Let's Go To Court! - 77: A Home Invasion & Pepsi Points

Episode Date: July 10, 2019

It was the winter of 2014, and Sue Duncan and her husband Leo Fisher were settling in for a quiet night at home. Sue had a chicken roasting in the oven, and Leo was reading on his recliner. Then, the doorbell rang. Leo opened the door to find a man in a long black jacket at his doorstep. The man fired a Taser at Leo’s chest and barged into the couple’s home. The man said he was with the “Virginia SEC,” and that he was there to arrest Leo. Right away, Sue sensed she didn’t have the full story. Then, in the mid-90’s, Pepsi launched a new ad campaign. It was pretty simple. Every time you bought a Pepsi, you earned points. With those points, you could buy items from the Pepsi catalogue. To advertise Pepsi Points, Pepsi aired a commercial aimed at showing off all of their sweet swag. You could buy a t-shirt. A leather jacket. And, as a funny little twist, they ended the commercial by saying that Pepsi drinkers could buy a Harrier jet for 7,000,000 points. It was clearly a joke. At the time, Harrier jets were worth $33.8 million. Plus, they were only available for military use. But you know who didn’t think they were joking? A 21-year-old business student named John Leonard. And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: The commercial itself, which is available on YouTube Leonard v. Pepsico, Inc., 88 F. Supp. 2d 116 (S.D.N.Y. 1999) “Pepsi Harrier Giveaway,” Snopes.com John Leonard, Plaintiff-appellant, v. Pepsico, Inc., Defendant-appellee, 210 F.3d 88 (2d Cir. 2000) “Pentagon: ‘Pepsi ad not the real thing.’” CNN.com In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “A Home Invasion, A Torture Session, One Lawyer Nearly Killing Another—The Gruesome November Night in One of Washington’s Wealthiest Suburbs.” by Jason Fagone, The Washingtonian “Ex-Lawyer Sentenced to 45 Years in Home Invasion, Torture Attack of Former Boss, His Wife” by David Culver, NBC Washington

One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts. I'm Kristen Caruso. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court. On this episode, I'll talk about Pepsi points. And I'll be talking about a home invasion. Ooh.

Ooh. Should we start by describing our surroundings? I have to move this mic right now. First of all, I can't handle this. Okay, describe it. Okay, so we are recording. It's a let's go to court. After dark.

And I got a text at work this evening that we would be recording at the new home where we've never recorded before. And there is no furniture. And why did I insist on recording? Because the air conditioner is out at the old house. For those keeping track, that means at the old house that we're getting ready to put on the market, there is no toilet. And no air conditioning. And it's 92 degrees in Kansas City right now. So, yeah, we're at the new house.

We have our laptops on TV trays. We're in my office. It looks... It's nice. Well... This will be where we podcast from, but... It's real rough. It's in a state.

Should we plug those? Sure. What are those over there? Those are... I've never seen the display of the Gaming Historian t-shirts. Get yours now at thegaminghistorian.com for the low, low price of $10. That's right. $10.

Wait a second. Why are we plugging his stuff when we've got a Patreon? I know. Hey, actually, if you're thinking about spending $10, forget the fucking t-shirt. Head on over to patreon.com slash LGTC podcast and sign up for our Patreon. Things that happen immediately when you sign up for the Patreon. Discord if you're on the appellate level or the Supreme Court level. And it's super fun. We're having a blast in there.

And for all the other levels. You get to vote on topics you get to talk about stuff and that i can't even fucking see because kristen refuses to give me the patreon password my little book of passwords is right over there i will give you the password she could be saying terrible things about me in the patreon and I would have no idea. Here's the truth about brainy. Alright. Enough of this. Enough. I'm sick of it.

I don't want to talk about this bullshit anymore. Please sign up for the Patreon. Okay. Should we talk about what happened this week when we went to try and do official stuff? Oh my God. It has been at the back of my mind nonstop. How do I bring this up in a way to embarrass you? Okay, so with the Patreon, we now have to be official big girls and go get a bank account for the podcast. And so we got our LLC all set up. We are the proud owners of Juvenile Bigfoot Productions LLC.

And so along with that, we went to go open our bank account and so we're the other day we met we went downtown to go to the bank to go up with the bank account and we're like walking along feeling very proud of ourselves for our big girl moves and then across the crosswalk was a very happy little corgi he was beautiful and i lost my fucking mind i was like i looked at kristin and i was like oh look at the corgi i was so excited kristin got excited you know we all know how much i love dogs the owner of the corgi heard me get very excited and so as we're going through the crosswalk, she's approaching it, and she's like, he's very friendly. You can pet him. And as I went to step onto the curb, I got my flip-flop.

You mean your flippy-floppy? My flippy-floppy caught on a rock, and I had to lift my other foot up to kind of stabilize myself, and I kicked the poor corgi right in the face. Poor Winston. It in the face. Poor Winston. It was the best. Winston forgave me. He let me pet him. And he jumped up on my leg. He knew it was an accident.

And he knew the true contents of my heart. And he did not hold that incident against me. I've never seen you look so horrified. I was horrified! I kicked a dog in the face! You would rather kick a human in the face. I would. That is the true story. I would much rather kick a human in the face than a dog.

Damn, I was going to bring that incident up to surprise and shock our audience, but you just started it off. I have not stopped thinking about it. I am wondering if the owner saw it happen. Of course she saw it happen. You think? Brandi, you keep the dog in the face. She was like, I thought maybe you,

I thought you guys were kind of in conversation. And she might have missed it. No. It happened very fast, Kristen. It did. I mean, it was a swift kick to the dog's face. Poor Winston. Anyway, Winston forgave me for sure.

Yeah, yeah. He'll never love again. But that's funny. No, he forgave me. Anyway, I accidentally kicked a dog in the face and it was horrifying. I've not stopped thinking about it since. It's been a week. It's been a week. It's been a long week. All right. You want to talk about home invasion? I do. Okay. So here's something really interesting. This case is like a little gift to myself that I did at some point and I don't even know how.

So I went out of town this weekend and we did a girls trip with Lisa's family. It was very fun. Went to Wisconsin and I got back. I pulled up my computer and I went to like try and, you know, look for some ideas for cases. And I hit something and like my bookmarks came up, which I swear I'd never used. And there were like a couple of articles that I bookmarked. And so I clicked on one. I have no recollection of ever bookmarking it.

I definitely had never read it before. And it is the fucking most amazing article I've ever read in my life. It is a case from start to finish. Like I didn't need, I pulled one other source, but really like this is, this case is 97% me retelling this article. It is by.

Skip Hollinsworth. Jason Fagone. Oh. Or Fagone. Okay. F-A-G-O-N-E for the Washingtonian. Okay. So what you'reG-O-N-E. For the Washingtonian. Okay. So what you're saying is Jesus intervened.

Jesus took the wheel. Uh-huh. And I don't even know how this is possible because I never read this article ever. And somehow it was bookmarked on my computer okay okay it's 6 15 p.m on november 9th 2014 we're in mclean virginia which is i think it's very confusing over here because you know know, it's like Washington, D.C. I don't know if this is considered a suburb of Washington, D.C. or what. It's very close to Washington, D.C.

And this case was covered by The Washingtonian. So somewhere near Washington, D.C. Okay. Anyway, Sue Duncan was making chicken for dinner. It was roasting away in the oven when she heard the doorbell ring. Her husband, Leo, got up and went to answer it. Sue and Leo were both in their early 60s. And they were a popular couple. They did lots of things with friends, but they also like to be home buddies. And, and, you know, they were a very close couple they um had a very happy marriage they and they called each

other by all kinds of different nicknames like they rarely called each other sue or leo um they called each other muffin and pup and dill and g and oftentimes uh even a nickname for a nickname like Leo would call Sue Muffy, short for Muffin. So they were very into nicknames. And should we pause and talk about? Yes. Okay. So my parents, my parents call each other Muffin, have for many years. finally kyla and i a long time ago tried to put a stop to it by saying hey guys just a heads up vagina it's yeah you're totally calling each other vaginas yes they accused us of being gross they said that that was some like hip slang that no one uses until betty white yes is that the thing? That's the thing. I remember that sketch so clearly.

Betty White was on SNL and she talked about her dusty muffin. And that was the moment when my mom was like, okay, this is not just some sick thing the girls think. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. I have a side story along with that. Oh, I love your muffin story. Okay. You know this about me. I've never admitted story along with that. Oh, I love your muffin story. Okay.

You know this about me. I've never admitted this on the podcast, but I used to love the restaurant Mimi's Cafe. And why is that embarrassing to admit, Brandy? Because it's for old ladies. It is exclusively the old lady restaurant. Yeah. But let me tell you about this meal that i always got there i fucking loved this meal okay you got a grilled chicken breast

a green salad melon grapes half an orange and a muffin like these, delicious baked muffins. You have described a retirement village meal. No. And you paid for that. It was so delicious. So delicious. So, my grandma Charlotte, whenever the two of us

would go out to dinner, we'd almost always go to Mimi's because she loved it, I loved it, when we'd go out to lunch, whatever. So go to Mimi's because she loved it I loved it when we'd go out to lunch whatever so she liked to go see shows at the community college and so I would appease her and go to them with her and I hated them but I went to be nice one of them like we ended up being an opera and I nearly stabbed my eardrums out, but it was fine. I survived. Anyway. So on that particular night that we went to this opera, we went to Mimi's first and my grandma got a similar meal to mine. I think instead of chicken, it came with a quiche.

Anyway. Right. She got her muffin to go. I like to eat my muffin with my meal. Stop. I like to eat my muffin with my meal. Stop. Because it was like dessert. Right. So she got hers to go. We went to, we left Mimi's. We went to the show. We get back into her car after the show.

And she says, can you smell my muffin? I sure can. And I nearly fucking died. Why? Was that a lot for you to handle? It was. Because I couldn't laugh and I couldn't tell her what that fucking sounded like. Uh-huh. And so I kept it all inside.

And that's why you laugh so much today. That's right. You can trace it back to that. You were never a laugher before that. I wasn't before then. And that's why you laugh so much today. That's right. You can trace it back to that. You were never a laugher before that. I wasn't before then. I never laughed. Anyway, back to the story. So they like nicknames.

They call each other Muffy and Pie. She calls him Pie a lot. Oh, okay. It's short for Sweetie Pie, I'm guessing. Yeah, I mean, one would hope. Why would you need a nickname for a nickname, though, is what I'm asking. Anyway, so the doorbell rings. Sue's in the kitchen.

Leo gets up, goes to the door. He opens it, like, just a little bit. And what happened next happened, like, in a split second. There was a man standing outside the door. He had a long jacket on and he shoved the door open and he fired a taser at Leo's chest. The two darts from the taser stuck into his sweater that he had on and he immediately fell to the floor writhing in pain. The man then pushed his way into the house. He took zip ties out of his pocket, and he bound Leo at the hands and the feet.

