Let's Go To Court! - 58: The Sleepwalker & the McDonald’s Strip Search

Episode Date: March 6, 2019

Scott Falater killed his wife — that much we know is true. He stabbed Yarmila dozens of times, then held her underwater. Afterward, he hid the murder weapon and his bloody clothes. When police arrived on the scene, Scott was dazed. He said he wasn’t sure what had happened. He didn’t remember a thing. He would never have chosen to kill his wife. So he must have committed the murder while he was sleepwalking. Right? Then Kristin tells us about a phone call that a self-proclaimed police officer made to a McDonalds in Mount Washington, Kentucky. A man who called himself “Officer Scott” told assistant manager Donna Summers that he was investigating a theft. A McDonald’s employee had stolen a customer’s purse. He described the suspect, and Donna offered a name. It had to be Louise Ogborn, the 18-year-old high school senior. Donna brought Louise into the office and followed Officer Scott’s increasingly odd instructions. 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: “A hoax most cruel,” The Courier-Journal by Andrew Wolfson “Appeals court upholds $6.1 million strip-search verdict against McDonald’s,” The Courier-Journal “Ogborn awarded $6.1 million in suit against McDonald’s,” The Courier-Journal “Ogborn, first set of lawyers involved in fee dispute,” The Courier-Journal “Acquittal in hoax call that led to sex assault,” MSNBC “Strip-search case closed?” ABC News “Judge: Company must pay legal fees,” The Courier-Journal “McDonald’s didn’t warn workers, suit says,” The Courier-Journal “Ex-McDonald’s worker wins lawsuit over strip search,” Associated Press “McDonald’s Corporation v Ogborn,” findlaw.com “Strip search phone call scam,” Wikipedia Clip of 20/20 episode on YouTube In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Walking Terror” episode Forensic Files “The Big Sleep” by Paul Rubin, Phoenix New Times “A Killer Sleep Disorder” by Paul Rubin, Phoenix New Times “Husband Admits He Killed His Wife —In His Sleep” Desert News “Sleepwalking Given As Defense by Man In Killing of Wife” Associated Press, The New York Times “Woman Stabbed, Drowned by ‘Sleepwalking’ Husband” by Joe Enea, ABC 15 News “‘Sleepwalker’ Guilty of Murder” by CBSNews.com Staff, CBS News  

One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts. I'm Kristen Pitts. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court. On this episode, I'll talk about a fast food strip search. And I'll be talking about sleepwalking. Ooh. Ooh. I think I know your case. But just like bits and pieces of it. I don't, I don't know a lot of the details, but. My case is so good. Yeah. If it's what i'm thinking of it's crazy it has to be what you're thinking i'm sure okay does it involve a phone call oh yes okay it's definitely the case that i'm thinking all right here we go make sure we're all turned on okay whoa turned on okay you're gonna want to be fully erect for this first i have to start off by saying that like two weeks ago three weeks ago i don't even know when i was like

turns out i'm doing like a boston case streak and then I realized, you did two Boston cases. One. Yeah. The third was just Massachusetts in general. Where are we this week? Uh, Kentucky. So

what you're saying is you lied to us. Yeah. It turns out I do not have the stamina to do just a spree all in one city. I got distracted. Okay. By nudity. By nudity.

Yeah. Uh, also I got distracted. Okay. By nudity. By nudity. Yeah. Also, big shout out to Andrew Wolfson for The Courier Journal. His article, A Hoax Most Cruel, was super helpful. Then I went through, and over the years, he's just stuck with this thing. Oh, that's awesome. Every time there's an update, that dude is writing for The Courier Journal about it. Awesome. So, big thank you to him.

update that dude is writing for the courier journal about it also big thank you to him it was april 9th 2004 at a mcdonald's in mount washington kentucky 18 year old high school senior louise ogborn had just finished an afternoon shift when her manager was like hey so and so can't make it for the evening shift can you fill in and louise was like yeah sure no problem so louise had been working for mcdonald's for like four months at this point and she took can't make it for the evening shift. Can you fill in? And Louise was like, yeah, sure. No problem. So Louise had been working for McDonald's for like four months at this point. And she took the job because her mom had just lost her job. So she's just this high school senior trying to help out her family. Right. Louise got the McDonald's meal, ate her meal, and then just went right back to work. A little while later, someone made a phone call to the McDonald's. And assistant manager Donna Summers picked up the phone. Donna Summers?

I knew you were going to die. Donna Summers. Yes. She's fallen on hard times. There was a man on the line. And he said, hey, I'm a police officer. My name is Officer Scott. And I'm investigating a theft that just took place at your McDonald's.

By the way, I've got McDonald's corporate on the line. And I've got your store manager, Lisa Siddons, also on the line. Here's the situation. One of your employees stole a customer's purse. And Donna was like, really? What? And he's like, I'm afraid so. So, uh, help me out here. The person who committed this crime is like a small, young, blonde, white woman.

Pretty good looking. And Donna's like, oh, right. Yeah, that's Louise. Uh-huh. Oh, my gosh. And Officer Scott is like, oh, yeah, great. Thanks so much. Now, here's the problem.

Okay, here's the problem. We're short on officers. So we're going to need you to help us out. Oh, no. What? Brandi, you know how common that is. The police officers, what they do is they sit at their desk. They outsource the investigation.

They're like, I can't possibly get up right now. I need to have the assistant manager of a McDonald's help me with this investigation. Absolutely not. You know how that is. No, I do not. That's why you never see police officers out in the world so donna is like yeah absolutely what do you need i'll do anything she calls louise into the office with her and locks the door and she's got the phone and officer scott is like hey donna could

you please explain louise's choices her? She basically has two options. Either get searched right now by your managers in that little McDonald's office, or we can come out and we can arrest you and we'll search you back at the station. What do you want? Louise was obviously scared and confused. Again, she's just a high school senior. She hadn't stolen anything from anybody. And she didn't want to get arrested. So she was like, okay, well, you know, you can search me here. So Officer Scott walks Donna through this search.

And, you know, pat her legs down. Okay, pat her arms down. Okay, tell her to take off her shirt. Take off her pants. Uh-uh. No. Uh-huh. No. He told Donna to get Louise completely naked.

Oh, my gosh. And Donna did. It was horrible. Louise was scared and embarrassed and traumatized. And her manager was just blindly following orders from a police officer on the phone. Is that like in quotes? Oh, the biggest quotes ever.

Font size 72 on the quotes. Donna took all of Louise's clothes, along with her keys and her cell phone and all of her other stuff, and took them out of the office. along with her keys and her cell phone and all of her other stuff, and took them out of the office. So she's completely naked in this nasty little McDonald's office.

Pretty soon, assistant manager Kim Dockery arrived. Some sources said that this other assistant manager was in there the whole time, but I saw one of the lawsuits and it said that she came in later. But at any rate, she comes comes in she sees what's happening and she's like whoa what the fuck is happening right so she hands louise a dirty apron to cover herself and then she left the office and went back to work none of my business mcdonald wasn't going to manage itself, Brandy. Don't know what's happening there, don't care to know. Yeah, I cannot imagine.

But that was her solution. She hands her the dirty apron and then was like, well, better move myself along. So then Officer Scott was like, you know, Donna, you've been great, really gone above and beyond here, but I think we need a male presence in the room. What's that now? Oh, you know how when the police outsource their jobs, sometimes they just need that strong male presence. Oh, okay.

You know how ladies be. You know, we need a guy in there to supervise this whole thing until police can arrive on the scene. Because we're definitely coming. I'm definitely a real cop. Please don't question anything you're hearing from me. Uh-huh. And Donna was like,

sure, no problem. Oh my gosh. She left the office. And what was Louise like? like, sure, no problem. Oh, my gosh. She left the office. And what was Louise like? Louise, again, shaking, traumatized, scared. I saw some of the surveillance footage. I mean, this poor girl. You know, and I mean, goes without saying, the apron.

It isn't covering enough. No. Yeah. No. Yeah, I've seen Empire records. I haven't. Well, 2% of our listeners will get that reference. So Donna left the office and grabbed 27-year-old Jason Bradley, the cook.

Uh-huh. What? He was the strong male presence that they needed in there. Brandi, you seem to be questioning all of this i am in fact you know what i hope a police officer doesn't need your help one day jason came into the office saw louise there naked covered up in this dirty apron clearly upset and he got on the phone with officer scott and officer scott started giving him all kinds of instructions have louise drop the apron have her do this have her do that but jason was like no way man he left so he left the office in disgust and he told donna

that's a bunch of bullshit oh my my gosh. So he knew right away. Right. But he didn't do anything about it. Louise later was like, yeah, he didn't do anything to hurt me. He didn't traumatize me further. But he could have done more. Instead, he just went back to work. So what was Donna's reaction to someone hearing that phone call and saying, this is bullshit?

She got on the phone and she apologized to the police. Her reaction was basically, yeah, like, what's wrong with Jason? Yeah. Yeah, like, oh, my gosh. We're just doing what the police have asked of us. Oh, my gosh. So Donna went doing what the police have asked of us. Oh my gosh. So Donna went back on the phone with Officer Scott because she had to do everything herself, obviously.

