Let's Go To Court! - 55: The Power of Suggestion & Con Man Clark Rockefeller

Episode Date: February 13, 2019

In this episode, Brandi gives us part one of a two-part series that begins with the rape and murder of 68-year-old widow Helen Wilson. When investigators discovered Helen’s body, they were baffled. She had no enemies. Who in the tight-knit city of Beatrice, Nebraska, could have killed her? Investigators had a pretty solid lead, but blood analysis ruled out their top suspect. After that, the case went cold… that is, until a retired police officer and full-time hog farmer picked up the case. Then Kristin tells us about con man Clark Rockefeller. Things seemed relatively normal in July of 2008, when Clark, his daughter, and a social worker walked through a posh area of Boston. But when a black SUV limo pulled up beside them, Clark shoved the social worker out of the way and pulled his daughter into the vehicle. The limo sped off, leaving the social worker behind. Boston police rushed to Clark’s ex-wife, Sandra Boss. If they were going to catch him, they needed all the information they could get. Therein lay the problem. Clark Rockefeller didn’t have an ID. He didn’t have a social security number. In fact, Clark Rockefeller wasn’t Clark Rockefeller at all. And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: “The Man in the Rockefeller Suit,” by Mark Seal for Vanity Fair “Lawyer says ‘Rockefeller’ won’t get fair trial,” The Boston Globe. “‘Rockefeller’ wins false name battle,” Associated Press “11 jurors chosen in kidnap trial,” Boston Globe “Rich deception,” Associated Press “‘Rockefeller’ defense claims delusions,” Associated Press “Ready-Made Rockefeller,” New York Times Newspapers.com |Wikipedia.com In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Presumed Guilty Part one: Murder in Apartment 4” by Joe Duggan, Lincoln Journal Star “Presumed Guilty Part two: The Search For a Killer” by Catharine Huddle, Lincoln Journal Star “Presumed Guilty Part three: The Break” by Joe Duggan, Lincoln Journal Star “Presumed Guilty Part four: Pointing Fingers” by Catharine Huddle, Lincoln Journal Star “Memories of a Murder” by Rachel Aviv, The New Yorker “Even in 1989, forensics didn’t point to men and women who went to prison for crime” by Joe Duggan, Omaha World-Herald  

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 Clark Rockefeller. And I'll be talking about the power of suggestion. Ooh.

Okay. I'm feeling a little bit anxious. Okay, yeah. What's going on on i'm doing something i've not done yet and we haven't done yet as a podcast and i'm feeling a little bit nervous is that because it's a bad idea i don't think it's a bad idea but i picked a case that i knew nothing about and then i started researching it and like i just kept going and going and going. And it's a really big case. And so I'm going to have to do it in two parts. I hate it. I'm hitting pause on this already.

I think it's really interesting. And I think that I've picked a good spot to split it up. So I hope our listeners feel the same way. But straight off the bat, I'm telling you, this does not wrap up in this episode. It doesn't even get to trial in this episode. So I'm very sorry. Send all hate mail directly to Brandy. Should we just jump right in?

Are you ready? Yeah. Mine is a long one. Sounds like yours is a long one. So light on the chit chat. All right. Getting right to business. I'm very excited about this.

You had a very intriguing intro. The power of suggestion. Yeah, I didn't mean for you to repeat it. I mean, we're short on time. The power of suggestion. There's like a quote I have to say it so many times. And then Beetlejuice appears. Yeah.

Oh, God, I got to make it big. Hold on. I'm kind of nervous. why are you so nervous do you want to tell people why you were late today i was late today because i was watching tv sitting there in my pajamas, watching a little TV. Hadn't read through my case this morning, nothing. And then I had got really sucked in by what I was watching and completely lost track of time. So I quickly had to read through my case, take a shower and get ready. And what were you watching, Brandyy was it something on pbs that's

right i was watching nova no i was watching dr phil okay this episode was crazy it was about this 15 year old boy and his parents brought him on the show because they said he was uncontrollable he would just like fly into these fits of rage all the time. He would hit them. They were scared of him. They really thought it was going to escalate to the point where he was going to physically harm himself or others in some way. And then he started like stealing his mom's underwear and all of this stuff and started setting these small fires in his room. It really had gotten out of control. He'd been to like all kinds of different treatment facilities, he was on like a list of like 26 different like mood altering medications, all this stuff,

and nothing worked. And so Dr. Phil was like their last resort, apparently, which he always should be. And so they come on, they talk to him. And then Dr. Phil goes and talks to him off camera. Well, they do it on camera, but you only see the back of the kid's head because they don't want to reveal his identity. And so you just see the back of the kid's head and Dr. Phil's face. And they talk to him. Dr. Phil, you know, asks him a bunch of questions, whatever. Then he comes out and he tells the parents that he believes he knows what's wrong with their son.

believes he knows what's wrong with their son. He thinks that he doesn't have a mood disorder or behavioral disorder at all that he needs to get off all the medications and everything. He believes that he's been misdiagnosed and that he's autistic. It was crazy because once he said that, and once he laid out the way that autism affects the brain, it made complete sense. and the parents were like they couldn't believe that no one had seen this in their son before and that they've been drugging him up on all of these different things that he didn't need to be on yeah it was crazy okay well that actually does sound really interesting it was and i can see why you would get sucked into it so i apologize for for being late, Kristen. You know, I was going to kick you off the podcast.

Bring in DP full time? No, just peanut. People would love that. Okay, enough of this. On to the case. Helen Wilson lived alone. But the 68-year-old widow wasn't ever really alone. In the nearly two decades since her husband Raymond had passed away, her family had rallied around her, even lifting her up from the darkest of depressions at times. Whether it was her siblings, children, grandchildren, or even great-grandchildren, someone was always there to give Helen a helping hand or a shoulder to lean on. And the night of February 5th, 1985 was no different. The day had been bitterly cold in Beatrice, Nebraska. Spelled like Beatrice, pronounced Beatrice. It's a town of almost 13,000 in the southeast part of the state, about 40 miles south

of Lincoln. Pretty big city. Pretty huge town. And Helen Wilson wasn't feeling well. She had a terrible chest cold that just wouldn't let go. And so that evening, her son had come over to sit with her while his wife went to her Tuesday night bowling league. It was their regular Tuesday routine. Darrell, Helen's son, would sit with his mother while his wife Katie bowled, and then Katie would join them for a few minutes after league finished. On this night, Katie had arrived at 930 and Helen apologized that she hadn't felt up to putting on a pot of coffee. Darrell and Katie chatted for a few minutes, then left Helen for the night at about 10 till 10. Katie told Helen that she'd give her a call

at midnight to remind her to take more medicine. Katie called at 1150 and there was no answer. She called again at midnight. Again, no answer. When a third call went unanswered 15 minutes later, Katie and Durrell assumed Helen had slept through the ringing phone and went to bed themselves. Right. It was an assumption they'd regret the rest of their lives. Oh, no. The following morning, around 9.30,

Helen's sister, who lived in the same apartment building, came to Helen's apartment as she usually did. Only on this day, February 6th, 1985, exactly 34 years ago today, as of this recording, didn't plan that. I think it's creepy when shit works out like that. It'd be really weird if you did plan it. Helen's sister found her apartment door damaged. It had clearly been pried open. She pushed the door open and inside she found her sister dead on the floor. She yelled for her husband to call 911. The first officer was on the scene within minutes and he did his best to preserve evidence before it was trampled by the numerous officers, detectives, coroner, etc. that would be joining him.

He photographed and videotaped the scene. Helen Wilson was lying on her back on the floor of her living room. She was wearing a blue nightgown. Her hands were bound and a washcloth covered her face. Hands were bound and a washcloth covered her face. Beneath the cloth, an Afghan blanket was tied around her head so tightly that it smashed her nose to one side. Oh, God. Yeah.

As officers arrived, they collected hairs and blood from Helen's clothing. beneath her body and collected about 50 pieces of evidence, including a torn $5 bill found on the floor, a pair of women's underwear that had been neatly placed on the couch, and a steak knife. Helen's body was sent to Lincoln where an autopsy would reveal that her chest cold had really been pneumonia, that she'd been raped, and that she died of suffocation, likely due to the Afghan being tied so tightly around her face. There were signs of a struggle at the scene, but it wasn't as if the place had been ransacked. And there wasn't anything missing. Her wedding ring and her mother's ring were still both on her hand. Her purse had like $1, 1200 cash in it and it was still

there man what is yes my great grandma used to keep in her purse like all her jewelry yes yeah as if it was safer on the arm of like an 85 year old then you know locked away somewhere yes you know why why here's why here's why Because workers might come in your house and they'll rummage through your drawers? Oh, no, that's not what I'm saying. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm saying, like, why the killer didn't take the money. Oh, okay. I know why.

Why? Because it was a super young dude. Only, here we go, here we go, Kristen theory. Never right, but I keep trying. here we go kristin theory never right but i keep trying people who come and rape old ladies and kill them are inexperienced killers i'm guessing our perp is 17 okay okay all right i guess you don't have to do a two-parter now great theory and then kristin solved it all right great uh podcast adjourned okay so clear that robbery was not the motive right the scene actually reminded investigators of a series of attacks on elderly women back in 1983 oh shit

there goes my theory but in those cases all the women had been able to fight off their attacker and no arrest had ever been made so he he was young then, now he's... Now he's younger? He's Benjamin Butney? No one suspects it. One thing investigators knew for sure was that they needed to solve this thing and they

needed to do it quick because the murder of this sweet little great grandmother with no enemies had sent shockwaves through the city. An intensive investigation into Helen's death began immediately. Investigators returned to her apartment again and again, looking for anything that they had missed. And they set up a little stakeout at the cemetery following Helen's funeral. at the cemetery following Helen's funeral.

Detectives hid a voice-activated recorder in a bouquet of flowers at Helen's burial site and watched for three days. They hoped to catch the perpetrator and record some kind of graveside confession, but that never happened. Six days after Helen's murder, investigators got some news. Blood that was found on a blanket and sheets, as well as Helen's nightgown and panties, had come back as type B. Investigators knew that Helen had type O, so this blood had to belong to the killer.

Remind me again, what year are we? We're in 1985. Gotcha. This was a significant break in the case because only about 10% of the population is type B. Blood profiling was the most sophisticated forensic technique at this time in 1985. And tests showed that whoever had killed Helen Wilson

was a non-secreter. So that means that enzymes from the killer's blood would not show up in the bodily fluids, such as the semen that he had left behind. And since only about 20% of the population are non-secreters, the suspect field narrowed even further. In their search for a type B non-secreter, investigators took samples from dozens of people. But it led nowhere. Finally, 10 days after Helen's murder, investigators got their first viable lead. So this 23-year-old guy, Mike Hyatt, comes into the police station and he's like, I have some information.

I have no idea if it's pertinent, but I feel like it might be. And I really just need to get it off my chest. Is it about a young friend of his? It's about a 17 year old boy. Shut up! No, I'm just kidding. Don't excite me like that. He told police that on February 5th, he had run into his childhood friend, Bruce Smith. Bruce had told Mike that he was going to head back to Oklahoma soon, but that he wanted to party and get laid before he headed out of town. Oh, God. So the two made plans to meet at a bar that night. So they're at the bar that night, and Mike said that Bruce Smith just kept going on and on about how badly he needed to get laid, how long it'd been, and that he'd do

just about anything to make it happen. And so Mike's like, fine, I won't have sex with you, but I'll give you a handy day. That's just being a good friend. No. So Mike, he's like tired of hearing him complain. And he's like, all right, I know of a party that's going on. There's lots of girls there. I'm sure you can find someone to hook up with. So around midnight, they left the bar and they headed to this house party. So Smith keeps making advances on one of the girls that was hosting the party. Let me guess. She could smell the desperation on him.

And she keeps shutting him down. Yeah. And so he just keeps getting like drunker and drunker. Oh, boy. And more and more angry. Oh, good. By the time that they left the party or got kicked out of the party is more likely. It was after three in the morning and Bruce Smith was drunk, angry, and he still hadn't banged anyone.

Has he heard of masturbation? Right. banged anyone. Has he heard of masturbation? I mean, I feel like I need to give a PSA to all these angry guys out there. Yes. But Mike had had enough of his shit. So he just dropped him off at the intersection of sixth and courts streets. I didn't even like take him back to his house. Nope. Oh, okay. So this intersection just happened to be two blocks south of Helen Wilson's apartment. Oh, no. As Mike drove away, he watched Bruce head north on foot. It was bitterly cold, well below zero by this point.