And then he turned to Seuss. She came, like, running in from the kitchen, and he said, I'm with the Virginia SEC, and I'm arresting your husband. SEC? SEC, Security and Exchange Commission.ing your husband. SEC? SEC. Security and Exchange Commission. Oh, OK. Thank you.

And he flashed a badge very quickly. But immediately Sue was like, in her mind, she didn't say this out loud. She knew something was up because there is no Virginia SEC. There's only the federal sec and so she starts to back up she realizes that there's something going on here right she starts to back away um and at this point he had like a hat kind of pulled down over his face he's wearing like velcro sneakers and flashing that badge very quickly. And Sue is very nervous. And Leo is still on the floor.

He's now bound. But he manages to say, why are you here? And the man says, do you know who the Knights Templar are? And the man says, do you know who the Knights Templar are? And Leo says, yeah, they're a crusading group from like the 12th century. And the man says, no, they're a drug cartel. And you sent an email putting a hit on somebody in that cartel for $370,000. What?

Yeah. And he's like, Leo's like, what the fuck is this guy talking about? Leo is an attorney and a managing shareholder at Bean, Kinney, and Corman, which is like an Arlington, Virginia law firm. Okay. It's like a big deal firm. They handle trademark and copyright cases. And they're constantly putting hits on people. Putting hits on the drug cartel.

Drug cartel, yeah. And so Leo's like, sure that this guy has the wrong house. He's confused about something. And he's like, who is it that you're looking for? My name is Leo Fisher. And the man says, yeah, I know who you are. And by this time, he's got like Leo up. And he's like, shoving him into the bedroom. He's got Sue, he's got her zip tied by this point too. And he takes them into the bedroom and he begins an interrogation. And that's the term he used for the next three hours or so. He held them hostage in their bedroom

and he said all kinds of crazy things. He said that he had had their home under surveillance and he knew they didn't go out much. And then he started asking details about Leo's law firm. And he used names that Leo recognized, names of actual people who worked at the law firm, partners, associates, all kinds of people. He had a lot, this mystery man had a lot of inside information about this law firm. And this man kept insisting that someone had put a hit on Leo now.

What? Now it wasn't that Leo had put a hit on someone in this drug cartel. Now someone had put a hit on Leo for $27, 27 000 what happened to the 370 right okay yeah exactly and leo said that he didn't he didn't know anyone who would put a hit on him he didn't have any enemies and the man says didn't you just let somebody go? Didn't you just fire an attorney at your firm? Oh, shit. And

Leo had. He had recently let go a young female attorney. And the man seemed very interested in this. The assailant.

He seemed very interested. The boyfriend? Oh. Mm-hmm. Really? Yes, really. For sure sure the boyfriend wow jumping to a lot of conclusions pretty early on here i always do and i'm always wrong you are always wrong so he starts asking a lot of questions about this woman who's recently been fired from the firm. He spends about 45

minutes of this interrogation time on this, but he didn't use the woman's name. And he started after like the 45 minutes had passed, he started kind of wandering in and out of the room and making phone calls out of sight of Leo and Sue. But they could overhear some of it. And he was giving like kind of short answers to someone on the phone. Yes. No, not yet. And then like, occasionally he'd be like, his tone would change and it was as if he was bored and he was like, whatever, like very odd. And when he'd come back into the room where Leo and Sue were being held, he'd say that he had been on the phone with his boss or his partner. So they're like, maybe an hour and a half into this.

Leo would tell the police later that it was very difficult to judge the passage of time. So he wasn't sure how much time they were really in there or how quickly things went or whatever. But about an hour and a half into this, the assailant asks Leo to get up and take him to the home office and log into the law firm's private network so that he could access administrative files, client lists, all kinds of stuff that are very confidential. And Leo did, as the man asked, he let him in and he let him take over the keyboard and the man started searching for something, but he didn't find what he was looking for. And he grew very frustrated.

Yeah, because his girlfriend wanted to find the file. Oh. Yeah, yeah. Oh, really? Yeah, really. Hmm. I guess that's it. We're done.

Yeah. Kristen knows. Good having you. All of this is going on, and Sue's still back in the bedroom. And she is so worried about Leo Leo because Leo has a heart condition. He had had a quadruple bypass like the year before and he still took heart medication for it. And she was very concerned because he seemed like he was having trouble breathing. Obviously, this is a very stressful situation.

a very stressful situation. And so she's like calling out to Leo and asking how he is. And he says something to the effect of he thinks he might be having a heart attack. And so Sue begs this assailant to call an ambulance. And he says no. And she asked him to call a doctor then just called like the private family doctor, call him directly and have him just come to the house and check Leo out. And of course, the man refuses. And then she remembers that the chicken is still in the oven. So she has to go be able to go and turn the oven off. And the man again, says no, that he'll do it himself. At some point during all of this, Sue starts to feel very sick. She tells the man she feels like she's going to vomit, she's dizzy, whatever. And so he actually does remove her zip ties and lets her go to the bathroom. And so she is allowed to kind of move freely from the bedroom to the bathroom. I'm

guessing because the assailant didn't want puke all over the place. Yeah. Yeah. And so during all of this time, Leo is back in the bedroom on the bed, still zip tied. And so she kind of like when she's in the bathroom, she's kind of sneaking a peek out to see what's going on while she's in there. And at one point that she sees like the man leave the room. And so she kind of follows him because he she's hoping she can got he can kind of she can kind of see what's going on and at one point she follows him to like the entryway and peers around the corner and he's got the front door wide open and there's like a woman standing outside the front door and he's talking to her oh some light on and off as if signaling something like he's doing rhythmically. And so some more time passes.

She goes back to the bathroom. She throws up. She looks at her watch. It's about 9 p.m. So this all started just after 6. So about three hours have gone by. She asks her husband if he's doing okay. And he says, yes, I'm fine.

Don't worry about me. And about this time, the assailant comes back into the room. And he's very agitated. And he says to Leo, he he says do you keep a lot of money in the house stacks of bills 20s don't you have like 20 000 in cash here in the house what and leo said leo said no i no, there's no cash in the house. There's nothing here. But I can go to an ATM and I can get you some money.

I have money. I just don't have cash here in the house. And he's like, well, don't you have gold? Who has gold? Oh, yeah, my gold bars. I want to get my doubloons out. Yeah, I want to go get my gold bullion out of the fucking safe. Hold on. And he's like, Yeah, I'm going to go get my gold bullion out of the fucking safe. Hold on.

And he's like, no, I don't have anything. And so the man, when he said that he didn't have any money, he didn't have any stacks of cash. He didn't have any gold, but he'd be happy to take him to the ATM. The man was pissed. And he just kind of like turned to the side and like stared off into the distance and stood there silently for like 30 seconds. That had to be so scary. And then as if from nowhere, like zero to 100, he grabbed a pillow, knocked Leo onto his back, put the pillow over his face and slit Leo's throat. No.

Oh, my God. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. So at this time, Sue is still in the bathroom and she calls out to Leo. Oh. And he doesn't respond. And so she opens the bathroom door and she sees this man on top of her husband and he is cutting him.

He's slicing at him. He's stabbing him. And Leo manages to say, Muffy, he's murdering me. Oh, my God. And the man who was on top of Leo actively stabbing him starts laughing. And he says, Muffy, what is this the muppets oh what yeah yeah oh my god i've got chills i know this is terrible and at that point the man jumped up off of leo and he turned towards sue and he out, I don't know if it was from his

pocket or what, but he pulled out a handgun and he fired at Sue. And Leo, who is stabbed multiple times by this point and has his throat cut, watches as a bullet seemingly strikes his wife in the head. He watches her hair fly out and she falls to the ground. The bullet like grazed her head. She manages to like stumble and crawl onto the bed. And she's crawling like across Leo to try and get to a phone. Yeah. That's on like the far side of the bed and she's crawling like across leo to try and get to a phone yeah that's on like the far side of the bed and suddenly the man is on top of her and he's stabbing her in the back and the

neck what the yeah oh my god and she collapsed and the man got off and she as soon as he got off her she gets up and she starts crawling towards the phone again. And he stabs her more. He climbs on her and he stabs her more in the back. And finally, she decided her only option was to play dead. And so she did. She just collapsed onto the bed and pretended to be dead. The man picked up the shell casing from the bullet he had fired at her. And then he walked over to Leoo kicked him in the head by this time i believe leo is on the floor and he's just like bleeding out he's been stabbed

his throat's been slit he kicks him in the head and he says you're gonna die and then he leaves the bedroom finally when Sue waits a few seconds to hear him, to hear if he's going to walk back into the room and she doesn't hear him. And so she gets up and she starts crawling towards the other side of the bed to get again, only to find that the man had taken the phone with him. There's no phone there. However, they have a panic button for their alarm system on the wall. And she manages, like, with all of her strength to reach out and hit the panic button just as she collapses onto the floor. Yeah.

The alarm is blaring. But she knows that the first thing they're going to do is call the house to see if they need to send police. And so she has to get to a phone. Yeah. And so she crawls, she drags her body. She's been shot. She's been stabbed. She drags her body out of the bedroom into another room, the office, I believe, where another phone was. And she answers the phone as it's ringing. And it's a dispatcher for the police. And it's 945 by this point. So it's been three and a half hours since the doorbell rang.

And the dispatcher just says, and sue says hello it's a home invasion sue duncan leo fisher home invasion come right away we have two cats please save them oh Yeah. At this point, Leo comes, like, stumbling out of the bedroom. Right? How? Oh, my God. He, like, stumbles towards the front door and collapses in the foyer and shouts, I love you, to Sue. And he lies there, like, in the foyer until he thought he saw flashing lights and so he opened the front door believing it might be the police oh my god brandy and dragged his body onto the deck and sure enough

it was the police oh my god don't do that oh my god oh i thought it was the bad guy coming back it is the police emergency crews are there it's like one police officer though and like leo's bloody body he's like just like pulling his bloody body out of the house begging for them to help yeah he's like my wife's in there um backup is there pretty quickly they get this one officer who arrives on the scene first happens to also be an emt. And so he's like, he walks in the house. There's fucking blood everywhere. He sees Sue. She is like in the office huddled,

like on the floor, but like with her back up against the desk, she's covered in blood. And this officer who is also an EMT is like, she's dead. Yeah. She's she's dead. Yeah. She's for sure dead. And then he notices that the blood that was coming out of this gash on her neck is coming

out at the rhythm of a heartbeat, which means that she is still alive. Oh God, I'm about to pass out. And so get ready. Oh no. He knows he needs to stop that bleeding. Uh-huh. He sticks his finger in the wound and holds it there until emergency crews arrive on the scene. Oh, God.

You going to be okay? Oh, this is, I feel like I'm going to pass out. Oh. oh meanwhile sue like comes to a little bit as they're like getting ready to load her up on into an ambulance and she says please save my cats they're indoor. They won't survive if they get out. Oh. Oh. Like, I just love that she's just thinking of her animals in that moment.

