Let's Go To Court! - 52: A Celebrity Stalker & the Blended Family

Episode Date: January 23, 2019

Rebecca Schaeffer was at the beginning of a promising acting career. She was gorgeous, talented, and dedicated. She landed the cover of Seventeen magazine, nabbed several movie roles, a recurring role on a soap opera, and most notably, a role on the CBS sitcom, “My Sister Sam.” But as Rebecca’s fame grew, an unstable 19-year-old named Robert John Bardo became obsessed with her. What transpired would help criminalize stalking in the United States. Then Brandi wraps up her horrifying series on Johnson County crimes with a story she first read when she was 10 years old. Seriously. Ten. This is why we’re weird. It starts innocently enough. When Ed Hobson met Sueanne at a local skating rink, he was smitten. He asked her out. She turned him down. He asked her out again. She turned him down again. Then Sueanne spotted Ed’s high-end car and decided she’d give him a chance. Eventually, the two married. The pair had children from previous marriages, so Ed brought his 13-year-old son Chris and Sueanne brought her 13-year-old daughter Suzanne into the home. Everything went great. Until it didn’t. 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: “Suspect in actress’ murder spirited to LA,” Associated Press “Sanity issue raised by Bardo Lawyer,” Los Angeles Times “Police directed to evidence in actress’ death,” Los angeles Times “Robert John Bardo,” Wikipedia.com “Rebecca Schaeffer,” Wikipedia.com “The shocking 1983 crime that raised awareness about stalking,” Gizmodo “A rising star lives to shine again after a near fatal knifing,” People magazine “Six years ago, Rebecca Schaeffer was fatally shot,” Entertainment Weekly “It took this up-and-coming actress’s tragic death to change anti-stalking laws,” Ranker … and several other articles from newspapers.com In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Family Affairs” by Andy Hoffman “Hit Mom” episode Evil Stepmothers “Stepmother of 13 year old boy forced to dig his own grave charged with murder” UPI “Sueanne Hobson wanted her 13-year-old stepson killed by Christmas” by Toni Cardarella, UPI “A jury Friday convicted Sueanne Hobson of first degree murder” by Michele DiGirolamo, UPI “Love Never Dies” by Ben Paynter, The Pitch  

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A proud member of Wayne's Auto Group. One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts. I'm Kristen Pitts. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court. On this episode, I'll talk about a Hollywood stalker.

And I'll be talking about the disappearance of Chris Hobson. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Let's Go to Court. I thought we were going to throw it back and forth a little bit. No, I was just... You just sat there like a deer in the headlights. I had another thing I was going to say. Oh, okay. Which is that I'm Kristen

Tits filling in for Kristen Pitts. I just feel like my voice sounds so different right now. Oh, yes. So I had a bit of a cold. I sound a lot better than I did a few days ago. Yeah. So I started to tell you earlier the game

I was playing with Norman, but I would have him close his eyes and then I would say things earlier the game I was playing with Norman, but I would have him close his eyes and then I would say things like, when I was your age, we didn't have smartphones. And then have him guess how old I was. You know, Brandy, when I was a kid, we played outside. Oh, wow. We didn't play with video games, okay? So I'm strictly better than everyone. I, wow. We didn't play with video games, okay? So I'm strictly better than everyone.

I like it. I like Kristen Tits. Kristen Tits is a pack-a-day smoker. She's this close to retiring. Yeah, and she's had it up to here. She wears high-waisted pants, not because they're in fashion, but because she's always worn high-waisted pants not because they're in fashion but because she's always worn high-waisted pants no this is a special episode this is our anniversary episode that's right

episode 52 we made it looks like we made it oh we did not plan that that was it's creepy i don't think you have to tell people we didn't plan it um so i think we should start by you telling the story of the cake that you got yeah so um we to celebrate we had cake i took a picture of it i'll post it on our social media um by the way we didn't eat it on the podcast because we thought that would be disgusting yeah so we already ate it before we recorded um so i went and i ordered the cake online um at this like bunt cake place it's such a good place and you can pick out the cake and you can pick out like the decorations and whatever so i got lemon cake because i know you and i love it. I was really nervous because I didn't know if Norm liked lemon, but I took a gamble. Turns out he just likes cake in general. He didn't care.

So I picked that out, pick out like a teal flower for the top of it, and then you can pick out a banner. And so I picked out a banner that said congratulations and then you can customize like little flags that go in it so um you just put in online what you wanted to say and they make them and so I put in I picked one that said LGTC one that said 52 episodes great whatever so I go to pick up the cake on my way here to record and I they bring out the cake great looks great I pick it up I go to leave I look at the banner on it it says happy birthday and I'm like what and so I put it down I'm like I'm uh this says happy birthday this isn't a birthday cake it was supposed to say congratulations and then like have like these little custom flags on it and they're like oh yeah um you should have noticed that there's a note on our website somewhere that says not all locations can do the custom banners.

So we just replaced it with one that we had. Which is my favorite solution ever. Congratulations must be someone's birthday. It's going to have to be somebody's birthday sorry so they um they i was like well it's nobody's birthday so so they took off that and i they let me hand write on some flags so looked real cute but would have been better if they could have done what i asked for but i'm fine you guys she is fully crying right now it's a delicious cake it was it's really good we also

drank champagne which we're still drinking right yeah we're still still doing the champagne yes yeah this is a good anniversary so far um i answered the door wrapped totally in saran wrap. To Wanda! And boy, was Brandi thrilled. Well, shall we get started? Do it. Take it away. Talk about a stalker.

It's not a lighthearted stalker. Yeah, I was about to say this sucks, but I feel like it goes without saying. Yeah. Yeah. I know a couple stocking cases. Okay. I am... I bet you know this one. I'm curious if I know it.

Okay. So, Rebecca Schaefer was at the beginning... Oh, should we turn that off, you think? No, I... Well, I bet it's fine. I don't know. Do you think we need to turn it down? It probably okay it's probably fine okay if you hear it buzzing in the back it's this air purifier because i am a sensitive bitch and my eyes

run like the mighty mississippi i don't have the air filter rebecca schaefer was at the beginning of a very promising career she was 21 gorgeous and talented she was from eugene oregon and when she was in high school she got into modeling she did some catalog work and decided that that was what she wanted to do with her life so after high school she moved to new york to become a model the only problem was she was five seven like a little too short for a model but that didn't really matter because just a few months after she moved to new york she got a recurring role in the soap opera one life to live i've never watched soap operas neither have i but your dad was into right for years so my dad um owns a sign business and for years it was all men that worked there and every day at lunch they would all get together and watch the bold and the beautiful that brings joy to my heart so my sister works there now um and she has carried on the tradition of watching The Bold and the Beautiful, but nobody watches it with her anymore.

She just watches it. Well, that's just sad. By herself. So Rebecca had this recurring role on One Life to Live, and over time she just found more success acting than modeling. And for someone who was pretty new to the business, I'd say she was kicking ass. She got a role in the Woody Allen movie Radio Days. Her part was mostly cut out, but still, I think that's a big deal. Then she was the cover girl for Seventeen Magazine.

And then she landed a role on a sitcom for CBS. We used to read the shit out of Seventeen magazine. Okay, do you remember YM, too? Yes. I mean, I loved magazines. Yes. I remember when we would go on our camping trips and stuff. Yes.

Kyla had that suitcase that was full of magazines, and we'd just pass them around the car. And it showed because our hair was wonderful. Our makeup was perfectly applied and we all had boyfriends the show was called my sister sam rebecca got huh i don't think i've ever heard of it most people have yeah um it wasn't on for very long but it let her kind of rub elbows with some pretty big people. So Rebecca got the role of Patty Russell,

who goes to live with her sister Sam after their parents die. This was a huge deal for her career. She got to act alongside Pam Dauber, who would later go on to play Mindy in Mork and Mindy. Oh. Yeah.

Yeah. Heard of that one. Yeah. With a lot of these things, like googled until i found something i knew so right off the bat my sister sam was a hit more eyes were on rebecca than ever before and unfortunately around this time 19 year old out of work jack-in-the-Box janitor Robert John Bardo became a big fan of her work. Okay. Yeah.

I think if you're out of work as a Jack-in-the-Box janitor, you're no longer a Jack-in-the-Box janitor. My favorite part about all of these articles is, like, every article called him an unemployed fast food worker. I agree with you. Yeah. That's not, like, a like no career no he doesn't have certifications and you can be an unemployed nurse yes because you have certifications yeah you mean unemployed hairstylist because you have a license and a certification but if you're i don't i i what about an unemployed youtube script editor oh you can't i. I'm in the same category as unemployed Jack-in-the-Box janitor.

Yeah, I think you have to hold some kind of certification in a field. But you could be an out-of-work journalism major. That describes like all journalism majors. So Robert's a huge fan of Rebecca. And that's a really scary thing because robert was a stalker did he have a history of stalking oh yeah oh so let's get into that the only reason at this time that he was really obsessed with rebecca schaefer was because he had been stalking the child actress and peace activist

Samantha Smith but that all stopped when Samantha died in a plane crash in 1985. Wow. And Robert actually believed that he had somehow caused that plane crash to happen. I don't know but anyway he was obsessed with Samantha. She dies. Then he moves on to Rebecca. Great. He sounds super stable. Super duper stable. So now he's moved on to Rebecca. But this is the mid 1980s.

And lucky for him, stalking was not a crime in the United States. It wasn't a crime anywhere in the United States. It wasn't a crime anywhere in the United States. So Robert traveled from his home in Tucson, Arizona, to L.A. to visit Rebecca on the set of My Sister Sam. Yeah, but it's not like she was like, hey, come out and visit me. No. This was a surprise visit. Oh, yes. By someone she did not know.

And did not care to know. Yeah. Like, he'd written her a bunch of letters, and I think her, like, fan mail service sent him something back, and he just took that to mean that, oh, you know. That's typically how stalking works, yeah. Yeah. Like, you make eye contact with some person one time.

And they imagine something from it. Or, like, you wear red, and they're like, ah, yes, that's our color. Yeah. Oh, God. That's so creepy! Is it creepier with the voice? Kristen Titts, yes.

Kristen Titts is so creepy. Why did I say Kristen Titts? I don't know. It was an odd choice. Well, too late now. Hindsight's 20-20. It sure is. I think you're the Titts.

Thank you. I think you're the tits. Thank you. So he arrives on the set with a big bouquet of flowers and a five foot teddy bear. Wow. Wow. Too much. Yeah.

Too much. The big ass teddy bear. Yeah. How did he get it there? Here's the thing. I think he, I mean, I think that they sent him back on a bus, but surely you don't get on a bus with a five foot teddy bear. These are the things I don't know. It just seems like a nightmare.

Oh, maybe he bought. Okay. He bought the five foot. Yeah. Yeah. You don't bring that. Okay. Yeah.

Probably not. Duh. What am I thinking? I'd be a terrible stalker. Like, I'm going to blend in. On the bus from Tucson to L.A. So, you know, he gets there with his stuff and he's like, I'm here to see Rebecca Schaefer. And the Warner Brothers security team was like, dude, no way.

Yeah, you need to leave. Robert was pissed by this point he felt entitled entitled to rebecca's time and he felt like they had a special connection oh no a month went by okay this next part is controversial so everything i saw. Does he kick a puppy? No. Everything I saw on like the current internet, like Wikipedia and like stuff that's currently been written, maybe based on Wikipedia, says that he came back to the studio a month later, this time with a knife and was turned away. OK. So obviously I included that in the script and was like, whoa, that's crazy. turned away.

Okay. So obviously I included that in the script and was like, whoa, that's crazy. But then when I went on newspapers.com and started reading articles from the trial, none of them mentioned the knife. Okay. Or the second trip back. And I feel like surely that would have been mentioned because that's a huge deal. Yeah. So I don't know.

Yeah. Could be right. Could be wrong. Wonderful. Anyway. It at least adds a little flair. It adds some flair. Hang on. I'm going gonna look that up on wikipedia i want to see you couldn't have done that before i'm sorry i'm just

kidding i want to see like what citation they have on that all right i'll just sit over here while you do your research. Sorry. Where is that? Okay. So it's not on his Wikipedia page. It's on her Wikipedia page. And it's... Is there a citation with it? Yeah, the citation, but it's a citation for a pretty long passage,

and it's back to a book that I didn't read. So who knows? Anyway. I'm glad that really cleared things up. Yeah, it sure did. Are you glad we took that time out? So at any rate, he goes back to Arizona, and he starts nurturing his obsession with other stars.