But Mike wasn't worried. He'd had enough of Bruce, and Bruce knew the area well. He'd grown up in Beatrice. He'd even gone to elementary school there. In fact, his grandmother used to live in the same building Helen Wilson did. Police jumped on this lead, and they tried to talk to anyone who had interacted with Bruce at that party or after. They tracked down an acquaintance who said he'd seen Bruce on February 6th and that he'd had scratches on his face and hand. He'd told that acquaintance that he'd gotten in a fight with Mike Hyatt the night before.

So investigators went back and talked to Mike again. There had been no fight. Oh, shit. Then investigators talked to a woman who had been at the house party that night. Her wallet had been stolen from the party. Police had found it, though, minus $60, in an alley next to Helen Wilson's apartment building. Well, shit. Okay. Police were able to track Bruce Smith's actions around Beatrice for the couple of days after Helen Wilson's murder.

He'd gone to his brother's house early that morning, but his brother's wife hadn't let him in. She said she was scared of him, didn't trust him. He came back a couple of hours later, and she'd let him in to sleep for a bit. He told her his nose hurt from a fight he'd gotten in the previous night. Smith had also gone to a convenience store and stolen a bag of potato chips. Potato chips!

I love those things! Stolen a bag of potato chips the day Helen's body had been found. You know what? Huh? I feel like that's a really dumb thing to steal. You gotta steal. Don't give me that look. Is that dumber than anything else?

Yeah. I mean, if you're going to steal food. Well, because you can't like put it under your jacket. Exactly. You're going to crush the potato chips. You're going to crush them. They're bulky. They make crinkly sounds.

Crinkly sounds. You're right. In the scheme of snacks you could steal, probably not the best one. My recommendation. What's the most silent snack? I think bang for your buck. You steal like, you know, those little gross packets of like crackers with the cheese you were gonna say that the cheese crackers with the peanut butter yes yes you because

those can fit into your pocket yeah not too bulky you know all right I'm just trying to help people theft tips from Kristen so the clerk at the store remembered him when police showed him a picture. So police were just kind of like going around to different businesses and they're like, have you seen this guy? And he was like, yeah, that guy stole a bag of potato chips the other day. Obviously, he's like, I would not have noticed him if he'd stolen the cheese crackers with the peanut butter. And he said he believed that Smith had blood on his clothes. Oh, shit. Yes.

Then investigators learned that a man matching Smith's description had boarded a bus for Wichita on February 9th. The ticket agent remembered him when shown a picture. And he'd said that he had wanted to go to Oklahoma, but he didn't have enough money. And so Wichita was as close as he could get. Investigators believed Bruce Smith was probably their guy. And in March, they caught up with him in Oklahoma. Are you about to tell me he's not the guy? I don't know. Am I? You'd better not. They had a court order to get blood, hair, saliva, and fingerprints from him. They got their samples and sent them to the Oklahoma City Police Lab for analysis. While in Oklahoma, they learned that Bruce Smith was also the suspect in a 1981 rape there

and that there had been a homicide in 1984 where the details matched very closely to Helen Wilson's murder and that Bruce Smith had also made the short list of suspects in that case. Case closed. He had not been charged in either of those cases though. It seemed everything was pointing to Bruce Smith. That is until the lab results came back. Is he a secretor?

Is he not type B? Bruce Smith was type B. Uh-huh. But he was a secreter. Damn it! He couldn't be their guy. Holy crap! The investigation moved on

and quickly grew cold. Ugh! Is that not nuts? That is crazy. That is absolutely crazy. I'd be like, test it again. Right. This can't be right.

Weeks went by. Then months. Authorities went door to door in a 49 block area around Helen's apartment. They interviewed 318 people in three months. Months turned into a year and the investigation hadn't progressed any further and that's when burt searcy came in at the time of helen wilson's murder burt was a former investigator for the beatrice police department now working as a hog farmer so burt was kind of like he was pretty young still but he was technically a retired police officer. He was like 37. Oh, wow. But he was the type of guy who didn't really know what he wanted to do in life. So he had grown up on a farm.

His family were pig farmers. He decided not to go that route. He was going to be a welder for a while. That didn't work out. He became a police officer, was a police officer for several years, then an investigator. Then he left the police force because he didn't get along with the chief. Oh, okay. And decided to become a hog farmer.

So at the time of the murder, he's working away on his hog farm. Fucking hates it. It sounds awful. It sounds awful, yes. But one day, he's eating his lunch, watching TV, and he heard the news of Helen Wilson's murder. And he recognized her name. She had worked at the cleaners where he'd taken his police uniforms for years. And immediately, he was sucked in.

He needed to investigate. Yeah. And so, Circe went and talked to Helen Wilson's family. He told them he was a private investigator and that he'd like to look into her case for free. And they gave him permission. In the beginning, though, he didn't get very far. He just put word out to key people in the Beatrice party scene that he was looking for information. And then in April of 1985, right around the time that the police investigation was going cold, Burt got a tip from a confidential informant. The confidential informant was a 17-year-old girl who said that on February 6th at 7.30 a.m., she was standing outside of the school waiting for class to start when she noticed all of the police cars at the apartment building across the street helen wilson's apartment building as she was watching all of the commotion

she said an acquaintance had approached her and had said that she killed an old lady inside the apartment building she what oh sure the informant had Look, I can tell you where the lady is laying and what happened to her, the acquaintance said. Wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. Genders, please. Female, both female. The female said she had just killed? Yes, the female acquaintance told the 17-year-old informant that she had just killed a woman in the apartment building. Using whose semen?

That is a great question, Kristen. Thank you. And so this woman, this acquaintance comes up to this confidential informant. And she's like, I just killed a woman inside that apartment complex or apartment building. And the informant's like, oh, sure. Okay. And she's like, look, I can tell you where that lady is laying and what happened to her and the informant just says that she said again okay sure and the acquaintance said the victim would be found in the living room on her back with her hands bound and her face covered with a napkin. Oh, shit.

And the informant said she just kind of brushed it off again. Okay, sure. Yeah, because she doesn't know. And the acquaintance said, hey, look, I can prove it. I can tell you the color of a footstool laying by the body turned upside down. The footstool was vinyl covered green in color why does your face look like that i'm just i'm so how old is this person how old is the i know the girl's 17 how 17. How old's the other? She's an acquaintance, so around, maybe, I think, just a little bit older. Okay.

I'm just... The confidential informant then gave Circe the name of this acquaintance. Her name was Joanne Taylor. And Taylor had told the informant she hadn't acted alone. Her buddy Lobo was there too. Lobo? Lobo. That's Spanish for wolf.

Okay. So there are a couple of things that are important to know about this statement by the confidential informant. First, Lobo was the nickname of a guy that Joanne Taylor was actually friends with, Joseph White. Second, Joanne Taylor and this confidential informant were not friends. They were enemies. Taylor and this informant had actually gotten into multiple physical altercations before, including one time where Taylor attempted to break the informant's arm gotten into multiple physical alter physical altercations before including one time where taylor attempted to break the informant's arm by slamming it in a car door what yes and third there was no official record of this statement until almost four years later

when burt searcy wrote it down as an official statement and an attempt to be able to further investigate the case. What? Is that concerning? Super. I mean, he remembers what these people said exactly. Kristen, the footstool was green covered in vinyl green and color okay does the verbatim official statement say green and color it sure does nope nope

that's all i need to know that's police talk if i've ever yeah vehicle is green in color no one says green no one says green in color you're 100 everyone who's not on the police force knows you can just say green it's green but when they go through police training they're like no no no no you must spell it out so searcy had been investigating this case on his own but he could only get so far without a badge he'd asked to see the crime scene evidence but his request was denied right because you're not a police officer anymore so he'd had to walk away from the case. And as I mentioned earlier, the case went cold. Then in 1987, five years after he had initially left the police department, Burt was hired as a road deputy for the sheriff's office.

Immediately after being hired, Burt started working on Sheriff Jerry DeWitt to let him investigate the cold case. It had been more than two years since the murder. And the sheriff liked that Searcy was like a go-getter, but he quickly tired of hearing his hints about knowing stuff about the investigation. And he hated that Searcy didn't take notes on anything. that Searcy didn't take notes on anything. So finally, in 1988, Sheriff DeWitt told Searcy to write everything down in a report and then present it to him or to fucking drop it. Well, yeah. Yeah.

So he's like, OK, I'm tired of hearing about this. Either give me a written up report. Yes. Present it to me and I will look into it and see if this warrants further investigation or stop fucking talking about it. Well, yeah, we're not here for your oral history. Exactly. And so Searcy wrote it up. He wrote up everything that he knew.

And the sheriff thought there were some interesting points that probably weren't warranted further investigation like the fact that joseph white and joanne taylor often hung out with a guy named tom winslow burt had questioned winslow about his whereabouts the night of the murder and winslow had told him that he was working the overnight shift as a cook at a truck stop in town that night but But when Burt followed up on this, he learned that Winslow had actually called in sick that night. Not great. So the sheriff looks over this report that CRC writes up and he's like, maybe this is worth looking into. But the sheriff's office didn't have jurisdiction

over the Winslow murder investigation. The police department did. So the sheriff was like, all right, all I can do is give this information to the police chief. And CRC's like, fuck. Because he didn't get along

with the police chief. Yeah, probably because he never wrote anything down. Yeah, probably because he's a fucking dick. Yeah. Spoiler alert. So he hands all this information over to the police chief and the police chief is like, thanks.

No, thanks. Circe has the wrong people. This information isn't correct. So he took that really well, I'm guessing. Yeah. Yeah. No, he didn't really take it well, but there wasn't really anything else he could do. His investigation had stalled again. But he was sure that he had the right people.

So he just kept working on it. He went back to his confidential informant. And this time, he got her to agree to lose the confidential part and give a videotaped statement. So on January 15th, 1989, confidential informant number one was revealed to be Lisa Brown, who back in 1985 was a 17-year-old high school student who liked to hang out with an older crowd. That's how she knew Joanne Taylor. So I think Joanne's like in 1985 was 20, 22, something like that. Okay, gotcha.

In the video statement, confidential informant, no longer confidential, Lisa Brown, told the same story from her previous statement. But this time, she remembered a few more colorful details. That's not how these things work. Including that Joanne Taylor had showed off scratches on her arm and hands as proof of the attack. Additionally, at the prompting of Deputy Searcy, she told a story about a party trick she'd seen joseph white do frequently which ended with him

ripping a five dollar bill in half remember they found a ripped five dollar bill on the on the floor of the apartment why do you go up to your enemy and tell her this though right i mean they were yes exactly yeah but that wasn't all, Kristen. Okay. What else do you have? She also now remembered that she had seen Taylor and White get out of a car in the parking lot of Wilson's apartment building on the night of February 5th, 1985. Not only that. That is so stupid.

But she knew exactly what time it was how 10 18 p.m how because kristin she had checked the bank clock across the alley what was she doing in an alley at 10 18 when she's 17 years old and it's freezing out yeah and why does she remember this now four years later but didn't mention it at all when she was a wannabe detective is feeding her all the information that's why but but what explanation did she have she checked the clock kristin yeah but why was she out in an alley kristin i don't know neither does she you're not to believe this next part, though. It was all made up. 10.18 p.m.

Uh-huh. That's right around the time of death given by the medical examiner. That is amazing. Isn't that unbelievable? It's unbelievable. Yes. Lisa Brown wasn't done yet, though. Mm-hmm. Wasn't done yet, though. She also remembered that Tom Winslow and his girlfriend got out of the car, too. Okay, so now it's a party?

And she could even describe the coats they were wearing down to the specific style and color. lastly uh-huh uh-huh the car they got out of she was pretty sure it was a 72 oldsmobile green with a brown top she saw all this at night in addition to memorizing the colors of their jackets which happened to be the exact description of Tom Winslow's car. I'm sure it was. You know, I am also good at spotting the year of any given car. Is she a mechanic? Like, how?

That is ridiculous. It's really interesting, the details you can come up with four years later. Huh? Oh, oh yes. I am very interested in this. So Bert's like, great!

This is great information. Moving right along. Tom Winslow, you say, huh? I'm going to go interview him. So how did Bert not get immediately fired? That's a great question. Okay. immediately fired yeah it's a great question okay so burt goes on over to the lancaster county jail where tom winslow is being held on an unrelated assault charge and he interviews him and winslow's

like listen i don't know anything about any murder but i I did loan my car to Joseph White and Joanne Taylor that night. So who knows what they were up to? Which I think is a legitimate answer. Like, you're like, I don't know. I swear I wasn't there. Probably look at those people. Like, anything to deflect from yourself, even if Taylor and White had nothing to do with it you just deflect because you know that deputy searcy's going in there and be like well i heard that you were with white and taylor

and you guys murdered some old lady uh-huh so he's like i don't know anything about anything go talk to them right and bert's here she's like damn it then so he leaves whatever he didn't get anywhere with winslow then as if from nowhere another confidential informant comes forward come on come on and she said that she sometimes shared an apartment with Joanne Taylor in Beatrice. And that on the day Helen Wilson's body was found, Joanne said something about how she and Joseph White may have been involved in a murder. May have? May have.