Like. I bet she never kicked a dog in the face. Okay. Calm down. Oh, I'm so sorry. Poor Winston. Was his name Winston I thought it was Walter

I thought it was Walter at first too but then I thought I was misremembering because David likes to call Oliver Walter because he says he looks like a grumpy old man I think it was Walter oh fuck

but then again I just simply patted him on the head. And you didn't kick him in the face. Oh, no. Poor, poor W. Corgis. Anyway, back to this bloody scene. Yeah. One of the police officers, like one of the EMTs walked into the bedroom and they said that the. What?

There was so much blood everywhere and it congealed. Oh, God. It just looked like there was like jelly everywhere. Oh, stop it. Why? That's how much blood they lost in this attack. Okay. But.

Ugh. That's horrifying. Yeah. I agree. He's twisting his face. okay but oh that's horrifying yeah i agree these are the details i would leave out you don't need to hear that it's no looks like red jellies everywhere no oh my god yeah i like to paint a picture i know you do so out on so like their front porch was more like a deck and so out on the deck leo is laying in a puddle of his own blood and another police officer is holding dish towels to his neck trying to stop the bleeding and leo says i know who did this. Are you going to say?

Who do you think did it, Kristen? Well, obviously the boyfriend of the woman who was fired. So he looks at this police officer and he says, Schmuel. S-C-H-M-U-H-L, Schmuhl, that's who did this. Until that moment, Leo had not led on to the attacker that he knew who he was. He didn't want him to realize that he knew who he was. But it was 31-year-old Andrew Schmuhl who had rang the doorbell at their house that night. So who is Andrew Schmuhl? S-C-H-M-U-H-L. Schmuhl, you think? I don't know know but that's a hell of a way to spell it

yeah seems like some extra letters in there yeah yeah andrew is a 31 year old guy who six months prior to this attack was dealing with a a lot of problems from an injury he had sustained to his spinal to his back and spinal cord and as a result of that injury he was on a very large regimen of pain management medication including fentanyl and other drugs that were prescribed by his doctor. So this was like a very life changing thing that happened to Andrew because before his back injury, he had been a super active person. He was running. He loved woodworking. He loved carpentry. He often did like home improvement projects. And so he was just like, this regular guy, he had always growing up, he'd always wanted to be a lawyer. And so after he graduated from college,

he enlisted in the army, and then enrolled in law school. And he when he was in law school, he met this woman named Alicia. She was this beautiful girl, great student. She was from Chicago. She played the violin. She was the editor of the law school student newspaper. And the two really hit it off. What law school? It was Vala Pareso Law School. And it's in Indiana.

Okay. Did you check that one out? No, I never heard of it. I've never heard of it either. The two really hit it off. And people recall thinking it was a little bit odd like that they seemed like an odd pair because Andrew was a little bit of a weirdo and Alicia seemed pretty normal, very likable, but it worked out. They married while they were still in law school, I believe. Yeah, while they were still in law school. And after graduating, the couple moved to Washington. At that time, Alicia found a job as an immigration attorney at a small firm. And Andrew became a lawyer in the army. And he was an active duty officer at his duties of being a lawyer in the Army where a lot

of it was like to help soldiers process their medical claims. That was like the big part of his job. And then he also was a kind of involved in like prosecuting military members for crimes that involved electronic information. He actually had on his LinkedIn page that he was the one who gave government lawyers the authorization to search the email accounts of Chelsea Manning, who is the one who gave the classified information to WikiLeaks. Oh, wow. Yeah. So he posted that. That was like as his accomplishments on linkedin okay yeah so anyway he's you know just working as an officer in the army he's really liking his job for the

most part but his army career was cut short when he actually sustained this back injury by slipping on a patch of ice during a PT exercise. Oh, yeah. So it I don't know, somehow this fall like was like some kind of catastrophic fall because it actually injured his spine. And so he took a medical discharge in 2012. And by 2014, he was in discharge in 2012. And by 2014, he was in excruciating pain every day. He collected disability. And other than like, that was his only source of income, he got about $1,100 a month. And he was mostly confined to his house, he rarely left. And Alicia, his wife became the breadwinner for the family. And she by this point had taken a job as an intellectual property lawyer. At Bean and whatever. At Bean and Kinney.

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. So this is kind of like what Andrew's day would consist of. Every morning after Alicia left for work, he'd soak in a bathtub for like two or three hours. And then if that helped enough with the pain, he'd do in a bathtub for like two or three hours. And then if that helped enough with the pain, he'd do a couple chores around the house. But then he'd often break out in like, these like cold sweats. Because he had developed a serious opioid dependency because of this injury. Yeah. He had become addicted to his prescription pain medication.

So this dude was on all kinds of shit. And this will become important later. So just a little bit about this regimen that he was on. So the strongest drug in his regimen was fentanyl, which fentanyl is a synthetic opiate. And it is like a hundred times more powerful than morphine. It is stronger, like a hundred times stronger than heroin. It is a crazy drug. It is nuts.

that's crazy crazy drug yes it is nuts it is highly regulated but it is so fucking dangerous like to the point that like um police officers have overdosed because they've come in physical contact with it during a drug search of someone's property wow yeah if you see like if you look up what a lethal dose of of fentanyl is it is microscopic it is the scariest fucking drug okay so he was taking was given was um prescribed sorry nothing of the word fentanyl patches so these are like transdermal patches you put on your skin and then a slow dose of the medication is is released through it. But in addition to that, he also took a second opioid in pill form, which was Dilaudid. He took that every four to six hours. He also wore a clonidine patch, which i guess a blood pressure medication he was on toradol which was

in a daily injection to reduce pain and inflammation and that one he had to have alicia do every day because it was like daily and he couldn't do like he he hated needles and he couldn't handle doing the injection himself so al Alicia would give him the injection in his leg every day. How many doctors did this man have? Great question. I don't know. I'm not done with the list. Oh, shit.

Okay. He also took gabapentin, which was an anti-seizure drug. And it's also been shown to be somewhat effective in different kinds of pain. And so he took that three times a day. He took lisinopril for high blood pressure. He took Cymbalta, which was an antidepressant. He took sumatriptan for migraine headaches, tizanidine, a muscle relaxer, sucralfate, which was a drug to help offset all the gastrointestinal problems he had from taking all this fucking medication.

And then in addition to that, he took all kinds of over-the-counter drugs. He took pectobismol, Exlax, NyQuil, Benadryl, like those analgesic patches. What? That's pain medication. Oh, oh sorry just because it says anal i just wanted to know what he did he was on all kinds of fucking shit and while all of those drugs were prescribed no yeah they Yeah, they were. They were all prescribed to him. I believe they were prescribed.

But I believe what you're saying is probably correct. They were prescribed by different doctors who didn't get the full story of what he was on. Or a couple of really shitty doctors who just didn't care. Yeah, that's messed up. Yeah. So, Andrew is struggling. he's addicted to pain pills he's in pain every day

he's getting no relief well that can't be true why can't it be true that he could still be in pain because he's built up such a tolerance to all of that medication oh okay i think that could absolutely that he could. See, I don't know enough about that medication. I guess maybe you could. Yeah. But my initial reaction is if you've got that much stuff, you're just. You're probably not even.

How are you even functioning? How do you even do a three-hour interrogation? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So he's hardcore into the meds and Alicia has the full responsibility of supporting him and herself. And things are not going well. Yeah. Her job. She's falling behind at work. She'd been at Bean and Bean Kenny for about a year at this point.

And she had been hired by. Leo Fisher, of course. And Leo was a pillar at the firm. And he seemed to be very well respected. So a former partner, kind of, I believe was interviewed for this article that I read. And she said that when after she had been hired, she'd worked there for a short time, she was doing really well. And Leo pulled her into a meeting one day and said, you know what, I lowballed you when I made you the offer here. And I want to make it right. You deserve a salary bump. And I'm going to make it retroactive to when you started.

Wow. Yeah. He said, we started you low. We thought you'd come back to us, and you accepted our offer, and we're underpaying you. How amazing. Right? Yeah. What a good guy.

I know, right? And so Leo's the one who hires Alicia. And when she's having problems, Leo's the one that has to has to deal with that. And so she begins missing meetings, she begins missing deadlines, and the partners start complaining about her performance. So in June of 2014, Leo is like, I've got to take care of this, I'm going to have to sit her down, we're going to have to have like a performance review and get to the bottom of this. I'm going to have to sit her down. We're going to have to have a performance review and get to the bottom of this. And then he learns that Alicia had actually listed her husband as an employee of the firm on a mortgage application. And then had impersonated a human resources director of the firm in a phone call with the bank. No, no, no.

Uh-huh. Yeah. the firm and a phone call with the bank no no no uh-huh yeah so leo pulls alicia into a meeting and is like you know this is fraud yeah and she was like no this is a misunderstanding, whatever. And so he sent her home that day and said that he needed to consider whether she was still going to have a position at Bean Kinney. And he said of, of that at that time that he thought, you know, when you see someone with promise, you want to give them a chance. You don't, you don't ever, you want to make sure you have the full story of what's going on. And so he really thought about that and whether he was going to let this be the deciding factor if she could was going to be asked to leave the firm or if he thought she should deserve a second chance.

But the next morning he gets to work and Alicia's husband, Andrew, is there at the office uninvited and making a scene. And so Leo pulls them both into his office and Andrew is riled up. He's angry. He's raising his voice. And he insisted that they were not trying to commit mortgage fraud and that. He needed to understand Leo needed to understand what was really going on here. And Leo is very angry. Well, yeah, this is not how you conduct yourself. Absolutely not. And so he said that he needed to talk to Alicia by herself. And Andrew is like, absolutely not.

Nope. You want to talk to her? You're going to talk to me. And finally, Alicia stands up and told her husband to leave and said, she said, Andrew, leave now because I'm going to try and save my job. But apparently at that time, even still, Leo did not fire Alicia. He gave her another chance. But as like time went by by her performance still was not improving how can you trust someone right oh okay so leo's like we're gonna give you a second chance but her performance does not improve and so on october 27th 2014 leo pulled alicia into his office one more time and gave her a severance package and said it's just not working out i know you're

going to be a great lawyer somewhere else he just seems like such a nice he does that was He just seems like such a nice guy. He does. Yes. That was 13 days before the attack on Leo and Sue. And now Leo had just identified his attacker as Alicia's husband, Andrew. So a message went out from police to watch for the Schmuel's Honda SUV. Ten minutes later, two canine units spotted the vehicle and went to pull it over

and it didn't stop. One of the police units pulled up next to it and looked in and saw that a woman was driving and that there was a man in the passenger seat like frantically removing his clothing uh-huh and that the two seemed to be having an argument several they follow this car for several miles it's kind of

a chase but not really like they're just keeping it at a safe distance. But several miles go by and then suddenly the car pulls over and a man jumps out of the car. It's Andrew Schmuel. And he's naked. What? Except for an adult diaper. No, no. Yes. No.