Madonna, Tiffany, Debbie Gibson. He starts to get kind of obsessed with them. I think we're alone now. Doesn't seem to be anyone around that was one of the first cds i owned kind of a creepy song when we're talking about stocking yeah it is yeah that was your first one yeah tiffany so i got like kind of my first one for my 10th birthday i believe it was i got a mini cd player right which it would have been 96 so no i remember it yeah they were like it was like pretty early days of cd players it was at your dad's house right it was at my mom's oh well then no i don't remember it i was at my mom's

um so i got this little mini cd player with these speakers uh-huh and five cds that's a good gift tiffany mc hammer yeah new kids on the block yes i can't remember what the other two ace of base i don't think so casey had ace of base so we did listen to ace of base a lot but i don't think it was mine kyla and i had ace of base yeah yeah what were the other two i can't remember stay tuned till the end. So, meanwhile, my sister Sam gets renewed for a second season. But about halfway through season two, the ratings drop and CBS cancels the show. So that kind of sucked. But Rebecca managed to find more work. She got a role in the dark comedy scenes from the class struggle in Beverly Hills.

Yeah, that was my reaction too we're shaking our heads uh she got a small role in the movie the end of innocence again more head shaking she also starred in a sci-fi made for tv movie called out of time which weirdly starred bill maher that's weird. Yeah, strange stuff. But anyway, so she's doing well. She's continuing to get work. And in the summer of 1989, scenes from The Class Struggle in Beverly Hills

came out in theaters. Robert, of course, went to see it. And he was livid with what he saw. She kissed somebody in it. So in the movie, there's a scene where she's in bed with another actor yeah so he lost it he felt that rebecca should be punished for becoming another hollywood whore oh my gosh oh god oh creepy so robert decided that he should be the one to punish Rebecca. Of course he did.

But how? Every time he got near her, security would take him away. And this was before the internet, so it was really hard to figure out where she lived, you know, all those creepy details. How old do I sound right now?

You sounded pretty old right before you just cleared your throat. Now I sound right now? You sounded pretty old right before you just cleared your throat. Now I sound 17. Took some years off. Hawking that phlegm, right? Took some years off. So he took inspiration from another celebrity stalker. I bet you've heard this story too,

because this is another famous celebrity stalking. Several years earlier, in march of 1982 a man named arthur richard jackson became obsessed with the actress theresa saldana she'd been in the movies raging bull and defiance do you know her okay so he decides i need to see her i need to be her. So that creep hired a private investigator. Yeah. The investigator was able to track down the unlisted phone number for Teresa's mom. Oh my gosh.

So he gives that to Arthur. Arthur calls Teresa's mom and he's like, hey, how you doing? I'm Martin Scorsese's assistant, and I need some help. I'm trying to get in contact with Teresa. See, we're working on a film right now in Europe, and we want her to replace this actress that we've got. So could you give me her home address? That'd really help me out.

Oh, my God. I know. So Teresa's mom was like, sure. And she gave him the address. No. I know. I shouldn't know any better, but. No, she didn't.

Yeah. I assume he was pretty convincing. Oh, yeah. So a little while later, Teresa's mom called her and was like, hey, I talked to Martin Scorsese's assistant. I gave him your address. But Teresa's like, what? A little while after that, Teresa got a call from her agent, Selma Rubin. And Selma said, hey, I keep getting these weird phone calls from some guy who's trying to get your address.

So Teresa was obviously freaked out. She called the police. but the police were like calm down it's just a fan yeah uh because stocking's not illegal yeah stocking at this point is not not illegal most people didn't even really know it existed yeah for about a week after her mom gave out her address teresa was very cautious but then nothing happened what she did not know was that by this point he'd been stalking her for 18 months holy shit yeah then on march 15th 1982 arthur was watching teresa's apartment a little before 10 a.m she walked out she was on her way to a music class so she walked up to her car put her key in the lock and she felt this weird presence behind her she turns around and right there in broad daylight arthur stabbed her 10 times with a five inch knife oh my gosh so she starts screaming for help

and luckily a delivery man was nearby saw the whole thing so he came running and he tackled Arthur and Teresa ran bleeding back into her apartment and her husband called an ambulance the attack was brutal he stabbed her so hard that he bent the knife at one point her heart stopped she lost a ton of blood she live yeah she was in surgery for four hours she needed 26 pints of blood, and she had, obviously, a terrible, very long recovery. But Arthur wasn't hard to catch. Police grabbed him, and he was charged with attempted murder and inflicting great bodily injury. He received what at the time was the maximum sentence for his crimes. Twelve years.

Holy fucking shit. A few months after the attack, Teresa did an interview with People magazine, and she talked about how the attack had changed her. She said, I do not give my phone number to anyone. I do not let anyone know where I live. If someone wants to reach me for a job, it's strictly through my agent. And now that this has happened, I plan to enroll in a self-defense class and to take karate. I now do things with other people and always have someone with me.

I'm not paranoid, but I am very, very careful. Oh my gosh. Teresa became an advocate for crime victims, and she worked really hard to raise awareness about stalking. But it was difficult. In the years following her attack, although a lot of people became aware of stalking, no laws were passed.

Fun fact, that delivery guy who tackled Arthur, afterward, he was so inspired that he quit his job and became a police officer yeah isn't that kind of cool that is cool so back to robert john bardo with no laws to stop him he just took a page out of arthur's book he said hey arthur hired a private investigator. I should probably do the same thing. If I want Rebecca's address, that's the way to go. So he found a private investigator in Tucson,

paid the guy 300 bucks to give him Rebecca's home address. It was a really simple job. They got her address from the DMV, which was legal at the time, and handed it over to Robert. Yeah. Then Robert told his older brother, hey, I'm too young to legally buy a gun, but I'd really like one. Here's some money. Will you buy one for me? And the older brother was like, sure thing.

That was a weird noise. Yeah. That was like an outward expression of how weird that made me feel. Yeah, it makes me feel really weird too because he did not have a history of mental stability. And so he goes to his brother,

was like, could I please have a gun? Yeah, great, great. Get ready to experience an all-new Dawn Valley North Lexus. Dawn Valley North Lexus has temporarily relocated around the corner to 7200 Victoria Park Avenue while they build a brand-new dealership for you. The deals don't stop, though. Get loyalty rates as low as 1.9 percent delivery credits up to 1500 and save up to seven thousand dollars on select demonstrator models

a proud member of wayne's auto group so robert went to la with rebecca's address his new gun and a copy of The Catcher in the Rye, which, coincidentally, was the same book that Mark Chapman, who is the guy who killed John Lennon, once he killed John Lennon,

he just sat there and waited. Yeah, and read The Catcher in the Rye. On July 18th, 1989, he found Rebecca's apartment and checked with some neighbors to confirm that she actually lived there so this sounds creepy as hell he was walking around her neighbor her neighborhood with a manila envelope and he'd stop people and he'd pull out rebecca's picture and be like does she live live around here? Oh, my gosh.

And for whatever reason. No one was like, hey, there's a fucking creep walking around here and called the police. Yeah, no one did that. Oh. So the morning of July 18th was an important one for Rebecca. She was scheduled to meet with director Francis Ford Coppola about getting a role in The Godfather 3. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. That's Casey role in The Godfather 3. Oh my gosh. Yeah. That's Casey's birthday, by the way.

July 18th. It's very important to note. Everyone, are you writing this down? Was it 1989? Yeah. That would have been her fifth birthday. You always let people know when the dates... I know, I like it when the dates correspond with something

makes it easier to remember this is true and there will be a quiz yeah absolutely so she was getting ready for that meeting and robert shows up at her door the intercom was broken so she had to go down and like meet him physically at the door which i cannot imagine what this was like but you know she goes down there, and there's just this guy who she doesn't know, this 19-year-old guy, and he's like, oh, I'm a big fan, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she was like, okay, thanks.

You know, all right, goodbye. Yeah. So he leaves. He goes to a nearby diner, has some breakfast. And just pie. I don't know. But wouldn't it be fitting if he had the apple pie with the cheddar cheese on top?

Yeah. Which is what all creeps enjoy. Yes. So then, after he's finished eating, he decides he wants to go back to Rebecca's apartment. It's not good. Yeah. He goes back, knocks on the door,

and this time Rebecca's wearing a robe because, you know, she's getting ready to go to this meeting. And believe it or not, she's not as polite as she was the first time. Well, yeah, because now there's a fucking creep at her door. Well, and I imagine, like, the first time someone shows up like that, you're so taken off guard. You're kind of like, oh, hi, thanks. Okay, bye. And now you're like, holy shit.

But yeah, he shows up like an hour later. You're like, get the hell away from me. At that that point he took out his gun and shot her in the chest oh after he murdered rebecca robert she died yeah i mean it was it was the chest yeah well looking teresa was stabbed 20 times or whatever and she lived. 10 times, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I watched a little bit of her on YouTube. She was really talented. I mean, it's really sad to think about where she might have been.

Because she hadn't been acting for long, but I feel like she had a pretty damn good resume. Yeah. So after Rebecca dies, Robert hightails it back to Tucson. acting for long but i feel like she had a pretty damn good resume yeah so after rebecca dies robert hightails it back to tucson and immediately police began looking for the murderer when they talked to people in rebecca's neighborhood a bunch of them were like oh yeah uh there was a weird guy asking about her he had a a picture. He had a manila envelope. He was wearing a yellow polo. Excellent. They described his vehicle, too.

They all kind of thought he was super weird. Yeah. And later, someone saw him running away. So, police have descriptions of the guy. But now he's in Arizona. And that's when a friend of Robert'sts who lived in tennessee called police i have a theory okay i think it was his sister none of the articles say it was his sister everything says it was just a friend some sources say a female friend but then i found out somewhere

that his sister lived in tennessee and later on his dad gets super pissed about something that happens with this crime and he's like you know the police would have never found him if it weren't for me and his sister so i think it was his sister okay so the friend possibly the sister sees that rebecca shaffer has been murdered on tv and she's like, oh no. So she calls the police, tells them everything she knows, that Robert was obsessed with Rebecca Schaefer, that he talked about hurting her,

and then the police in Tucson faxed a picture of Robert to the police in LA. And the LA police took that picture to Rebecca's neighbors, and they were all like, oh yeah, that's the guy. That's him.A. police took that picture to Rebecca's neighbors, and they were all like, oh, yeah, that's the guy. That's him. Fuck.

Interestingly, by that point, Arizona police already had Robert in custody. What? They had taken him in for wandering around on a Tucson highway trying to commit suicide by running into cars oh my gosh yeah that's an odd method yeah yeah oh my gosh so they have him in custody and robert kind of spills it he tells police where they can find his yellow polo where he can find the where they can find the gun where they can find the copy of catcher in the rye at some point in all this he was appointed a public defender named laurie lefferts and it was pretty clear that there'd be a fairly lengthy extradition process to get him

to la yeah at least that's what everyone expected. So prosecutors in LA are ready to go. This is a super high profile case. They're ready to get started. So they're watching all the filings and stuff going on in Tucson. And they realized that Robert's lawyer, stuff going on in tucson and they realized that robert's lawyer laurie had gone to the wrong court in tucson to fight robert's extradition and that she hadn't then immediately gone to the right court to refile those papers so she thought she had a few days to to refile the papers

but los angeles district attorney ira reiner was like excellent okay this lori lady has had a momentary lapse in judgment we're gonna pounce on that we've got this loophole here my gosh so he put two police officers on a late night flight to arizona they arrived at the county jail at 3.30 in the morning, grabbed Robert, and brought him against his will back to California to face murder charges. Oh my gosh. This was super

controversial. Robert's attorney did not realize he had been taken until 8.15 the next morning when she showed up for work. She was like, I mean, she's like my client was taken out of arizona illegally this is not nice not okay yeah it should do that finger wag at the end i like saying not nice not okay because when ally was in daycare that's what they used to teach the kids to say when they'd been wronged.

Not nice, not okay. And I use it to this day. Looks like you learned something, too. But Ira was like, okay, it may have been kind of a dick move, but it was perfectly legal. Perfectly legal, yeah. Yeah. Ira told the press that he couldn't take all the credit. The person who spotted Lori's error and said, hey, we could take advantage of this and just go get the guy, was the woman who would be prosecuting the case.