And, okay, I know you're going to feel pretty suspicious about this informant, but, Kristen, it's 100% true because it was videotaped. Oh. The statement was videotaped. Unfortunately, that videotape was lost, and this is just a transcript of what took place during that interview. Does she use the same words and vocabulary as Bert? So Bert's like, great.

I've got confidential informant number one, confidential informant number two. I've got Winslow lying about being at work that night, I can place Winslow and Taylor and White in Helen Wilson's parking lot at the time of death. Yeah. This is all fabulous. You can even place them in their coats. So he takes all of these statements to county attorney Richard Smith. And Richard Smith was like, this looks pretty good. I think this might be enough for arrest warrants. So he begins prepping arrest warrants for Taylor and White. So he begins prepping arrest warrants for Taylor and White.

But he's like, you know, I'd really like to get a better statement from Tom Winslow. I don't really like this. I don't know. I loaned them my car. That's all I know. So on March 14th, 1989, Searcy and Richard Smith, this county attorney, paid Tom Winslow another visit. He was still being held in jail on assault charges. And this time Winslow had his attorney present.

And this time, though, this statement was videotaped. At first, Winslow told the same story as before. Exactly. I don't know anything about a murder. I wasn't there. But I did loan White and Taylor my car. Okay. But Circe was like, nope. Nope.

I know you know more. I know you know more. And you're just going to have to tell us. And at that point, the videotape stopped. And taping resumed an hour later. Did he have a black eye? Did he have bruising on his face? Okay, but this is the thing.

So there's like a little bit of controversy over this part because he did have an attorney present. But I don't think that means shit. Like his attorney could easily have been, been you know we've seen how bad if it's a public defender i don't know for sure that's a public defender but we've seen how badly representation can happen when someone doesn't have money for a great attorney like look at the case of brendan dassey from making a murderer who his yeah his attorney was present for everything and they let him yeah completely be raked over the coals when he had no idea what was going on so when the so videotape ends uh-huh he doesn't have an attorney videotape resumes he's

got a public he had an attorney there the whole time oh when he was saying the original statement okay so the first time he was interrogated he did not have an attorney so this second time when he's going to make the videotape statement his attorney attorney's present, and he tells the same story. Okay. I don't know what happened. I wasn't there. I just loaned them my car. Gotcha.

I don't know anything about an old lady being murdered. And then the videotape stops, and an hour later, the videotape begins again. This time, he has completely changed his story. And the attorney is still there. Is still present. And I see this is when you hear what he tells the second time, you have to know that this attorney did not have his best interest in mind. Because now he says that he and his girlfriend were there the night that Helen Wilson was murdered, that they entered the apartment along with Joanne Taylor and Joseph White, and that almost immediately Joseph White and Joanne Taylor forced Helen Wilson into her bedroom and shut the door. And that Winslow and his girlfriend fled the scene as soon as they heard Helen Wilson start screaming.

But this didn't take place in her bedroom. Didn't take place in her bedroom. It took place in the living room. Yes. But that was all that the attorney needed to see that the county attorney needed to see he's like great we're moving forward with charges so the day after interviewing tom winslow searcy and other officers boarded a nebraska state patrol plane heading south to al, where Joseph White now lived. At about 1125 p.m. on March 15th, 1989, Joseph White was awoken by the phone ringing. The caller said the police were outside and he needed to come out with his hands up.

White later recalled how he just like got up out of bed, pulled on a pair of jeans and opened the door. And that 20 guns were cocked and aimed at him. And someone yelled freeze. Oh, my God. They shouted at him to raise his hands and kneel and then lie down. to raise his hands and kneel and then lie down. A SWAT team officer kneed White in the middle of the back as he started to, like, lean forward to lay down. Then he felt a handgun press to the base of his skull.

Jeez. And they told him he was under arrest for first-degree murder. Holy shit. Yeah. They did, like, a full-on takedown. Whoa. Whoa. Yeah. Joseph White was still in just his jeans when the police sat him down in an Alabama interrogation room.

And Bert Searcy was nearly foaming at the mouth by the time he was read his rights just after midnight on March 16th, 1989. He couldn't wait to question him. This was a moment he had been waiting for four years. This was a moment that he had been waiting for for four years. But it was White who would ask the first question. why am i a suspect in a case of murder one uh-huh as far as we're concerned you were involved in the murder of helen wilson circe replied white said that he didn't know wilson butarcy said that he had eyewitnesses. What if I can put you there?

Searcy asked. I'd say you have to have some awful damn good proof. Mm-hmm. What if I have some awful damn good proof? And White said, I'd like to see it. Yeah. And Circe said, well, what if I showed it to you?

Sorry. And White's like, okay, show it to me. Yes, that's exactly what I want. That's exactly what I'm asking for here. And Circe told White that they'd arrested his friend, Joanne Taylor, and that they'd found White's fingerprints on a $5 bill in the apartment. A lie. There were no fingerprints on the $5 bill.

And from that moment, Joseph White said, I want to see a lawyer. He'd been in the interrogation room like 24 minutes at that point. And he was like, nope, I want to see a lawyer. Well, I'm assuming he's innocent, obviously. And like, if you're innocent and people come at you with, oh, we've got your fingerprints. It's like, yeah, yeah. Okay. We're done here.

But Searcy didn't stop questioning him. Of course he didn't because he's not a real detective. It's like if they sent me in there. Yeah. And Searcy said, who was there? If it wasn't you, Joe,

that's, that's the dumbest question. If a person is saying they didn't do it yeah yeah are they supposed to solve the case for you and joe goes i don't know i've told you five times in a row i don't know anything yeah and seriously goes you're saying you didn't push that little old lady over? Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. And White's like, how could I?

I wasn't there. Oh, God, this poor shirtless man. Yeah. And Circe goes, we've got the people involved in this damn thing telling us the same thing. Everyone's admitting it. Everyone's saying you're involved and and joe goes well i tell you what until i see a lawyer i'm not saying nothing else because apparently you're trying to prove that i'm a liar when i'm not

and like seriously keeps trying to ask him questions and he just finally at this point he's like i want a lawyer i want a lawyer i want a lawyer he stops answering questions yeah yeah which he should have stopped asking him questions yes he should have i want a lawyer he 100 should have so the questions stopped finally but not before white agreed to give blood saliva and hair samples and searcy was like you know these samples could put you at the scene and white said yep and it can also positively prove i wasn't there so i'd be really reluctant to give any samples if i thought they were full of shit oh yeah i completely agree i completely agree yeah and if they'd given him a lawyer when he asked for it like if they'd immediately stop it wouldn't even gotten to that

right so that all happens in alabama about 350 miles away in Buncombe County, North Carolina, authorities were waiting for Burt Searcy to arrive. They'd just arrested Joanne Buncombe County. Okay. B-U-N-C-O-M-B-E. Okay, yeah. That looks like Buncombe to me. Sure. You want to pronounce it some other way?

No. So they'd arrested Joanne Taylor. Like White, she was very confused as to why she was being arrested. But unlike White, she was talking a lot. She must have been at that old woman's apartment that night she said because the other officers told me i was there oh no later she recalled well we sat and talked and we worked on bringing my memory back little by little oh god that's what she said of the north when she was set down by the north carolina officers and we worked on bringing my memory back little by little. Oh, God.

That's what she said when she was set down by the North Carolina officers. But she was strung out. Yes, of course she was. She was holding her head in her hands. She was crying. By the time the Nebraska officers got there, she told them she couldn't remember anything. And she told them that her personality disorder made it impossible for her to remember things. But don't worry, Kristen.

I know you're worried. I am worried. Probably not about the same. Circe was there to help her. Damn it. I hate this. He helped her jog her memory. And convince her that she was a murderer.

And together they came up with the story she gave in a videotaped statement. The night Wilson died, Taylor said, she and White went to the widow's one-story White house in the evening to do yard work. Well, he couldn't have helped her that much, right? I mean. So, the video paused. And then, oh, no. And Taylor was reminded. It was an apartment.

White wouldn't be doing yard work in February. Remember, this was February. It was very, very cold. And then, there was a 20 minute gap in the interview videotape and suddenly when it kicked back on joanne taylor's memory had improved the one-story light-colored house became a three-story brick building and the summer evening became a bitterly cold winter night from recalling almost nothing to telling a story of rape and murder taylor said white and she and another boy had stabbed a woman but in reality wilson had been suffocated, not stabbed. Circe pressed hard to get Taylor

to remember the name of the other boy, doing everything but directly feeding her the name Winslow. It didn't work. He even at one point was trying to fit words in the conversation that sounded kind of like Winslow. You're kidding me. He was like, do was like, um, do you know what a windmill looks like?

You're kidding. No. Oh, like crazy shit. Yeah. But she couldn't come up with the name of the other person that was there that night. Don't worry.

Kristen can tell you're pretty worried. I am worried. There would be plenty of time for her to implicate others later. So White and Taylor were taken back to Nebraska to face charges of murder. And once they got back to Nebraska, they showed Taylor a photo lineup to try and identify the other man who'd been there that night. And wouldn't you know it, she picked out Tom Winslow out of that photo lineup. Was it pointed out to her beforehand?

And she said that Winslow's girlfriend, Beth Johnson, was there that night as well. So they arrested Tom Winslow on suspicion of murder that same day. Sitting in jail that night, he asked to see Deputy Searcy. He told him he'd lied about the whole thing. He hadn't been there that night at all. He'd never been in Wilson's apartment.

And Searcy was furious. It was Winslow's statement that had secured the arrest warrants for Taylor and White. But Winslow didn't change his whole story. White and Taylor were there for sure, he said. And so was his girlfriend, Beth Johnson. he said. And so was his girlfriend, Beth Johnson. Only that wasn't possible. Was Winslow lying because he was scared? Was he telling the deputy what he thought he wanted to hear? Who knows? But Beth Johnson had an airtight alibi that night. She was nowhere near Wilson's apartment. Searcy was spinning. Had he been looking at the wrong people? Just as he began to question everything he was so sure of thus far, he got a call that convinced him he'd been right all along. So, was Bert Searcy wrong? Had he had tunnel vision this whole time?

He was more than wrong. Were Joanne's memories real or merely the power of suggestion? These answers and more on next week's episode of Let's Go to Court. Oh my God, this is so good. Isn't this nuts? I'm so angry right now. I know, and I'm really sorry. No, I'm mad at this Burt character.

These cops who do this shit. Oh my, it's infuriating. I think there needs to be an extra level of jail time for this because that's, that's insane. It's nuts. It's nuts. And there's more to come. Wow.

Yeah. I'm going to read you guys the first three paragraphs of my script and I'm going to cut it off. Okay. I don't know. So off the record, how long was that? I'm going to cut it off. Okay. I don't know. So off the record, how long was that? Like that was 4,000 words.

So I thought that was okay to, did I get enough of the details? Yeah, we've been talking for like an hour. Okay. Yeah. Okay. You're totally good. And even if it was half an hour, like. Okay. All right.

Yeah. Calm yourself. I'm really nervous that people are going to hate the two-parter. Well, I mean, podcasts do it all the time. It's not like this is some kind of crazy concept. And I think we should keep this part in. And people, just be honest with us. We can handle it.

If you don't like two-parters, we won't do it again. Yeah. So just let us know. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah.

But be sure to tune in for the dramatic conclusion of they won't because they're too mad at you they probably are no they're not calm down that's a really i mean it's amazing so far it's gonna be really hard for me to not google it don't google it it gets even crazier okay oh my god okay you ready for mine yes okay i have to start with a big thank you to our listeners adam and connor they sent us an email so adam was like hey i really enjoyed the k City series, but I'm kind of interested in a Boston series. Yeah. So he sent a list of 10 amazing cases that I will not share with you because I'm a butthole. I mean, like, you know, you know, every now and then somebody sends cases and you're like, oh, my is my did norm fall down sounds like yeah

he needs to hit the life alert that was crazy the whole house yes um anyway so he sent these amazing cases there was only one case that i was like doesn't have enough court stuff and he even mentioned i don't think it's enough court stuff yeah but the craziest part is that it's the isabella stewart gardner museum oh yeah which i've talked to you about like five times i am dying for them to solve that case for my own selfish reasons right because that is the craziest story yes and i want to talk about it on the podcast but like there's no court stuff they didn't find the guys yeah but it's a crazy story dumbest crime ever evidently not because these dudes stole these like rembrandts and shit this was your uh your reasoning why the stealing the mona lisa was

such a genius crime i disagree i didn't say it was a genius crime i said you can get a lot of money how do you know how do you know those guys have a lot of money? How do you know? Because I'm the one who stole the stuff. You're probably just stuck with all these fucking famous paintings and they're holed up in some cabin somewhere hating their fucking lives. Looking at amazing art, though.