Yes. Because one of the side effects of all of those medications was incontinence. Well, he took the X-lax. Yeah. Well, because probably the two, because opioids cause constipation. And so you take the X-lax to ward off the constipation. And then you're probably just. It's hard to get the right balance.

That's right. It's just a ticking time bomb uh-huh one of the police officers ordered um andrew to drop to the ground they he wasn't complying at first and they told him they'd stick the dog on him and that he'd be bit and finally these poor police officers you know they were like, am I going to have to wrestle a man in a diaper? In a diaper? Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Finally, they get him to lay down on the ground.

They handcuff him. They start asking him questions. And at first, like, he seemed pretty lucid. He was answering their questions. And then moments later, it was like there was a switch flipped. and it was like a very distinct change in his behavior. All of a sudden, his eyes were rolling around in his head. He appeared like he was passing out. And then he started speaking in German.

Okay. Yeah. And so the officer was like, what'd you take? What do you want? You've taken something. And he said andrew said yes that he took fentanyl and dilaudid and something else and so they've called like ems by this time and they're waiting for an ambulance and by his his pulse like they've they're they're

monitoring his heart rate at this point and it has dropped to a very slow rate and he looks very pale and they're like concerned that this guy is overdosing right here while they have him in custody and so he they one of the police officers that has him like handcuffed he's like do you do you know why you're in handcuffs and all all he says is, I can't talk about it. So the emergency crews arrive and they find his fentanyl patch on his arm and they rip it off. What they don't know is that he has another one on under his diaper. Oh, ew. Yeah. So they wouldn't find that one until he's out of the hospital much later.

Yeah. But they take him and they take him for to the hospital to receive medical attention because this dude is like in the middle of an overdose alicia is put into a police cruiser and handcuffed and she's sitting there and they have a video camera on her and she seems very calm and fully clothed oh no no diaper that we know of and the all of a sudden she's just sitting there and it's like she's like an idea comes to her a thought comes to her and she goes oh god his computer and they get that she says that out loud while sitting in custody in a police car and so it it's recorded. It's on video. She's a fucking lawyer. She's a fucking lawyer!

Okay, okay. Inside the Schmuel's car, the police found all kinds of stuff that was connected to the crime scene. A taser, the gun that had been used, though it's now been disassemb taser the gun that had been used though it's now been disassembled the knife that had been used to stab and slash sue and leo credit cards a pile of bloody clothes that had been doused in ammonia tizanidine pills which i don't know what those are or what they do a novelty police badge and two handwritten notes one of the notes was written

in alicia's handwriting and it contained directions to an address next door to sue and leo's house so it's like she's like okay well i don't want to write down the actual address i'm too smart quick for that one yeah and then the second note, which was in Andrew's handwriting, was like a shopping list. It said, it had on it, handcuffs, two bottles of NyQuil, two packs of Benadryl, one adult diaper, two adult sleeping masks. EMTs take Andrew to the hospital in Arlington. They give him a dose of Narcan immediately. Yeah. And his condition improves almost immediately um and that's when they discover that he has the second patch on under his diaper at the same time at the same hospital doctors and nurses and surgeons are

working to save leo fisher and sue duncan's life They both go into surgery. They Leo is like drifting in and out of consciousness the whole time. One of his last memories of it of before going into this surgery is that someone was cutting off his pants. And Sue was also pulled into emergency surgery. And she remembers being awake and alert when they started stapling her head wound closed oh my god she distinctly remembers the sound of the stapler on her skull are you telling me that these two survive they both survived impossible They both survived. Whoa. Is that not fucking crazy? That's nuts.

Sue was shot in the head and stabbed multiple times. Leo's throat was slit and he was stabbed multiple times. Oh my God. And they both survived. Oh. No word on the cats. I'm going to choose to believe that they were just fine as well. Of course they were just fine as well of course they

were just fine yes if i'm sorry if sue and leo can survive that the fucking cats are fine i'm sure the cats are just fine within a couple of days andrew's condition improved and he was released from the hospital into police custody and he was charged with a whole host of charges, seven charges total, abduction, aggravated malicious wounding, use of a firearm, and burglary. All added up together, he was facing a minimum of 108 years in prison. I can't believe they didn't get attempted murder on this. Yeah, of course.

But he was not charged with attempted murder. Did they feel like they had enough? I guess maybe. That seems nuts. Yeah. Andrew's parents received a call like two days after the attack. So on November 11th, saying that Andrew had been involved in some kind of violent altercation and that he was being held and charged. And they were so confused. They were like, how could that be? That's not in fitting with his, with the, our son that we know at all, something doesn't seem right. And so they, they lived like 14 hours away and they got in the car and they drove like through the night to go see andrew and when they got to the jail to visit him he said he didn't remember anything and that his mind was fuzzy and he has no idea what happened that night so it's all alicia's fault the question that would become the focus of this case would be was andrew in his right mind mind during the attack? Was the interrogation

of and torture of Leo and Sue was that the cold-blooded act of a monster? Or was Andrew a decent person who had been turned into a zombie

by prescription medications and their toxic interactions. No, no, no, no. Give me a break. Don't you shrug those shoulders at me, Missy. What do you mean, no? We have an opioid epidemic in this country, We have an opioid epidemic in this country, but we don't have a home invasion and stab people a million times epidemic to go along with it. So. Side note, Alicia was also arrested and faced similar charges. I think she was just charged with five charges. And initially they were going to be tried together.

But Alicia's lawyers alleged that Andrew had abused her and controlled her for years and that that would be their defense moving forward. And so the judge split their trials. So it was 2016, I believe, by the time Andrew went to trial. And the two sides pretty much agreed on one thing, that Andrew had hurt Leo and Sue. That was the facts. He had done it. He was the one that was there that night.

But they disagreed on the motive. The prosecution said that the defendant was a murderer at heart. He was a liar. He was a con man. This was motivated by revenge. And it was about greed. It was about anger. It was about torture.

the defense said that Andrew was a good man with a good heart and it was the medicine that was supposed to be helping him a suffering

veteran who had been failed by the VA and betrayed by his wife and poisoned. Betrayed by his wife how? Yeah, I'm not really sure. Okay, okay. She was cold and she was calculating and she knew his state and she put these ideas into his head.

I'm guessing it's kind of what they were getting at with that. Yeah. Yeah. They said that his mental state the night of the attack was something that he had no control over. He had involuntary intoxication. Oh, come on. So this defense strategy is similar to an insanity defense where it becomes the defense's burden to prove that the mental state was altered to a point

so the legal definition of it is they have to prove that his mental state was altered to a point that he didn't understand the consequences of his actions but the cause has to be that a drug was ingested without his willingness or without knowing what he had injected what he had ingested okay that didn't happen didn't happen but in previous cases where this has been used like some of the examples have been like maybe a defendant was at a bar and

someone put pcp in their drink right or maybe a doctor had prescribed the wrong medication so that is okay the strategy that the defense is taking moving forward. That all of these medications that had been prescribed to Andrew had interacted with each other and had caused involuntary intoxication. And he had no control over those actions that night, nor did he know what he was doing. That's a good defense. I mean, I think it's a pretty good defense, too, because what the fuck else can you say? Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah. Involuntary intoxication defenses are super rare. We've talked about a case that has a similar argument. What? The Michelle Carter case. No. what the michelle carter case no yeah they said that she was intoxicated and given grandiose ideas from her from her antidepressant well i didn't believe that i didn't believe this now i don't either i don't believe it either. But I think it's the only option the defense has.

Of course. Yeah. But this would be an uphill battle for the defense. Their plan was to put on an expert who would talk about her experiences treating patients with chronic pain. She would talk about the risks of being on those medications long term, how those medications could possibly interact with each other, all kinds of things relating to that. And medication-induced delirium. That was going to be like the buzzword okay but that is the state that he was in that night medication induced delirium so

in this expert's opinion her name was dr eileen ryan in her opinion, and she was all ready to testify to this, but we'll get to why she wasn't able to. She was prepared to say that Andrew fit the textbook definition of experiencing delirium. He had never been diagnosed with any kind of mental illness, and his mental state became altered for a brief period and then very quickly returned to normal. She thought that the trigger for Andrew's delirium was most likely a toxic overdose of fentanyl. She was planning to testify that this was proven by the fact that when Andrew was injected with Narcan, it worked. It reversed his overdose.

Why does your face look like that? I. So it wasn't his fault because Narcan worked on him? Yeah, basically. That's in her expert opinion. It is proven that he was in a state of overdose. He was in a state of delirium because when he was injected with Narcan, it brought him back to a balanced state of mind.

Okay. Well, maybe he had overd mind. Okay. Well, maybe he had overdosed. Yeah. But I find it very hard to believe that one doctor prescribed all that

and that he was taking all of those medications as directed. Exactly as prescribed. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, he had two fentanyl patches on him when he was arrested. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, he had two fentanyl patches on him when he was arrested. Yeah, no.

Yeah. That was his choice to do that. Absolutely. And so if he, you know, it's like if I went and got drunk right now. You know, that's my choice. Yeah. So, as I mentioned, she was planning to testify to all of this at trial. Yeah, What happened?

So for strategic reasons, the defense kept this strategy in their pocket until the last moments of the trial. And then they were going to bring out this big defense, bring out this big expert. And it totally backfired. The state complained that the defense was sidestepping procedural rules that would have let the state's medical expert evaluate Andrew, which I completely agree with. And the judge agreed he would not allow this expert to testify about involuntary intoxication. She was allowed to testify. She could testify about drugs and about toxic drug interactions, but she could not offer a diagnosis specifically about Andrew. And she could not explain how delirium might have accounted for his behavior on that night.

explain how delirium might have accounted for his behavior on that night in fact she wasn't even allowed to use the word delirium on the stand yeah so she did testify but she only testified about she didn't say shit yeah she could basically only testify about it hypothetically like hypothetically this is what could happen if these drugs interacted. Yeah. Not saying, I believe that this is what happened. Or, I examined this patient and this is what I think happened that night. Yeah. She couldn't say any of that. Because the defense was like, we're going to be sneaky sneaks. Mm-hmm.

And not, like. Yeah, she's going to be our ace in the hole. Yeah. No. Yeah. You have to follow procedure yeah if you're gonna bring in a medical expert the prosecution gets a medical expert too yeah and they have to be able to examine the patient yeah i just think that's dumb as fuck i'm not a lawyer and i know that well they really thought they were gonna sneak that in there do you think that was just arrogance i think it probably was arrogance, yeah.

I wonder if they'd gotten away with that before. They probably have. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. Yeah. So because of that,

the trial became less about this involuntary intoxication defense instead of, and it became more of like about what had been his choices and what like had been out of his control. So they talked more about what doses he was on, what he'd been prescribed, how much he'd actually taken. Like, I think the fact that he had had the two fentanyl patches on and all of that came up. came up so it became very very focused on how much of everything he took and how he was abusing drugs rather than what was done involuntarily or what might have been out of his control yeah which i don't believe the involuntary intoxication defense anyway. So no, there was he was ingesting too many things. Yeah. Yeah.