None other than motherfucking Marsha Clark. Yes. Who in a few years would be doing the OJ Simpson trial. Yeah. So this is Marsha Clark's like big moment. Robert's lawyer was pissed, but the prosecution and the defense did agree on one thing. That now that Robert was in California,

there wasn't shit that Lori could do to bring him back. Lori told the press, there's nothing I can do. Arizona law does not allow me to get him back. Wow. Yeah. So at some point in all this, Robert got a new court-appointed attorney

named Stephen Galindo. And in mid-September, a judge ruled that Robert's rights had not been violated by the surprise extradition yeah so the defense is still super angry because they were like I don't care what y'all say this was a violation of his rights this was showboating this was when Robert's dad got really pissed and that's when he said the thing about like you know you guys would have never caught him if it weren't for me and his sister. And at this point,

Marsha Clark is like, hi, uh, by the way, everyone, I'm adding a special circumstance of lying in wait to the murder charge. And in case you don't know, that means that the death penalty is officially on the table.

So lying in wait, she's talking about that, that hour when he went to the diner, she's saying like he was basically hiding out and plotting the table. So lying in wait, she's talking about that hour when he went to the diner. She's saying he was basically hiding out and plotting the murder. Robert's attorney was like, yikes. We can't have that.

So they negotiated. Robert waived his right to a jury trial. And the prosecution basically said, okay, since you're waiving your right to a jury trial we won't go for the death penalty we'll go for life in prison without parole okay so this case was heard in front of a judge but robert's attorney was still super angry about the extradition thing so he refused to enter a plea i don't understand that. It's going to get more ridiculous. I mean, so he's like, nope, we're not pleading guilty.

Not guilty by reason of insanity. We're not pleading anything. And Judge Dino Fulgoni was just like, okay, calm down. I'll enter a plea of not guilty then. That's exactly what happened. He was like, all right, noted. I'm going to enter not guilty for you. Yeah.

Congratulations. That's what happens. You can stand up there all day and stomp your feet and throw your hat on the ground and stomp on it, Yosemite Sam. But, like. You would be such a good judge. What are you going to accomplish? Nothing. Yeah.

Dumb. So they move forward. Let's see. Yeah. Dumb. So they move forward. Let's see. And at this point, the defense had no plans to contest the fact that Robert murdered Rebecca.

Their whole argument was that Robert was too mentally ill to premeditate murder. So this had to be second degree murder. And there was definitely no lying in wait. When he murdered Rebecca, it was spur of the moment and completely unplanned no bull fucking shit hey i i liked what you said before on the dp episode bull sexy yeah i'm i'm with you there's no okay so he just happened to hop on a bus and go to la and come to her door and then wait an hour and then come back and then kill her and the spur of the moment yeah no that's a terrible argument i do believe he was mentally ill oh i do too i believe he was mentally ill yes so mentally ill that he couldn't premeditate murder because i think that's exactly what he managed to do here

marcia clark didn't even bother with an opening statement she just started calling witnesses oh wow and her first one was john egger who was the head of security for burbank studios so this this was where i was like where's the part about the knife dude doesn't mention it okay so he was the one who told robert to go home that day when he came to the studio with the freaking massive teddy bear and flowers and the big bombshell with his testimony was that he was like yeah robert was super normal very pleasant found him to be intelligent nice guy that is a bombshell. Yeah. Yeah. Not some scary, violent-seeming guy. He said,

He was one of the most lucid and intelligent types of people that I've dealt with. Wow. Then Marsha called Robert's older brother, Edward, to the stand. Edward testified that he bought the gun for Robert because at the time, Robert was too young to get one, and he really wanted one, which is such a good reason for someone to have a gun.

Yeah. Then he said, yeah, you know, Robert had been in a psychiatric facility before, but at the time when Robert was asking for the gun, he seemed totally fine. Yeah. Hmm.

More witnesses were called and eventually it was the defense's turn. And they called TV reporter James Wider to the stand. James testified that on the day Robert was taken into custody, he looked loony. James said he seen... What? Yeah. Because, you know, the defense is trying to say, oh, you know, he's very mentally ill.

So they're trying to get anyone who's willing to say, yeah, he looked nuts. The news reporter? Yeah. The news reporter was there when Robert was like running himself into cars. And he was like, yeah, the dude looked like a Looney Tune. Do you not like the use of the word loony? No, I don't. I'm like, this is not a person who has any kind of authority or any kind of certifications

in any form of mental illness. But he was a witness. Uh-huh. And he could say what he saw. And his expert testimony is that he looked loony. Hey, he was a working journalist. That's got to mean something. So James said he seemed at best disheveled and at worst drunk or stoned

he said that after watching robert for several minutes he concluded that robert was a very sick young man he was also a doctor by the way a doctor who went all the way through med school and then was like, you know, I'd rather just be a TV reporter. Then came cross-examination. And Marsha was like, okay, okay. So he looked really bad. But that doesn't mean he was insane. The dude hadn't slept for 48 hours.

Couldn't that be why he looked terrible? It could also be why he was insane because I imagine sleep deprivation. Yeah. I don't think that's a great argument either. So James was like, yeah, I guess it could be. Yeah. Yeah.

Huh. The defense claimed that Robert only came back to Rebecca's apartment that second time because he'd been so enamored with her the first time. It's really her fault because she was's apartment that second time because he'd been so enamored with her the first time. It's really her fault because she was so friendly that first time. Yeah, she was so charming. They said that he came back because he'd wanted to give her a letter that he'd written.

He shot her on impulse because she was being so cold and seemed irritated that he'd come back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The defense called Dr. Park Dietz, who specialized in celebrity stalking. He testified that Robert was schizophrenic. He said that Robert was mentally ill and had been since he was a child. He said that his mother and brother were also schizophrenic. Oh, really?

Yeah. He called the family pathologically dysfunctional and compared him to all these other celebrity killers. You ready for it to get a little weird? Yeah. So Dr. Park Dietz testified that Robert listened to the song Exit by U2 and felt that the lyrics were about himself and Rebecca. Do you know that song at all? I don't. We both don't like U2. Yeah.

Here's another reason to not like them. So apparently the song Exit was inspired by two books about true crimes the executioner song which i've never read and then in cold blood which is the truman capone book so after after he says that the defense played the song for the judge and at at this point, all throughout the trial, Robert hadn't shown any emotion, really hadn't done anything. Exactly. Then they play the song.

He starts mouthing the lyrics and playing air drums on his knees. What? Super weird. Probably pretty good for the defense. Looks a little loony. What certifications do you have maybe a cosmetology license um dr dietz also talked a lot about robert's past okay he this is from a newspaper article he talked about some youthful writings which to me he's 19 years old every writing is youthful well i'm thinking that's a journal right yeah youthful writings journals yeah so anyway on cross-examination marcia was like aren't those writings filled

with the normal concerns of teenagers? Concerns like fame and getting attention? And the doctor was like, yeah, some of them are, but taken as a whole, no. He said, taken as a whole, this is a sick young man. A normal person would not repetitively threaten to commit mass murders, kill the mayor, kill your teacher. threatened to commit mass murders, kill the mayor, kill your teacher. And then later, Marsha was like, isn't it true that you're testifying here so that you can enhance your professional reputation? She pointed out to some statement that he'd made about wanting to include the Robert Bardo case in his future speeches and writings. And she said said you're testifying for less than your usual fee right and he was like uh yeah true but i don't have much to gain from this testimony

and then he goes i see this as a public service okay okay so i'm with marcia here yeah but i don't think that this necessarily means that he's full of shit or that his analysis is bad. No, I don't either. But yeah, like, dude, you specialize in celebrity killings. Yeah. And you are testifying for less than your usual fee in this high profile case. We know why you're here. Yeah, exactly.

In his closing statement, defense attorney Stephen Galindo said, Rebecca Schaefer is a victim in the true sense of the word. She did nothing to deserve the fate that befell her. Robert Vardo is also a victim, a victim of parental neglect and a mental health system which failed to provide the treatment he needed. But Marsha Clark was like, like nope the guy wanted to be a celebrity killer he wanted the fame that kills from that comes from killing a star he fantasized about this for years and he carefully and methodically planned his attack and by the way that psychiatrist that the defense brought up here in case you couldn't tell i'm not impressed by him the guy didn't do any analysis he just repeated everything robert told him

she said i'm not trying to put forth the position that this defendant was perfectly normal a normal person does not stalk and murder an actress but this was less than extreme psychosis less than extreme psychosis. Mm-hmm. Okay. So the trial lasted five weeks. At the end of it, Judge Fulgoni found Robert guilty of first-degree murder.

He also found Robert guilty of the special circumstance of lying in wait to kill Rebecca. And that required the sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. He explained that the evidence showed that Robert planned the killing. Okay. of life in prison without the possibility of parole he explained that the evidence showed

that robert planned the killing yeah okay so after the verdict as robert was being led out of the courtroom rebecca's boyfriend walked up to him and said your cowardice will haunt you forever oh my god i just got chills yeah um so i i read that article in the new york time or i'm sorry los angeles times and it said the boyfriend was bradley seberling and i was like huh i wonder if i can be a creep and like find him on facebook or something yeah i'm sorry that's so weird i'm sure normal people are like really grossed out yeah i looked him up he is now a famous director he is it's brad seberling so he did land of the lost lemony sniggets a series of unfortunate events city of angels casper wow uh yeah and in 2002 he wrote and directed the movie moonlit, which apparently is like super loosely based

on this whole thing. I mean, like, very loosely based. But, okay, so that movie was not well received. But check out this cast. Jake Gyllenhaal,

Dustin Hoffman, Susan Sarandon, Ellen Pompeo, and Holly Hunter. I've never even heard of this. No. It's got a ton of people in it. But, again,

not super well received now for the silver lining in 1990 just a year after rebecca's murder california became the first u.s state to criminalize stalking thank goodness yeah i can't believe it wasn't criminalized before that i know i know it's really scary how many of these laws against women were like totally fine until recently. Like how it was legal to like rape your wife until five minutes ago. Five minutes ago.

Three years later, every state in the United States criminalized stalking. Then in 1994, the Driver's Privacy Protection Act was enacted. The act prohibits the DMV from releasing your personal information without permission. That's good. No kidding.

Jeez. Stalking scares the shit out of me. Yeah, it's terrifying. So on Monday, I did most of the research for this. Yeah. And I mean, you know, it's all snowy here. There's no one out at all. So I'd spent like two

or three hours just reading about stalking being very creeped out and then Norman and I went for a walk with Peanut and I swear to you there was this woman we were the only people out uh-huh and there was this woman who followed us for like a quarter of a mile oh my god we were both like freaking and you were like i bet she listens to the podcast yeah i'm the star in this relationship i like we kept like looking back at her i mean she was this old lady what was she gonna do but we were fully prepared to take off take down a little old lady i wonder if norm Norman would stay and like protect me. Yeah. Or if he would have just like,

Bye! He'd do that thing where he like jumped in the air and like his feet were moving. Yeah, and then just like. I tell you what, in that situation, I would not be good. I'm not a sprinter. The lady would have to like let me know.

And I'd be like, all right. Just warning you, lady, I can run for a lot of miles so yeah that's the story oh that was dark it was really dark uh her poor parents i didn't talk about them she was their only child and great let's make it darker okay yeah we'll just end it there she's got great parents you gotta finish now no i mean i don't really even have that much to say it's just their life was ruined because their daughter was murdered i hope not it just made me feel awful yeah because like at the end her dad was like you know this doesn't bring her

back but i'm happy with the verdict yeah and her mom just seemed really devastated yeah i can't even imagine no yeah you ever been stalked no yeah i don't think i have either i've stalked someone well you mean like being creepy and googling yeah online yeah same i mean i kind of was creepy with this internet stalker so i'm grabbing more champagne because i'm doing better than you do it at drinking champagne my voice is driving me crazy it really is so much better than it was is it does your head hurt yeah your sinuses yeah yeah do you have that like

feeling in your soft palate what do you mean i always get like this like weird feeling in my soft palate when i have sinus problems no it feels like you know what i always think of there was this commercial like a million years ago that i think sums up the balloon head. That's exactly how I feel. I was thinking this week that whoever created that campaign was a genius because that is exactly, it feels like my ears are totally closed off.

Should we talk about something a little light? I think we're going to have to save the light stuff for the end. Sorry everyone, happy everyone. Happy anniversary. Happy anniversary. One of the darkest episodes ever. God.

