little photo shoot that you kept in just your own little private photo album we call it the spank no there was like one where he's got his shorts hiked up and then he's in a full squat oh god

yeah we decided the family didn't need that one no oh. What do you think it is? I have no idea. The thing is, like, normally I know what it is because, like, I've taken the ridiculous photo. But, I mean, it's a very large box. It is a large box. He was very giggly about it. And every time I ask him about it, he gets very indignant. Doesn't want to say. Well, I'm dying to know.

You'll have to let me know what it is when it is revealed. What's your white elephant gift i'm not telling you oh okay oh i guess i guess it wouldn't be out by the time that okay so it's this it's very similar to the print that i got you oh yeah but it's a little bigger and has all these kansas city landmarks i think it's super cute. That sounds cool. Yeah. It's not supposed to be dumb presents? Some of them are dumb. Some of them aren't. The butt picture doesn't

sound like the greatest gift. That butt picture. I mean, it all depends on who gets it. I mean, Kyla really appreciated the butt picture. Do you think she appreciated it too much? Like she's really into Dorman's butt now uh no i don't think so but then like i that year i bought one of those like all-in-one bartending tools that

like i figured 75 of the people there would want yeah my dad ended up getting it, which my dad, he drinks like a 19-year-old girl. He likes his Smirnoff Ices, his Mike's Hard Lemonades, and then the pre-mixed stuff, Margarita Mix from Costco, which I can't knock that. I do like that, too. It is good. Mike's Hard Lemonade, not so much. Not so much. No, not a fan. I mean, I was when I was 19.

Well, we all were. Happy New Year. Yeah, happy New Year. I mean, I was when I was 19. Well, we all were. Happy New Year. Yeah, happy New Year. Oh, do you have any resolutions or anything? Oh, gosh. Like, so my house is pretty organized right now because we just redid the kitchen and stuff. So my resolution is to keep it that way. And then like my bedroom needs to be reorganized so to like keep up with what i've got going on and

then keep it moving through the rest of the house are you gonna do the marie condo like hold everything does it spark joy i don't think so i'm not interested in joy are you i am very interested in joy but i think i might keep too much stuff because i it doesn't take a lot to make i was gonna say you're a pretty joyful person. I'm pretty joyful. That might create a hoarding situation. Very good. Yeah.

What about you? You got any resolutions? I normally like sit down and write them all out and I haven't yet. All right. Post TBD. For sure I want to finish a good draft of the book. Excellent. Yeah.

Good. Good draft. Is the key word. Who is judging that? Because I bet the draft of the book. Excellent. Yeah. Good. Good draft. Who is judging that? Because I bet the draft you have now is not as terrible as you think it is. I agree. It's probably not as terrible as I think it is. But so I am the judge. And I want it to be good.

Do you think you'll ever get to the point where you think it's good? Yes. This year. Okay. You Taco this year. Okay. You Taco Bell butthole. I'm not. No. I think it's probably good right now in that you are very, very hard on yourself.

I just know I read a lot and I know that I would put it down. And that fucking sucks. I bet I'd read the shit out of it. What just happened? I didn't even know! Well, I'm glad to hear it. All right, should we wrap this thing up? Yeah, let's do it.

All right, thanks, guys, for joining us. Okay, did you know? Okay, as of actual recording time right now okay tomorrow it's one year since we recorded our first episode no i didn't know that yes oh my gosh that's so exciting how do you how do you remember that just remember it wow wow it's kind of a momentous occasion kristen i'm glad it was so memorable for you. Sorry. The only thing I remember is that we were we were super excited, recorded a ton. We recorded so many before we released one. So we didn't release our first episode until the end of February. Yeah, man. Yeah. I was very intimidated by audio editing. Oh, yeah. Not intimidated by talking to you about crimes.

No, that part was the easy part. Yeah. That was the easy part. Still the easy part. Yes. Well, thank you for listening, guys. We appreciate it. Happy New Year to you.

We hope 2019 is... Fabulous. Yes. Fabulous. And everything that you hope it could be. Please take some time to find us on social media we're on facebook instagram twitter then hop on over to itunes leave us a rating leave us a review 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 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 Forensic Files episode, The Disappearance of Hella Crafts, Newspapers.com, The New York Times, and Crime Library. I got my info from the Kansas City Star, Foxapers.com, The New York Times, and Crime Library. I got my info from the Kansas City Star, Fox 4KC, The Gardner News, NBC News, and KCTV5. For a full list of our sources, visit lgtcpodcast.com. Any errors are of course ours, but please don't take our word for it. Go read their stuff. Thank you.