They also talked about the thing. The prosecution was also able to bring evidence that showed that this whole thing was premeditated and that Alicia was involved in it. Of course she was. Yeah. Yeah. Eleven days after Alicia lost her job, security camera at some store recorded footage of Alicia buying a taser. Mm hmm. That same day, she 11, 10, or I'm sorry, three, four days before the attack happened, Andrew went and purchased two prepaid Go phones.

When the phones were registered and set up, one was named Panama and the other was named OP. In military jargon, OP stands for observation post. Okay. Yep. Because Alicia had one of the phones and was standing watch outside the house the entire time. She sure was.

So prosecutors said all of this pointed to proof that Andra and Alicia had conspired together and planned this attack. The argument that Andrew was mentally impaired during the attack, the state called Sue and Leo to the stand to talk about his mental state during it. They said that his behavior during the torture session was very different than the confused state he appeared to be in at the time of his arrest and stuff. Like they believed either he'd taken more drugs after the attack and that was an explanation for it or it was all an act. I imagine it's probably somewhere in between right yeah it's probably a combination of the two absolutely yeah they said when he was in the house he was authoritative he was in control there was no question over whether he had control of his actions whether he knew what he was doing it was very clear that he was doing what he wanted to do and that he had planned it.

Yeah. When it was clear that the defense's claim of involuntary intoxication was not going very well, they tried to shift the blame from andrew to alicia of course they said that she was an aggressive person who sought out confrontation and that she had taken advantage of andrew's weakened state and had manipulated him into taking on this task for her. Uh-huh. Yeah. The biggest kind of maybe twist at trial, I would say,

came when towards the end of it, the defense called Andrew Schmuel to the stand. We know this, that defendants don't often testify because it opens them up to cross-examination and all of that. But Andrew's team felt it was worth the risk. The jury needed to know all the drugs he had been taking. And there were holes in his medical records. So the only way to get all of that information admitted into the court record was for him to get up there and talk about it. So

when word got out that he was going to testify, the courthouse just filled up with people. People could not wait to see him take the stand. So he was called and he came in wearing his Navy uniform and he took the stand and he initially listed off all the drugs that he was on. And then he talked about the fentanyl patch and how he had multiple fentanyl patches on that day. And he said he had no recollection of putting on two patches. And that the only explanation he could know of it was that Alicia must have put one on him because the one that was under the diaper was on his back and Alicia was the only one who ever put patches on his back he couldn't reach to do it couldn't reach his back that's right Kristen was it in that one middle spot

that none of us can reach or was it like a little more to the side that's ridiculous yes I mean he got there on the stand and he implied that his wife drugged him. And that was the reason that he did this whole thing. I mean, what else can he say? I mean, right. He said that his last memory of the day that this happened, November 9th, was from the afternoon or early evening when he and Alicia went through went for a drive through the Shenandoah Valley. The next thing he knew he was in the hospital. He didn't remember going to

Leo and Sue's or anything that happened inside their home. So that fit the defense's claims that he you know was in some kind of state and that he didn't remember anything. But this created an opening for the prosecutor said that at 12.01 p.m. on November 7th, the phones were communicating with each other next to the gun store where Alicia bought the taser. And the prosecutor said, so you don't remember that, do you? And Andrew said, I don't remember using prepaid GoFunds. And the prosecutor said, but you could have used them, right? And Andrew looked confused and didn't really say anything. And the prosecutor said, it's tricky, isn't it? Either you do remember or you don't remember. And Andrew said, I can't specify that I don't remember to a negative.

Yes. And the judge says, wait, wait, what does that mean? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, judge. What does that mean? And Andrew says, I can't specifically say that I don't remember something that I don't remember. Oh, my God god my brain hurts and this like went on and like it was as if he was just trying to be a difficult witness yeah

yeah he said that he didn't ever recall having a taser in his hand he didn't remember binding Leo and Sue or forcing them into the bedroom or searching for information on Leo's computer. He didn't remember cutting Leo's throat or shooting Sue or stabbing her repeatedly. And so the prosecutor's like, okay, so let me ask you this. And then he walked kind of Andrew through the actions that he must have taken immediately after the attack, after the attack. And so it was like the stuff that he had done deliberately to cover his tracks. He walked him through those things. And he said, at what point did you pick up the spent shell casing from the gun you'd fired? When did you retrieve your jacket and hat that you'd removed inside the house? When did you decide to put ammonia on your bloody clothes when did you decide to disassemble the gun so he lay the prosecutor lays all this out and then after each of those things andrew had the same response and he was just kind of like leaned forward like

speaking directly into the mic like this and after every every one of those questions, he said, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. The jury deliberated for... 35 seconds. Almost an entire day. Wow. Before delivering a verdict.

What do you think they found? They had to find him guilty. They found him guilty on all counts. Okay. When the jury read their verdicts aloud, Leo kind of smiled and nodded. And Andrew's parents were in the courtroom and they kind of hugged each other. I mean, I think that would be difficult to hear, but I think he was 100% guilty. Yeah, I mean, come on.

One of the jurors later did some interviews and she said that the jury spent the whole morning discussing whether Andrew had been involuntarily intoxicated and they had reached a unanimous decision. No, he hadn't. There just wasn't any proof from the defense that he was uncontrollably under the influence of anything for the three hours

that he was inside the house. And this juror also said that they found that expert's testimony very muddled. It didn't make any sense. And it was like listening to a commercial

for a new type of medication. In her defense, she wasn't allowed to say the things she wanted. She wasn't allowed to say anything. Yeah, exactly. And she said that Andrew's testimony didn't sway the jurors either. They were, the biggest impact that it made is that they felt it showed he had no remorse for what he'd done. Andrew was sentenced to two terms of life plus 98 years.

Wow. Yeah. Woo! Yeah. So Alicia's trial was scheduled to begin in September of 2016. But as her trial was about to begin... Plea deal. Yep.

She took a plea deal. She pled guilty to two counts of aggravated malicious wounding two counts of abduction and one count of burglary with a deadly weapon at her sentencing in january of 2017 she offered an apology to leo and sue and they were of course like unmoved by it yeah but she maintained that she knew nothing of what was going on inside the house that night. Oh! She said Andrew told her they were going to the house so that he could negotiate a better contract for her. Mm-hmm. And she bought him a taser?

Right. For the occasion? Yeah. Her attorney asked the judge for leniency, saying that Andrew was abusive and that Alicia felt she had no choice but to take a subservient role in their relationship. Ultimately, a judge sentenced her to... Do you have a guess? Hmm. 25 years?

45 years. Wow. Mm-hmm. Wow. Yep. Long sentences in this one. Yeah, really long sentences in this one yeah really long sentences so leo and sue were thrilled with the her entering the plea it meant they wouldn't have to go through another trial they wouldn't have to testify again they are left with like permanent injuries from this. Of course. Sue experienced concussion-like symptoms

from that bullet she took to the head and still has ringing in her ears. She's got keloid scarring from the stab wounds on her back, and her back hurts her constantly. Leo has trouble chewing and swallowing food when his throat was slit it severed the nerves on one side of his face and makes it difficult for him to control his tongue when he gets tired he slurs his words and it's a permanent injury that has affected his ability to be a lawyer yeah oh leo also says the attack has changed him in less physical ways. He said he always considered himself a calm and open hearted person. I think that's so clear by the things that like he gave Alicia all those chances at the law firm and did the right thing when he felt that he was underpaying a partner or an associate. But he said now he feels rage a lot.

And he says it's hard to watch Sue suffer and that he knows that Sue is the one who saved them both. They would have died if she hadn't triggered that security alarm and then dragged her body across the house to get to the phone. That would be so hard to look at the person you love the most and see that they are in pain and know that it was so senseless. Yeah. So Leo, who has always been like this very like even keeled, mild mannered, pretty quiet man, when he was on the stand at the trial he tried to describe the feeling of having like all of this rage and not really knowing who this new person is and he said

I just want to eject myself from where I am and scream at the top of my voice I've never been a person who hated before and i hate now oh god leo yeah and that's the story of a home invasion oh my god that was crazy isn't that crazy first of all i can't believe they lived i know right yeah cannot believe it yeah when i was reading this for the very first time even though it was bookmarked on my computer i still have no idea how that fucking happened but i was like they fucking lived that's unreal yes i'm telling you this article is so well written and it covers it like from start to finish so shout out to um jason fagone for the Washingtonian. Excellent article, sir.

Oh, Brandy just did a hat tip. An imaginary hat tip. She has a little fedora on. Tiny fedora. It's miniature fedora. Right. So she's only a little bit of a douche. Are you automatically a douche if you have a fedora on i don't make the

rules brandy have you i mean come on probably yeah all right all right um may i lighten this up considerably yes please this is like classic you got a cool whip case i got a cool whip case? I got a cool whip case. Good. Big old tub of it. Yes. I mean, as cases go, no one died in mine. I know, but it was still, I mean, poor Leo and Sue. Now they have hate in their hearts. Ugh.

That is terrible. Yeah. And those two, adult Diapy and Alicia. Ugh. Adult Diapy. Yikes. It's like, how did people find each find do you think alicia manipulated him into doing that um no i think they i think they deserved each other i do too and so something i think i kind of grazed past and left out was that when she was initially fired from the law firm, he was like, well, let's figure out how to sue him. There's got to be like a gender like inequality suit that we can file something.

We can say you were fired for, you know. Not for being bad at your job. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And when she was like, no, clearly that's not going to work. Like this was the next step. Oh, well, it's so logical. Right.

I think they 100% work together and plan the whole thing. Yeah. I know. Yeah. Okay. Lighten it up, please. Okay. Here we go.

Well, ironically, I'm going to go down for a moment and just say our Patreon bonus episode. Yes. I put up a poll. Yeah. On the Patreon. I know you didn't see it because you still don't have the password. I still don't have access to the Patreon. Did you notice how I said you still don't have access as if like I don't control that?

Right. You know, I'm working really hard to get you access. It's in that notebook over there. You can't see it. It's in that notebook over there. You can't see it. No, so I let people, I put up a poll on Patreon to see what people might be interested in me covering for the bonus episode. Wow, I just knocked my glass.

Okay. I put up the trial of George Zimmerman. Oh, wow. Or the trial of Timothy McVeigh. Oh, for fuck's sake, Kristen. See, I wanted to do like big ones for like Patreon. And I mean, this is the first time

anyone's ever said this since. Timothy McVeigh won by a long shot. Oh, wow. Yeah. 55 to 29. Wow. Yeah. People were like, yeah. Too soon. That's what I would have voted for, too. With George Zimmerman.

Yeah. They were not interested. I can't handle it, either. I'm glad it didn't win. Okay, well. You and 55 others. You would have had to do that episode by yourself. You just walk out.