Rebecca Schaefer was really cute, too. What are you doing? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I know. I'm being terrible. It's not like it would make it worse if she was ugly, or better if she was ugly. Yeah, I know oh yikes

okay i am finishing my johnson county series today that makes me sad i've really enjoyed i wonder if the listeners have enjoyed it though because it's about a bunch of stuff that's like nowhere near where any of them live so you know we have gotten some letters that say you suck okay they've said the nicest things about me i'm sure they have okay so a couple things this is the first true crime book yes i ever read i have been so mad at you because you would not tell me what it was. Yes. So my Aunt Stephanie gave me this book when I, I think I was 10 or 11

when I read it. Yes. And I loved it and continued to read true crime books after that. But I thought it was fitting to save this for the end of my little series

and for our anniversary since I did like my favorite, my first trial that I was assessed with on our first episode. And now I'm doing my first true crime book I read a year later. It's perfect. I'm not going to tell you the name of the book. Damn it. Until the very end.

Until the end. Okay. Okay. I also, so I got a lot of information from the book. I'll tell you the author, Andy Hoffman. He was a big crime reporter in Kansas City during the 80s. He reported on the Duffield murders. He reported on the Harmon murder.

Okay. He reported on this case. Okay. So it was a big deal. And then I also watched an episode of a show on ID. Okay. And I also cannot tell you the name of that show or the name of that episode. You are a master of suspense today.

I will tell you it all at the end. Okay. But I just want to get those credits in there. Okay. Without giving too much information away. All right. Okay. It was 9.30 p.m. on April 17th, 1980, and Ed Hobson was worried. His 13-year-old son, Chris,

was nowhere to be found. When Ed had come home that evening after a union meeting, then dinner with his wife, Sue Ann, he'd found Chris's science project spread out all over the kitchen table, with his wife, Sue Ann, he'd found Chris's science project spread out all over the kitchen table, but no Chris. So now Ed found himself wandering around in the dark, shouting Chris's name. The duplex the Hobson family lived in was in an upscale area of Overland Park. Do you want to look it up? I have the address. Yes, I do. Which special thanks, special, special thanks. I had like a sh on the end of thanks there too i think special thanks to my sister casey who found this address for me i could not find it searched for like a whole day for it uh-huh um i had a picture of the house from the book and so i sent it to casey and was like do you know where this is and she knew where it was so like off the

top of her head yeah she was like i'm pretty sure it's at the corner of 103rd and all whoa yes and so this is the address okay 5421 west 103rd terrace so it's a duplex i don't know which k uh no overland park oh okay um so i don't know which side of the duplex they lived in god it seems like every bad thing happens in a johnson county duplex so nice this duplex this is a this was a very upscale area at the time this duplex is part of a development that has a mix of duplexes townhomes and condos so lots of different things here, but very nice area. Super cute. Yeah, very cute. So Chris spent a lot of his time outside, but he knew the rules. He was supposed to be home by now.

And Ed was angry. And what time was this? It's 930 at night. That's too late. And it's April. So it's been dark for a while. So Ed's angry that Chris has missed curfew. But then he discovered that Chris's bike was in the garage. And then his anger turned to concern.

Chris rode his bike everywhere. If he was out, his bike wouldn't be there. Oh, my. So Ed walked down the oak tree line streets and passed the perfectly manicured lawns of their neighborhood to the park where Kristenisten often hung out where chris what did i say you said kristen okay i appreciate you including his name is kristen what okay but they call him chris but it's spelled c-h-r-i-s-t-n that's kristen it's nothing other than kristen huh it's not christian. His name is Kristen, but he goes by Chris. Okay. I don't have Kristen written here. I'm your long-term

friend, Brandi. Sometimes you just can't help but think of me. But his name was Kristen. Okay. So he's walking around the neighborhood. He's calling Chris's name nothing. He reaches the park where he often hung out. It's empty. He goes back to the house and he's like,

his wife is like, I think everything's probably fine. He just lost track of time. Let's give it a few minutes. You know, no big deal. Yeah. And by 11 o'clock,

Chris hadn't come home. And Ed was like, that's it. I'm calling the police. Yeah. So he calls the police. Sue Ann, Ed's wife,

Chris's stepmom is like well i saw him at six or six thirty that's when i left to meet you for dinner and then they're the other daughter so then chris had a stepsister suzanne who also lived in the house this was suanne's daughter okay they were the same age went to the same school and she said that she had seen him about the same time. Okay. She had gone and gotten in the shower, and when she came out, he was gone. Right. By the time an officer arrived at the Hobson residence, Ed's anger and concern had turned to full-on panic. Yeah.

In the time since he'd called, he'd made a troubling discovery. A shotgun was missing from a closet in the basement. Oh, no. But Ed couldn't tell the officer exactly when he'd last seen the gun and there was no sign that any kind of crime had occurred and so as is typical in this kind of instance the officer told ed that it sounded like chris had run away so he had like hunting rifles and shotguns in a closet in the basement.

He and Chris liked to hunt. They hunted regularly. Right. But it's not like he checked them every day to make sure they were there. Yeah. But just like in his search of the house, he had opened that closet and he had noticed that one of the guns was missing. So it could have been missing for a long time. Yes. Possibly not.

Possibly not. Okay. So the police are like sorry it it sounds like we got a runaway here and ed's like my son would never run away yeah he has nowhere to go no reason to leave he's happy he has everything he needs he doesn't know anyone else. Yeah. He would not run away. And police are like, meh. Yeah, exactly. And while Ed may have wanted to believe that was true, it probably wasn't.

Investigators would soon learn that things weren't going well at the Hobson home. So Ed and Sue Ann had been married for 18 months. And things in the blended family had not been going great. Ed and Sue Ann each had a child of their own

from their previous marriages. Ed had Chris. Sue Ann had Suzanne. They were the exact same age. Went to the same school. And when they'd come together... Well, that would be freaking weird.

Exactly. It just didn't work well. And both of them were used to being an only child. Oh, yeah. That's not great. the same school and when they'd come together well that would be freaking weird exactly just didn't work well and both of them were used to being an only child oh yeah that's not great yeah chris had had a rough childhood his mother died when he was like eight or nine years old um she had had cancer so her death was like long and drawn out his his mother ed's first wife um also had a couple of daughters from a previous marriage and one of them had died tragically oh when chris was a child oh yeah it was like it's a whole crazy thing i didn't even actually include it here yeah yeah so she and her boyfriend were like driving in a car they got in a fight the boyfriend got out and she like took off

and then the boyfriend was like this is stupid i need to go back and so he like climbed up onto the highway to like intercept her car she like came around the loop oh no she hit him not on purpose well of course not turns out it was a horrible accident. He died. Oh, no. Yeah. And she killed herself shortly after that. Oh, my God. Yeah, it's horrible. And Chris was like seven, six or seven. And he's the one that discovered his sister's body. Oh, no.

Yeah. Oh, God. This is terrible. Your story is even worse than mine. Yeah, this is a dark one. Oh, God. Happy anniversary, everybody. No shit.

So, yeah. So, he just had a really rough childhood well no kidding and and ed had loved this her name was tanny he or tani t-a-n-i i don't know i don't know he loved her like he was like she was his daughter and so it just crushed him he always thought that there was foul play involved. Something crazy happened when her body was at the funeral home. Her body was like defiled between the time it was prepared for the funeral. And then when the funeral took place. Oh, no. Yeah.

Like her hair was all messed up. The makeup was all like. Oh, gross. Oh, yeah. Really bad. Did he suspect like the funeral director i don't know oh my god yeah yeah oh so that happens and then ed's wife chris's mom dies of cancer and then ed just is like giving chris anything he wants he just wants his son to have some joy in life. And so whatever he wants, he gets.

If he wants to go hunting, they go hunting. If he wants to go fishing, they go fishing. If he wants a new baseball glove, he gets a new baseball glove. He gets anything and everything he wants. He gets to do whatever he wants. And one of his favorite things to do was to go skating at the skating rink. So there's a skating rink, 103rd and Mastin. It's still there.

I think it's Skateland. They went there regularly. Didn't we go there yes yes okay oh that's weird that was like all our elementary school school skate parties yeah god that place had a funky scent i think that's probably just like feet feet yeah yeah skating There's no mystery to it. I didn't need you to unpack that for me. So it was here at the skating rink that Ed met Sue Ann. Sue Ann had been forced to take a job at the skating rink after she divorced her first husband. She had married when she was 19 and pregnant. She didn't want to get married. She didn't want to have a baby. But it's what she did.

Ugh. Nightmare? Yeah. Yeah. It was her nightmare. Oh. So she spent a few years as a stay-at-home mom. But she had very expensive taste.

And she was very materialistic in nature. Sorry. This is Chris's birth mom. No, no, no. This is Sue Ann. This is Ed's. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah.

I'm with you now. So a little backstory on how she came to work at the skating rink. Gotcha. Where she met Ed. So she's super materialistic. She's grown up as an only child to well-to-do parents. She grew up in Prairie Village, which is a pretty wealthy area in Johnson County.

Pretty wealthy. Okay, let me tell you, folks. I love real estate. I'm always looking at real estate listings nearby. It's my dream neighborhood. It is? I love Prairie Village.

Every time a house pops up and I'm like, oh my God, why do they want $600,000 for that tiny little house yeah freaking prairie village oh yeah I can't afford to live there I know I'm just saying let me just tell you this okay I have loved prairie village forever uh-huh my dream to live in prairie village um a couple weeks ago Zach and I were on our way somewhere and we had to stop at

the grocery store on the way so we were passing through Prairie Village and we stopped at the Hen House in Prairie Village. That's a very nice Hen House. Which is my favorite grocery store to begin with. Everything in Prairie Village is very nice. This Hen House in Prairie Village. Okay, Hen House is a chain grocery store. It's not like a little neighborhood grocery store. This Prairie Village Hen House felt like a neighborhood grocery store. It's tiny. It's not like a little neighborhood grocery store. No. This Prairie Village Hen House felt like a neighborhood grocery store.

It's tiny. It's cute. Everybody was super friendly. I loved it. I was like, these are my people. This is where I belong. You know, my goal in life is to lure you to KC Moe. You know, we've got drugs here.

We've got dirt. We've got grit over here. So Zach and I are like walking out of this grocery store in Prairie Village and I was like, oh my God, I love it here. It's so amazing. Look, there's a Starbucks in the parking lot. Oh, this is where I'm meant to be. And he's like, I hate it

here. Okay. Did you ever watch Parks and recreation yeah yeah it makes me think of pawnee versus eagleton yeah i live in pawnee yeah and you're aspiring to live yes so suanne grew up in prairie village she was used to a certain lifestyle yes and then she married young yeah when she didn't want to to a blue collar guy he and he worked as hard as he could for jobs at one point oh my god for everything that she wanted they had a second child um and it just her wants and his ability to meet them really took its toll on the marriage. And eventually they divorced. Well, Jesus Christ, that poor guy.

Oh, yeah. I feel terrible for him. Four jobs, two kids. Yeah. And a stay-at-home wife. Oh, no. Yeesh. So she had to get a job.

When they got divorced, she left her first child. So her first child was a boy. And when he was four, she welcomed her first child. So her first child was a boy. Uh-huh. And when he was four, she welcomed the second child, the girl. Okay. She didn't want the boy, was not excited that she had the boy, thrilled when she had a daughter four years later. Oh, God.

Terrible. Poor boy. Yes. Yeah. So when they get divorced, she leaves the boy with the ex-husband and just takes suzanne with her oh well that'll ensure the kid has a number of psychological issues that's terrible terrible yes fuck that no kidding she wouldn't see or hear from her son jimmy for like seven years imagine that yeah i mean he didn't want to have contact with her wow yeah and nor did she want to have contact with him it seems yeah so here's

suanne she's freshly divorced raising a daughter on her own and she's taken this job at this skating rink owned by her friend norma while working there she meets ed hobson and he's immediately infatuated with her suanne was beautiful she had dark skin and dark eyes and she was very put together appearances mattered very much to her okay and he was just like who is this lady working at the snack bar i had that thought many a time because they served nach working at the snack bar? I had that thought many a time because they serve nachos at that snack bar. That's right.

Nachos, giant pickles. Fun dip. Yes. Remember the fun dip? And big cookies. You loved a big cookie. I did like a big cookie. Do you remember in elementary school? We'll cut this because it's who cares.

Yeah. But in fifth grade, do you remember they would bring out the tray? Oh, yeah. And remember they had those massive cookies for 50 cents? Oh, yeah. That were like undercooked in the middle? Yeah. Sweet Jesus.