Or, yeah, they're drinking some wine and looking at a Rembrandt and what are you and I doing right now? Maybe life is good. So anyway, thank you, Adam and Connor, for this suggestion. This is the case of Clark Rockefeller. Do you know this one? I know a tiny bit of it.

I knew a tiny bit too. This is so good. And right off the bat, I'm going to say that the vast majority of this, before we kind of get into the court stuff, comes from an excerpt. I think it's, so the article is in Vanity Fair, and it's called The Man in the Rockefeller Suit. It's by Mark Seale, and I believe he wrote a book about this. So this might be an excerpt from the book.

But anyway, beautifully written, really well researched, such a great article. This first part is just basically me uh telling you about mark's article so here we go love it it's a lovely day in july of 2008 clark rockefeller is walking out of the algonquin club in boston and in case you couldn't tell already clark rockefeller was an impressive man. Yeah, fancy as fuck. Uh-huh. Walking out of an impressive place.

Oh, so fancy as fuck. Very good. He and his seven-year-old daughter, who he nicknamed Snooks, were walking toward Boston Common. He had her up on his shoulders, and they were pumped because they were going to go ride the swan boats in the public garden. As he walked, people everywhere seemed to know him and admire him. They were like, hey, Mr. Rockefeller, which made sense. They were in his old stomping grounds.

They were walking through Beacon Hill, which is a nice-ass area of Boston. I lived there when I was in college. You did not. There's no way. I lived there when I was in college. You did not. There's no way. I mean, you did. True facts, you went to college in Boston. Yeah, but no. I do not believe that you lived in fancy Boston.

No, I walked by Beacon Hill. I was like, whoa. So they're walking through Beacon Hill. Like I said, amazing area of Boston, and Clark Rockefeller had lived there for a while in a $2.7 million four-story home. Sounds like a dump. Oh, yeah. You'd hate it. It's terrible.

But that was before his divorce. When he was married to Sandra Boss, his daughter's mom, they really lived it up. Sandra was super fancy. She went to Stanford and she got her MBA from Harvard and she had an amazing job at the Kinsey Corporation. They were the ultimate power couple. He was a Rockefeller with a posh accent who could talk about basically anything. And he had a massive art collection. And she was a smarty pants with a great job and a million dollar plus per year salary.

One source I saw said two million a year. Another said one point four. Whatever. You get the idea. They were doing fine. Yeah. But then things went sour. Sandra divorced him.

She got the house in Beacon Hill. And she got their other house in New Hampshire. Oh, shit. I know. I imagine if Zach got both of your houses. Plus, she got custody of their daughter. Sandra scooped her up and moved with her to London, which meant Clark only got

three eight-hour visits per year. What? And on top of that, a social worker had to be with them the whole time. Oh, my gosh. Where's the social worker right now? Oh, with them.

Right there with them. Is she going to ride the swan boat, too? He. Maybe he would them. Is she going to ride the swan boat too? He. Maybe he would perch on the neck of the swan. Clark was down, but he wasn't out. He still had his important name. He still had his important friends. And he got a big

chunk of change in the divorce. How much? I believe it was $800,000. So the father, the daughter, and the social worker are all walking down this very nice street in Boston, and all of a sudden, a black SUV limo pulls up. Clark was not surprised by this. He'd arranged for the limo to come and meet them at that very spot. He'd told the driver ahead of time, Hey, I need you to take myself and my daughter to Newport, Rhode Island. And we've got a lunch date there with a senator's son.

You know, no big deal. And oh, by the way, when you come pick us up, I'm going to have my really clingy friend there. Could you make sure that my clingy friend does not get into the limo with us? And the limo driver is like, yeah, hey, dude, you're paying three thousand bucks for this limo ride. I'll do whatever you need. You want this guy to not get in the car? I'll make sure he does not get in the car. So the limo driver pulls up and sure enough, there are the three of them. And Clark pushes the social worker out of the way,

grabs his daughter and pulls her into the limo. He does this so quickly that she hits her head on the doorframe and Clark yells, go, go, go. And the driver goes. But the social worker had a hold of the door handle, so he held on to it. But the social worker had a hold of the door handle. So he held on to it. But the limo obviously was going. And eventually the social worker fell down. A few minutes pass and Clark says, you know what? Pull over.

I'm going to take my daughter to Massachusetts General Hospital. Just to go get her head checked out. I'll take a cab in the meantime you wait for me in that parking lot over there and the limo driver is like okay i'll sit for three thousand dollars yeah so now clark and snooks are in a cab but they don't go to the hospital they go to the boston sailing center where a friend was waiting for him. They get into the friend's Lexus, and Clark tells the friend, hurry, we've got a train to catch, and then we got to get on a boat headed to Long Island. Come on, lickety split, let's go.

She's like, okay, so she takes off. Soon, they're in Manhattan. The traffic is terrible by Grand Central Terminal. And at that point, Clark just grabs Snooks, throws an envelope full of cash at his friend, and leaves. No goodbye, no thank you, no nothing. Just boom. Then the woman's cell phone rang. It was her friend calling to ask

if she'd seen the Amber Alert that just went out. Apparently, Clark Rockefeller had just abducted his daughter. And she had helped him do it. Back in Boston, Sandra Boss, Clark's ex-wife, gets word that her shithead ex-husband has taken off with her daughter. And she's distraught but the boston police were doing everything they could they were like okay we need any information you can give us what's his driver driver's license number and sandra says he doesn't have a driver's license what i mean that's not unusual i was gonna say that's fine with public transport but you have

like a state issued id do you oh and they said okay um do you know if he has a social security number what's that she says no, he doesn't have one? Or maybe, no, I don't know. Okay. And they're like, uh... How long were they married? I think 12 years. I could give you Zach's right now. Really?

Yes. You have his social security number memorized? Yes! All right, wife of the year. They, like, fill out forms and shit. You know, insurance forms. Mm- insurance forms stuff like that no all right you don't have norms memorized no really i'm proud i have my own memorized is it weird that i have said i don't know no it's probably not we need people to weigh in am i a super wife or is this you you know, just kind of expected of your.

Tell us if you know it. Zach does not have mine memorized. I can tell you that for sure. Wow. He must be an awful husband. He's a great husband. I fill out all the forms in our house. You know what?

Norm's the one who fills out all the forms. I bet Norm knows yours. Hey, Norman. Yeah? Do you know my social security number by heart? Absolutely not. Okay. Oh, all right.

Just making sure. Gee, where was I? Okay. So then Boston police are like, all right, is he on your tax returns? Surely we can find some information that way. She says no. What?

Yep. So he has no identity. They went through everything. But Clark Rockefeller didn't have any IDs. He didn't exist. Pretty soon, the FBI swoops in. Special Agent Noreen Gleeson immediately calls the Rockefellers. And they're like, yeah, we don't know that guy.

Yeah, Clark who? Uh-huh. They reach out to Clark's friends. And they all seem to know where he was headed. But they all named different places. Peru, Alaska, the Bahamas. Everybody had a different answer because they'd all been told different things. Of course they had.

He may be fake, but he doesn't sound dumb. No. So investigators spent a ton of time on these bullshit leads. And they were like, damn it all to hell. This dude could be anywhere. The only thing we really know about him is that he had a ton of cash and that's it. We don't even know his name. Oh my gosh.

But they kept talking to Clark's friends and finally they hit a break. The night before Clark kidnapped his daughter, he'd gone over to a friend's house. They'd had some wine. And luckily, the friend hadn't gotten around to washing the wine glasses. DNA! So the FBI was able to get a set of fingerprints off the wine glass. They got the fingerprints, sent them off to the lab in Virginia. Meanwhile, they released Clark Rockefeller's picture to the media.

They were hoping someone, somewhere, would recognize him. And boy, did they. A lot of people knew him as Clark Rockefeller. But some people knew him as Chris Gerhardt, a film student from the University of Wisconsin. Also, Christopher C. Crowe, a TV producer and former Wall Street investment firm guy. Also, Christopher Chichester. Chichester? Chichester? I don't know. I think it's Chichester, but that's a dumb ass name i apologize to all of our chichesters listening he made these names up himself

that sounds like he like was caught on the spot and had to come up with a name and he was like yeah it's christopher chichester okay so... That's 100% what that sounds like! No, no, no. Here's the thing. Apparently, well, no, I'll get... I'm going to forget to get to it later. Someone he knew back from where he really grew up had that last name. So he didn't, like, make it up out of thin air.

So Christopher Chichester was a dude who'd lived in L. in la in the 80s and was definitely a descendant of british royalty so put some respect on that name i'm sorry and he was suspected in the murder of two people oh yeah investigators were freaking out they'd been looking into this guy for like a week. And the more information they got, the more scared they were for the little girl. Yeah. And frankly, for anyone who came into contact with this guy. And like he could be fucking anywhere by now. Yeah.

Yeah. And he had the resources. And obviously, this was not his first rodeo yeah to pass as anybody yeah then they got the results back from the virginia lab clark rockefeller was not clark rockefeller no he was actually christian carl gerhardt's writer he was a German immigrant who'd come to the U.S. in 1978. Soon, they began to piece together this guy's life story. Oh, my gosh. Are you ready?

Should I buckle up? Buckle up. Click. As a child, Christian was seen as kind of odd. His dad was an artist and his mom was a seamstress. Apparently, he spent a lot of time fantasizing as a kid. One day, he met an American family on a train and he hit it off with them. And they said, hey, if you're ever in America, give us a call.

We'd love to see you again. So what does he do? He goes to America. Shows up on their doorstep unannounced and they're like hello i'm here hey bud uh-huh what's up came all the way here huh uh yeah and did not have a place to stay so of course he shows up to the family's doorstep in Meriden, Connecticut, 1978, and he lived with them for a while. Then he moved to Berlin, Connecticut with the Savio family. He told the Savios that he was an exchange student.

At this point, he started to change personas a bit. He started wearing really tight clothes and white sunglasses, and he told everyone that his dad was an industrialist who did something with Mercedes. He also watched a ton of Gilligan's Island. How tight are the clothes? The article said, like, European tight. So, like, on a woman, probably you wouldn't think much of it but you know like We're talking moose knuckle tight?

Oh Brandy this is a family show. I'm thinking pretty darn tight and it's the 70s you know. Okay. Alright. You need to look at some pictures of men in tight clothing? I don't. I'm just trying to get a mental picture here of I don't even know what just trying to get a mental picture here of,

I don't even know what his name is at this point. Neither does he, really. So he's like, he's wearing his tight clothes, making up some story about how, you know, his parents are rich, and he's just watching the shit out of Gilligan's Island. He became obsessed with the character Thurston Howell III. It's Thurston Howell. Howell, sorry.

How dare you? He played the millionaire. While I was researching this, I did take a time out to listen to the Gilligan's Island theme song. against island theme song. Apparently he was so obsessed with Thurston Howell, the third, that he started mimicking the character's speech patterns.

Oh, lovey. Is that how he sounded? Yeah. Okay, I started to actually watch an episode because I wanted to hear him talk but then I was like, I don't, you know.

I'm glad I have you here. Yeah. Around this time, he adopted a new name. Chris Kenneth Gerhart. And Chris, even though he was just some kid sleeping on a couch in Connecticut, thought mighty highly of himself. He'd wake up and be like,

why is my breakfast not already prepared? Oh my God. And why has my clothing not already prepared? Oh, my God. And why has my clothing not been laundered for me? Oh, my gosh. This next part will shock you. He wore out his welcome. Yeah, imagine that. Next, Chris moved on to the University of Wisconsin.

While he was there, he called the Savios and was like, you know, I think I'm going to vote for Ronald Reagan in the next election. And they were like, honey, you're not an American citizen. You can't vote in the presidential election. Yeah, no. And he's like, we'll see. Like, eh, we'll see. At this point, he found this 22-year-old named Amy Dunkey, who he did not know well. And they went to the courthouse and got married.

They had a really great marriage. I bet. Just kidding. He took off, like, immediately. Yeah. He went to L.A. with a new name christopher chichester which he did not make up on the spot i'm sorry to tell you i just i i'm choosing not to believe that i think it's totally a eugenia doubtfire situation turns out christopher chichester was a master networker he'd go to all the local social clubs went to all the right churches he crashed weddings and all the while he developed a really high class

accent had great manners had an amazing wardrobe and he would constantly go to the library and just read up on all these topics. Also, he got his hair cut every two weeks. What do you think of that? That's correct. What do you mean that's correct? It never looks like it grows if you get it cut every two weeks. It looks the same all the time. Always perfect.