And at this point, Officer Scott said, are you married? What? What? No. What's wrong with... He's bird-dogging for chicas while he's in the middle of this bird dog so donna giggled and she said no but i'm engaged and officer scott said do you trust him

what and she said yeah i do and he said okay i going to need you to get him to come down to the McDonald's and supervise Louise while you guys wait for all the police officers to arrive. Who are still on their way, we promise. Yeah, I mean, just like super busy, ton of paperwork. We'd love to be there. We're for sure on our way. But Mount Washington,ucky is just huge and you know it takes like 40 minutes to get across rolling metropolis yes population 9 000

donna said sure so she calls her fiance and is like i'm gonna need you to get down here yeah i'm on some official police business. Right. Like I often am. And he's like, what line of work are you in? Yeah. Yeah. So the 43 year old exterminator, Walter, a.k.a. Wes Nix, walks into the office where he was asked to supervise a naked 18 year old high school student.

Oh, my gosh. Donna left the room. Why? Well, you know, she had work to do and, you know, they had that male presence in there. So, you know, she hands the phone to Walter on her way out. By this point, this whole thing had been going on for 40 minutes. Louise was sobbing okay there is this like ancient clip of like i think it's 2020 on youtube that shows a lot of the surveillance footage and they interviewed louise and donna and let me tell you donna came across as a gigantic asshat. Really? Yes. Okay. That's so surprising. See, I actually kind of was surprised.

You thought she was just genuine and naive? Yeah. Rather than an asshole? Yeah. That does make sense. Yeah, I really thought, just from reading stuff, I was like, oh my God, she's just an idiot. And we'll get into some of the later stuff. But for this interview, she's being interviewed by John Quinones.

He hosts that show, What Would You Do? Don't tell me, like, I don't know. Yeah, I think that's like porn for judgmental people. Because I'm always like, I would do the exact right thing. I would never do that. They would have a highlight reel that's just me doing the right thing. So John Quinones says, you see her face. She's pleading.

She's crying. She's bawling her eyes out. Donna. She wasn't crying or bawling her eyes out when I was in there. No. And then they cut to a clip of louise crying in front of donna and donna comforting her and hugging her uh-huh here's another transcript of the interview john you left this middle-aged man with a naked frightened donna she was covered john with an apron yeah donna she was completely covered okay

this is one of those floor length like turtleneck aprons oh yeah with sleeves and pant legs and completely closes in the back yeah she did not come across great at all. Yeah. It was just Louise and Wes slash Walter alone in the office. And Officer Scott. I'm sorry, is his name Wes or Walter? It's annoying because, like, everyone who knows him calls him Wes, but all the newspaper articles and everything call him Walter. So, like, I'm trying to, you know. I got it.

Yeah. I wasn't trying to be an asshole. I just was trying to clarify. You succeeded. Without even trying. You're effortless in that way. Just comes naturally to some people. So officer Scott started telling Wes to give Louise orders.

And he did. Lose the apron. Do jumping jacks. Dance. Oh, God. Yeah. Under the guise of, like, shaking something loose. Oh, I knew you were going to say that.

Oh, oh. Yeah. yeah i did okay i'll get i'll get to it later how i feel about this west character but like come the fuck on yeah right yeah he ordered west to put his fingers into her vagina yeah again under the guise of it's a search. Oh, my God. And he did. And then Officer Scott was like, OK, now sit on his lap and kiss him.

And at that point, Louise just adamantly refused. Yeah. She also refused to refer to Wes as sir. Mm hmm. Which was another thing that the caller demanded. So Officer Scott told Wes to spank her. He hit her for 10 minutes straight and left red welts on her body. Officer Scott said,

do as I say or it'll be even worse next time. Oh my God. Next time? Oh yeah, this is going on for a long time eventually he told wes to tell louise to perform oral sex on him by that point louise was scared for her life so she did oh no this is yeah it's so sad this This is terrible. The whole time Louise was in the office, Donna and the other assistant manager, Kim, would periodically pop in and out.

And each time he'd hand Louise the apron to put back on before they came in. But the thing is, in the 2020 clip, there was one where, like, you clearly see Donna comes in and, like, he tosses her the apron. She doesn't have it on yet so I just anyway.

Throughout this whole ordeal Louise begged for the whole thing to stop. She begged for her clothes back and no one listened. Sorry my phone went off. Get it. Everything okay? Yeah. Except when Kyla texts me now i always assume that she's having a baby yeah it was just to say she's listening to the episode today and she's enjoying it

glad to hear it west stayed in the office for two hours Mm-hmm. So if you're keeping track, 40 minutes before Wes arrives, Wes is there for two hours. This poor girl. Oh, my gosh. Afterward, he called his best friend and said, I've done something terribly bad. No shit. Yeah. So with Wes gone, Donna was back in control of Louise. But Officer Scott wanted another man alone in the room with her.

Luckily, the McDonald's maintenance man, a 58-year-old man named Tom Sims, was at the restaurant. Great. He wasn't working. He just popped in for some dessert. So Donna was like, hey, Tom, I need you to help me out. Tom walked into the office. And he was shocked by what he saw. Here was this girl sobbing, trying to cover herself with his apron.

And then he's got this dude on the phone saying, get her to drop the apron. Then describe her in detail to me. And Tom was like no no fucking way oh my gosh thank goodness tom went to donna and he said something's not right here this this is a hoax this cannot be real yeah and donna was like whoa oh my Oh, my gosh, Donna. By this point, Louise had been in the office for nearly three and a half hours. For the first time, Donna started questioning whether this thing was real. She remembered that at the beginning of the call, Officer Scott said that her manager, Lisa Siddons, was on the line.

Yeah. So Donna grabbed another phone and called Lisa. Lisa picked up. She was totally groggy and out of it because she'd been asleep. She obviously had not been on the call. She had no idea what was happening. Oh, my God. And that's when Donnana finally realized oh my god i've been had by that point the collar hung up donna immediately started hysterically crying she begged louise for forgiveness meanwhile someone dialed star 69. Remember those days? Oh, yeah. That's okay. For those of you that don't.

That's when, like, you would get a call and you're like, I wonder who called me. I wonder what their number is. Pre-caller ID. Yeah. You dial star 69, you'd call them back. Yes. Yeah. It cost like 75 cents.

Yeah. If you think we were doing that at the Pitts home, you're wrong. I bet DP would be super pissed if you had a bunch of Star 69s on his phone bill. They dialed Star 69 to get the caller's number. Then they called the cops. The real cops. And Brandi, you're not going to believe it, but they showed up.

Yeah, amazing how that works. They were the type of police officers who, like, show up at the scenes of crimes. Very interesting thing. I think they were, like, piloting that in Kentucky at the time. Almost immediately, they arrested Wes for sexual assault. Later that night, when Donna watched the surveillance tape and saw what Wes had done, she called off the engagement. McDonald suspended her, then fired her,

because they have a rule that non-employees can't enter the office. That's why they fired her? Do you have a better reason? She'd let a non-employee enter the office. So, you know, you can't have that. That's bad judgment right there. Yeah, sure is. Then they transferred the other assistant manager, Kim, to another store.

Police watched the surveillance footage and decided that Donna had done more than just listen to someone she shouldn't have listened to. They charged her with unlawful imprisonment. Meanwhile, Louise was a wreck. She developed panic attacks, insomnia. She had constant nightmares. She had severe anxiety and depression. She felt that she couldn't trust anyone. Which, who can blame her?

No shit. She graduated from high school, but she abandoned her plans to go to the University of Louisville. She'd planned to be pre-med, but she was so full of shame and anxiety that the idea of going off to college was just too much. The police were horrified by this crime they wanted to hold wes and donna responsible for their actions but that anonymous caller was still out there and he needed to be caught too do you remember any of this stuff now no okay no i remembered only details about the actual event. Like, I don't think I even knew any of the stuff that happened after. Gotcha.

So, Buddy Stump was the one detective in the Mount Washington Police Department. He'd only been on the job for a few weeks, and he was sitting at home watching the Andy Griffith show. Did he have one arm? I think he had them both. Actually, I know he had them both because I saw a picture of him. He's kind of a no-nonsense type. Okay. Both of his arms squarely on his hips. Excellent. So he'd been at home watching the Andy Griffith show. So he'd been at home watching the Andy Griffith show. He jokingly called him his training tapes. So he gets this call about what happened. He came in, watched the surveillance tape, and he was just furious. He said, it burned me up that this had happened to an 18-year-old girl.

But he started investigating and quickly realized that the situation was even worse than he'd originally thought. This hoax wasn't unique. Calls like that had been placed at fast food restaurants and blockbusters and Ruby Tuesdays and pizza huts all over the country for the past 10 years. Oh my gosh. There were 70 known cases going back to 1995. Wow. Okay, so I'm going to, they're all disgusting. But likely no one took it as far as this one.

Right. Yeah. Well, yeah, this, I mean, I don't think anyone held someone captive for as long. But I'm going to read you just some details of a few of these. At a Burger King in Dover, Delaware, a manager strip searched an 18-year-old employee. And when the young woman's mom and boyfriend showed up to put a stop to it, the manager fought the mom and boyfriend. It got so bad that the real police showed up my god

this manager was just like i guess they thought they were really doing the police a huge favor and couldn't have any kind of interference yeah at a mcdonald's in hinesville georgia the caller got a 55 year old janitor to put his finger in the vagina of a 19-year-old cashier. What the fuck? At a Sonic in Joplin, Missouri, the caller convinced a 16-year-old girl to strip search and perform oral sex on a 21-year-old cook. Oh my gosh. There are so many of these stories. It's nearly impossible to know how many of them there are because a lot of times when people would figure out that they've been tricked they were so embarrassed that they wouldn't call the police yeah but when people did call the police the

police would trace the call back to a payphone somewhere, and it was almost always out of state, and they could never identify the caller. And even if they could, a lot of times police weren't totally sure what they'd charge the guy with. In the cases where they did know how they'd charge him, it was usually just a misdemeanor, and you can't extradite someone over a misdemeanor apparently wow i didn't know that yeah so buddy stump was like i have to do something so he traced the call but it was

to a non-existent phone it was made via like a prepaid calling card but he was like oh boy then he figured out that the call came from panama city he did some digging and found out that the biggest seller of prepaid calling cards in panama panama city is walmart which seems helpful until you figure out that there are three walmarts in panama city and walmart is like the biggest seller of everything so like yeah i'd call it mildly helpful so he called police in panama city to talk about the crime and another officer there was like are you familiar with detective sergeant vic flaherty he's a guy in boston who's investigating this color oh wait this is part of a Boston series. Never mind.