They were delicious. They were amazing. So Ed is just infatuated with Sue Ann. Yeah. Chris is over here skating his life away. Ed's hanging out at the snack bar. And he is asking her out over and over and over again and she rejects him every time no i don't like this one bit he's just another

blue collar guy he's just like her first husband okay she's working the snack bar at a skating rink so she can calm the fuck down then one day she noticed that he was driving a really nice car i'm pretty sure it was a lincoln i'm not positive but really nice newer model car and then let me guess she decided that yes she could go out yeah so she's like oh wait this guy has money i guess I'll give him a shot. So she starts dating him. They get very serious very quickly. They drive to Oklahoma and get married and they decide they're going to. Oklahoma? Yeah, it's really weird. So they got married in like Miami, Oklahoma, which is also where she married her first husband and where Ed married his first wife.

So I don't know what's happening in Miami, Oklahoma. I'm not not familiar is she from miami no they're both from here okay that's maybe it's like the las vegas of the midwest maybe we're missing out hold on let me look at my yeah three weddings in this damn book happened in miami oklahoma i feel like the only reason you'd say that is so you could tell people oh yeah I got married in Miami and then just hopefully don't ask questions okay I'm I'm just doing an image search well no I'll go ahead and go to the official website of Miami Oklahoma yeah I mean I it doesn't really look like a destination I'm not trying to shit on Miami Oklahoma I'm very well aware I live in Kansas City Missouri I'm not trying to act like you know your shit don't stink yeah exactly what are we finding about miami oklahoma here is it i mean just that like

okay so population as of 2010 13 000 so it's like a yeah i mean according to norman that's a huge city gigantic city booming metropolis super weird why did they go there no i have no idea okay anyway anyway okay so we'll continue on so they get married and they're like oh this is amazing we're gonna mold our two families together it's gonna be the best thing ever they move into this duplex in overland park did chris and suzanne know each other no they did not go to the same school before the parents got married. No. All of a sudden, they're together and now going to the same school and everything. Oh, those poor kids.

Yeah. Yes. So they move into this upscale duplex in Overland Park. Ed bought Sue Ann a nice car and a giant wedding ring. It was like this big-ass diamond encrusted with rubies. Sounds hideous. And Ed was a hard worker. He had a good union job,

but he wasn't rich. Right. But Sue Ann got to stay home now. She had her perfect house. She had everything exactly how she wanted. And now it was time for the perfect family. Uh-huh. Minus her first child. Right.'t just doesn't just work that way you can't

just shove people together and all of a sudden have this perfect perfect family yeah the two 13 year olds butted heads a lot i bet so they fought constantly and both children ran to their biological parent when the step parent would attempt to discipline them yeah so it's like if suanne's trying to discipline chris he runs to ed and ed's like has to play the peacemaker yeah and it's just a really difficult situation yeah and it began to take its toll on the marriage but both suanne and Ed were really siding with their biological child. I'm so sorry. Hey, this is classic.

This is classic right here. This hasn't happened in a while. My dad is calling. Of course he is. Do you need to answer it? Answer it. No. Okay, so that was my father.'s he what's he got going on um i guess he just had a social media question which i'm afraid is going to be somehow related to the presence he has established

ever since he guessed guest hosted guested on the podcast i't know. He's tweeted us twice today, I just saw, so that's concerning. Four minutes apart from each other. That's okay. It shows he's not desperate. He did just say to let the listeners, he was like, well, do you want me to go on speaker

phone so I can be on the podcast? And I was like uh the listeners would probably love it and he's like just let them know i called they'll be excited oh my god he's a monster he's a monster out of control he's a monster but the people love him yeah that's right okay so things aren't going well the family's not working out real great right and so they decide um suanne and ed decide that they're gonna go to counseling as a family right okay good call yes things go a little bit better you know it's kind of they're working out some issues and they decide like to take take the next step forward they're gonna adopt each other's children so that it's like a full legal family everybody changes their last well suzanne changes her last name to hobson okay um suanne is chris's legal

mother now everything is you know perfect okay it's exactly perfect kristen how dare you make that face i'm just thinking i think counseling's a great idea yes i just think it would be really hard to make that shift at 13 yeah but also like i didn't want to change my last name when i was 26 i can't imagine wanting to change my name at 13 because my mom married some new guy. Yeah. But I think the adoption is sweet. I think the name changes too much. Yeah. I don't know if Suzanne was into it or not.

I don't know if it was. Let me. Come on. Come on. So things are getting better. Everybody's a Hobson now. We're all great. Nothing to see here. And ed and suan decide maybe

it's time no move in no suan's older son jimmy who she hasn't had contact with in years oh boy he's now 17 no and they're like why would you come in. Be part of the family, bud. It seemed like a great idea. No, it didn't. But neither Ed nor Suzanne knew the full extent of what Jimmy's childhood had been like after Sue Ann left. Well, that's on fucking Sue Ann. Yeah, no fucking shit. You don't leave your kid yes like oh what happened yeah so jimmy's dad jim had been a heavy drinker and he was unable to care for jimmy so

he'd sent him to live with various family members and he essentially spent the formative part of his childhood floating from house to house with no real place to call his own yeah that's infuriating oh yeah and imagine what that does to a kid uh it does horrible things to a kid meanwhile yeah his mother is alive and well and just not into it yeah and like raising his sister yeah yeah she's like you stay here i'll take this one wait are you about to tell me that jimmy's kind of fucked up from all this because that is just shocking won't that be shocking yeah so at first jimmy was happy to be invited into the family he was like oh my gosh i'm gonna have a stable home i'm gonna have siblings so he moves into the family um he starts at school nearby at shawnee mission south and he even enrolled under

the name jimmy hobson even though he wasn't technically a hobson he asked ed if he could use his last name oh that poor kid yeah and it was like of course yeah yeah but things were rocky of course jimmy was a troubled kid and moving into the hobson home didn't change that jimmy was caught multiple times with drugs in his room and he suspected that chris was tattling on him for them like each time that like his like they were caught in the room, like, it was somehow he knew Chris knew, and he was pretty sure that Chris was tattling on him. Oh, shit.

Did he take a gun and kill Chris? Why would you think that? Oh, no. Oh, no. Anyway. Oh, no. Anyway. Oh, no. No. Oh, it's terrible.

Poor Ed. Kristen. So he's getting caught with drugs, and then he gets into some real trouble. He gets caught by the police using a stolen credit card he gets convicted in juvenile court and ed and suan were like that's it you're out of the house wow okay well that was fast yeah they kicked him out they set him up in like a studio apartment nearby like they paid for it and whatever but they're like're not going to live in our house and do those shenanigans. Hmm. That's kind of odd. I think it's an odd move.

I think it's a super odd move. Yeah. So you misbehave. Well, more than misbehave. Yeah. You did something bad. Yeah. So now we're going to give you more freedom than ever before.

Oh, yeah. We're going to give you your dream situation where you're in your own apartment with no parental supervision. But don't you think like he had parents who were attentive for the first time in his life and he just wanted to see what he could get away with. He needed to be disciplined. Yeah. He wanted to see what discipline was. Yeah. And instead they were like, get the fuck out.

Yeah. Goodbye. Yeah. We'll pay your bills. Yeah. Huh. get the fuck out yeah goodbye yeah we'll pay your bills yeah huh they their hope was that getting jimmy out of the house would help calm things down at home things were really out of control at this point chris and suzanne and jimmy were at each other's necks constantly it was constant problems it was driving a wedge between ed and suan okay i do kind of feel them on that now that i now that i shat all over them about that i do kind of understand you got

these two 13 year olds yeah you're trying to make sure they don't get all messed up right maybe you do want to just yeah say bye-bye but su Ann's big concern was that Ed was going to divorce her. And so she had to make sure that that didn't happen. Okay. So she's like, okay, first you get out of the house, and then let me see if I can get this situation back under control. Oh, boy. Yeah, because her meal ticket is gone if Ed divorces her.

Doesn't she love him, though? I mean, like, what are you talking about meal tickets? Really? Doesn't, okay, well, though? I mean, like, what are you talking about? Really? Doesn't... Okay. Well, fine. I guess I'm naive. Which is weird, because today of all days, I don't sound naive. I sound grizzled by time.

I sound like I've seen some things. So, she gets Jimmy out of the house, but things aren't really getting much better. Right. Sue Ann liked a meticulously kept house. She cared very much about appearances, so she was not having it when Chris was constantly leaving his dirty socks in the living room, kicking his tennis shoes off wherever. His bedroom was constantly a mess i hear you suzanne drink directly out of the milk carton okay you're painting suzanne like her name is suanne suanne

sorry her daughter is suzanne it's not the least bit confusing that is stupid and then the dad was jim and he had a son named jimmy that's their fault that I can't keep it straight. I'm with her on this, though. Yeah, so she's like, this is not how I keep my home. This is unacceptable. Yeah. And then there were Chris's problems in school. Chris had a mild learning disability and required special education classes. And that was an embarrassment to Sue Ann.

Okay, well, now she's a dick. Yeah. Oh, she's a dick, Kristen. Well, I just say like... I'm just saying. So you know that we're working on our... I was about to say you nearly murdered Norm because he made a coat pile on the floor over there. I, okay.

So there's this guy who's supposed to be coming to do drywall in the house. He's canceled on us three times now. And our house is small. We have an old house. So closet spaces in an old house is like non-existent. Yeah. So you lose one closet and you're just fucked up the A. So we had this co-pilot.

What a North Sayerly blasted up the ass. Why did he say that? I can't remember that i can't remember so like the guy canceled on us again this week oh shit and i about blew my fucking top and it's all because the coats are everywhere and i don't want them to be everywhere so you'll notice it's pretty organized right now you know that's because I'm like Sue fucking Ann. Sue fucking Ann. And there's just a way I keep my home.

Here it is. So the house is a mess. Okay. Sue Ann's not having it. Right. Chris needs special education classes. Sue Ann is embarrassed. So she really made an impression at Chris's school by going up there and having constant meetings with the school counselor and the special ed teacher and trying to find out if he's improving.

Why isn't he improving? When is he going to be out of these classes? Let's get a move on. So not improving as in I'm worried about him. Oh, no, no, no. I'm concerned about how this looks that I have a son who's in special ed. Good grief. Yeah.

Okay. Yup. So now we're kind of back to Chris is missing. This is the back story. Okay. So Ed's telling them this is a perfectly happy home. But then when investigators started looking into it a little bit, they're like,

Ed, honey. God. I'm not, I'm not, we're not really getting that same feeling, but I'm not getting that vibe. I'm getting a real unhappy vibe. What detectives saw when they looked at Ed was a distraught father. Yeah. And what they saw when they looked at Sue Ann was a snobby housewife with a teenage runaway.

Ooh. What they didn't see though, were any signs of foul play. And so the days went by with little investigation and few leads. They're like, looks like he ran off and there's not a lot we can do about it. All the while, Ed was sure that something had happened to Chris.

Then, approximately six days after Ed initially reported Chris missing, a man found a wallet in some bushes at Metcalfe South Mall. Inside, he found a school ID and a library card belonging to Chris Hobson. This changed everything. Investigators were like, whoa, okay. This does not match a runaway scenario. Runaway kid is not going to dump his wallet at the mall. Someone else put the wallet there and they did it on purpose.

They were like, someone else is involved looks like ed might be right we might have foul play here what's the time period between when they didn't six days have gone by oh jesus okay yeah i just said that sorry i'm catching like 50 of what you're saying can i I blame the cold? Sure. Blame your balloon head. What color do you think my balloon head is? Blue? Oh, you're wrong. Oh.

It's red. I was just wondering. All right. Excuse me. I'm sorry I didn't read your aura properly. I mean, do you see a fucking crystal ball in front of me? Well, don't they teach you that in cosmetology school? Like, what exactly did you learn?

I mean, I'm an out-of-work journalist, but you're like a licensed cosmetologist. I didn't go to astrology school. No one did. The news of this wallet being found was big news yeah overland park and the overland park police department and investigators were speculating what it meant one of the more seasoned detectives got in on the conversation he was like this is the hobson boy right and they were like yeah and he's like i remember that family i was there a few months back dealing with the stolen credit card case with the older son jimmy and i got the feeling that things weren't

quite as rosy in that house as they would want you to think i'd do some more poking around that tree if i were you so he's like i remember going there it was weird it was weird something's up at that house okay okay and so the the detectives that are assigned to the hobson case are like okay so the day after the wallet was found overland park pd launched an official search of the area for the missing boy so it's a a week now. Yeah. He's been gone. And this is the first official search. Okay. A helicopter conducted an aerial search of the wooded areas around Overland Park while 28 police officers searched a concentrated area along Indian

Creek from Metcalf to State Line. It's a big area. Yeah, it is. It was the largest search by far that the Overland Park Police Department had conducted for a runaway or a missing person. But the search turned up nothing. A couple of articles of clothing were found, but neither Ed nor Sue Ann could confirm that they belonged to Chris. Yeah. Like, it was like a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt.