Yeah. I've got a couple of guys that have standing appointments that come every two weeks. Are they con artists? No. They're all pretty nice. Well, this guy seemed pretty nice. Do they have impeccable manners, Brandi? None of them are Rockefellers.

Ask them what their social security numbers are, and if they don't tell you, you'll know they're a con artist. The ladies Ask them what their social security numbers are. And if they don't tell you, you'll know their economies. The ladies loved him. Especially the old ladies. Ooh, yeah, probably. He was a big hand kisser. They were just really charmed by him.

Don't give me that face. I don't like that at all. Did he only kiss big hands? Can you imagine, like, all these kind of wealthy old ladies, this guy comes out, he's like, oh, yes, hello. He's got his little fancy posh accent and his nice little clothes, and he's, like, smooching all over their hands. Yeah.

They were loving it, loving every minute of it. Yes. He told them he was descended from royalty and he always had these big calling cards which read christopher chichester and then in roman roman numerals 13 and then capital b lowercase t so 13th baronet dumb uh yeah he also had a picture of the chichester crest and i think something in latin that was like he said it was like his family motto which is something about faith you know what's your family motto i don't have one mine is shut up and eat it by this point he's in all the important clubs. He knows all the important people.

And some of these VIPs are like, please, will you meet my daughter? You are so wonderful. I think you two would hit it off. Not everyone was charmed by Chris. I bet they weren't. Most people were, though. There were definitely select people who could see through the bullshit. I guarantee it.

Here's what pisses me off, though. So I read a bunch of stuff for this. And in hindsight, you get a bunch of people who are like, well, I always knew. I knew the whole time that something was off. We didn't fucking say shit, buddy. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Some people, I believe.

But like, this dude was in all of the most elite clubs he was getting his ass kissed by everyone and so all these people who are coming forward now like oh well i knew because of this that and the other thing no you fucking didn't yeah anyway carol campbell was set up for a lunch date with chris she was expecting to go out with this fancy pants nephew of lord mount batten but dude shows mount batten who's apparently a real guy but this dude shows up in a beige Datsun. She's like, this guy's a fucking dork.

Oh, my gosh. And the inside of his Datsun was covered in yellow post-it notes with notes he wrote to himself. Oh, that's dumb. She came home and she was like, mom, that guy is lying. He is creepy. And by the way, their lunch date, they did not eat lunch. They just went around and he took her on errands and just talked about himself the whole time. Oh, my gosh.

Can you fucking imagine? No. I'd be like, please drive this thing off a cliff. This is terrible. But Carol was like the only person with spidey senses in this whole story. Soon, Chris got his own TV show on public access. Probably because he told everyone he was in film school at USC. Apparently he was auditing some classes, but obviously he like way over blew it.

He was like, oh yes, I'm doing all this fancy pants stuff, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The show was called Inside San Marino. He was the producer. And even though almost no one watched this show, he always got these really important people to come be on it. Oh, my gosh. So Chris is like hobnobbing with all the important people in town. And, okay, some articles said, like the vanity fair article was like look in this town you know

you kind of fall into three categories there's like the super rich the okay rich and then you know the the not so rich yeah and he was in the not so rich part other articles were like yeah he was in this really nice area i imagine that even in the not-so-rich area of this place, it was probably pretty nice. Oh, yeah. You know. Yeah. So he's in, just so you know, he's in that area, living in the guest house of Ruth Didi Sohus. S-O-H-U-S?

Sohus? That sounds right. He did not pay rent. Hmm. Probably. Didi, huh? Didi. Yeah. Probably kissed her hand and that was rent. Probably. A Didi, huh? A Didi. Yeah.

Probably kissed her hand and that was enough. Here's where the trouble begins. Chris is living with Didi, who was an alcoholic and a bit of a recluse. And then her son, John, and his wife, Linda, come back home and move in with Didi. I think they'd been married for like two years at this point. come back home and move in with Didi. I think they'd been married for like two years at this point. And for whatever reason, in this article,

like everybody feels the need to mention that John was kind of a nerd and Linda was super hot. Everyone's like, I don't get it. But anyway, so there you have a picture of them. Linda was big boned and attractive and tall. John, little shorter, curly haired. Wow. Yeah, a little shorter, curly haired. Wow. Yeah, I don't know. At some point in 1985, something went very wrong.

John and Linda went missing. They told their friends that they got these really important jobs in the U.S. government and that they'd been gone for two weeks. But then eight weeks passed and nobody heard from them. Eventually, Linda's sister called Dee Dee. Did he murder them? Did he murder them? That's code for stay tuned.

Dee Dee was like, oh, they're on a top secret government mission. And Linda's sister was like, uh, okay. So Linda's family obviously calls the police at that point because they're like, bullshit. Yeah. Government secret mission. And Didi told the police, look, I've got a source. It's okay. I've got a source.

The source is telling me things are fine. At some point, the family gets like a postcard, supposedly, from Linda and John. Yeah. But then five minutes, five minutes, five months later, John and Linda have been missing. Dee Dee realized.

How long have they been missing? Five months later. I tried to keep going. It's like at some point you just need to stop. Rewind. Okay. But then five months after Linda and John had gone missing. Boy, I said that so great. Dee Dee realized she'd been had. Oh, no.

Christopher, who had, of course, been her source, had taken off. Uh-huh. Fast forward to 1994. There are new owners of the home where Dee Dee and John and Linda and what's-his-face Chris had lived. And they decide, hey, we should put in a pool in the backyard. Oh, God. Oh, no. They uncover bodies.

They start digging. It's like poltergeist. And they found what appeared to be John's remains. This actually became an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. But it wasn't really a mystery as to who did it. One of the neighbors came forward and was like uh chris asked to borrow my chainsaw during the time frame when john and linda went missing and by the way of course john's body was found in parts thank you that's important to know

kristin well didn't you get the i mean okay anyway then chris's friend came forward and was like, yeah, he invited me over to play Trivial Pursuit. And when I came over, his backyard was all dug up. Yeah, and there were body parts everywhere. Well, she didn't mention that. She goes, I thought it was super weird, so I asked him about it. And he was like, oh, you know, we're having plumbing issues. Everyone knew. Trivial Pursuit.

He just spat everywhere. The correct answer to that is who cares, Brandy. Brandy, you lost. I wasn't even playing. Everyone knew Chris had to be behind the murders. And police had figured out his real identity. But no one knew where he was. Yeah, where is he?

Let's go back to 1988. We're in Greenwich, Connecticut, and Chris is now Christopher Crowe. Is it not Greenwich, Connecticut? Oh. Well, green, as in green in color. Uh-huh. Which, W-I, it's Greenwich? I think it's pronounced in color. Uh-huh. Witch.

W-I-C-H. It's Greenwich? I think it's pronounced Greenwich. Oh, shit. Should we Google that? Yeah, let's Google it. I mean, I've never heard of Greenwich, Connecticut. I've heard of Greenwich, Connecticut.

I'm pretty sure it's Greenwich. I think you're right. Greenwich. Greenwich. This is so weird because I was a national merit scholar okay so greenwich connecticut sorry everyone in the east coast right now is like the fuck fucking midwest trash thought she said she went to boston for college so now he's christopher crowe in your defense there's a fucking w in there yeah if they didn't want me to mispronounce it then they should have spelled it okay what is it greenwich g-r-i-n-i-c-h

so he's impressing the pants off of everyone. He goes to all the right clubs, charms all the right old ladies, gets himself a Burberry raincoat. The works. He also... Big fan of Burberry. I know you are. Around this time, he also, like... So everyone talks about how fabulous his wardrobe was. And, you know, now his fake initials are CCC.

fabulous his wardrobe was. And, you know, now his fake initials are CCC. So literally every item of clothing from like socks to pajamas, CCC. Oh, fancy. Soon he gets a job working for venture capitalist Stan Phelps. Christopher totally looked the part. He was very flashy, constantly bragged about his time in the film industry in la this part is amazing to me because he goes on this string of like really high-powered jobs i mean that's so easily verifiable but probably he just spilled his

bullshit so well that nobody even bothered to look into it and i can't remember if this was the job i'm thinking of but at some point like you know basically what would happen is he'd get hired by someone who was just charmed by him and was too lazy to check references or check anything really and then he'd come and be in charge of people and the people he was in charge of were like holy shit i mean he's got this posh accent and these nice clothes, but he doesn't know what he's doing. Wow. So, he was constantly bragging about his time in the film industry in LA. But someone must have thought he was full of shit. Because they grabbed his job application, where he'd listed his social security number,

and ran a background check. They discovered that he had used the social security number of David Berkowitz, a.k.a. the Son of Sam! Yes! So they were like, um, you're fired. Goodbye. But don't worry. Christopher bounced back.

They just fired him. They didn't like call the police. Evidently not. Which why the fuck wouldn't you? You should. My theory is at a certain level and these fancy pants organizations are like, we don't want the bad publicity that could come. Oh, you're probably right. Yeah. That's probably exactly it.

Let's pretend this never happened. Yeah. Let's pretend we're not idiots who hired a guy with a nice wardrobe. Yep. So Christopher bounced back. This time, he got a job as a vice president at NICO Securities. NICO Securities? N-I-K-K-O.

His base salary was $150,000. And by the way, we're talking like late, early 90s, late 80s. Wow. His job was huge. He was overseeing sales of corporate bonds, which evidently is pretty hard to fake because he was quickly fired there, too. He was terrible at it. Yeah. I mean, evidently, it's the kind of thing, you know, if you don't know your shit, it's pretty obvious.

Yeah. Don't worry, Brandy. Don't worry. He bounced back again. Oh, my gosh. This is really a story about grit and persistence. This time he got another super prestigious job at kidder peabody and company around this time police start circling in on him and i kind of had trouble figuring out why but i think it has something to do with john

and linda's truck because for some reason he kept that truck for longer than he should have. And I think he tried to sell it. And so, like, police are starting to circle in on him. But at any rate, someone must have tipped him off or like somehow he realized what was happening because Chris goes into work and he's like, oh, everyone, sad story. My parents are missing in afghanistan gotta run bye miss you love you toodles what it's the classic my parents are missing in afghanistan story brandy do you remember how terrified i was when dp took off for Afghanistan. This time he reemerges in their early 90s,

and he was none other than Clark Rockefeller. He was back to his old tricks. He went to all the right places, met all the right people, and boy, the name helped him out tremendously. Yeah, because people are like, like the... Like, oh, it's... We are all so stupid. Yeah. I mean, they were so charmed by the name.

And so like, so many people just felt privileged to even be talking to him. Oh, yeah. And I think at some point like just because of the name like people would be less likely to say what you're about to say look into him think anything negative about him it's like that would be improper because he's a rockefeller that's exactly right yeah the other thing is obviously when you're on the run like this, you don't want to tell people many details. So he chose Rockefeller as a last name. And so when he was super weird and private and, like, didn't want to tell people details of his background, they were like, oh, you know, he's been through a lot.

You know, his family, you know, oh, I shouldn't pry. It would be rude. You know, I need to respect his privacy. Mm-hmm. Bullshit. Wow. shouldn't pry it would be rude you know i need to respect his privacy bullshit wow so somehow that's some fucking balls man yes the balls on this yeah i'm still stuck on like the job interview thing i'm thinking my god how how easy is that yeah i don't know i mean to go into these super prestigious firms no idea that's crazy yes he wasn't just getting entry-level jobs he was getting like

vice president of what's-its-butt yeah all kinds of i don't get it that's nuts but then again i don't have anything monogrammed so maybe me either maybe that's part of the problem you have stuff that's monogrammed what excuse me you have to what do i have that's monogrammed i just feel like you've got to have some kind of makeup bag i do not i have lots of things that say egan. Like signs and shit in my house. Yeah, my driver's license. No, I don't have anything monogrammed. Oh, that's a fat lie. Yeah, booyah.

My keychain has my monogram on it. Damn right. I knew you had something monogrammed. How dare you lie. Okay. So somehow he gets. Are you saying that I, are you calling me uppity, Kristen, by saying I have something monogrammed? No, not at all.

I'm just saying. Because it's a glitter pineapple for the record. I'm just saying you seem like the type to have some monogrammed stuff. Sounds like an insult. I know it does. The more I say it, the more it sounds like I'm jabbing you somehow.

But I just think like, yeah, you seem like the type to have something monogrammed. Great, thank you. I appreciate the compliment. Fuck. Sorry. It's not meant to be a dig.