So this caller made, like, four hoax calls to some different Wendy's locations, kind of in and around the Boston area. That was a tough one. I was trying to say suburbs, but then I was like, the Boston arena. Boston arena. So this guy's like, maybe and vick should team up uh-huh let's talk about vick let's vick was frustrated like buddy he'd figured out that his caller bought the prepaid calling card probably at a walmart in panama city he even kind of figured out which wal Walmart he'd gone to to buy the card. But the thing was, that particular Walmart didn't have surveillance cameras at the registers.

They only had them at the entrances and exits. I mean, it was a dead end. Because how many people are coming in and out of Walmart? But Vic and Buddy started working together, and they figured out that for whatever reason, when the caller went to buy the calling card

for the Mount Washington hoax, he went to a different Walmart than the one he'd been to before. And thank the Lord, this different Walmart had surveillance at the registers.

So they go through the surveillance footage and that's when they spotted a white man with black hair and glasses between 35 and 40 years old the man purchased a calling card at 302 p.m on april 9th 2004 just a few hours before the Mount Washington hoax. They were like, excellent. Yeah, that's our dude. Yeah. Then Vic looked through the entrance and exit footage of the other Walmart,

where he knew that call had been placed, and they spotted the same guy. He was wearing a black jacket that had white lettering on it. What did it say? It was part of a uniform. What kind of uniform? You're not going to like this. Although maybe it's predictable. It was a uniform for an officer of the Corrections Corporation of America,

one of America's private prison companies. Wow. Yeah, just the type of guy you want in charge of people. Yeah. They went to the warden of the local prison, showed the warden the surveillance footage, and the warden was like, oh yeah, that's one of my employees, that's David Stewart.

He's one of our guards. Vic immediately went to David. When Vic questioned him, David was like, what? Phone calls? I didn't make any phone calls. Of course. I've never bought a prepaid calling card in my life. But as he said that, he was shaking and sweating profusely. Yeah. Vic was like, do you mind if I just look around your house a bit? And David said, sure. and of course they found a calling card it had been used to call nine restaurants in the past year one of them being a Burger King in Idaho Falls where a manager was

told to do awful things gosh they also found a ton of police department job applications police magazines uniforms guns all kinds of oh my gosh okay so he was really doing this because he was obsessed with the police i thought it was like a weird like fetish thing why can't it be both i guess maybe you are making so black and white it's one or the other why can't he be like super creepy into i'm in a position of authority yeah you have no choice but to do what i want you to do all right yeah you're right it's probably i mean it is your case so and by that you mean intriguing buddy arrested david on june 30th 2004 david pled not guilty to solicitation to commit sodomy

by the way this article kept saying sodomy and i was like oh my god do i not know what sodomy is the legal definition of sodomy is different than what you think it is well yeah i figured that but like i gotta say andrew over the course of, like as the years go by, he changes it in his articles to oral sodomy. Yes. Which like, yeah, you got to change it. Yeah. Because I'm sorry, but when I hear sodomy, the first article.

You just think butt stuff, right? Well, yeah. Yeah. I can't remember how he worded it in the first article, but I was just like, my head was spinning because he said something like she performed sodomy on him and i was like whoa what well i really have a misunderstanding of the human anatomy i googled sodomy because i was like i'm sure it's anal. Yeah, turns out legal definitions don't always... Yeah, it's different.

Okay, so a little lesson for all of us. So David pled not guilty to solicitation to commit sodomy and impersonating a police officer and soliciting sex abuse and unlawful imprisonment. and soliciting sex abuse and unlawful imprisonment. His trial date was set, and his brother, a retired police officer, posted his bond. All the while, David maintained that he was the victim here. He had a wife of 11 years, he had had five children he had worked as a mall security guard and a volunteer sheriff's deputy paul blart mall cop uh i don't know is paul blart a sex predator

i didn't see the movie i'm pretty sure he's not i think he's hypoglycemic and has a Loch Ness monster tattoo sounds a lot more light lighthearted than our buddy David here. He was just a good, hardworking family man who loved positions of authority. Plus, he couldn't have made all those calls. I think he could have.

No, no, no, he couldn't have because according to his lawyer, Steve Romines, R-O-M-I-N-n-e-s romines whatever david wasn't smart enough to do any of it well why is that now is there any evidence to back that up of any kind he's i'm sorry you know he this was clearly a criminal mastermind. Oh, okay. He's unfortunately brings me no pleasure. My client's not smart enough to have done any of this.

Police were like, really? You're not the guy? Because ever since you got arrested, the calls have stopped. Yeah, haven't been getting any. By this point,

the restaurant industry was like communicating. They were like, yeah, no more any. By this point, the restaurant industry was like communicating. They were like, yeah, no more calls. No more calls. But David's defense attorney was like, no, there have been two of those calls since David was arrested. And they were placed by me. Everyone was like, really? Where?

Yeah. Can you give us more details? Because that's fascinating. steve was like i don't want to say leave me alone shut up and i'm winning so david is slowly rolling toward justice in the meantime everyone else involved in all these hoaxes had already gotten theirs all over the united states 13 people who were involved in these strip hoaxes had already gotten theirs. All over the United States, 13 people who were involved in these strip searches were charged with crimes. Of the 13, how many do you think were convicted? I think it's probably low. Okay. Five. Okay, that's a good guess. It was seven. Okay.

So when people were acqu acquitted it was usually because a judge or the jury just felt sorry for them and was like you know what they got duped yeah everyone said they did what they did because they genuinely believed they were helping the police afterward they suffered big consequences a lot of them got fired A lot of them got fired. A lot of them got divorced. I mean, this really... Yeah. This hurt a lot of people.

Oh, yeah. But other people were like, I'm sorry. What? They were duped? No way. You would have to be colossally stupid to believe that you had the right to strip search a young girl. Yeah.

All because some change went missing? No. One Georgia judge said, basically, yes, these hoaxes were perpetrated by a pervert. But people in management have a responsibility to use some common sense. They bear some responsibility here. Okay, what do you think? Yeah, I think they do bear some responsibility. Yeah.

You can't just blindly follow what somebody on the phone is telling you to do and not be held responsible when those actions lead to somebody being sexually assaulted. What about in the case of, what about Donna? Yeah, I think she should be held responsible. Yeah. Yes. I agree. Yeah.

Her actions, her lack of getting some kind of proof that who she was talking to on the phone was who she thought it was directly led to Louise being traumatized for the rest of her life. Yeah. And horribly sexually assaulted. Yeah. She has to be held responsible for that. Yeah. I agree. If you got a call like that at work.

Oh, I'd hang up. Immediately? If someone said they were a cop? It would not take me long to figure out that it was. You've just been in the biz for a long time. Is it just that you've, like, experienced enough? Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

Yeah, I just so. Yeah. Yeah, I just... Part of me does feel sorry for these folks. And I do. I do feel sorry for them because they didn't choose for that to happen to them. No.

But they did choose to take the actions that they took. Yeah. Yeah. I just don't understand how someone can be that stupid. I don't either.

Someone's purse was stolen so I need to get this girl completely naked. Yeah. That's insane. Yes, it is insane. I mean't either. Someone's purse was stolen, so I need to get this girl completely naked. Yeah. That's insane. Yes, it is insane. I mean, where can you shove a purse, honest to God? There were all these conversations.

Things are stretchy, Kristen. You're going to get a nasty infection doing that so these conversations were happening all over the nation and wes the guy who did all that stuff to louise was still facing charges his trial was getting closer and closer he faced up to 20 years in prison uh Uh-huh. Yeah. I'm sorry. He forced her to perform oral sex on him.

Yeah. Yeah. You know that it's not real at that point. Yeah. And you called someone as soon as you left and said, I just did something terrible. You knew it wasn't real. Yeah. as you left and said i just did something terrible you knew it wasn't real yeah ultimately he pled guilty and he was sentenced to five years in prison

then it was donna's turn at first a judge dismissed the charge against her wow judge rebecca ward basically said donna used judgment, but she's a victim here too. What she did went way past poor judgment. I completely agree. Completely agree. I think if she had passed the call off to someone else and then they had done everything, then maybe, yeah, sheuped but like she strip searched someone i even think that if it had gone just to the strip search and then she once like the requests got more outlandish if she would have been like okay this is ridiculous like i would maybe be willing to say yes you got duped but it went so fucking far you'd be okay with a strip search over i'm just

saying like i could maybe see her side like okay yes i understood i was looking for the purse like i got that and then i realized that this was clearly not real okay but as far as it went there's no way that she just got duped i just can't believe that and she was out of the room for yeah but yeah yeah no uh then the judge changed her mind and donna headed to trial yeah i what i was reading this like whoa i didn't i don't know how often that can i can't imagine that it happens real often. No. I'm going to dismiss the charges.