Yeah, that could be. Yeah. They don't know. Yeah. The days continued to pass with no sign of chris the police held a couple of press conferences asking anyone with information to come forward they told the public that the disappearance was being investigated as a runaway but they admitted that certain aspects of the case didn't match with a typical runaway case ed spoke on the press conferences.

Sue Ann and Suzanne just stood in the background. But Ed was like, my son would never run away. I know something has happened to him. You have to help me. You have to help me bring him home. Yeah. But nothing happened. There was no sign of Chris and no leads to follow until May 1st. So by that time, Chris had been missing for two weeks.

And it seemed like he had vanished without a trace. But around noon on May 1st, investigators received a call from Layla Anderson. Layla was an 18-year-old girl who went to Shawnee Mission South. She was like, I think I have some information on the missing Hobson boy. I think he's dead. Oh.

The only detective available to take Layla's call was someone who only had basic knowledge of the case. He hadn't been working on it directly. He listened to Layla talk for a few minutes and then he stopped her and he asked her to come into the station and make an official statement yeah the detective didn't know if there was any truth in what leila told him or even if he believed what she had to say but he knew one thing for sure leila without a doubt believed what she was saying was true so So Layla came to the station.

They take her into an investigation room and she makes an official tape-recorded statement to detectives. So they're like, Okay, Layla, why don't you tell us everything you know from the beginning? Yeah. So Layla starts talking to them.

She's like, Yesterday, a friend of mine came up to me and he told me that another friend of ours had been paid to kill the missing kid. He also told her, that friend also said that the kid's brother and the stepmother were involved. Wait, and the stepmother? Yep. Oh, no. Oh.

Oh, no. The mother paid the brother and friend to kill the boy. No. Oh, my God. Yeah. So detectives are like much like you. They're like, whoa, whoa. What the fuck?

Yeah. What? And they're like, who's your friend and she's like my friend who was paid is paul sorrentino and it was a name that police recognized he was some little 16 year old who was always into some kind of trouble but nothing serious he was good looking and well liked but he thought he was hot shit yeah and so they're like okay so paul sorrentino and then who's this who's this uh friend of his that you know was paid to and she's like jimmy hobson yeah they're like okay they're like yeah that matches yeah this is bad this is really bad and so they're like okay so so what'd you do after your friend told you this and she's like well i didn't believe it so i went to paul's house and i

confronted him so she tells these detectives that she's like okay so my friend told me that he had heard that paul and jimmy were paid to kill chris and so I just went to Paul's house and I was like, Paul, I'm hearing these rumors. Tell me it's not true. And Paul's like, no, it's true. Yeah, we did it. We took him out into the country. Jimmy and I did.

We killed him. What the hell? And so Layla is like starting to cry. She's like, oh my God, Paul, why? Why would you do that? And Paul's like, well, I owed Jimmy a favor and Jimmy's mom was going to pay for my motorcycle repairs for doing it. Oh my God. Yeah.

And Layla's like, but how could you do it? It was a 13 year old boy. That's a little kid. Yeah. And Paul goes, no,? It was a 13 year old boy. That's a little kid. Yeah. And Paul goes, no, this kid was a jerk. He was a snitch. He was a tattletale. He was a troublemaker.

Let me put it to you this way, Paul said. And this is a direct quote from Paul. If they had three gallons of milk in the refrigerator he would drink two and three quarters and leave a quarter for the rest of the family for the rest of the week well might as well kill i mean what the fuck i guess here's the thing i guess if you're gonna decide that you're gonna kill somebody you have to decide that that person's evil right yeah yeah and i mean if that's all the dirt you've gotten on they drink too much milk good grief yeah yeah oh my gosh yep i'm still stuck on the fucking suan being involved yeah what the hell yeah yep so Layla's like you know I talked to him about it and I'm like I can't

believe you did this and and he's like it's done it's no big deal it's no big deal uh we just took him out there we did it it's totally fine yeah it's's done nobody yeah no and so detectives are like okay do you know where he took them and she's like no but i can find out and they're like do you feel comfortable doing that okay no they shouldn't send her back there yeah and she's like oh yeah you know i put up a pretty good front so i think if you guys need more information i can get no no no you don't send oh no no yeah no i can get more information no big deal and so they're like okay well you know we really need to know where that body is so then do that work your fucking self you can figure that out for us that'd be a real big help, Layla.

And so she leaves. Are you about to tell me that she gets hurt? No, she's fine. Okay, okay. So she leaves and they're like, call us with any more information that you get. And so she calls him like three times that night. And she's like, I think it's somewhere off of 258th Street. That's all I'm getting out of him.

And then like, he said that they had to stop for directions and find Antioch on the way back. And they're like, OK, but still not enough. They cannot figure out, you know, it's not enough information. And so the next day they have Layla come back in. Yeah. And they're asking her, they're like, OK, did you get any more out of them? And she's like, no, like I can't. I i can't he says he doesn't know where it was exactly yeah and they're like okay would you be willing to call him and have us tape record the conversation okay they

should have said that from the beginning you don't send yeah exactly no yeah and so she's like oh yeah 100 absolutely yeah let's get him on the phone she is loving that she's helping the detective she feels like she's being a big help well she is yeah she is she is okay she feels terrible that this happened to this kid so she's like any way i can help i'm ready to do it okay Okay. And so they call Paul. They've got it all on recording. Yeah. And she's like, um, you know,

I'm really, I'm just really worried about, you know, this body out there in the woods. And he's like, well, don't worry about it. It's fine.

And she's like, what if somebody finds it? And he's like, nobody's going to find it. And she's like, it's been out there for like a while now it's gonna stink a dog's gonna dig it up yeah and he's like no dog's gonna dig it up and she's like i'm just really you know i'm in this now now that you've given me all this

information i'm in this i need to make sure that i'm safe too i'm thinking i'm gonna drive out there and and find it and make sure it's covered. And he's like, I mean, do you. Do what you want to do. And she's like, well, tell me where it is. And he's like, I don't know where it was. I was really fucked up when we went out there. We drank.

We smoked pot. Like, I don't know exactly where it's at. And he says the thing again about like somewhere off of 258th Street, somewhere in Miami County. They had to stop and get directions on the way back because they couldn't find antioch yeah so antioch dead ends at this time i don't know where it dead ends now but this time it dead ended at 175th street you know what i believe him if he was oh yeah dude does not know where it is oh i totally believe it and so she's like, I just really think that you got to get out there and figure out, you know, make sure that body's safe. And he's like, I'm really not worried about it.

And she's like, OK, but was the mud wet when you buried him? And he's like, well, yeah, like the dirt was moist. And she's like, it hasn't rained in 17 days if that dirt was wet when you buried him it has dried and shrunk by now which means his body is probably exposed yeah i'm sure that the detectives were feeding her well of course there's no way she came with that on her own. And he's like, oh, no. It's really, it's fine.

He's like, when I buried, when I buried him, like, his hand started to come out. So I stomped on it and really buried it down good and then put some more dirt on top. I'm sure it's fine. What do you mean came out? Like, he was alive? I don't know. Oh. Yeah.

And so detectors were like, all right. That's great information that we just got on tape. Yeah. And so detectors are like, all right, that's great information that we just got on tape. Yeah. Yes. We've got him admitting that he buried him. Yeah. And so they get off the phone and detectives are like, thank you. That was a huge help. Yeah.

Please stay away from Paul. Like, for your safety. Yeah. You know, once we arrest him, we're probably going to need you to testify. Right. And she's like, absolutely. You know, whatever I can do to help. Yeah.

So she leaves and detectives are like, okay, great. We have him talking about the murder. We have him admitting to burying the body. But we still don't know where the body is. It wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to make any arrests. Surely that's enough to make an arrest. They've got him on tape saying, when I buried the body.

Yeah, it's enough maybe to arrest him. But then it set it like. Yeah, okay. It's a giveaway to Sue Ann and Jimmy. Yeah, okay, okay, okay. Okay. And so they're like, we have got to Ann and Jimmy. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. And so they're like, we have got to find this body. Yeah. They needed a break. And that break would come the very next day. May 3rd. Two teenage boys, 17 years old, are playing by Bull creek in miami county okay they're fishing nothing's biting so they're like let's go let's go searching around in the woods let's see if we

can find some bigger worms that's what they were looking for they only had like little tiny worms nothing was buying let's go see if we can find some bigger ones oh god so they're rooting through the woods they're poking stuff with sticks trying to get worms to come out. But it hasn't rained. Yeah. And, like, then they're like, God, something stinks back here. Oh, no. And then they look over, and there's this odd area of dirt that's just, like, it's kind of mounded up differently than everything else.

And there's, like, a red piece of cloth sticking out from the dirt so they go over they poke it oh and it kind of moves and so they kind of like poke it a little more with the stick and they uncover it and it's an arm so they run they take off running oh god those poor kids police come out to the scene they uncover a body it is moving because it is full of maggots oh oh it is badly decomposed oh yeah so they take it back to the medical examiner's office which happened at the time to be i don't know if where it is now but it happened at the time to be at shaw't know where it is now, but it happened at the time to be at Shawnee Mission Medical Center. So they take it there to do an autopsy and they pretty quickly are able to determine that by dental records that it's Chris Hobson.

Oh, God. So they identify the body. They identify the body. They're like, okay, we got to bring these three suspects in and we've got to do it without any of them knowing that we're bringing any of the other ones in. Okay. Yeah, that's good. So three groups of two detectives go out simultaneously to bring in each suspect. So the first group goes to Jimmy's apartment. They have police officers

with them. They surround the building in case he runs. Yeah. They ring the doorbell. He answers the door. They introduce themselves. They're like,

we'd like to take you down to the station to ask you some questions. And he's like, yep, I'll come. Comes willingly. No problems.

Okay. Next two go to the Hobson home they have not yet been told that they've found Chris yeah so it's like midnight yeah they go to the Hobson home and Ed's like what's going on yeah do you find Chris they're like Ed we're gonna need you guys to come down to the station we've got some information to talk're like ed we're gonna need you guys to come down to the station we've got some information to talk to you about but we really need you to come down he's like just tell me now just tell me now i can't handle it just tell me now oh they're like we can't tell you anything until we get you guys down to the station and suanne's like in her pajamas and she's like do i have to come and they're like yep uhhuh. So she goes and she gets dressed.

And they take them down to the station. They separate them. They put Sue Ann in an interrogation room. And then Ed's just like sitting in the hall. And they tell him that they found Chris. Was it difficult to separate them or do you know? I don't know. Okay.

And Ed just wails. he just breaks down yeah and at that point he didn't really know why suan was being questioned right or why they had been separated right yeah the oh my gosh they talk about it in pretty big detail in this book and he said that the detective that told him like ed just in pretty big detail in this book and he said that the detective that told him like ed just like reached out and grabbed his hand and was like holding his hand and sobbing and the detective started to like cry too yeah horrible yeah yeah and then he's like i want to see suan and they're like well we're you know we're we're asking her some questions right now they're just really keeping him in the dark about what's going on. So then there's the third detective group.

They are trying to figure out where Paul Sorrentino is. Yeah. And dispatch contacts them. Paul Sorrentino happened to, at the exact same time that the detectives were getting ready to head out and find him, call police because he was at a party and he'd accidentally locked himself into some handcuffs what what so he was like hey can you send somebody over to unlock these handcuffs for me i can't get them open you're kidding me no oh my god yeah and so they're like yeah sure no problem we'll send someone over right away let's save

some time we'll keep them on those on wow and so they go over and um it's at this like house party and he comes out and he's like i don't want people to know that you police are here yeah and they're like oh yeah no problem come on out yeah just come on down here come down to the car and they unlock his cuffs for him yeah and he's like all right thanks guys and they're like oh we're gonna need you to get in the car we're gonna take you down to the station we need to ask you some questions and he's like what and they're like yeah we just got some questions for you and so he's playing super confused yeah and they take him down so they start interrogating the three different suspects. So Paul is like, I have no idea what you're talking about.

They're like, we found Chris Hobson. Yeah. He was murdered. We think you're involved. Yeah. And he's like, I have no idea what you're talking about. And they're like, everybody is talking about how you are involved. And he's like, they're like, you have told several people information that you could only know if you were involved.