It's meant to be like, I just, I see certain women, I'm like, she's got it. You're not helping it christian you're a giant asshole okay somehow he gets this very impressive art collection

and a gordon setter named y, which I had to look it up, but it's one of those fancy pants dogs that has, like, the long hair. I'm not a fan. I literally had no idea what those words were. Really? I was like, what kind of item would he have gotten that comes with a name? You're not familiar with the Gordon Setters? Hey, Gordon Setter, huh?

Yeah, look it up. It's a very fancy pants dog. It's a very fancy pants dog. Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. I had no idea that's what that was called. I've seen that dog before.

Hmm. I don't like all that hair. I'm not a fan either. I mean, it looks cute when they don't have that belly hair, but when that belly hair's hanging down, I mean, what are you supposed to do with all that? Wax it. Is that why you shave peanuts? Should I tell that story?

You've already told it. Oh, I have? Yeah. Sorry, I've got 10 stories. We're on our 55th episode now. People know that you like peanut scratch shaved. Oh my God, don't say that. If that sounds weird and out of context,

you just got to listen to all the episodes because I don't know which one I told that story. I don't have any idea. I know you've told it. So, blah, blah, blah. To those who knew him,

Clark was an eccentric, kind of a strange, just super wealthy guy who was descended from one of America's richest families. He walked around with this little radio thing all the time, and he'd tell people he had to check in to let security know where he was. Oh, that's dumb. didn't know where he was oh that's dumb he ate cucumber and watercress sandwiches on pepperidge farm bread no crusts didn't trust restaurants uh he ate pepperidge farm cookies the nantucket kind which i love i don't know which one that is. Oh, that's the one. Hold on. I'm getting so hungry just talking about it. Okay. Yeah, it's the kind with the dark chocolate chunks.

I think they've got, like, the macadamia nuts in them. Hang on. Oh, it just says chocolate chunks. You know, I just like cookies. It's just dark chocolate. That's dumb. That's just a dark chocolate cookie it's not dumb okay next time i'm gonna eat a bunch of nantucket cookies in front of you oh i would be sad i'd be like you want oh wait no you think they're dumb no but if you're gonna go with a pepperidge farm cookie don't you do the the milano cookies i mean there's with a Pepperidge Farm cookie, don't you do the Milano cookies?

I mean, there's not a Pepperidge Farm cookie that I don't like. They're lighter than air. They're so good. But I do love it. God, I want some cookies so bad now. Okay, so he did the Pepperidge Farm bread, the Pepperidge Farm cookies. I don't think he was sponsored by Pepperidge Farm, but we have no idea. Every article of clothing had Pepperppertree Farm was stitched into it. Then he'd wash it all down with Harvey's Bristol Cream Sherry, which I...

Never heard of it. Yeah, no. Great. Good for him. So he's this total weirdo with a fantastic name, fancy dog, and a $1 billion art collection. He gave people just enough information. How did he get a billion dollar art collection? Want me to tell you?

Yeah. Is it all fake? Or is it all real? And he stole it. So, someone, I saw conflicting information on this. One person said they were all fakes. They were just derivatives. But because of who he was, people didn't question.

They were like, oh, this is so real. Another person said that he would get them in estate sales for not much money. I wonder if it was kind of a mishmash. Yeah, it's probably both. Yeah. A little bit of both. He gave people just enough information to make them think he was very important, but he would get super guarded and obsessed with privacy

anytime people asked too many questions, and so they would always back off. Around this time, at church, he met a woman named Julia Boss. Spoiler alert, they get married. No. What? No. Julia Boss. Oh. she they get married no what no julia boss oh she introduced him to her twin sister sandra boss oh excuse me they look exactly the same how am i supposed to tell them apart so you know julia's like do you want to meet my sister? He's like, absolutely. In fact, I would like to throw a party for her. What? Yeah.

You know, anytime you hear about a new person, you're like, I want to throw a party for them. No, that's so dumb. That's the weirdest thing. Well, you're not. They just have watercress sandwiches and Pepperidge Farm cookies. Oh, yeah. And you walk in, you're like, oh, where are the Milanos? Is it just the Nantucket kind?

where are the milanos is it just a man chucking kind so he throws this party in his apartment and he threw a clue party based on the board game okay i would go to that fucking party i know you would i know when i was writing this i was like brandy what's up so he played the role of mr body of course the millionaire host yeah what role did he give to uh this lovely lady uh miss scarlet uh-huh yeah for sure yeah these two were smitten immediately okay so this is where the vein okay now i want to go to a clue party i know like should we throw one i think it would be fun we have to wait until we someone like, do you want to meet my so-and-so? We're like, yes. Yes.

And we'll throw them a party. Yes. And I will seduce them. You are Colonel Mustard. Sorry, Norman. These are the rules of the game. What if we threw a party and I was like, okay, I will be Miss Scarlet. Kristen, you are Colonel Mustard.

And you're like, okay, I will be Miss Scarlet. Kristen, you are Colonel Mustard. I'm like, I'm not going! So this is where the Vanity Fair article, which I loved, gets super interesting and super bitchy. Not that the writer was bitchy, but like, oh, wait, we're not to the bitchy part yet. I'm sorry. So it talks about Sandra and Julia's relationship. So they're twin sisters. They're both brilliant. They were both national merit scholars.

For undergrad, Julia went to Yale. Sandra went to Stanford. So now Sandra's a Harvard MBA, and Julia is engaged. And again, super duper unhealthily competitive. The two sisters competed with each other constantly sandra was described as very intelligent but kind of lacking socially she was always someone described her as always kind of being on the outside looking in yeah but she fit in with clark yeah sandra was completely sucked in by clark he spoke tons of languages he knew all this the obscure novelists that she knew which like

i'm gonna be a snot now so they talk about obscure novelists and stuff like her favorite author was edith wharton which edith wharton is not obscure she won the pulitzer she's the first woman who won the pulitzer prize like everybody calm down anyway book snob all right cookie snob everybody's fucking heard of edith wharton i'm just saying when they say obscure novelist like if you won the pulitzer you're officially not obscure do you think you're a fair judge of what an obscure novelist is don't you think you have more knowledge of novelists than the average

person not about obscure ones i read popular fiction okay, I see what you're saying. I do read a lot. Yeah. But when someone's like, oh, I'm into obscure novelists, I'm like, oh, shit, I'm in over my head with this person. Because, like, I don't read the old stuff for the most part. But, of course, I read Edith Wharton because she's super popular and she was really good. Okay. Not good. Okay. Not obscure. Okay.

Do I sound like the biggest asshole? Listen, you're the one with the monogrammed keychain, so who's the snob now? A couple fucking snobs covering this podcast. Good lord. She loved that he spoke a ton of languages, fluent in German, if you can believe it. Mm. Uh-huh. Weird, because he's from Germany.

Hey, whoa, no, no. He had this really compelling life story. He wasn't that into money. His parents disappeared in Afghanistan. No, they died in Connecticut. Oh, that's right, because he's a rock star. And his mom was a former child star. more on that later great for now you just need to know that you know he'd once when he was growing up been super rich obviously but his father who died tragically in connecticut

which is why he never wanted to go to Connecticut ever under any circumstances, you know, because of the bad memories. Not because the Connecticut police were looking for him. You know, his father had been left completely broke by a lawsuit, which explained why, you know, for a Rockefeller, he didn't seem to have just a ton of money, you know. Okay, got it. It made him a better person, Brandy. Taught him some things about what's important in life.

Grew from it. Soon, they got married. You know, his parents were dead, obviously, so they couldn't make it to the ceremony. Neither could anybody else he'd ever known. Well, now, hold on. So he invited the Rockefellers. But at the last minute, you know how, like, drama happens around a wedding. And so, like, you get angry and you disinvite all your relatives.

Oh, okay. The Rockefellers were invited. He disinvited them at the last minute. Don't worry. He assured everyone, you'll meet all the rest of the family later. Yeah, sure, sure. Brandy, could you curb some of this skepticism?

Families can be so tough so they got married but some say the marriage wasn't legit so sandra filled out everything well yeah if he put down fucking clark rockefeller on the marriage certificate it's not legit well and clark never filed the paperwork yeah because they would be like clark rockefeller that's not a real fucking person at any rate now sandra and clark are the ultimate power couple he's got a job running this wonderful company that advises third world countries on their finances. And, you know, obviously, Brandy, don't make that face. That's not a real job. It's a wonderful job. And he is so nice that he doesn't accept a salary from that

because it would be wrong to accept a salary from these countries that just need his help so badly. Translation, he has no fucking job. Now, Sandra had an actual job. Yeah, I bet she did. I bet she worked really fucking job. Now, Sandra had an actual job. Yeah, I bet she did. I bet she worked really fucking hard. Yes, she did. She worked really, really hard.

She worked at the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, which I didn't go into all the details because this script is huge already. But McKinsey & Company, have you heard of it? No. They're this consulting firm they're like they've got former cia people um at this point future enron execs were working there i mean they have very goes downhill for them yeah they go they've got very highly intelligent people working for them yeah you. You know, blah, blah, blah. Okay. Sandra rose very quickly through the company, which I assume is pretty unusual and hard to do.

Part of that success could have been due to her very hard work. But some people, including Clark, thought it had to do with his good name. One friend said, No. Well. Fucking Clark. I, okay. it had to do with his good name one friend said no well fucking clark i okay i kind of buy it i let me read you a quote from her friend let me hold on one friend said everybody knew she was married to a rockefeller and she could be all modest about it and act like she didn't care, but she cared. I do think that

being married to someone who's perceived as important can boost your status with people who are really into that. I'm not, I don't think she would have risen as far as she did by being an idiot.

I think she did work really hard. But I think there's a chance that that's right, that maybe his name was an asset. I mean, I imagine it's possible, yeah. This is, okay, this is the part, you know how I was saying earlier, in a certain part it gets bitchy? Yeah. It's not that the article itself is rude but you know i mean the guy interviewed friends who were like okay yeah i'm gonna talk to you anonymously and i just think after this whole thing went down people had a serious case of schadenfreude because like i think they were maybe a little, maybe jealous is the right word or something.

Because, you know, she was with this Rockefeller. And maybe she did kind of like, hmm, Rockefeller. But, I mean, boy, she got humbled pretty quick. Yeah. Anyway, I'm going to read you another quote. I was repulsed by the name dropping and the excessive wealth and the khaki pants and the polo shirt. Also, they weren't really people that you wanted to be around. They weren't warm.

I think other people were excited to be with a Rockefeller. It didn't matter how awkward it was to be with them. It was worth it because they were Rockefellers. It's about time someone said it about the khaki pants. That was the funniest part to me. It's like, khaki pants and polo shirt. Like, that's the best buy uniform. You're also describing the Target uniform.

But I don't know. Like, I saw a couple quotes like this from people who were like, I was disgusted by it. And it's like, were you? Were you? Or were you really, like, thinking you were pretty cool

to be hanging out with a Rockefeller? I think that's the real story. Yeah. By this point, it's 2000. They've got a ton of friends who all love Clark, but their marriage is starting to crumble. In 2000, Sandra peaced out.

By this point, I think they got married in 95 she was like this dude is controlling and paranoid and abusive i'm done but he charmed his way back they got back together and sandra became pregnant and after that she was like well i've got to make this work around this time something weird happened involving clark and some lady at a park and i wish i had more details on this but i don't so i think maybe he got into an argument or something with a lady at a park then the police came to talk to him about it and afterward he told sandra i want to move i want to move. I want to move to Cornish, New Hampshire. Okay.

So they did. Which, apparently, Cornish is like this really cute, affluent little town. Here was the logic. You ready? I am. It was halfway between Sandra's job in Boston and Clark's job in Canada, where he was leading up a new company and he was a scientist. Okay.

Hey. Clark has no job. He's a scientist. He has no job. Where the fuck does he go every day? That's what I'm wondering. Yeah. Probably to like his special little clubs to eat his lunch and stuff probably

a few of the people in cornish almost immediately smelled the bullshit no this time this one i actually believe uh-huh okay so clark rockefeller almost right off the bat met jean burling who was a big time judge. And I think her husband is like a state senator from New Hampshire. So right away, he starts talking down to this super intelligent woman about abstract expressionism. And like, do you know what it is? I'll tell you when it is. Blah, blah, blah. And she's just sitting there like, this guy seems like he is absolutely full of shit.