Oh, wait. No, I'm not. Like, oops, I didn't read the back of the paper. I don't know what. Holy hell. I don't know what that's about. After a few weeks after Wes was sentenced to prison, Donna entered an Alford plea. She was given a year of probation.

Donna entered an Alford plea. She was given a year of probation. So I didn't write this down, but you and I, you taught me about the Alford plea with the. Yeah. So an Alford plea says that you are maintaining your innocence, but that you believe the prosecution may have enough evidence to convict you. Which they for sure. For sure did. Yes. Finally, it was time for David, a.k.a. Officer Scott's, trial.

Police departments and prosecutors all over the nation were watching this thing because the Mount Washington case was the strongest one against him. And if Mount Washington could get him, then the rest might have a shot. It all hinged on Mount Washington. The prosecution talked all about the calling cards. They talked about all the similar cases across the United States. And they showed the surveillance footage from the Walmart. They called Donna to the stand.

They called Wes to the stand. He testified in his prison jumpsuit. He told the jury he felt like the caller had control of his mind. But there was so much that the prosecution didn't have. They didn't have witnesses who saw David make the calls. You're right, they didn't. They didn't have audio recordings. All they had was that surveillance footage. Is this guy going to get off? They didn't have. Kristen, give me like a wink. I'm giving you nothing. I can't handle it. They didn't have any direct evidence to tie him to the hoax. The defense harped on that fact.

Defense attorney Stephen Ramirez said that even if David is the one who bought those calling cards, you can't prove that he was the one who made the calls. Oh, God, that's probably true. Yeah. Oh, no. At some point, and I couldn't tell if this was

before the trial, during the trial, at some point after it, but Stephen implied that Louise might have been in on the whole thing. No! Yeah. Bull fucking shit. Double middle finger to that guy. The jury deliberated for two hours. Oh, no. They found him not guilty.

No! I know. Why did you do this case? This is terrible. He just gets away with it? The verdict sent a powerful message to prosecutors and police officers all over the nation if the strongest case couldn't win none of them could right what do you think of that i think i mean it's probably true but it fucking sucks i i was so mad yeah and you know how i told you i had a shitty weekend i think it's

because of this yeah because like what happened to louise was so terrible and toward the end i actually did start to really feel for donna i think maybe that 2020 episode like caught her in a moment where like everyone is telling you you suck. Oh, yeah. I think that's for sure probably what happened. But looking at what the jury was presented, I can see why they found him not guilty. Yeah, I can too. Because that's just not enough. Yeah, I can too. But oh my God.

That sucks. but oh my god that sucks roughly three years after that phone call louise was still in therapy and still suffering yeah i bet yeah by that point she had a fuller picture of what had gone on she understood that what had happened to her wasn't some freak thing that couldn't have been predicted. Those calls had been going on for 10 years, and McDonald's corporate knew about the calls. Did she sue McDonald's? Sorry, I don't know why I did an evil laugh. They knew it was a problem, and they knew their employees were at risk.

And they didn't do any training or anything or send out a memo to let people know let's talk about what they did oh let's oh wait first we got to get to this part okay sorry so you know she was like looking at all this stuff getting more upset and then she said to herself let's go to court she sued sued for $200 million. Woo. Yeah. I almost said something terrible. What's that saying? Reach for the moon and you'll land

among the stars. I think that's what they were doing with the $200 million. I think it's shoot for the moon. What did I say? Reach for the moon. I'm trying. she basically said look mcdonald's corporate knew about all these hoaxes they defended themselves against lawsuits over these calls in four different states they didn't warn any of us employees they didn't train us on prevention. They could have prevented what happened to me, but they didn't. Excellent.

Evidently, McDonald's global security director had advised that McDonald's put warning stickers on all their headsets and all their phones so that employees would be kind of on the lookout for prank calls. And they didn't do it. They didn't do it. They never went through with it. They talked about it, but didn't do it they didn't do it they never went through with it they talked about it but didn't do it louise's lawsuit also named donna and the other assistant manager kim as defendants for their roles meanwhile donna also sued mcdonald's yeah i'd say she has grounds for that too she wanted 50 million dollars because she you know again she was just like you should have you should have warned us you knew this was going on you should have trained us for this yep yeah mcdonald's

was like whoa whoa whoa i'm not loving it they were like this is david stewart's fault and wes's fault but then david got acquitted and they were like this is an unknown caller's fault and Wes's fault and by the way strip searches are totally against our policy it's not our fault that employees didn't read the policy that we put into a 1000 page manual

and yes we knew about the other hoaxes but we did what every other fast food restaurant did to prevent future problems. We pretended it didn't happen. So it's hard to know exactly what they did. One source I saw said that, like, they sent out voicemail messages to all the franchise owners and the store managers. But some people were like, yeah yeah we didn't get those and even if

that was what happened you would need training for basically anyone who's picking up a phone yeah anyway okay when i worked for a corporation if there was a like we there would be we would get scam alerts all the time oh it would come to your corporate email and be like, these are the things to look for. These are the key words that the person will say. This is how to handle it. Really? Yes.

What kind of scams? All kinds of scams. Product diversion scams, gift card scams. I mean, there's all kinds of different scams people run on businesses. Change scams where they give you $100 and they do the quick and it somehow they end up with the 20 back and the 100 and like yeah all kind there's all kinds of scams that get run on on businesses constantly i need a story and so tell a story i don't have one that comes to mind immediately okay but but yeah so like working for a large corporation i worked for a very big corporation, thousands of salons under their parent umbrella.

And so whenever something like that would come through, they would send out a corporate email. Everybody in the company has a corporate email account assigned to them, and you got it in your email inbox. Yeah, which seems like exactly how you're supposed to handle it. Exactly how it should be handled. Doesn't seem that tough. And did people actually read these emails? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Well, then there you go. I mean, because I guess that could be the other argument is, oh, it doesn't get read. But yeah, I think usually if it's an email, not a thousand page Right. People will actually read it. And like as leadership, like we were advised to have like the managers print out a hard copy of it and put it in the break room so that everybody can see it in case someone is not accessing their corporate email as often as they should. Right. In case they do like the Pony Express thing. Yeah. So, okay. So McDonald's had just said, you know, we did kind of what everybody else did and maybe more. And so there's this point, I believe, that a journalist pressed them on this. And they were like, okay, so what have you done in the time since that Mount Washington call? And McDonald's was like, it'd be inappropriate to discuss in detail

specific safety and security measures. Inappropriate how? That's what I'm wondering. Inappropriate like a strip search? Inappropriate like a poor girl getting a cavity search in the office of a McDonald's? Yeah. So I read that as nothing yeah we did nothing we've done nothing and oopsies we did not anticipate this question so i'd rather

not answer thanks so much yeah that's exactly what that sounds like then mcdonald's blamed Louise. What? How in the fuck could it possibly be Louise's fault? You think she strip searched herself back there? Get re- This is, this is so upsetting. They said that her injuries, if any, were all due to the fact that she didn't figure out that the guy on the phone wasn't a cop. She didn't talk to the guy on the phone!

So I guess she, like, was handed the phone every now and then. But yeah, no, she wasn't the one running the show. That's insane. Holy shit. Plus, she could have walked out of the office at any time. No. She couldn't have. Absolutely not.

She was naked. Yeah. she could not have what she had no people of authority were telling her what to do absolutely not that's the other thing that gets brought up is like again she's a high school senior yeah who is used to obeying adults yes her i think her dad was military, so she just, you talk about a kid who had strong respect for a 40-year-old. That makes me so angry. Yeah. Yeah. So they're trying to say she should have figured out that it wasn't a cop,

which even if she had, what good would that have done? Donna wasn't going to listen to that. Wes was obviously not going to listen to that. Wes was obviously not going to listen to that. In a deposition, one of the McDonald's lawyers asked her, did it ever occur to you to scream? What good would that have done her? I hate questions like that. Yeah. So it's all her fault. Yeah. Oh, I'm'm sorry i handled the situation wrong yeah i'd love to see how you would handle yeah holy shit yeah so i guess she was supposed to if she'd been a good victim she would have run screaming naked through mcdonald's through a

crowded restaurant in her small town yeah and you know she couldn't have like gotten into her car because her keys had been taken so i guess she'd just be naked yeah yeah oh my gosh this whole time mcdonald's was like uh do you guys want to settle because if so we're totally down to settle and louise and donna were both like no no thank you so their lawyers teamed up in this civil suit against mcdonald's and the civil trial went on for nearly a month in the fall of 2007 i'm not going to rehash anything because yeah we already know what happened but at one point donna did take the stand and say that she'd been so humiliated by what happened and so ashamed that she'd considered suicide oh wow i you know again i i hated her when i was watching that 2020 clip but the more i read about

her in the years since then i just i feel like she was dealing with a lot of emotions that she wasn't maybe equipped to handle so the mcdonald's defense team's reaction to that you know admission that she'd considered suicide was why didn't you get psychiatric care hmm wow yeah implying that i guess it was made up or like gosh when louise took the stand they asked her why she didn't leave the office. Or at the very least, write a note about what was going on and slip it under the door to get help. Oh, yeah. Because that would have been effective. That would have been super effective.

What the fuck? Right? This is so ridiculous. Yeah. I hope they get all of the money. I hope these two people are the CEO of McDonald's. They also called in mental health experts who were like, Louise is fine. She seems just fine to us.