Yeah. And he's like, oh, my God, no, I'm just making stuff up to get attention. Come on, guys. And they're like, oh, oh, really? And he's like, yeah, you know, I'm just been running my mouth again. And they're like, oh, okay, great. Hey, listen to this for us. And they play the recorded phone call for him.

And he's like, yeah, I need a lawyer. I'm not going to say anything else. Oh, okay, Paul. He immediately refuses to speak to them. In the next room, they've got Sue Ann. And they're like, we found Chris. He's dead. And she's like, oh, goodness.

Oh, my what? And they're like, uh-huh. And we're pretty sure you're involved. And she's like, involved? Involved in what? And they're like, oh, in murdering your son. Yeah. And she's like, well in what and they're like oh and murdering your son yeah and she's like well i wasn't home what that's her immediate i wasn't home when he went missing uh that's not how you respond exactly exactly so they're like uh okay and so um they're like not getting really anywhere with her and they're like we know you're

involved we've got several people saying your name that you're involved in this yeah that you paid to have him killed and she's like no that is not what happened at all. And so then she tells detectives that Jimmy killed Chris and that she found out about it after the fact. She was Chris or Jimmy was tired of Chris telling on him all the time. He knew that Chris was the one that got him in trouble for the stolen credit card. He knew that Chris was the one that was tattling on him for the drugs. She pinned this on her own son was the one that was tattling on him for the drugs which she pinned this on her own son none of that was true chris was not involved in him getting in trouble for the drugs or the credit cards at all yeah but she said he's like he had had enough he killed him

he did tell me after the fact i did know that he that fucking died and i just i didn't know what to do it's my son i had to protect jimmy i had to protect my son he's just you know a troubled boy and then she admits that she is the one that planted chris's wallet at metcalf south she thought that that would protect jimmy somehow well that's stupid yeah yes and so they're like uh-huh so just jimmy just did this just on his own and you knew about it this whole time she's like well yeah i couldn't tell ed what was i gonna say to ed and they're like uh-huh okay great why don't you just sit here for a while so they leave her to sit in the interrogation room and then they go and talk to jimmy and jimmy agrees to tell detectives everything as long as they don't tape record it what he agrees to a written statement they can write down everything he says but he does not want his mother to be

able to hear his voice saying everything that happened yeah okay and so they're like okay yeah and so he tells them everything uh-huh so he says that a couple of weeks before April 17th, the day that Chris disappeared, that Sue Ann came to him and she was like, I've had enough. I can't handle him anymore. He is going to lead to me and Ed being divorced. I cannot go through another divorce. I cannot lose Ed. You've got to get rid of him. And Jimmy's like, I don't know why you would think that i would

do that yeah and she's like then find somebody who will and she's like i will buy you a new car i will pay whoever you are able to find help you with this and so he's like okay and so paul sorrentino is like his best friend he's only been going to this school for a short time so he still doesn't he doesn't know paul that well but it's been his like one you know kind of constant friend since he started at this new school yeah and he's like kind of telling paul like can you believe this and paul's like let's do it oh my god paul tells jimmy he's always wanted to murder someone what the yeah let's do it and so he's like what can i get out of her and jimmy's like probably whatever you want yeah he's like i got you know x amount of dollars in motorcycle repairs I need done so I can get my bike back.

You think she'll do that? Let me guess, like 300 bucks? Probably. And Jimmy's like, yeah, I'm sure she'll pay you whatever. So like a couple of different times, they, Paul and Jimmy went to the house to take chris and like jimmy backed out each time okay and so then on april 17th at around 6 30 7 o'clock paul and jimmy come to the house paul walks in chris is at the kitchen table working on his science project he immediately starts talking to chris jimmy goes straight to the basement grabs a shotgun takes it out of the house puts it in his car and also puts a shovel

in his car oh my god and then he goes back in the house and meanwhile paul's been like hey we're gonna go uh scam some drug money you wanna you wanna come with us and chris is 13 yeah he's getting attention from the cool the cool older boys and he's like yeah yeah let's go and so jimmy's loaded the car up he comes back in and paul's like hey chris is gonna go with us and jimmy's like okay great oh and so they all go get in the car um paul is driving jimmy's sitting in the passenger seat and chris is sitting in the back chris is so excited to be in on whatever they're doing they head out of town they start driving south and they're just driving and driving and driving and chris like starts to get dark and chris is like um what time are we gonna be done i have to like get home and do my homework.

And they're like, Oh, this isn't going to take long. Don't worry. Don't worry. It's not going to take long. And so actually I think at this point, Jimmy was driving.

So they pull over. I think Jimmy pulls over and Jimmy goes, Jimmy and Paul both get out of the car and they go to the back. Chris stays in the car and they're like, we're just going to check something in the trunk real quick. And so they go out to the back and Jimmy's like, what, why don't we just, just drive them to Wichita and put him on a bus i don't want to do this i can't do this yeah and paul's like oh it's fine with me if it's gonna get me my money i don't care and he's like okay let's just do that and so they get back in the car now paul is driving

jimmy sits in the passenger seat they're smoking pot they're drinking um and chris is really worried by this point because it's just getting later and later they keep driving they pass a sign for wichita that says 150 miles paul turns the radio up really loud and then he looks at jimmy and he said i can't be driving 150 miles there and back he's like we gotta get this done now i have school tomorrow what yes and so he's like we're pulling off here we're doing this and jimmy's like okay all right let's do it because he had school tomorrow yeah so they pull off um in a rural miami county they drive down a road until it turns into a gravel road.

And then they drive until there's a bridge out sign and the road stops at like where a bridge used to be. They get out of the car and they're like, all right, Chris, come on, come with us. We're going to go out here. We're going to check something out. And so he's like terrified. Yeah. By this point, they turn the car so that the headlights are like shining into the woods. And then they, Paul and Jimmy both grab a gun from the back.

Paul had already had his gun in. Jimmy had loaded the shotgun from the house and, um, in the back of the car and they give Chris the shovel and they all walk out into the woods and they tell Chris to dig a hole oh so for the next hour and a half Chris digs a like a six foot by four foot by three feet foot deep hole he started to cry because it's late and he's scared and his hands are bleeding from digging this hole every time he tries to stop paul yells at him paul and jimmy are standing there with guns he has no idea

what's going on oh and he finishes digging the hole and jimmy looks at it and he's like well let's square these corners off and so jimmy goes over and he squares the corners off and then paul's like chris why don't you try it on for size? Lay down in it. Oh, fuck. So they make him lay down in the hole. And then Jimmy stands at his feet. Paul stands at his head. They count to three.

Paul shoots him once in the chest. Chest or jaw area. Chris starts to try and get up jimmy shoots him a second time and he like is clutching at the gunshot wound he's trying to get up and jimmy's like shoot him again shoot him again he can feel it he can feel it you've got to kill him and so paul shoots him a final time in the head and he dies god that poor kid fucking terrible they in the next five they spend the next five minutes just like in a fog operating like at full adrenaline just burying the body as fast as they can they pick up the shotgun shells they put the guns back in the car and they

drive back to town and they go to school the next day oh my god yep and jimmy can't handle what he's done yeah he's wracked with guilt and paul is beyond proud of what he did he can't stop bragging about it to everyone kids know parents know but everybody is afraid of paul that he could do something to them yeah so nobody had the guts to say anything except except for layla wow yeah poor chris you knew he knew what was gonna happen while he's digging that hole you knew he knew what was going to happen while he's digging that hole. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, your only hope is that he was so naive and young that he didn't know. But he had to have been scared. Yeah, I'm sure he was terrified. Yeah, the whole time he's like, guys, I got to get back. My dad's going to be so mad. Yeah. Oh, God. It's terrible. Yeah. Oh, it's terrible. So May 4th of 1981, Jimmy and Paul, or I'm sorry, 1980, Jimmy and Paul were placed under arrest. They were transferred to Miami County and they were charged with first degree murder. So their trials would be held in Miami County because that is where the murder happened.

Right. So back to Sue Ann. So she's been sitting in an interrogation room for hours. She's like, I didn't have anything to do with this. Ed is sitting there bawling over his. He's just gotten this news that his son has been murdered. But he has no idea where suanne is or what's going on and so detectives come out and they tell him we're placing suanne under arrest we believe that she was involved in your son's murder and he's like no no she was his mother

she loved him she never could have done that oh god ed so they that same like in the i don't know like four o'clock in the morning six o'clock in the morning they place suan under arrest and she's like she's like oh can i keep my jewelry on and they're like what no you can either put it in this envelope and we'll lock it up for you where you can send it home with someone and so can i keep my jewelry yeah so she takes off like she has like all these gold necklaces on and her giant diamond ring all this she takes it off and puts it all into um like a envelope and they send it home with they actually send it home with her friend um so in this mean in the meantime before they had arrested suanne they had brought suzanne in to question as well um and suanne did not know that she was there and they're like do you know anything about chris's disappearance you know we think that your

brother and your mother are involved uh-huh and she said the day that Chris disappeared, I was in the car with mom and we stopped at Jimmy's apartment and they had a conversation outside of the car. All I heard mom say was, I'm done. You've got to get rid of chris oh well so they're like what do you think she meant by that and she's like i don't really know what she meant by that but i just know she wanted him gone yeah and so they're like okay great that's plenty thanks yeah it sure is yeah and so so before they arrest suanne she's allowed to talk to suzanne really and she's like what did you tell them she's like well i told them about the conversation that you had with jimmy um the day that chris went missing where you said that you wanted to get rid of chris and she's like oh i think you misunderstood that conversation that's not what that meant and

she tries to like brainwash suzanne yes yep and so detectives are like, all right, that's enough. Yeah. They place Sue Ann under arrest. They send Suzanne home. So Jimmy and Paul's cases are moving forward in Miami County Court. But they're having trouble with Sue Ann's case. She's been charged in Johnson County with one count of conspiracy to commit murder with an intention to add a first degree murder charge as the other cases developed and they were able to maybe get

them to testify against her yeah but both boys were refusing to testify against sue ann what yes and so they initially dropped the charges against suanne so it's a super unpopular decision dennis moore was the district attorney at the time which i talked about him he was the district attorney during the duffield case that i covered as well and he was like we're only dropping this for now. Yeah. We plan to recharge her after the completion of Jimmy and Paul's trials. Okay. Because then we can make them testify. Yeah. Basically, once their trials are over. Okay.

And so, but people are, like, pissed. Okay, so when Sue Ann is charged, she gets out on out on fifty thousand dollars i'm so stressed by this whole thing okay she gets out on fifty thousand dollars bond and ed kicks her out of the house well fucking yeah yeah when the charges are dropped he's like oh you're innocent okay come No. Yes. No. Yes. They get back together. Yes. Oh, Ed. Oh, yeah.

Terrible. So bad. So in the meantime, Jimmy and Paul are refusing to testify against Sue Ann. And without their testimony, a conviction against her is not going to be possible. Yeah. So they drop those charges. Ed and Sue Ann get back together. Jimmy pled not guilty and his trial began in April

of 1981. Sue Ann testified at his trial. Okay. But it was decided that she could not testify about the murder she could only testify about his life leading up to that point she could talk about his childhood she could talk about the trouble that he'd gotten into with the drugs and the credit cards but she could not talk about his or her potential involvement in chris's murder because it could possibly

implicate her somehow okay and it was just i don't know i don't remember if it was her attorney that decided that or if it was like a judgment in the court that she could not okay um so she only talked about she only testified about his early childhood very odd odd. Very odd. All right. Yes. They had Jimmy's statement. His defense was that he didn't have a choice. Yeah. That he was involved in the murder. He did do it, but he had no choice. His mother made him.

It was an emotional trial. Ed testified as well about the loss of his son and how he had tried to bring jimmy into his house and treat him like he was his own and whatever and but on may 1st jimmy was found guilty of first degree murder and he was sentenced to life in prison yeah paul sorrentino took a deal jimmy was actually offered this same deal, and he turned it down. Paul pled guilty to one count of first-degree murder as an aider and a better. So under that, it carried a life sentence, just like a first-degree murder charge does,

but it holds the possibility of parole, at this time anyway, after only eight and a half years. Wow. Yes. So he pled guilty um in return he would have to testify at sue ann's trial yeah so he was obviously he was uh sentenced to life in prison but with the possibility of parole after eight and a half years yeah as expected charges of conspiracy to commit murder and first degree murder were refiled against suanne hobson in june of 1981 so after both jimmy and paul their trials had wrapped up they'd both been sentenced whatever her trial began in may of 1982 jimmy paul and suzanne all testified

at trial. Yeah. All the stuff that they had talked to investigators about everything, everything Suzanne had heard, the entire chain of events that had happened. The defense called only one like character witness. They could only find one. It was Ed. No.