I know. I stay here, but I just put headphones on. And listen to music. You just hear me singing softly in the background. And I'm like like every now and again I check in you done? oh still?

nope okay okay yeah I miss the rain it's time in Africa I was singing the Weezer version

not the not the Toto version okay well thanks for that so Toto does that? I don't know it is Toto it is Toto version. Okay, well, thanks for that. Is it Toto who does that? I don't know. It is Toto.

It is Toto. Trying to act cool. Okay, so thank you to NeNe, who suggested this amazing case via email. Oh, nice. Let's go back in time. To 1995. First of all, do you remember Pepsi Points? Okay, actually, I have a vivid memory of Pepsi Points.

Okay. This neighbor of mine at my mom's house. So I always have to specify because I had two houses. Yes. Because you were so wealthy. That's right. I had a summer home. No.

My mom's house and my dad's house. So my neighbor at my mom's house, Mary Kay, she loved Pepsi and collected the shit out of Pepsi points. So she would cut them out and she had them set up in muffin tins in her house by point value. And I believe she was saving up like for the leather jacket or some bullshit. Oh my God. Yeah. Really? Yes.

First of all, I'm so glad we've said muffin so many times on this episode. We have said muffin so many times on this episode. We have said muffin so many times on this episode. But I love that you remember the leather jacket. That was a thing you could get with Pepsi points. Yes. Okay. So we're in 1995. Pepsi had just launched its new campaign,

Drink Pepsi, Get Stuff. Woo stuff it was really that simple every time you bought a pepsi or bought a pepsi product you earned pepsi points to put into your muffin tin and with those pepsi points you could earn stuff okay i want you to tell me if this commercial sounds familiar. I don't, I didn't really remember it. So it's like early morning in suburbia, birds chirp, a paperboy tosses a newspaper onto a doorstep. One lands and it lands at the front of this like two-story home. And we get a subtitle that reads, Monday, 7.58 a.m.

This super cool, very 90s teenage boy who we would have thought was the hottest is standing in the house, and he gives the camera kind of this smoldering look, and he does one of these, like, slicks back his hair with his hand. And he's wearing a Pepsi shirt. So it's like a white shirt with a big-ass Pepsi logo. Oh, my gosh. The text below it reads, T-shirt, 75 Pepsi points. Then we see another shot of him.

This time he has the leather jacket. The coveted leather jacket. Over the Pepsi shirt. We get another subtitle. Leather jacket. 1,450 Pepsi points. The cool guy walks out of his house. Oh, no, it's super sunny out.

Does he have Pepsi sunglasses? He sure does. Another subtitle. Shades. 175 Pepsi points. And then finally, we hear the deep, very 90s announcer voice. And he goes, introducing the new Pepsi stuff catalog. And we see the cover of the catalog.

Next shot. Three young boys are in front of a high school. The boy in the middle is reading the Pepsi stuff catalog, you know, like you do. And the boys on either side of him are enjoying ice cold Pepsis. Ooh. When all of a sudden, chaos ensues. Something flies overhead and it catches the attention of the boys. Then we see the inside of a classroom.

One side of the room is all windows and they're all open. I'm sorry, I was scratching my finger. That was the weirdest noise ever. Hold on. Oh, well, I'm glad you can replicate it because, um... You thought what? I thought you were sitting there farting during my Pepsi story.

When have I ever done that? Ever. Oh, okay. We're gonna act like gas does not escape your butthole. I'm sorry. You're getting a little high and mighty here. You think I'd just be sitting here letting it fly? Not intentionally. Look, I've lost complete control of my faculties. Let me tell you.

A person who loves a meal like grilled chicken, honeydew, and a muffin, and some orange slices, they don't have full control, okay? Something's bound to slip out of you. I was scratching my finger. Okay, okay. God, stop it. That's so weird. It is a weird noise. It's really strange.

Who knew I could make that? Oh, God, now you're going to make it nonstop, aren't you? Maybe. Anyway, then we see inside a classroom. One side of the room is all windows, and're all open and there's a wild gust of wind and papers fly everywhere and the teacher is befuddled. Then we get an outside shot and that's when we see the reason for all this commotion. Do you remember this? No. Okay, okay. It's a Harrier jet. Ooh. Military aircraft. Oh, you're smiling.

You're smiling. I know this kid. You do. It's so good. It's so good. Oh, my gosh. So military aircraft lands outside of this high school next to the bike rack. And guess who the pilot is? Who who it's that sexy dude from okay i

shouldn't say that it's like a teenage boy listen 1995 me yeah okay 33 year old me not saying it no okay but anyway so he's the dude from earlier he Still got his T-shirt on. Still got his leather jacket and shades. And he's looking awesome. Meanwhile, the Harrier jet is generating so much wind that a dorky teacher is stripped down to his undies. The announcer says, now the more Pepsi you drink, the more great stuff you're going to get. Then we get another close-up of the cool guy. And he's sitting in the cockpit with a Pepsi in hand. And he says,

Sure beats the bus. Then, as he's climbing out the side of the plane, we get more text on the screen. Harrier Fighter. 7 million Pepsi points. Which was meant to be hyperbolic. Uh, no. Hold on. Whoa. Whoa.

Hold on. I think we all just heard that commercial. And we all got. And you now know that you can get a jet for 7 million Pepsi points. And so our question to you, naturally, Brandi, is did your neighbor save up for the hairier jet? Or did she stop short at the leather jacket? She stopped at the leather jacket, I believe. So a lot of people thought this was a pretty cool commercial.

It is. Uh-huh. A lot of people thought this was a pretty cool commercial. It is. Uh-huh. But no one thought it was cooler than 21-year-old business student John Leonard. Who decided to save up 7 million Pepsi points. What?

And was pissed. What's with your attitude right now? You couldn't get a jet for it. Come on, buddy! They clearly advertised that. No, they did not. Frankly, it's fraud if they don't give it to him great off i really hate people like this i know i do too they are the worst they are the worst so john saw that totally forgotten about this case okay so i originally so nini reached out

with it and i was like you know i really like, but I just don't know that there's enough here. But, okay, she reached out to us like two weeks ago. I have not stopped thinking about it. I was like, okay, I just have to do it. So John saw that commercial and was like, wow, with Pepsi, all things are possible.

And so... Stop! Stop! I think it's like, well, Jesus, something's impossible. Tomato, tomato. So, John described himself and I, this is a quote.

This is how he describes himself. As typical of the Pepsi generation. He was young, adventurous, and very much interested in obtaining a Harrier jet. I'm sure he was. He said. Little seven million Pepsi points.

He said, people say, well, didn't you want a t-shirt? And I say, well, when there's a Harrier out there for seven million Pepsi points, why not aim your sights a little higher? Oh, my God. I hate this guy already. Oh, is it because you don't know how to reach for the moon, Brandy? Shoot for the moon, Kristen. And even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.

So inspired to get that Harrier jet. So what did John do, Brandy? He started drinking Pepsi in the morning, Pepsi in the evening, Pepsi at supper time. When Pepsi's on a bagel, you can eat Pepsi anytime. That brought me so much joy. So he got himself the Pepsi stuff catalog.

And even though you're being a real pill about it, he was excited. He looked through the array of items available for purchase. And he was real pissed when the jet's not in there. No, no. So he's looking. He sees the Pepsi phone card. He sees a pair of blue shades. He also saw, this is 100% real, a bag of balls.

I've got balls. And the text next to that item in the catalog was three balls, one bag, no rules. In total, there were 53 items available for purchase. But shockingly, no jet. No jet. Yeah, because it was a fucking joke in a commercial. No.

No. It was 100% serious that that hot dude flew into his high school. He blew it. He blew a teacher's It was 100% serious that that hot dude flew into his high school head. And blew his teacher's clothes off. But John wasn't worried. The Harrier jet had been clearly advertised in the Pepsi commercial, so it was for sure available for purchase.

Yes. Yes. Yes. This guy's an idiot, and I hate him. But so, here's the deal. John was under tremendous pressure. Because, as you said, Pepsi in the morning, Pepsi in the evening, Pepsi in the summertime. He had to earn 7 million Pepsi points.

He had to earn 7 million Pepsi points. He was worried that he'd never be able to consume enough Pepsi in the allotted time. And the kidney stones were ridiculous. But then, a miracle. John read through the catalog, and in the back pages, he discovered a very important message. It said that if a customer doesn't have enough Pepsi points to order an item that they want, no problem. You can buy Pepsi points for 10 cents apiece. The only catch was that the customer had to have earned at least 15 Pepsi points by purchasing Pepsi products. Once you get your 15, you can buy the rest.

Fuck, I'm trying to do that math in my head right now. Don't worry, he'll do it for you. Oh, good. So John did what any reasonable person would do. What any reasonable person would do. He hit up five wealthy investors, raised about $700,000. And on March 27th, 1996, John placed an order in the Pepsi Points catalog. He showed proof of his 15 Pepsi Points and enclosed a check for $700,008.50.

Oh my gosh. Under the item column in this catalog, he wrote one Harrier Jet. And under the total points column, he wrote seven million. You look so annoyed, right? I am. This guy's an asshole.

Five days later, John was sitting at his house near an open window. When all of a sudden, a gust of wind. His Harrier jet. Paper skates. Pepsi delivered. The Harrier jet landed in his driveway. No, they did not. Okay, it did not happen.

No, unfortunately... He got a call from Pepsi. In early May of 1996, Pepsi had the nerve to return John's check. Yeah. They wrote him an infuriating letter that read, The item that you have requested is not part of the Pepsi Stuff collection. It is not included in the catalog or on the order form, and only catalog merchandise can be redeemed under this program.

The Harrier jet in the Pepsi commercial is fanciful and is simply included to create a humorous and entertaining ad. Yeah, you fucking idiot. I know what you're thinking. Those bastards, how could they? John was outraged. He wouldn't stand for this. So he put on his Pepsi shades and said, Let's go to court!

Fucking idiot. Are you ready to hate him even more? Yeah. So the truth is, John already had a legal team. Yeah. Because he knew this was going to be a thing. Yeah, he wanted to make a thing of this. Fucking douche.

How annoying. What a super douche. And I want to know who these five people are. It's been a minute since we have talked about a super douche on this podcast. Believe me, I thought of that as I was writing this. Because this guy is so annoying. And you know what pisses me off? People always talk about frivolous lawsuits. And you know the hot coffee lady?

They always say that she was, you know, she made frivolous lawsuits. How is this guy not getting shit? Seriously. This is a frivolous lawsuit. Okay. So, a court document I saw said that that check he sent to Pepsi was drawn on an account of his attorneys, which I think is the weirdest way of saying. That is a weird way to phrase that.

But, you know, I think we get what they're stepping in there. Yeah. That's not the phrase either, Kristen. Smell what you're stepping in there. Smelling what you're stepping in there. I think we're getting what you're stepping in. Smelling what you're stepping in. I think we're getting what they're putting on. Do you remember the time

we were in? I think we were in middle school. And we overheard someone say, like they mixed up their metaphors or something. And she said, she was describing someone lazy.