She's mostly recovered. Everything's cool. Holy shit. I just don't understand. this is infuriating like how obviously everyone deserves a good defense but how could you feel okay about yourself if you knew what had happened to this person yeah Yeah. And you were trying to make it like, you should have done X, Y, and Z. Right. This is somehow your fault.

Yeah. That's nuts. This terrible thing that happened to you should have been prevented by you. Oh, my gosh. The jury deliberated for two days. At one point, they asked the judge for a definition

of the word detained. And he said he couldn't tell them that. Ooh. And they were like, cool, can we have a dictionary? Uh-huh. And he was like, no. Which I thought that was...

Okay, that's weird. I thought that was so weird. But anyway, what do you think they decided? Huh. I think they decided in the women's favor but i bet they didn't get nearly that much money yeah you're right so they they sided with louise they awarded her five million in punitive damages and a little more than 1.1 million in compensatory damages. They said, so punitive, that's obviously to punish McDonald's. So they're on the hook for those 5 million. And they said that half the blame went to McDonald's

and the other half went to the unknown caller. Okay. So that splits the compensatory damages. The jury didn't think that Donna or kim should have to pay any damages which i i agree yeah afterward one of the jurors was like we settled on an amount that would let louise live very well for the rest of her life and put all of this behind her but sorry no one's worth 200 million dollars louise cried after the verdict was read. She announced that she'd used some of the money to go to law school. That same jury awarded Donna

$1.1 million. After the verdicts, Donna and Louise hugged. Donna said, I told Louise I was happy for her, and she said she was happy for me. Side note. While all of this was going on, Louise was involved in a legal dispute with her original legal team. Ooh. They filed a lien on this judgment because they were like,

we'd like some of that thank you because we did some of the work in the beginning. And she was like, don't think so. I'm suing you for legal malpractice. So that's a whole other issue. I'm not going to get into it because this is a long case. But one thing that I thought was really interesting was that Louise's new legal team said that the old legal team messed up by forcing her to do interviews with ABC and the Courier Journal. The new legal team was like, those interviews showed McDonald's in a bad light. So the cat was out of the bag. If they'd never done that, then Louise would, what are you doing to your mouth right now? I'm listening.

Would you explain to the listeners what you you doing to your mouth right now? I'm listening! Would you explain to the listeners what you were doing? I wasn't doing anything! I'm sitting here listening! You guys, picture a kid who just got their braces off for the first time and they're like licking and sucking on their teeth. I'm not licking or

sucking anything! I'm gonna sit. Oh, look at you. You want so badly to lick your teeth okay so yeah she was basically like they let the cat out of the bag they totally portrayed mcdonald's in a negative way uh rightly rightfully so but if they hadn't done that then mcdonald's would have been like oh let's save some face and pay you a ton of money to shut up forever. So basically, the new legal team was like, you got screwed over by the old guys. Anyway, moving on.

So that was one little thing. A lot of them. So the jury thought McDonald's had been shitty. But the McDonald's legal team made it pretty clear after the verdict came down that they were going to appeal. Yeah. So they did. Duh.

Could have seen that one coming. But Louise's attorneys were like, uh, not so fast. The lead attorney, Ann Oldfather, was still pissed about something she said happened during the trial. She said that on July 3rd, 2007, an attorney from McDonald's received a ton of documents

pertaining to Louise's strip search. It's Cameron's birthday, by the way, my niece. But when they all had a hearing a week later, the attorney hadn't handed anything over to Louise's lawyers. In fact, that attorney told the judge, we have produced everything we can literally get our hands on. And old father didn't find out about all those documents until the day before trial started. So she only got them because McDonald's was found in contempt of court for concealing them. So all of a sudden, the day before a freaking trial, she gets 16 boxes of documents dumped on her. Oh, my gosh. Uh-huh.

Not okay. No. So she was like, you know what? You guys should have to pay all of Louise's legal fees to us. Mm-hmm. Which, by the way, are a metric shit ton yeah lawyers from mcdonald's were like whoa no way they were like looking at the paperwork they're like there's no way you work this many hours but judge mcdonald which i mean i swear to you i swear to you it was judge mcdonald's

weighed in and he was like hey mcdonald's remember me i was the judge when this whole thing went to trial you guys contested every little motion you got yourselves ass deep in louise's private life so if if Louise's lawyers had to work long hours, it's because you made them work long hours. So he ordered McDonald's to pay $2.4 million in legal fees. Oh my gosh. Yeah, because

McDonald's probably thought, we'll bury her in all of this and she'll settle. Yes. Absolutely. I feel like that's got to be the strategy every time some huge corporation like we've got all the money in the world will jump down the throats of your little legal team. Yep.

A year later, the original case went to the Kentucky Court of Appeals and the appellate court said, seems like the jury got it right. But they did reduce the punitive damages for Donna Summers. They reduced it from about $1 million to $400,000. Oh, wow. They were like, you definitely deserve something. But the jury got a little carried away. Yeah.

McDonald's did not enjoy the court's decision so they decided you know what we're gonna take this all the way to the kentucky but in 2010 i assume because louise was like can we fucking not? Yeah. They settled for an undisclosed amount. Wow. Okay. So Wikipedia says 1.1 million. But then you go and you actually look at the article that it links to. And it just says that like it could be as little as 1.1.

Okay. So I'm hoping she got more. Yeah. I hope she got more than that too. And that's the story of the fast food strip searches a whole lot of legal drama a ton of people's lives affected in horrible ways and the unknown caller has never and probably will never be brought to justice oh my gosh i think they got the right guy but i think that they didn't prove it yeah Yeah, I imagine so too.

But at the same time, it's like, okay, I don't want to live in a country where we lock people up for cases that aren't, I don't want to say airtight, because I know you can't get it perfect. But I mean, my God, I just wish they'd had more. So yeah, Norm was gone this weekend. I spent like the entire weekend researching this case. I thought maybe it would be slightly lighthearted because it wasn't a murder or something. No, it was not. No, it was awful. It was fucking terrible and infuriating.

Yeah. Thanks. You're welcome. May I tell you something? Yeah. So as you know, I picked up Norm from the airport on Monday night. It was like super late at night. His flight got in from SoCal Retro Gaming Expo. It like super late at night his flight got in from so-called socal retro gaming expo

yeah super late and i was pulling up to the terminal and i saw him come out of the door he had his bags and like you know it i was just doing the curbside parking it was kind of a mess and so i saw him get kind of behind this van and I was like god why is he getting behind the van when he knows he needs to go further down so I can like squeeze in there so I would like wave to him and he kind of like gave me a smile and I was like okay you know motion for him to walk down yeah he just like smiled at me again and I pulled in further but I couldn't get in in the tiny space and I kept like motioning for him to move around

and then he popped the trunk of this minivan and set his suitcases in it and that's when I realized it was not Norman. It was another white guy with brown hair and glasses. All white guys look the same to me. I was so, like, so embarrassed. Like, what did that guy think I was, like, a kidnapper trying to, like? I lured him into your prayers?

Come on, buddy. I got one who looks just like you. Gotta catch them all. Those white guys with glasses and brown hair. You ready to talk about sleepwalking? I am. Is this? Oh, God. Yeah, I'm ready. It had been a long day and scott fellator was exhausted it's called oral sodomy we've talked about some rough last names on this show but fellator that's too bad it's rough he was exhausted it was january 16th 1997 and by the time he arrived at his phoenix arizona home after work he just wanted to go to bed scott's job as an engineer for motorola had been super stressful lately I think he was working on developing that cell phone that you still use.

Oh, oh my God. You guys, this is why we need to video this stuff. You should have seen Brandy wind up for that joke. This smile is so sly. Why do you always make fun of me for my old shit? My old car. Oh, well, you you always make fun of me for my old shit? My old car. Oh, well, you were very nice to buy me these nice slippers. Yeah.

It was because you did observe me in my what? You spend 60% of your day in your slippers and you were wearing shit slippers. How dare you? Costco makes a fine slipper. Anyway, yeah, Kristen still uses a Motorola cell phone, guys. Well, you know, if you feel sorry for me, please donate to my husband's Patreon. So the job had been super stressful he hadn't been sleeping well but scott was a devoted family

man so instead of arriving home and falling straight into bed he went in kissed his wife yarmula and said hello to his two teenage children yarmula for later yarmula for later oh no it's not great okay this is when i have to yeah you have to stop you can't make fun of her yeah i i i just feel like i need to like let everyone know i know my last name is pitts i'm aware well i'm not even saying that like let's not make fun of someone who's about to die oh no yeah oh god i didn't oh no ph Fillet is way worse than pits, by the way. Yeah, I mean, it's not going to win first prize, but it's going to be in there. So then the family sat down for a nice dinner.

After dinner, Scott grabbed some tools and went out back to work on a malfunctioning pump in the family's pool. After tinkering for a while without making much progress, Scott decided he just needed to get some sleep. He'd have to work on this later. When he went inside, Yarmula was in the living room watching ER. He told her goodnight, and that was the last thing he remembered. Now, it was just before 2 o'clock in the morning on January 17th. And Scott Falater found himself sitting in an interrogation room at the Phoenix Police Department, dressed in red pajama pants and a white T-shirt. Veteran police detective John Norman was seated across from him. You need anything? You cold? Norman asked Falater.