Ed testified in her defense. Oh, Ed. No. Ed testified in her defense. Oh, Ed. And said, I do not believe that Sue Ann could have ordered this murder. She loved Chris like he was her own. There's no way she could have done this. What was Ed's deal? I don't know. Okay.

I think Ed was probably just. He'd had enough trauma in his life and he didn't want to believe. I don't know. Okay. I think Ed was probably just... He'd had enough trauma in his life and he didn't want to believe. Yeah, he just wanted love. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. On May 11th, 1982, a jury found Sue Ann... Guilty.

Guilty of both charges, both conspiracy to commit murder and first degree murder she was sentenced to life in prison good yes ed stayed by her side you're kidding in 1993 they divorced because sue ann was like you are at that time he was like 50 years old and she was like you need to have a life this is his version of events i would be shocked And she was like, you need to have a life. This is his version of events. I would be shocked if she was that nice, but yeah, she was like, you,

you don't need to be married to me. You need to have a life. He visited her every week in prison. Like, yeah. Oh my God. I don't even know what to say to this. Yeah.

So in 1993, they got divorced and Ed became very involved in a support group parents of murdered children okay it's a group that meets it's all obviously pretty self-explanatory all people whose children have been murdered and he was very involved in the group they did panels they went and spoke at schools right Right. All kinds of stuff. And it was just like a grief support group as well. Right. He became like the co-leader of the group.

He was very, very involved. Until in the early 2000s, late 90s, early 2000s, they found out that he was actively arguing at suanne's parole hearings for her release oh and they asked him to leave the group yeah they're like we cannot support you if you are arguing in support of someone who's convicted of murdering your son yeah yeah and he was asked to leave the group so that group actually came to our high school and spoke to my sociology class, the Parents of Murdered Children. Oh, really? Yes. And I remember at the time, so Mr. Johnson was my sociology teacher.

Yeah, yeah. Did you have him too? Oh, yeah, yeah. So, and he told us at the time that Ed Hobson always used to come on the panel. And I was like, oh my God, I know that case. Yeah. And he's like, I don't know what happened a couple years ago he stopped coming oh turns out you know he's been asked to leave the group wow so yeah so he argued like at eight of her parole hearings uh-huh and he even after they got divorced he still continued to visit her.

He refused to move on. Yeah. He continued to stay by her side. He believed 100% that she was innocent. And Jimmy and Paul committed this murder on their own and that she had nothing to do with it. Jimmy was paroled in 1999 wow yep okay paul sorrentino was paroled in like the 80s 2004 oh why'd he stay in so long because he was not a great prisoner and he like he was he thought he was great but he was not just because you're eligible for parole yeah it doesn't mean you're

gonna get it does not mean you're to get it because while he pled guilty, he played down his role. He was really not. And Jimmy claimed full responsibility for his role in it. Yeah. Other than the fact that he said he didn't have a choice. Yeah. Which I imagine to some degree,

he thought he didn't have a choice. Probably. See, I feel like there should be an extra little special law to this. Yeah. Where you solicit murder. Okay, you go away for this many years. Yeah.

When you involve teenagers in the crime, you should get some years added for that. Because that's insane. You're exerting your power as an adult over teenagers. saying you're exerting your power as an adult over teenagers yeah um suanne hobson was denied parole eight times each time ed went to her parole hearings and argued for her release and at her ninth hearing in 2011 she was granted parole she was released from prison on February 25th, 2011. Gross. She and Ed remarried. No. Yep.

And today they live in Sue Ann's childhood home in Prairie village. Oh, no. Are you serious? Oh my God. You are kidding me. How can they afford to live in Prairie village after all their parents? It's her childhood home.

So I'm sure it was just left to her. It's an estate thing. Yeah. Wow. Can you believe that he's still fucking married to her? No. No, I can't. There's something wrong there.

I 100% agree. Yeah. But he's convinced himself that she had nothing to do with it and that she was wrongly convicted and wrongly imprisoned for 30 years at her last parole hearing wow um ed at that time was living in the prairie village home and like the homeowners association argued at the parole hearing about her being released and moving into their neighborhood want her to come back yeah wow oof i just cannot imagine being supportive of someone who was convicted of murdering

or ordering the murder of your child no like. Like, yes, maybe she didn't. She didn't actually pull the trigger. But yeah, it never would have happened. But I think he probably doesn't believe that's true. Yeah. He's convinced himself that she was not involved. God, this is creepy. I do not like that you did this because now like all these people are like in our area. Right.

So Paul and Jimmy both live out of state. Jimmy in Texas I don't know where Paul lives I couldn't find that okay um but yeah Ed and Sue Ann live in Prairie Village I could have ran into them at my Prairie Village grocery store oh man I I'm freaked out it's a creepy ass case. Yeah. That's my first true crime book I ever read. That is weird. Yeah. So my dad is like the same age as Jimmy and Paul were. Yeah. He graduated high school in 1981. So he knew of Paul, didn't know him well, but like it was the big thing to hang out

at the skating rink. And so he like Paul was at the skating rink all the time. So yeah, my dad knew of him. Yeah. That's my crazy. My final Johnson County case really went out with a bang there. Didn't I really did?

That was horrible. It's horrible. And I've got to pee now. Okay. Sorry. That was so good okay oh my god so the book is family affairs oh boy i brought it so that you can look at the pictures yes yes okay uh maybe go back no the so the back one is um if you go back a page like go back a page that's forward no but i'm i'm excited

so that's uh suanne and her first husband and then baby Jimmy. Okay. Sue Ann was very pretty. Oh, yeah. Man, Paul Sorrentino was hot. Yeah, he was very good. He was like a super good looking guy. Okay, this creepy picture of her here where she's posing in her handcuffs. After she's been charged with murder.

Yeah. Oh, my. Oh, this is so disturbing. What the hell? And then the show that I watched on it is a show on ID called Evil Stepmothers. Gee, why couldn't you say the name of the show? And the episode was called Hit Mom, so I couldn't tell you anything about that. Oh my god. Yeah. That was good. So, Johnson County

series has come to an end. Thank God. Yeah, I can't talk about how dangerous. Although, how many cases did I do? Six from Johnson County, I think. I bet I could go on a spree with KC Moe, don't you think? Four of them happened in the 80s, so it's much safer now. Is it?

No, I don't think it is. So it's much safer now. Is it? No, I don't think it is. Well, let's lighten it up a bit, shall we? Yeah. So it's our anniversary episode. Yes.

And we have some thank yous. Oh, my gosh. We wanted to do, like, some thank yous, some shout outs to people who have been, like, really supportive, have done awesome things for us. Hold on. I'm stalling because I made a list and I can't find it now. People who have been like really supportive, have done awesome things for us. Hold on. I'm stalling because I made a list and I can't find it now. Okay. So first, the very first person we have to thank is, of course, the gaming historian, Norm himself. Yeah, he's been super instrumental to everything with with this podcast he's been super supportive he got a set oh great peanut loves him too and thank you to peanut who barks regularly in the middle of

our episodes from like figuring out our sound stuff because we had so many sound issues in the beginning he worked really hard to figure that out for us because it really bothered him a lot more than it bothered us you know it's one of those things like you don't know how bad you are oh yeah in the moment because i remember listening to our early episodes at the time it sounds great what no it sounds fucking terrible it sounded terrible yeah it sounds so bad and norman was good enough to tell us that it sounded terrible and to say maybe we need to buy two microphones yeah not just one that's pointed toward kristin super shout out to norm and everything he's done for us yeah amazing stuff we also wanted to thank gerard the completionist who has done a lot for us. He's done shout outs for us. Yeah, huge thank you to Gerard.

Huge thank you to the Super Beer Bros, because they've given us a bunch of shout outs. Yeah, several mentions. And Gerard sponsored an episode. So that was awesome. Andrew Lippins also sponsored an episode this year. So thank you to him. Thank you, Andrew. Yes.

We want to thank Titmouse Animation Studio. We do. Yeah. Okay, so it's one of those weird things. I mean, obviously, we're a small podcast. So when we get, like,

all of a sudden, someone follows us on Twitter, you know, I get the notification right away. I go and usually I'm a creep and I look at their profile and I kept seeing Titmouse Animations.

Like, all these people in the Vancouver offices were listening so thank you guys it's just so cool yes thank you we also want to thank the group of girls um in South Africa who listen to us regularly they messaged us um you guys have literally put us on the charts in south africa literally yes so thank you thank you uh i want to thank my sister casey who made our logo yeah yeah so our amazing logo and we were like hey can you make us a podcast logo and she was like sure told her nothing else and she made our amazing logo so casey thank you and everyone who has made us fan art we've had like some of the coolest stuff um man we love fan art oh man bob moss the flasher guy uh the uh

saint what's its butt postcard our cartoon versions of us, which we've printed out and are hanging in our offices. Yes. We appreciate it. Amazing stuff. And then anyone who has sent us an episode suggestion, even if we haven't covered that case, thank you for taking the time to do that. We love it. We've done, several of our cases

have been from episode suggestions from you guys, so please keep sending those too and thank you to people who already have yeah um and then really anyone who's taken the time to leave us a rating leave us a review send us a message mention us on social media thank you yeah we it's so cool yeah i mean did you okay, so let's go back in time. Yeah. But I just remember, like, we started it and kind of had no idea what to expect at all. Yeah, we're like, 12 people will probably listen to this. And then, like, we're getting, I just, it blows my mind.

We're getting, like, we just got reviews this week from the Netherlands. Yeah. From New Zealand. So cool. It's amazing. It's so cool. So thank you just to anybody who's listening to this and listening to our ridiculous tangents and i don't know finding a way to laugh at it

they're all relevant brandy damn it brandy and thank you to you kristin yeah go ahead for editing the episodes and also i mean this was your idea so we literally wouldn't be here without I was so sweaty mcnervis because I remember coming up with the idea and thinking oh my gosh I want to do this with brandy yeah and I remember telling Norman my idea I didn't say I want brandy and he goes you know who you should get for that it's brandy and I remember like kind of freaking out yeah because it's such a huge ask to be like do you want to come over to my house every week yeah and research something every week right like it's just a huge time commitment and I was like man if she says no I don't know what I'm gonna do and you responded like immediately like Like, sure.

It's been so fun. And without getting too cheesy, the best part is getting to hang out with you all the time. I feel the same way. Yeah. I do too. Seriously. So thank you guys for listening to a year of episodes. Yeah.

Oh my gosh. Here's to many more years of episodes yeah hopefully we'll have plenty of ideas for future episodes we we just talked about this what were we saying earlier so we were sitting around eating our cake yeah and like how sad it would be if one of us was like and i'm done yeah so we've made it a year and uh this is my last episode. Never! I would be devastated. I would be devastated. If you came in and you were like, I'm done. I would be devastated too.

I was thinking about this last night. It has been so much fun just to do this. Yeah, it's been a blast. I don't know what our end game is here, but I'm having a good time. And we hope you guys are, too. Oh, man.

Thanks for putting up with our ridiculousness. We do. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how you guys listen to me laugh every week. Boy, it's just terrible, isn't it? It is. It's been so fun.

Please continue to listen. I mean, if you want to. If you don't want to, that's fine, too, I guess. No, Brandi, be a good salesperson. Oh. Listen whether you want to or not. Damn it. Yeah, remember what we said.

If you listen to episodes more than once, your skin gets clearer, brighter, and that hair thicker, more... Lustrous. Yes. That is the truth. These claims have not been verified by the FDA. Hey, the federal government is in shutdown now. They're not

monitoring any of this. Good things will happen, folks. Seriously, thank you to everybody who's listened, and please, be sure to join us next week when we'll be experts on two whole new topics. Podcast adjourned.

And now for a note about our process. I read a bunch of stuff, then regurgitate it all back up in my very limited vocabulary. And I copy and paste from the best sources on the web and sometimes Wikipedia. So we owe a huge thank you to the real experts. For this episode, I got my info from the LA Times, the Associated Press, newspapers.com, People Magazine, Gizmodo, and Wikipedia. And I got my info from the book Family Affairs

by Andy Hoffman, The Pitch, United Press International, and an episode of the ID show Evil Stepmothers. 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.