And she said, he just sits there like a pickle on a log. A few weeks after John got that heartbreaking letter from Pepsi, his lawyer wrote a strongly worded letter on John's behalf. It read, his lawyer wrote a strongly worded letter on John's behalf. It read, I hate it already.

I know you look, you look so annoyed right now. You know that I, I am not John, right? I mean, you don't have to look at me like that. It read,

Your letter on May 7th, 1996 is totally unacceptable. We have reviewed the videotape of the Pepsi stuff commercial. The videotape of the fucking commercial. It's like two minutes. We reviewed it. It took all of my intelligence to review the videotape. And it clearly

offers the new Harrier Jet for 7 million Pepsi points. Our client followed your rules explicitly. This is a formal demand that you honor your commitment and make immediate arrangements to transfer the new Harrier Jet to our client. If we do not receive transfer instructions within 10, and then they put 10 in parentheses in case somehow you're confused by that. Business days of the date of this letter.

You will leave us no choice but to file an appropriate action against Pepsi. Kristen. Yes. At this time, can you please tell us what a Harrier jet costs? $33.8 million. Yeah. Did you know that? I knew it was going to be well into the millions yeah so and he found a loophole to try and get it for 700 000 yeah we'll get more into why it is completely ridiculous but like first of all it's insanely expensive second of all you can't afford to maintain it. No! It burns up gas.

And where the fuck are you going to put it? Yes. In his backyard? Fuck right off. And P.S., it's for military use only. So civilians aren't even allowed to have it. This guy's such a douche. So I know what you're thinking.

Why did Pepsi advertise it? They didn't! It's a fucking joke! So that letter went out to Pepsi, and it also went out to the company that Pepsi hired to make that commercial. The president of the ad company was pissed. Was pissed. was pissed. And he wrote back basically saying, like,

there's no way you actually thought you could get a jet using Pepsi points. Our commercial was clearly a joke, and you knew it. But John was not a fan of joking, and neither were his attorneys. So this thing went to court, and right away, Pepsi was like, yo, can we get a declaratory judgment? Because this is stupid. It's a giant waste of everyone's time. And meanwhile, John's attorneys were like,

we'd like for this lawsuit to take place in Florida. They sued Pepsi for breach of contract, fraud, deceptive and unfair trade practices, and misleading advertising. Why Florida? You know. Because Florida court's crazy. That's a good guess.

My guess is that John lived in Florida and his lawyers did too. And they were just like. Yeah. Come to us. Yeah. But the judge was like, that's nice, but I'm not sure what Florida has to do with this case. So no.

No. We're not doing this in Florida. Obviously, this case never went to trial. But it dragged on way longer than you would think. Yeah. There were tons of different motions. There were arguments over jurisdiction. And eventually, john's attorneys made

a motion to dismiss the case without prejudice so dismissing a case without prejudice that means case goes bye-bye yeah but not forever yeah the without prejudice means that john can bring it and bring it back again on december 15 1997 a judge granted John's motion, but only on the condition that he pay some of Pepsi's attorney's fees, which I think is totally fair because this was ridiculous. Yes. Roughly one year. Ridiculous. Roughly one year later, the court ordered John to pay $88,162 in attorney's fees. Yeah.

Within 30 days. Okay. This may surprise you. He didn't have $88,162. No. He just had a shit ton of Pepsi points. Yeah, he's like, did I pay Pepsi points? I've got 7 million Pepsi points.

So, you know, John misses that deadline, and then he's like, um, hey, you know how I asked for that voluntary dismissal? Could we, like, undo that? Could we also just stop? Could we not have me pay anything? I'm really getting in over my head here. I'd like to pay zero debt. and the judge was like dude either you pay what you owe or withdraw your request for dismissal and all the appeals you've filed since then you giant dipshit and let's keep litigating this thing around this time john got a new legal team which i would love to know the full drama there yeah anyway as this

is going on the story makes headlines and finally the u.s government had no choice but to speak out a spokesman for the pentagon had to be like hey dum-dums a harrier jet is worth 33.8 million dollars let's not even talk about maintenance and plus these are military aircraft so basically what he said was a member of the public cannot buy this and if by some miracle they did we would have to demilitarize it which means that it could no longer take off and land vertically yeah and in order to undo that, the jet would be like the world's biggest paperweight. It could not fly.

Yeah. You would have an insanely expensive jet that could not fly. Yeah. So this poor spokesman had to tell the media, yes, we are monitoring

this legal battle between Pepsi and that dum-dum, but even if for some reason Pepsi loses, that kid's not getting a Harrier Jet. You can't have one! Veruca! Veruca?

Oh, Kristen. What? What? You never seen Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Oh, yeah, a long time ago. Veruca Salt wants everything. She wants it now. Yeah, turns into a blueberry. No. I gotcha.

That's a different one. Violet Beauregard turns into a blueberry. Makes more sense, doesn't it? Yeah. Listen, there were a lot of brats in that film. Veruca Salt goes down the bad egg shoot because she wants a golden goose that lays the golden egg. And

anyway, I guess you've never seen Willy Wonka. No, I have. It's just been a long time. We watched it in elementary school. We probably did. In the library

in fifth grade. That might check out. Yeah, it does check out. Around the same time that this Pepsi commercial aired. Yeah. Anyway, she wants a party. And she wants it now.

Wait, your anyway is to go back to Charlie's Chocolate Factory? Okay, let me try this. Anyway, back to my case. So meanwhile... Anyway, so her she buys her everything it just creates a real mess of entitlement you know charlie turns out to be the good one yeah even though he stole the fizzy lifting drink spoiler alert he gets the factory. Man, spoilers, huh? You know what my favorite thing is? If you haven't seen Willy Wonka by now,

it came out 40 years ago, so... My favorite thing is when Norman does a video on a game that's like 30 years old. And people are like, Well, spoilers! Spoilers! My favorite thing to say when people complain about spoilers is to say, Bruce Willis was dead the whole time.

In any situation. In any situation, I'm talking about spoilers. I'm like, and you know what? Bruce Willis was dead the whole time. She's not a spoiler if you don't give the context. Haley Joel Osment. Meanwhile,

Pepsi continued to run the ad, but they changed it so that the Harrier jet was now available for 700 million points. So that, you know, even people who were super dumb like, I don't know. Can't they just put like tiny

font that says No! No, you cannot cave to people like this. You're right. It's so ridiculous. No, it's so stupid. It drives me crazy. It's so ridiculous. It's so stupid. It drives me crazy. It's so ridiculous. With someone like this who clearly

he saw this commercial and thought this was his payday. Yeah. Like, kick him to the curb. What the? Ridiculous. It makes me so mad.

I know. I know. What a fucking douche. Finally, on February 22nd, 1999, after three years of jurisdictional and procedural bullshit, John's attorneys agreed, okay, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has jurisdiction. I imagine that was probably decided for them. They didn't have to agree to it.

And Pepsi's attorneys agreed that they wouldn't go after John the Dipshit for their fees. Yeah. At this point, Pepsi just wanted their summary judgment. They wanted this thing over with. Who do you think the judge sided with? Uh, Pepsi.

Okay, shockingly, no. What? I'm just kidding. Oh my gosh! Kristen, I about blew a blood vessel on that. I can't believe you believed that. You really thought that. I did! No, don't act like you can't believe I believe that.

I am a trusting person. You tell me something, I believe it. See, no, I feel like lately in our episodes, like, there was a while when I would trick you, try to trick you in, like, every episode, and then you got a little too wise for me, so then I had to dial back. Now here I am going...

Balls to the wall. Bag of balls. Three balls, one bag. No rules. What would you do with that bag of balls? I think that's my business. And I don't have to tell you shit. Judge Kimba Wood sided with Pepsi.

She granted them their motion for summary judgment on the grounds that, breaking news, the Pepsi stuff commercial was not a genuine offering of what they were selling. No fucking shit. And that no reasonable person could have watched that commercial and believed that Pepsi was actually selling a Harrier jet. I'm going to include a quote because I think it's great. Excellent. She wrote, The Callow Youth featured in the commercial is a highly improbable pilot, one who could barely be trusted with the keys to his parents' car, much less the prize aircraft of the United States Marine Corps. That's so true.

So you may be thinking that we're done here. Yeah. You may be thinking, we're done here. Yeah. You may be thinking, what more is there to this case? Yeah. John appealed. Of course he did, because he's a super douche. But he's super lost. Good.

And that's the story of the Pepsi points case. Oh, my gosh. That was so good. Oh oh it's so fun i know that one was a little short but i know i loved it it's so so insane and you know what there was no coagulated blood jelly oh god that made me like seriously... Kristen, no one died in my case! You want a cookie? I mean, I don't know what to tell you! I'm not gonna randomly say coagulated blood jelly.

It's your face when I say it! It's terrible, it's terrible. Do you have show notes? I do! Oh, okay, go ahead. I do have show notes. Oh, okay, go ahead. I do have show notes. I have a very special recognition that we want to do.

Yes, we do. Connor and Adam, who we love. They have sent tons of case recommendations for us. They recommended a whole Boston series, which Kristen kind of started on. Which I kept from you, as I always do. Yeah, she hoarded it. But Adam recommended the Clark Rockefeller case and then a couple of other Boston cases. I'm sorry, I have not actually seen that fucking email because Kristen hoarded it. Well, there's a lot of explicit stuff in there. You can also like film this.

This is a really cute video of them listening to an episode that they were mentioned on. Was it the Rockefeller one or was it something else? I don't remember. I just remember it made us so happy to see it like eight million times. Anyway, June 29th was Adam's birthday. So we wanted to tell him happy birthday. Happy birthday, Adam. June 29th was Adam's birthday so we wanted to tell him happy birthday happy birthday Adam and then also July 15th is their wedding anniversary

so happy anniversary guys thank you for listening to the show we love you guys so much and happy birthday happy anniversary yeah oh gosh it's so cute I love it what show notes do you have kristin well we have

questions from a while ago on patreon so i figured if we wanted to we could go through a few of those questions let's do some questions okay i also had me kicking the dog in the face on my show notes but we've already discussed that you monster you know i'm not going to be able to sleep if you don't admit that that dog forgave me afterward oh okay so here's here's what happened we were so excited to see the dog the dog was super cute we walked up to it brandy lightly kicked it in the face was horrified and the dog was a little stunned but then immediately wanted brandy to pet yeah so like he was fine he totally forgave me it was cool the dog owner later reached out to me okay are you ready yeah i've got i've got a few questions okay so jenny black asks are there any

other true crime podcasts that you listen to yeah absolutely absolutely there are next question and if you think we're gonna advertise for someone else no i'll okay i'll tell you one that i am like obsessed with so you know we got on Patreon, obviously, and I noticed that a lot of people who are on our Patreon, like, they, they just support us,

but there's also, like, this subgroup of people who support us and this podcast called True Crime Obsessed. So I was like, huh,

I've never heard of them. So I looked them up. I thought it was really funny. Their reviews are shockingly similar to ours so their reviews are overwhelmingly positive but every now and then they get a negative one that's like i can't stand one of the hosts laugh i hate his laugh and i was like oh my gosh so i listened to them i feel like he and i need to be friends they are hilarious there are two two friends who basically watch a documentary, a true crime documentary, and then they just tear it apart.