Ignoring the question, Scott said, if I'm here, I'm afraid that means my wife is dead. Oh, that's the first thing he said? And Detective Norman replied, uh, yeah, yeah. With his answer, Scott began weeping and then buried his face in his hands. What brought this on? The detective asked. I don't, I don't know. I mean, from what the neighbors say, you guys seemed happy, never fought. And Scott said, all Scott said back was i i loved her so what set this thing off the detective asked again what what got it going yeah and scott said obviously you think i did it i don't know what makes you think that. And he was right. Detective Norman did think he did it. And he had good reason to believe that. The neighbors had seen him do it, he told Scott.

But what exactly had the neighbors seen Scott Falater do that night? Sometime after Scott had gone to bed that January night, neighbors heard screams and yelling and dogs barking at the Falater home. Greg Koons, upon hearing the ruckus, had gone outside and looked over his fence into the Falater backyard. He saw Scott attacking Yarmula. But suddenly, he had stopped and walked away. Then he returned, dressed in different clothing and now wearing gloves. What? Greg watched as Scott dragged Yarmula to the pool and then gasped in horror as he rolled her body in and held her underneath the surface.

Oh my God. That's when Greg Coombs called 911. Wait, and the her underneath the surface. Oh my God. That's when Greg Coons called 911. Wait, and the neighbor was just like watching this? Mm-hmm. The husband just threw, I believe, the wife into the pool. It looks like he's holding her underwater, Coons told the dispatcher. The dispatcher asked if they were fighting, and Greg said, I don't know. I don't know what the problem is. It's weird. I'm concerned. When police arrived at the Flader home,

they went immediately to the backyard and Yarmula's body was floating in the pool. There was blood everywhere. The pool water was red with blood. Yarmula had been stabbed 44 times and then drowned. Oh my God. Police took Scott into custody, but he claimed he had no recollection of what had happened to his wife. He must have been sleepwalking.

I don't know, man. I don't know. The detective balked at Scott's claim that he remembered nothing. Yeah, me too. He was like, all right, Scotty, you claim you don't recall killing your wife, so why don't you tell me what you do remember and scott was like i remember being in bed i heard the dogs barking and a lot of voices so i came down and there were police everywhere you guys were all over me and the detective is like you remember more than that come on scott what did you guys argue over

he's like nothing we didn't argue about anything how did she die and at this point scott still had his head in his in his hands like this and he like peeked out between his fingers no as the detective answered his question no and the detective said well the neighbor says you stabbed her and drug her over to the pool and held her under the water in the pool and he watched you do it from what people are telling me about you guys you spend a lot of time in the church you're a real quiet family and this is really out of character i want to know you've never murdered each other before it's like nobody's been murdered in this family before

i just think it's so funny people say it's real out of character. Right. I guess if you've never seen it, sorry, I just got another text. Is it a baby? Is the baby texting you? Oh, my gosh. Should we just come out and say? Yeah, we're on baby watch. We're on baby watch big time. Yeah.

My sister, like, the due date is like a week and a half away. Yeah, but it's, it is. When you look at the. You can practically see it crowning when you just look at Kyla. Okay, I have to tell you something really funny and really dumb. Okay, let me pull up a text from Kyla. And I'm hoping you don't know about this either because you have also not had kids. I have not.

Okay, so she texted me the other day after her doctor's appointment and said, gave some details. And the last sentence was, baby's head is at zero station. And I thought that was like a funny way of being like, you know, all systems go, you know. Like that kind of thing. And so the other day I saw Jay, my brother-in-law, and I was like, hey, you know, sounds like this might be happening soonish. And he's like, do you know something I don't? And I was like, well, no, but, you know, it just seems, I don't know. Well, no, but, you know, it just seems, I don't know.

And then he started talking about, like, zero station, negative five, one. I don't know what those mean. So he's talking, and it was like all of a sudden his voice turned into the Charlie Brown teacher voice. Yeah. Wah, wah, wah. And I realized, oh, zero station is a thing. It's an actual position of the baby yeah yeah i was thinking like zero dark 30 years so that was a long way of saying we keep interrupting the podcast like anytime i get

a text yeah because we're like waiting for the baby text instead it's just like random people from my life saying hey. Hey, yeah. For like the first time in multiple days and they're all texting right now. So the detective is like, you know, hey, everybody says you guys are a real quiet family.

This is super out of character. So what went on? What led to this? What set you off? What did she do to set you off? What did she do to set you off like this? And Scott says, nothing. And the detective says, what'd you do to set yourself off like that then, Scott? Okay. And Scott said, And Scott said, I'm sorry, I just don't know.

And the detective says, okay, help me with this, Scott. This is hard for me to understand. And Scott goes, you can say that again. No! Quick! I can't tell when you're serious. He literally said, you can say that again. I don't actually know what tone he said it in, but.

There's no tone. No tone that that would be an okay response. Like, does he think he's in a goofy sitcom? Yeah, so he says, you can say that again. And then he cuts to commercial. I just don't know. I loved her. Been married to her all of my adult life. She certainly didn't deserve to die.

She was a good wife, great mother. So were my kids. What? You think he meant like his kids were also great? You think he was just like so, so stunned and out of it that now he's like misspeaking and stuff? I guess.

And so the detectives keep going. He's like, what went wrong? What? Yeah. I'm not, you know. And he just keeps saying nothing. Nothing went wrong. I love my wife.

I love my kids. And then there's like a few moments of silence. And then Detective Norman started in again. And he said, well, how'd you get that blood all over you? And Scott looks down and he's like how'd you get that blood all over you and scott looks down and he's like what blood and he's like dude there's blood all over your neck and he like motioned and there was there's just like blood streaked like all over his neck and stuff and scott was like i I didn't know I had blood on me. Oh, what? And then the detective pointed to Scott's hands. He had a fresh cut and a fresh bandage on his right hand.

And again, Scott was like, I have no idea. I don't know how I cut myself. I have no recollection of putting a Band-Aid on. Detective Norman had had enough. Yeah. He was like, fine, have it it your way but you're going to jail for first degree murder and with that scott falater was placed under arrest and a short time later was charged with the first degree murder of yarmuleth later the prosecutor juan martinez perhaps you've heard of him okay oh, okay. Oh, help me out. Why do you know that name? I don't know.

It's driving me crazy. He is the prosecutor from the Jodi Arias trial. Oh. Yes. Okay, thank you. So he announced a short time later that he would be seeking the death penalty. Wow. Yeah.

As the case moved forward to trial, investigators searched for a motive. They expected to find money problems or a secret mistress or kinky sex stuff, as Kristen always seems to find. But they found nothing. Scott and Yarmula had been together since they were in high school. nothing. Scott and Yarmula had been together since they were in high school. They'd married in college and had nothing short of the picture perfect marriage. They had two kids they adored, they never fought, and they were very active in their LDS faith. Scott did admit to detectives that there were two topics that the couple didn't agree on.

First, Scott wanted more children. But Yarmula, at 43 with high school-aged children, was not interested in starting over. Well, no kidding. Yeah, he really wanted more kids, and she was like, I'm done. Yeah. We've wanted more kids. And she was like, I'm done. Yeah. We've raised our kids. And at 43, I mean, how many more are we going to have? Second, Yarmula thought Scott was too devoted to the LDS church and spent too much time there.

And Scott thought Yarmula was withdrawing from her faith. Neither of those added up to a motive, though. No. With no clear motive, investigators turned the focus of the investigation to discrediting Scott's sleepwalking claims. They sent him for four days of tests at the Sleep Disorder Service and Research Center. Over the four days, experts observed his brain waves, looking for abnormalities consistent with sleepwalking. Only this didn't work out real great for them. Because experts found those abnormalities. I was going to say, that's a real gamble.

It is. It is. Scott Flader had interruptions in his phases of sleep right before the dreaming stage. So like his sleep would be interrupted right before he entered that stage. And that's like super indicative of sleepwalking. Wow. OK. I've I've never sleepwalked. I haven't either.

Yeah. And I don't have family who sleepwalks. So I'm. Yeah. I mean, at the beginning of this, I was totally thinking he was full of it. Yeah. But. Yeah.

So they're like, well, shit. That did not work out how we wanted it to. And so the prosecution had to move forward with the trial without a clear motive and without being able to fully discredit Scott's claims of sleepwalking. But, okay, this is when I don't like the justice system. Because what if you find that evidence and you think, okay, well then maybe it wasn't first degree. And so maybe we bump it down.

Like, you don't just charge ahead. They did. Maybe it wasn't first degree. And so maybe we we bump it down. Yeah. Like you don't just charge ahead. They did. Well, I don't think you should. Right. Yeah. They weren't like, oh, let's back it down. We're going to do second degree murder.

We're going to drop the death penalty. Oh, no. They were like full steam ahead. Death penalty. Here we go. And then it's like, well, what's driving you guys? It's not the need for justice. Yeah. Well, we know, based on Jodi Arias, maybe we don't know.

Maybe not everybody knows because I'm about to cover that case. Really? I've heard that before. I am going to cover it, and very soon. But we know that Juan Martinez is a big fan of the death penalty. Is that a spoiler? Yeah. But only if you've never heard of the Jodi Arias case ever would that be a spoiler.

So they're like, great. We'll figure out another way to prove premeditation and to prove that he was not sleepwalking. Okay. So the six week trial began in May of 1999, with the prosecution contending that Scott was not sleepwalking at all, and that the this was a premeditated attack. So during his opening statements, Juan Martinez told the jury that this could not have been sleepwalking because after he committed the murder, he had the forethought or the mental awareness to take his clothes off, put them in a plastic container along with the knife that he used to stab her, and then hide that container in the spare tire well of the trunk of his car.

Whoa. Yes. Okay. What do you think about that? Well, it makes me want to know more about sleepwalking. Right. Because I want to understand. Yeah.