The other thing was so i'm assuming in this town you've got all these like people who are legit wealthy and he's zooming around in a bright yellow yale baseball hat and a segue talking about money talking about how britney spears is coming to his house for dinner how stephen hawking is coming to his house for dinner and people are just kind of like um we're new england waspy types we don't we have the money we don't talk about the money who the hell are you a lot of stuff happened i'm just gonna skip over it because i'm gonna spend more time on the court stuff but just know that he was a dick he pissed people off yeah and the whole time he's talking about how like he gives people the

impression i don't know why this pisses me off more than anything but like he gives people the impression that he's the one making all the money and sandra just doesn't throw in a ton of money from her job like he's the wealthy one now it's 2006 sandra and clark move into their sweet home in beacon hill in boston and clark tells people that he doesn't have to work anymore because his Canadian jet propulsion company sold to Boeing for a billion dollars. So, you know, he's good. And, oh, by the way, you know, Sandra makes like 200 grand, 300 grand, not a ton of money, but, you know, it's okay.

He's a Rockefeller, sold his company for a billion dollars. Now he's super dad. Great. You want to hear more? Just $200,000, $300,000 a year, huh? Yeah, I mean, it makes you feel sad, right? Isn't that funny? How do they even get by on that?

How do you even live? Snooks proved to be a highly intelligent child. The article had all these stories about how smart she is. She's smart, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, we get it. Yep, he was with her every step of the way. But eventually Sandra decided that she'd had enough, and she divorced Clark.

Their divorce was ugly. Clark panicked. All of a sudden, all of his money was ugly. Clark panicked. All of a sudden, all of his money was gone. Yeah. How does that even fucking work? What do you mean? They weren't really married. I did wonder about that, and I didn't really get a satisfying answer,

because some lawyers were like, they were never married. They weren't really married. He doesn't even really exist i mean my mind just like turns to jello when i try to imagine what that looks like in a courtroom well but also like there's common law marriage like yeah i mean i get that i get that there would be some legally binding aspects but when you go before a judge for a divorce and you can't present any information to say who the fuck you are how does that not just all fall apart let's find out shall we so like i said clark is panicking because oh, oh no, my poor wife, turns out she's the one with all the money, uh-oh. So he had to sell all the stuff that he'd acquired over the years.

His art collection? Some of it, yes. He told friends. Had to keep the stuff that was stolen or fake, huh? He told friends, Sandy only wanted my money. She married me because I'm a Rockefeller. Now she wants everything. No.

Did she change her name to Sandra Rockefeller? No. No, she did not. Fuck right off, Clark. Mm-hmm. So Sandra hired a lawyer, but her family didn't like the way things were going. It seemed clear that Clark was doing something fishy with the money, or that he was

maybe taking some of it and hiding it from sandy because there just wasn't money like that doesn't make sense sandra's dad william took his concerns to wikipedia i'm not making that up so okay clark had told them that his mom was ann carter the former child star who i don't know who that is but anyway former child star and obviously she probably later went on to star on morgan mindy oh that's right before after during who knows but you know she had died in connecticut right yeah so william is on wikipedia he's on ann clark's page and he's like wait hold she's alive i thought her name was ann carter oh you're right sorry so he's he does this deep dive into wikipedia and he comes up with all these facts that run counter to clark's alternative facts

and so he calls up sand Sandra and he's like, Hey, something's going on here. And Sandra's like, okay, dad, get off Wikipedia. We're hiring a private investigator. What the private investigator found was that Clark Rockefeller was not Clark

Rockefeller. They got into negotiations and basically came to this. Sandra gets almost everything everything including like the fullest of custody because we don't know who you really are but we know you're fucking psycho and we won't turn you over to authorities basically yeah what they said was in exchange clark gets eight hundred thousand dollars and they don't look into his true identity even further. Which I, that's, I don't like that at all. How could you not look into his true identity? How could you not want to know? Exactly, exactly.

I don't get that at all. Clark took the deal. Do you think she- Obviously he took the deal because what the fuck is his other option do you think they really didn't look into it i just i can't maybe it was too much maybe she didn't want to know maybe maybe yeah that that actually does seem plausible yeah that she's just like this is so horrifying and terrible i can't yeah oh so clark took the deal but his friends say that he instantly regretted it

so the two fucking bad fake clark rockefeller like here's what the article said the article basically said that everything about him was fake except for his love for his daughter oh i believe that yeah i believe that but you you have created this uh-huh and so this is your choice like but you're trying to bring reality down on a guy who does not deal with reality like seriously he's like i mean this guy doesn't do reality i get that but he's got monogrammed underwear let it look mean, let it all fall apart. Admit your true identity then if you want to keep your daughter. Oh, well, or you could just kidnap her.

Right. So that summer, he kidnapped her. Yes. He evaded investigators for days. And finally, a real estate agent in Baltimore called in with a major tip. He said, hey, I'm looking at that Wanted poster. Because, you know, it was everywhere. Yeah.

And I think I sold that guy an apartment. Oh, my gosh. In Baltimore? He didn't go very fucking far. I think he, yeah, yeah, you're right. He didn't go far. That's dumb. But then again, like, New York isn't that far from Connecticut.

No, but he was going to, like, go to New York and then fly somewhere else. Yeah, but he stayed in New York for forever. And the police in Connecticut had been on to him. Yeah, I mean, I get what you're saying. But now he's got a kid that he's trying to also hide from authorities. There's a fucking Amber Alert out. Yeah, yeah. He should have left the country

good advice so uh clark told the real estate agent my name is chip smith and this is my daughter muffie I know like what a stupid name oh my gosh so investigators go to the apartment like one place said this was a carriage house you know whatever so you get the idea they go there they look in the windows they see that sherry drink that he loves and paintings on the floors but no movement so they created a ruse by that point they knew that he had a yacht docked nearby oh my gosh so they had the manager of the marina call clark and say hey chip your yacht is taking on water and chip is like i'll be there as soon as i can so he runs out of the house, apartment, carriage house, whatever. And this agent, who was just in plain clothes, goes, hey, Clark, where are you going, Clark?

Oh, gosh. And Chip said, I'm going to get a turkey sandwich. And then he goes, oh, fuck. And then you call me Clark. and then he goes oh fuck and then you call me clark and then 20 armed agents descended upon yeah assault rifles were everywhere other agents ran into the house to get snooks out safely and luckily she was fine you mean muffie yeah muffie god only name worse than snooks right right? I think Snooks is cute. I don't mind Snooks.

Muffy. Oof. Yeah. Oof. Now he's in the FBI's custody. And on August 15th, 2008, they positively ID'd him as Christian Carl Gerhartsreiter. Sorry. Why did we start a podcast when i can't pronounce

his fingerprints his fingerprints matched the prints on that wine glass and they also matched a latent print on the immigration documents for christian carl gerhardt's writer and also they got a little help from Christian's real brother, Alexander, who was like, oh, yeah, that's my brother. Alexander? Alexander, sorry. His parents are Simon and Urmgard. They're not Rockefellers.

And not a child star that died tragically in Connecticut. No, they're like, for sure they didn't die in Connecticut. You know, we're all over here in Germany. So Christian's law... Oh, I'm sorry. Now it's September of 2008 and Christian has a big old list of charges against him. We've got custodial kidnapping,

assault, battery, assault with a deadly weapon, and giving a false name to officers following no murder not yet oh yeah wait for it okay wait for it and i want to say well i did not write this down but i think the judge in this first kidnapping trial was like don't prejudice the jury with the stuff about the possible murders okay keep it separate got it so christian's lawyers were like hold up wait a minute this wasn't a kidnapping because the divorce order and the custody order weren't valid because sandra and what's his face okay they got married in a quaker ceremony they never took out a marriage

license and therefore they were never legally married. Ha ha ha ha ha. What do you think of that? That's fucking bullshit, but it might have some legal bearing. His lawyer also said that the false name charge was bullshit. Christian had identified as Clark Rockefeller for a very long time. He didn't do anything wrong by saying that his name was Clark Rockefeller. Attorney Stephen Horn said,

H-R-O-N-E-S, that's just begging me to say it wrong, said, I just pronounced Horn. I don't know how you pronounce it. But the R is in the wrong place. It's H-R-O. That's what I'm saying. It's not pronounced horn. Oh, yeah.

The DA can call him anything he wants, but he knows himself as Clark Rockefeller. They're just desperate to come up with more charges. No. Christian went on the Today Show and told the media that sandra had known for a very long time that he wasn't really a rockefeller she just wanted to keep up appearances i doubt that uh-huh yeah yeah i don't buy that shit yeah i don't either so sandra's lawyer jumps in and he's like hey everybody just so you know that guy is totally full of shit. Maybe don't believe every word he says. Yeah.

Yeah. Now it's early 2009. Christian has a new defense attorney. And that attorney is like, hello, everyone. We're planning to use the insanity defense. We think we could have, you know, mistaken identity, depression, bipolar disorder, grandiosity. You know, it could be just a whole bunch of things. So the DA is kind of pissed.

Yeah. Because the DA is like, well, that's convenient because the kidnapping trial is, like, right around the corner and I need to find an expert witness. And it's pretty tough to know which expert to pick when you're saying he could have, like, every disorder under the sun. During that same hearing, the defense asked the judge to drop the false name charge. They basically said he'd been using that name for a really long time,

and therefore it was not dishonest for him to use it after the arrest. But Assistant DA David Deacon said, that's like saying if you lie long enough, it becomes. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what that's saying. Yeah, it's not at all how that works. Oh, you've been lying for like a decade. Good for you.

Now it's true. Now you're a Rockefeller. Here's your pot of money. Ultimately, the judge is like, no, we're keeping the false name. Yeah. Another month goes by. We've got another hearing. And this time the defense is like, we cannot get the false name charge. Another month goes by. We've got another hearing. And this time the defense is like, we cannot get a fair trial in Boston.

We did some polling and like 70% of people here have heard of the story. And like 50% of the people think our guy is guilty. Can we please move this thing out of Boston? Oh, by the way, please disregard the fact that Christian did interviews with the Today Show and the Boston Globe and a bunch of other media. He did that with his other attorney. I would not have allowed that. Which I've got to say, that was really stupid. Yeah.

But I think that just shows his arrogance where he's like, oh, it's OK. I'm just going to talk to everyone, and I'm going to con everyone. Yeah. Like, dude, you've been caught. Yeah. Ultimately, the judge decided to keep the trial in Boston. He said, sure, you know, people may have heard about this case, but that doesn't mean that they're no longer impartial. You're just going to have to weed that out.

Yep. More time passes. And the prosecutors make a filing, letting the court know that Christian always told Sandra to file her tax returns as though she was single. And later, when her work, you know, she has this very important job, required that a CPA sign off on her taxes, Christian went to the accountant behind Sandra's back

and said, oh, I think you're confused. I'm not Sandra's husband. I'm her brother, Sandra's single. What? Mm-hmm. Then the defense came in with another filing. They were like, we don't think that the vast majority of the four-hour interrogation,

by the way, these filings, they all kind of added up. I was having a tough time figuring out what order they went in. I think I got it. That's maybe not. Um, he's like, be super pissed if it's not 100% correct. Well,

prepare yourself. They were like, we don't think that the vast majority of the four hour interrogation that took place after our client was arrested can be used at trial. Because guess what? He told investigators that he didn't want to talk. But they kept pressing him. And in America, you have the right to remain silent.

The judge agreed. She was like, yeah, he said he wanted to remain silent and you guys just kept talking to him. Wow. I know. But I think that's the right decision yeah i do too so now we're getting closer to the trial and the defense came before the judge again and they said look you've got this false name charge to get charge against our client

okay whatever we tried to fight that we lost but when we go to trial we want him to be referred to clark rockefeller we want him to be referred to as cleller. We want him to be referred to as Clark Rockefeller at trial. Because otherwise, if everyone's calling him Christian Carl Gerhardt's writer, that'll prejudice the jury. It'll hurt his credibility in front of them. No. I agree. Again, it's like, sorry. Yeah, too bad. It's not his name yeah yeah again the da was like no yeah he created that name out of whole cloth he's not entitled to that name

so thank god the judge sided with the prosecution he He was like, we're going to refer to him based on the name that was used in the indictment. Christian Carl Gerhardt's writer. Finally, in late May of 2009, the kidnapping trial began. The prosecution and defense started with a lot of the same stuff. They both said, yep, he kidnapped his daughter. They said, yep, he's not who he said he was. What they disagreed on was whether he should be held responsible for his daughter. They said, yep, he's not who he said he was. What they disagreed on was whether he should be held responsible

for his actions. In opening arguments, the defense said that Christian suffered from a longstanding mental illness. He said that losing custody of his daughter made Christian suffer a psychotic break. He believed that she was in danger and needed to be saved.