I mean, why, why is that so implausible when killing someone isn't? I don't know. Maybe it's, maybe it's not implausible. Well, yeah,

that's what I'm saying. Maybe there's a sleep expert who says that that's totally normal behavior. Hmm. Okay. Continue. Okay. Continue. So also during his opening statements, Juan Martinez said that he would produce a witness that would prove that this was all a plan from the beginning. Really?

And that, yes, perhaps Scott Felater is a sleepwalker. But when he was working at Motorola, he had a conversation with a witness who would testify at trial about a case from the 80s where a Canadian man killed his mother-in-law and was acquitted of the crime because he did it while he was sleepwalking. Hmm. Is this one of those things where he says, I'm going to bring a witness who's going to do this magical stuff and then the witness never shows up? Yep.

Uh-huh. So he told the jury that and then never produced that witness why i don't know person never exists i i don't know but yeah he totally laid this out yes there was this man in 1987 in canada who murdered his mother-in-law and they went to trial blah blah and he was acquitted because it was proven that he was sleepwalking you shouldn't be allowed to say all this and scott flader knew all about this case because he had an in-depth conversation about it with a woman he worked with at motorola and i will bring her to this courtroom and i will have her tell you that herself only he never did she never came that's insane so there's no way to know if that conversation ever took place. That's bullshit. But he told the jury about it.

That mistrial. Right? That's insane. Isn't it insane? You. I think it's insane. So that's my biggest problem with this whole case. Well, yeah. He promised this witness and then for whatever reason yeah never produced that

witness but that would not be the detail that this case would hinge on it would hinge largely on contradictory expert testimony so the defense called psychologist Rosalind Cartwright to testify about sleepwalking. So she had actually been involved in his testing when he spent those four days at the Sleep Research Center. Gotcha. And she completely believed in Scott Flader's innocence. believed in Scott Flader's innocence. And she testified that sleepwalkers have committed all kinds of senseless acts during a sleepwalking event. There's instances of them destroying their own property, destroying their own furniture, cooking, preparing entire meals and eating them and cleaning up, using sharp instruments to do that. Even instances of people injuring their own bodies, like putting their fist through a

glass window. All kinds of crazy things that there are records of people doing under sleepwalking events. So her theory that she testified to was that Scott, while sleepwalking, had gone out to the pool to work on that malfunctioning pump. Uh-huh. Did I say go out to the pool? Or did I say go out to the tool? I think you said pool. Either way, he went out to the pool, he grabbed some tools, and he was in his sleepwalking state working on that malfunctioning

pump it had been the last thing he went right sorry it had been the last thing that he'd done before he'd gone to bed and then when yarmula saw him out there and was like the fuck are you doing although she's mormon so she definitely didn't say that so she sees him out there and she walks out there and she's like what are you doing what are you doing out here and his fight or flight impulse kicked in and he attacked her using the tools that he had that he was working on the pump with well he wasn't working with a knife so there was like a knife and a screwdriver there because he was using like a knife to pry something off.

So yes. So the question that was posed to her as an expert witness was, why would he be threatened by his own wife? And she said that sleepwalkers are incapable of facial recognition during their episodes. Oh. She said that Scott would have likely mistaken Yarmula for an attacker and then just would have immediately gone into the fight or flight mode. Uh-huh. So after that, the defense called a sleep expert and this sleep expert offered

testimony about that clothing that he put in the wheel well of his car yes so he said because scott often kept an extra set of clothing in his car he said it was for yard work i think scott testified that it was for the gym i don't know there's some confusion about why there was clothing in his car but that because since he did that regularly it is not outside of the realm of belief that he could have taken those clothes to his car in this sleepwalking state and that it was not an intentional way to hide evidence but did he always put his gym clothes in the real world exactly nor did he wrap up murder weapons with them i mean yeah no i don't buy it and neither did juan martinez Neither did Juan Martinez. Oh.

So Juan Martinez, the prosecutor, called another sleep disorder expert to basically contradict everything that these two had presented. And he testified that Yarmula's screams of pain and that the dog's barking would have brought him out of his sleepwalking state. Yeah, wouldn't it? There's no way he would have stayed in that state long enough to do all of this with all of that going on. there was another bit of evidence that the the neighbor testified to that he heard scott falater call the dog by name when it was barking and this mark pressman testified that that would not have been able to happen if he was truly in a sleepwalking state he would not have been able to call the dog by name or recognize that it was his dog that was making those noises yes weird yeah so just completely contradictory testimony by these experts i hate this what is a jury supposed to do what are you supposed to do who do you believe see that's so scary because then for me it would come down to subjective factors like exactly i like guy number

one's tie i mean right yeah right so this um mark pressman also testified that a sleepwalker can't create new memories during a sleepwalking episode so he said that sc Scott's recognition of the need to conceal that evidence proves that he was not in a sleepwalking state. So you can only do stuff you've done before. Yes. What if he's murdered a ton of people? Exactly. That's interesting. Yeah. That's super interesting. Yeah, I think it's super interesting. Why? Why can't you do? I don't know. I'm just the way the part of your brain that's super interesting yeah i think it's super interesting why why can't you do i don't know i'm just the way the part of your brain that's active during now are we gonna hear from another expert who's like actually that's not the truth no those are the only experts but this next piece of testimony is the piece of testimony that i personally found the most impactful okay through

this whole trial okay it was the testimony of scott's sister laura she testified that when she was a teenager scott had been in a sleepwalking state he'd been in the house and she tried to wake him up and he'd flung her across the room in his sleepwalking state is this why they say that if you catch someone sleepwalking you're not supposed to yes oh wow because they they feel like they are being attacked they don't they cannot recognize that it is wow a loved one yeah she said that he pushed her and literally was able to fling her across the room whoa yes yeah Yes. Yeah. So it's like that super strength adrenaline stuff

too. Yeah. If you really think you're being attacked. I think that's some pretty big evidence. Okay. Here's a theory. What if he killed her because he thought he was being attacked. He was sleepwalking the whole time. Then he snaps

out of it, realizes what happened, and then he goes and hides the evidence. Right. Fully awake. Yeah. I think that's possible. Huh. Still not first degree murder. No.

It wouldn't be first degree murder. The last person to take the stand at Scott Falater's trial was Scott Falater. Not a great idea. He said that he was as devastated as anyone else when he'd learned what he'd done, because through it all, he'd been sleepwalking. Personally, it's something that's going to haunt me forever, Falater testified. Through tears, he told jurors that the two of them were soulmates since high school. They had a loving marriage and had pledged to be together throughout eternity.

There is no way I could do that to her, not intentionally, said Falater. I loved her. I don't know what I would do without her. So after six weeks of testimony, the jury deliberated for eight hours. What do you think they found? God, I don't know. I think they probably went guilty. So in his closing arguments, Juan Martinez told the jury that he believed that this had all been a plan, much like he said in his opening statements. That his plan was to murder her, conceal the weapons, go to bed, have the children find her in the backyard in the morning and think that some stranger, it had been some stranger who had attacked her,

it had been some kind of home invasion, something. But that the neighbor seeing it had interrupted that plan. But that he'd always had the sleepwalking defense like as a backup plan. Like if that doesn't work out, I can fall back on this sleepwalking defense. Okay. That's not a bad closing argument.

I don't think it's a bad closing argument either. I think I would lean toward guilty. I think that's what the jury did. Yep. The jury found him guilty of first degree murder. Yeah. What do you think? I just don't know.

I know. Part of me is like if they could have produced that witness who was like yes this is a conversation that i had with him he knew all about this canadian guy who got off by offering this sleepwalking i think i maybe would have been more inclined to okay that would have done it that would have done it for me. That would have done it for me. Absolutely. But I have questions. So they found him guilty of first-degree murder, which meant that they moved forward with the death penalty phase. Oh, God.

Yeah. So during the penalty phase, both of the children spoke in court and they asked the judge for leniency. Yeah. How old were the kids? Like 15 and 18 when it happened. So they're like 17 and 20 during the trial. Yeah.

They don't want to lose both their parents. No. And that's what they said. They're like, please don't take our father away from us. He was a great man. He's always been a great father. Please don't make us lose both of our parents. And Yarmula's mother spoke during the penalty phase, too.

And she said that she couldn't handle her grandchildren losing both of their parents. Yes. And that she believes that Scott needs to still be in their lives, but behind prison bars. Yeah. So what do you think the judge did? I don't know if i were a judge well obviously i'd say no to the death penalty i would hope they would respect the wishes of the victim's mother yeah and the children they're victims in it too absolutely but you never know some some judges

just are real thrilled to send someone to death row i think did they kill him they sentenced sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole good yeah so he appealed his sentence and ultimately the appeals court up upheld his conviction and his sentence. But they released the opinion on it on the five-year anniversary of Yarmula's death. Really? Like, tell me that's not an act. Like, that was... You love your poetic justice.

I love poetic justice! I love it! So, ultimately, I still have no idea how I feel about this case. Yeah. I think it maybe is possible that he was doing it while he was sleepwalking. Yeah, I agree. It's possible. Yeah.

I just wish I knew more about sleepwalking. Yeah. And I hate it when expert testimony conflicts because. Yeah. Who are you supposed to believe? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. because yeah who are you supposed to believe yeah yeah yeah but at the same time sleepwalking to me sounds so weak it sounds like oh i had amnesia and i forgot it oh yeah that's exactly what it

sounds like but at the same time sometimes people really do have amnesia and sometimes people really do have sleepwalking and they kill their spouse oh god i just yeah i don't know yeah the hiding the clothes and the weapon to me it's like yeah it's a step too far but then then then I think, well, why is that a step? Right. Why is that the thing that. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.

Like just the I don't understand the crazy overkill. Yeah. If he's in a sleepwalking state, like obviously at 20 stab wounds, she's probably not fighting back. Like. Right. Right. Forty four stabbed her 44 times and then drowned her. at 20 stab wounds. She's probably not fighting back. Right, right. 44, stabbed her 44 times and then drowned her.

Yeah, I don't... And no motive. They could never find... Never found a motive. There was no money problems. He wasn't... The house wasn't secretly getting foreclosed on.

Like, there appeared to be no problems. What the hell yeah seeing that tips in his favor i agree i agree this is so frustrating it's super frustrating and there's no way to ever know yeah never know so do you think he's wrongfully imprisoned? I wouldn't go that far. Yeah. Okay, what if it was your version? He was sleepwalking and then he came to and he hid the weapons.

What, what, would it be convicted of second degree murder for you there or involuntary manslaughter or – I don't know. I'd have to look up all the definitions. And then you would be the judge and say, no, you can't have the definition. That's right. No dictionaries. But, yeah, I would think second-degree. Second-degree. And what sentence?

Gosh. He was 41 at the time that the murder murder happened yeah i don't know 25 years to me if you didn't consciously do it it shouldn't be 25 it should be lower yeah um but then it's like do we just release this guy right and like he's gonna sleep yeah i mean yeah so he also said that he didn't know that like sleep aids were a thing like he didn't know that there was sleeping medication that he could take that would allow him to have a regular sleep cycle really yeah because he would often sleep for only like two hours at a time yeah and then it would he would be like in sleep deprivation because you have to complete REM sleep to like have a full sleep cycle yeah so he but because for whatever reason I don't know

if it's because of his faith or whatever he didn't know that yeah that like Ambien existed well Ambien makes you say racist things we all know that that's why he didn't take it and it also makes you can make you sleepwalk so can a sleepwalker take Ambien I mean you wouldn't want to right I don't know man that whole can of worms I don't know there's too many questions yeah why did i do this case i know i liked it i mean it's i like these where you kind of go on a roller coaster yeah because you're like oh he fucking did it wait did he like obviously he did it but did he do it i like you but i don't like it right huh yeah i don't know i don't know how to feel about it i don't like you. Right? Huh.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how to feel about it. I don't feel good about it either way. I don't feel good about it either way either. And I feel terrible for the kids. Yeah. Yeah. Because even though they didn't put him to death, he's not really in their lives.

And their mom is gone. Yeah. In a terrible way. Yeah. Ugh. Well. You're welcome. I brought us down and you brought us down even further hey we have a uh we have a case update go for it nick go to john perhaps you remember

nick go to john as the man who masturbated in mcdon McDonald's for nine hours. Terrible things happen in McDonald's. He was, at the end of 2018, I think November or December of 2018, he was found guilty of first degree murder of Dee Dee Blanchard. And just this week, he was sentenced to life in prison. Yep.

How do you feel about that? I mean, I think that seems about right. Yeah, it's probably. Yeah. Yeah. I still think that Gypsy. Should not have gone to prison. Should not have.

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Because she was being held captive against her will. And when she tried to get free, no one would listen to her. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sorry, but the doctors didn't step up like they should have. No.

I totally agree. So, yeah, that was a crazy case. That was a crazy case. Well, let me check my show notes here. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. It seems that you owe me an apology. Over what?

I refuse. Perhaps a show recommendation that I gave you last week that you turned your nose up at. Okay. Okay, hold on. Let me get ready for it. What would you like to say to me, Kristen?

Okay. So, last week, you recommended that I watch Abducted in Plain Sight. I sure did. And you were like, it's got a 60% on Rotten Tomatoes. Nobody likes this. Gross.

Hey, you need to look a lot cuter when you do an impression of me. So I did watch it. First I should say, I was hanging out with Kyla and Kyla was like, hey, you watching any new shows? And I was like, Brandi wants me to watch some show called Abducted in Plain Sight. And she was like, hey, you watching any new shows? And I was like, Brandi wants me to watch some show called Abducted in Plain Sight.

And she was like, I want you to watch that show. I told you months ago to watch that thing. Okay, so it's this documentary. I started watching it. It was very good. Oh, yeah, it was excellent. It's on Netflix. Now, I don't like the reenactments they do.

Yeah. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan of those either. But the story itself. I told, okay, let's listen to the tape. I said, let me listen back. Yes, I said your brain would turn to jelly while you were watching it. You did it.

It did. I know! It absolutely did. Because, okay, I wouldn't give just enough. Just enough. That's fine. So, it's the story of this woman who was abducted when she was a child. And essentially she was abducted by a family friend who her parents trusted.

Well, I would even venture to say that a family friend who brainwashed the entire family. Yes. Yeah. That's absolutely right. So he's a pedophile who targeted this family and, I mean, duped these parents on the level

you will not believe. Legit. When I say, your brain will turn to jelly. They interviewed the FBI agent who was involved in this and that guy, you just could tell he wanted to take his shoes off and throw them at both the parents.

Yes, yes. Yeah, so I was texting you, I was texting Kyla, like, oh my God, I'm 15 minutes in, this just happened, what the hell? I recommend it. Yes. You recommend it. Yes, Kyla recommends it. Kyla recommends it. Yes. You recommend it. Yes. Kyla recommends it. Kyla recommends it.

What more do you need? Casey also recommends it. Okay, so it's us and our sisters. What do you need? What else do you need, guys? Watch it. It's on Netflix. You, I was about to say you won't regret it.

You might, but. Well, I don't think you will i mean it's it's so interesting but it is just it's very frustrating so crazy because you're you're sitting there and you're like god i feel sorry for these people but at the same time yeah what the hell are they thinking yes is that it for your show notes no i've got one more oh damn it okay go ahead someone made a show about us kristin what okay it might not technically be about us but there's this new show that i've been watching on hulu and one of the girls at the salon recommended to me so one of the girls at the salon she's her name's gracie she's 18 you've met gracie i like gracie a lot she's so she was hey, I'm watching this show on Hulu.

And when I watch it, all I can think about is you and Kristen. And I was like, okay. And so she's like, you gotta check it out. So it's called Pin 15. What does that mean? It means penis. And it's about two girls in middle school in the year 2000. Oh, God.

And so I've watched like five episodes so far. It's super funny, really quick watch because they're like 30 minutes long. It is literally our lives, Kristen. I cannot wait to start watching this because I need something uplifting. Yes, it is hilarious. It is so funny. So, yeah, I recommend it if you'd like to watch a show about us. I don't get enough of us.

That's right. Can never get enough of us. When you're not here, I'm just constantly playing the podcast over and over again. Okay, I've got something. Oh, great. So we got an email from Cassie she's so she's originally from tulsa she's emailed us before but she emailed again because she just finished episode 52 the story about the blended family that you did about the johnson county case that was so crazy yeah so she said just now

getting to your episode 52 in the story blended family where sue ann and ed got married in miami oklahoma just an fyi miami oklahoma is pronounced miama what lol my okay m-y-a-m-m-u-h oh yeah miama oh God. It's like Missouri. I know. Okay. I hate it when people call it Missouri. I don't like when people say Missouri either. My grandma used to say Missouri. I mean, it's very polarizing. It's Missouri, folks. Yeah. But we pronounce things weird

in the Midwest. We do. Everywhere. Looking at you, Massachusetts. Worcester. You can't just ignore full syllables so thank you thank you cassie for that we would have so embarrassed we would have never guessed never would have guessed and someone on facebook corrected our pronunciation of something too where like i had tried to correct you. Oh, it was the place in Nebraska.

It was Norfolk, apparently. But it has an L in it. I swear it had an L in it. Maybe I spelled it wrong. That could be a mistake that I made. No. We never make spelling errors. Okay, so we announced last week that we had made our 150 goal.

Yes. And people have just kept on going. Like, it's really awesome. Thank you to everybody who is still leaving us ratings and reviews. We love it. Thank you so much. We're, like, way past 150 now. Well on our way to 1,000, which is the next goal that I set for ourselves.

No, it is exciting because I really did think we'll hit 150 and then we'll just and people will go to the page and be like, they already did it. They did it. That's fine. But no,

we appreciate you guys who are like, let's add another rating. Let's add another review. We really do appreciate it. The joy of listeners. The joy of listeners, Brandi. I'm telling you.

I am telling you. If you haven't already, please join your fellow listeners and head on over there to iTunes and leave us a rating, leave us a review. And then find us on social media. We're on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit. All of those places, I think. And then join us next week. When we'll be experts on two whole new topics.

Podcast adjourned. And now for a note about our process. I read a bunch of stuff, then regurgitate it all back up in my very limited vocabulary. And I copy and paste from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. So we owe a huge thank you to the real experts. Wikipedia. So we owe a huge thank you to the real experts. For this episode, I got my info from A Hoax Most Cruel by Andrew Wolfson for The Courier-Journal, as well as a ton of other articles by Andrew Wolfson for The Courier-Journal, MSNBC, ABC News, Wikipedia, and FindLaw.com.

And I got my info from an episode of Forensic Files, the Phoenix New Times, the New York Times, the Desert News, and CBS News. For a full list of our sources, visit lgtcpodcast.com. Any errors are, of course, ours. But please don't take our word for it. Go read their stuff. Thank you.