And that's why he did what he did. Prosecutors were like, no, no. He's sane and he is calculating. He planned this kidnapping very carefully. He bought that place in Baltimore ahead of time. And he, wow, you would not believe the way I spelled converted in this script. But anyway, and he wow you would not believe the way i spelled converted in this script but anyway and he converted a bunch of his divorce settlement into untraceable gold coins like this dude was planning this whole thing no he was perfectly sane the prosecution's first witness was howard yaffe the social worker who was with christian and snooks that day he told them everything that had happened that day

and also detailed the injuries he'd suffered when he tried to, like, I bet he suffered a lot of injuries. So I didn't write them down, but, like, he got a mild concussion. I mean, the good thing was the guy didn't, like, try to hold on for dear life. Probably crazy road crash or something, right? Didn't he scrape his face on the ground? Well, I'm sure. I'm sure. Sandra Boss also took the stand she told the jury i'm not

saying that i made a very good choice of husband it's pretty obvious that i had a blind spot i feel so sorry for this i do too um because like basically she's got all these people who are like what a fucking idiot you are yeah exactly and kind of blaming her so yeah she was like she had to acknowledge that yeah i'm amazing at my job yeah i got this great education from these elite institutions but in my personal life with my husband i guess i was stupid no sorry she said she believed his lies she allowed him to control almost every aspect of her life which just sounds like abuse to me like i yeah the defense attorney jeffrey denner cross-examined her and asked her again and again how a smart sophisticated woman like herself could fall for christian stories so he

listed a few of the bigger lies and sandra said look i knew that he tried to make himself seem more important than he was i just didn't understand the extent of the deception yeah until i hired the private investigator i think that makes sense yeah i think you can totally think oh i'm married to this guy who's, for whatever reason, kind of insecure and will brag to the neighbors about bullshit. But I don't think you think, maybe he murdered two people in California 20 years ago. He asked about finances and she said, I made all the money, but the defendant controlled all the money. She called him the defendant the whole time. She didn't use his name.

That's pretty good. You know, they talked about her being kind of cold. Like, well, yeah. Yeah. Then Christian's first wife took the stand, which she didn't do. Like, I tried to find her stuff in media, like, interviews. She did not talk to the media, I think. tried to find her stuff in media like interviews she did not talk to the media i think because like she didn't divorce him until like i want to say like 10 years after they got married but anyway

she was like yeah i only married him because my sister was dating him at the time and she asked me to oh my god yeah fucking weird that's so weird the defense called two expert witnesses who both said that christian suffers from a delusional disorder and that he was legally insane when he took his daughter that day and of course the prosecution called their own witness who was like no the fact that he spent so much time planning this and later concealing this helps indicate that this man was sane ultimately the jury found him guilty of kidnapping his daughter they also found him guilty of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon which was the suv obviously but they

acquitted him on another assault count i am i'm assuming the shove maybe uh and they acquitted him on the charge of giving a false name to the police wow Wow. He was sentenced to four to five years. Four to five years? Yeah, I think it's when you're the parent and you kidnap the child, it must just be like the bar drops significantly. Four to five years. I could not believe it. Holy shit.

Five was the max. Wow. Yeah, I know. I was blown away. But what about Jonathanathan and linda yeah so jonathan's body had been found in i don't know if his body was divided into three bags or if they've just found three separate bags but you know it was buried in that backyard in california uh Linda's body has never been found wow she has not been heard from

since this yeah well depends on who you ask if you ask fucking Christian's lawyers she's dead in 2011 Christian was charged with Jonathan's murder they'd used DNA testing to confirm that the remains belonged to Jonathan.

Christian went to trial in L.A. in 2013. District Attorney Habib Balian was very upfront with the jury. He said, I'm not bringing in any eyewitnesses. I don't have physical evidence. And I don't even have a motive for murder. What I do have is a ton of circumstantial evidence. I think there's definitely a clear motive for murder. What's the motive?

Well, I assume that Christian was living off of Dee Dee and her son and daughter-in-law came in and were going to keep that from happening. Maybe. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I'm just surprised they wouldn't make that argument. Yeah, I mean, there are some theories that like Christian was like hitting on Linda. They were kind of getting cozy.

Maybe, you know, that sparked a fight between john and clark or god i keep i keep messing up this guy's name yeah obviously what's his face yeah but yeah i mean who knows yeah who knows yeah the only thing we kind of know is like he killed him oh yeah yeah so the da spent three weeks presenting circumstantial evidence to the jury he brought up a ton of sketchy stuff but what sealed the deal was the fact that when those new owners dug up the dirt for their new pool they not only found Jonathan's body in bags they found plastic book bags which I don't know what that means I well no I do they found plastic book bags, which I don't know what that means. Well, no, I do. They found plastic book bags from the University of Wisconsin and another one from the University of Southern California where Christian had been auditing film classes.

The prosecution also showed that Christian had Linda and John's pickup truck after John was murdered. The prosecution said that based on Jonathan's remains, Christian bludgeoned him in the head with a blunt object. And then cut up his body with a chainsaw. Mm-hmm. Yep. Do you think he returned the chainsaw?

Yeah, I bet he did. God, can you imagine? Defense attorney Jeffrey Denner said, Look, my client is a liar. He makes up stories, but that does not make him a murderer. And you know what? We're overlooking a very big possibility here. That Linda is still alive and Linda's the murderer.

That's exactly right. Yes. Yeah, he's like, no one's heard from Linda. Maybe she killed Jonathan and skipped town. Mm-hmm. So it was a case of circumstantial evidence. But the jury believed it. They found him guilty.

After the trial, Christian fired his lawyers and he was like, I'm going to represent myself at the sentencing. And the judge was like, oh, that's a bad idea. Terrible idea, sir. But did he listen to the judge, you know. Christian tried to delay the sentencing. Did not work. Turns out a law degree is helpful in these situations. At the sentencing, Christian claimed he was innocent

and blamed the whole thing on Linda. He was sentenced to 27 years to life. He is, of course, in the process of appealing everything of course he is i believe this is just from memory he on appeal he did get his sentence reduced by one year oh whoop-de-fucking-do great um yeah he's exhausted all of his state appeals so now he's moving on to the federal level excellent uh-huh best of fucking luck yeah i hope he's still representing himself yeah no kidding so that's the story of clark rockefeller holy fucking shit that was nuts am i crazy yes i was so you know i love a con man yeah i i just don't get people

like that yeah it's amazing to me yeah oh. Oh my gosh, that was so good. What's going on with you this week? I have a case update. Do it. Okay. This is like breaking news hot off the fucking presses. Sorry. Okay, so the suicide texting case that I covered many moons ago.

Yes. Michelle Carter was dating Conrad Roy. He decided he was going to kill himself. He got himself in his car with a generator and then he got out and she convinced him to get back in and he died. Yeah. And she was charged with manslaughter for his death. She was sentenced to two years in prison, two and a half years in prison, I believe. And then but would only have to serve 15 months of it but that sentence was suspended while she appealed her

case um she appealed her case to the massachusetts supreme court and today they released their opinion and they are not reversing her sentence they upheld her sentence wow yes and they said so the argument on the appeal was that there was no way to know that without her influence that conrad broy wouldn't have died anyway and the opinion of the justices said that they don't believe that's true because like his previous suicide attempt suicide attempts he got himself out of the situation he had previously attempted suicide and he'd always reached out to someone yeah he did the same in this case and this person encouraged him to follow through so they have upheld her sentence wow so the next step and i

assume that they'll appeal to the United States Supreme Court, but. Okay, am I a butthole or what? Because I'm like, it's only two and a half years and you convinced a guy to kill himself. How about you just do your time and you'll be out when you're like 20. I would be shocked if the United States Supreme Court even agrees to hear the case. Yeah, I would too. Yeah, so. Mostly because just statistics, but yes so that and like that literally came out today the opinion was released so well

thank you for doing the thing that i've never done which is follow up on anything oh man yeah so um i hope she just fucking serves her time and like yeah yeah learn the lesson exactly try to be a better person exactly yeah oh man should we talk about norm and zach had a big milestone in their lives this week they did have a big milestone in their lives they both lost their baby shower virginity together that sounds so gross yeah so we have we held a surprise baby shower for my sister this weekend it was you know everybody's invited ladies gentlemen yeah it was all the all the dudes and the women and the children. Boy. And Zach. So Zach had never been to a baby shower before.

And it came to the gift opening section of the event. And was the gift from you? Yeah, so that's the funniest part. So it was on their registry. And by this point, you know, I should say, like, most people had cleared out. It was just a few of us left, yeah. So the thing that I'd gotten for them off their registry, which, anyway, we'll get to my frustration. But it was one of those, like, it clips to the table. It's like a chair for your baby.

It's like a high chair, but it's not a high chair. clips right onto the table that way it takes up less room so kyla opens it and zach looks at it and he goes oh oh yeah which it's like buddy you are really blowing our cover here that i'm the one who buys the gifts when you're like oh that looks like a death trap it's like it came from you oh my gosh so it was a really fun baby shower. It was. It was really fun. And so later that evening, Zach and I were at home. We were just watching TV. And he was like, hey, I'm really sorry if I embarrassed you at the baby shower. And I was like, what are you talking about?

Embarrassed me? Like, I had a good time. And he's like, well, I've never been to a baby shower before. And I was thinking about it in that joke about that chair. It was probably really inappropriate. Zach should never be worried about being inappropriate when my dad is also at the party. My dad is always going to be the most inappropriate person in any room that he is in. So Kyla, Zach apologizes.

He hopes you were not offended by his concern over you, your baby falling out of the high chair. Well, we decided that what we needed to do was test it by having Zach get in the high chair. That's right. And if it could hold Zach, then it'll be fine with the baby. All right. So what's your, what's your opinion, Kristen?

Obviously you haven't heard the dramatic conclusion yet, but are you pissed about the two-parter? No. Okay. But see, I, I listen to podcasts that are like,

that are like serialized. So I'm, I'm cool with it. All right. I mean, I'm feeling very anxious about it. Why? You came.

I don't know. You came over. You were like nervous. I was. When I wrote. I finished. So I finished writing it last night. And I was like.

Okay. Should I add? Like should I go? And I kept like. I was like no. No. That's where I'm going to stop it. And I'm like.

Well maybe I should. And I'm like no. Like if I would have finished. We would still be talking about my case right now. What's the worst case scenario? Like, what are you? That somebody will. I guess this is probably what the concern is, and this is stupid because what the fuck does it matter?

Go ahead. Is that someone will go then research the case and it won't be the next episode won't be exciting because they'll already know what happened you know that's like if you you know peek and open your christmas presents or something like that's yeah that's on them and it won't compare to how you tell no idea that i would feel so strongly about this until like i was kind of saying you are like i'm anxious about it sweating like nervous yeah yeah so i'm sorry guys i hope you don't hate it and by extension me that's probably the right is that's probably the real thing right yeah because you're taking this way too personally so for you the worst case scenario is everyone hates you and stops listening and maybe writes a list of mean names about you. Yes, that's correct. Which I don't think will happen.

Okay, good. We're good. Should we tell everyone about the lofty goal I set that you said was impossible? For fuck's sake, Kristen, there's like four days left for that. Four days. By the time this fucking thing comes out. Oh, you're right. Oh, we can't tell it.

Two days. Never mind. Basically, we're hoping for more reviews on iTunes. If you haven't done that, we'd appreciate it. Our next milestone goal is 150. So if you have not already, head on over to iTunes, please, and leave us a rating. Leave us a review.

Only if you loved us. Yeah. Don't be mean to us. That's right. Clearly, I can't handle it. By the way, my niece at the baby shower said that Brandi and I were laughing too loudly, which... Yeah, I mean, it's spot on. Yeah, it's spot on. Yeah.

It's a complaint we've gotten since elementary school. That is correct. I mean, I cannot fault her for that. It is 100% accurate. Uh-huh. And unlike you guys right now, she can't turn down the volume. She just had to, like, walk into the living room. She had to walk out of the room and cover her ears. Poor girl.

Poor thing. But, hey, if you kept the volume up this whole time, thank you. We appreciate it. Another thing we appreciate you guys doing, I mean, if we're just listing off things that we'd like you to do, we ask you for the rating and the review. We ask you to keep listening. Why don't you also head on over to our social media? Find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube.

We're in all those places reddit we talked about our our new our new reddit thingy should we see if we have any more no that's gonna be depressing okay you're probably right on over to the unofficial let's go to court reddit page okay and then uh join us next week when we'll be experts on two whole new topics. And I'll finish that episode. A podcast is turned. 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 Vanity Fair article, The Man in the Rockefeller Suit by Mark Seale, as well as articles in the Boston Globe, ABC News, The New York Times, The Associated Press, and Wikipedia. And I got my info from an eight-part series of articles in the Lincoln Journal Star, as well as the Omaha World and the New Yorker. 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.