I discovered them. This is embarrassing. I discovered them like a week ago. Yeah. And, you know, I painted my kitchen. So I had just hours to kill. And I listened to like everything they've ever done. Yeah.

Big fan. Yeah. I really enjoy like serialized ones. So, like, I've listened to Dr. Death, Dirty John, Teacher's Pet, Up and Vanished. I really enjoyed all of those. And then, I can't believe we've never mentioned this. Like, we have to mention the podcast that started this whole thing for us. Yes.

My Favorite Murder. Yes. Yes. Should we talk about that a little? Yeah. So, my sister is the one who gets me into all things. And so, she got me into My Favorite Murder a long, long time ago. A long time ago, yes.

And I remember, so I was with you getting, you were doing my hair. Yeah. And I i was like you have got to listen to this podcast called my favorite murder and i remember i told you it's like if we had a podcast but if we were funnier yeah and so then like you got super into it yeah then we went to their live show in kansas city yeah and there was just something about it not to sound like well we're like we could do this yeah but it made it seem attainable and like a we wanted to do our own take on it yeah like we focus on the trial side of things and if you'll notice there was no murder this episode. That's right. Although that Harrier jet thing is just as upsetting as a murder.

Really? Well, and coagulated blood jelly. Okay. Okay. So yes, we do. We love true crime.

Yeah. And, uh, not true crime, but, um, armchair expert by Dax. Oh God.

Yeah. We haven't mentioned that recently. Um, Jana asks any alternative titles you had in mind for the podcast no i can't yeah i can't i'm sure we had really norm named the podcast he did yeah yeah so norm i don't know well if anyone's ever seen him do uh a live show at a at a convention or whatever he will usually do a Jeopardy game. Yeah.

And he has all these different categories, and one of them is for video game lawsuits, and he named the category, Let's Go to Court, with an exclamation point. And he noticed that every time he read that category name, people just laughed. There was just something about it that seemed funny. Yeah. And so when we came up with this idea we were like bye thank you and he that is why he claims he owns 50 of this podcast and we can't argue at all oh this this might be a good one shanna asks i'm curious what is your

favorite story you have of each other like when you meet someone and tell them about your friend, what stories do you think of? Ooh, gosh. I know, right? Ooh. Do you have one that comes to mind immediately? I mean, I do, but I don't know why it just like always comes to mind. Okay.

It was when we were teepeeing houses in middle school like i peed my pants i wasn't gonna say that okay this is the best story though are you okay with saying you don't fucking tell it i want to put it back here we were what 15 yeah yeah okay so it was like our so it wasn't middle school it wasn't no yeah it was high We were what? 15? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So it was like our first. So it wasn't middle school. It wasn't. It was high school. It was high school.

I think we were freshmen in high school. Yeah. Yeah. So I wasn't 15. I would have been 14. Okay. Well, anyway. It doesn't matter.

Anyway, we were teepeeing our friend David's house. So they were having, all the boys were having a sleepover at David's house and we were having a girl sleepover at Laura's house, our friend Laura's house. And so they lived fairly close to each other. So we snuck out of Laura's house and walked to David's house and we were teeping him and we had to be so quiet because we could literally see where the boys were sleeping. Yes. boys were sleeping yes and i needed to laugh so badly and i couldn't because we had to be quiet and i it became a choice where i could either hold in my pee or hold in my laughter and the pee had to go and i peed my pants do you remember what set you off? No. Okay, let me tell you what set you off.

How was it when you threw the whole roll? So it was our first time teepeeing. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know that you're supposed to, like, kind of hold the tail a little with one hand. And then with the other. And you threw the roll in the tree. So I threw the entire roll in the tree. It stuck there

immediately. And you had been like we'd been shushing you like the whole night trying to keep you from laughing. And man, when I threw that thing up there and it just stuck, you that's when you lost control. I did. You lost control. I peed right in my

pants. And then we had to walk home with my pee pants. I then we had to walk home with my pee pants. I had to pee pants walk home. I'm sorry. Okay. I hope I'm sorry. Oh, no. Oh, no. What is it is it okay i don't know we must have been about the same age

and we were spending the night at jessica's house okay but we had started at her dad's house but we were actually going to spend the night at her mom's house. Oh, God. I'm cringing already. What is this? And they lived fairly close to each other. We're not super close. We couldn't. Like something happened and we weren't coordinating a ride very well. And so I think what had happened is we had been swimming at the pool at her dad's house.

That sounds right. And then we were going to go to her mom's house. Okay. But something happened with our ride and it didn't get coordinated right. And so we were just like, we'll just walk it was i don't know a couple miles probably and so at the time platform flip-flops oh my god so we hit on these like huge huge platform flip-flops i believe they were cream colored and had some kind of like wicker bottom that sounds right i remember those so we are walking

along 83rd street which is like like. A pretty busy street. It's a busy street and it's pretty hilly. And you caught your platform flip on something and you totally wiped out. You like blew out your hooker shoe. you like blew out your hooker shoes like that and like you got up and we walked the rest of the way but you like

completely fell out of your platform flip flop here's the thing with shooting up to 5 foot 9 when you're like 12 you're like a giraffe falling down every minute oh my god Giraffe. Falling down every minute. Oh, my God.

You know what's funny about Shanna's question? Her question seems more heartfelt, but I told the story I knew about peeing your pants. You told me about me falling out of a hooker shoe. Let's see. Should we do one more? Yeah. Okay, this one's a special one for brandy oh kristen asks so happy brandy met a man that can handle and appreciate her awesomeness i'm dying to know how you met david oh oh my gosh this is actually kind of a good story yeah so have you heard of Craigslist? Okay. So I had been with my ex since I was 18. I never dated or anything. And so at some point,

I decided like I was ready to like go on some dates, but I was totally just going to be super casual and just go on like a bunch of dates and just like meet a bunch of people. What were you going to do? And have fun. Just meet a bunch of people and have fun. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I remember this very well.

You calm down over there. And so I made a Tinder profile. I had never done a dating app. I'd never dated. never, I had never done a dating app. I'd never dated. And so I downloaded Tinder and I put in my profile two things that I really think made me stand out from the crowd. First of all, I said, I'm 32, but I've been told I could pass for 31, which is a real thing that someone told me. And I was deeply insulted by, but I find kind of hilarious. the person who told me that is 18 so there you go um and then the second thing i put was that i was looking for someone to kill spiders for me

and that's true that is 100 true as demonstrated on the yeah episode about the spiders i hate spiders anyway so i get on t Tinder and it's a scary place. Dick pics galore. Oh, man. So just unsolicited dick pics and it was scary. So I was on there for two days. You guys, Brandi played the field so hard. You shut up.

On the second day that I was on Tinder, I matched with David. And so we matched. So you swipe and if you both swipe on each other, it's a match. And then you can choose to message each other. You cannot message each other until you've matched. But you don't have to message. And so that happens a lot. You swipe and you match with someone and then nothing ever happens. So I swiped on David and we matched. And he messaged me, like, right away. And I had matched with a couple other people who had been like, hey, you've got beautiful eyes. Wow, hey, gorgeous. Like, just stupid opening lines. And David said something about, here's the good news. I'm not afraid of spiders at all.

I'm happy to kill them. And I was like, he read my profile, my profile. Like he put some thought into this opening line. And so we started messaging and like we messaged on the app for like a whole day before I gave him my phone number and let him text me. And then that night, like I gave him my phone number and he called me and we talked on the phone for like

four hours and it felt like five minutes. And that was like three months ago and it's going really great. He's awesome. It's a really amazing guy. And yeah, I'm really, really happy. You guys should see how happy she looks right now. Oh my gosh. She looks as happy as someone who just won a Pepsi leather jacket. No, he's a wonderful guy.

He's really amazing. He's really, really amazing. Yeah. And I tried so hard to talk myself out of it and him. I was like, oh, I'm still like, I'm totally going to keep it cash, Kristen. Don't you worry. Yeah, you, okay. You would not believe the number of times.

keep it cash, Kristen. Don't you worry. Yeah, you, okay, you would not believe the number of times, well, you know, the thing is I'm just out here playing the field really for these two days. And I even had a conversation with him like after a couple days where I was like, hey, I just want to be really clear with my intentions

here, like just so that you know like that I'm really cool. I'm like totally playing, like I'm super cash, right? And he's like, yeah, okay. cool I'm like totally playing like I'm super cash right and he's like yeah okay and I was like I'm just telling you I'm just not really like looking for anything serious and just like as long as you're okay with that and he's like yeah

okay some people aren't the play in the field type Brandi definitely not me I loved those questions those were great I loved People aren't the play in the field type, Brandy. It's definitely not me. I loved those questions. I know, those were great. Those were great.

I loved that. Do we have inductions to do? Brandy, whatever could you mean? So if you don't know by now, we've launched our Patreon. And when you sign up at the, well, there's three levels you can sign up at. There is the district court level, the appellate court level, and the Supreme Court. And so when you sign up at the Supreme Court level, we induct you into the Supreme Court. And so I think it's time, Kristen, to do our inductions. Everyone, please

silence your cell phones. And rise. What if people just stood up wherever they are? I'm picturing a lot of people at work right now. This week's inductees into the Supreme Court. Kirsten Jenkins. Coffee.

Oh, wait, oh, wait. We're saying their names and their favorite ice cream flavors. You know, like all good inductions. We're saying their names and their favorite ice cream flavors. You know, like all good inductions. Kirsten Jenkins. Coffee. Jessica M. Mint chocolate chip. Stacey Cassidy.

Cappuccino Chocolate Chunk. Virginia Peters Schultz. Chocolate with as much nuts and chunks and whatnot mixed in as possible. Shanna Pecora. Oh, I think I mispronounced her name earlier. I think you mispronounced Kirsten's name earlier, too. You're right, I did. I'm pretty sure you called her Kristen.

That's egotistical. You asshole. Moose tracks or chocolate chip cookie dough. Jalen Capacious. Chocolate chip cookie dough. Jalen Capacious. Chocolate chip cookie dough. Mari. Oh, no. The ice cream flavor looks good.

Oh, no. I must have erased her ice cream flavor. What the fuck? Okay. Oh, when we love Mari. I know. Here is the thing that we have to i'm sorry mari we cannot talk about your favorite ice cream flavor because kristin fucked up but can we just talk about for a moment

how excited we were to learn how you pronounce your name yes because mari is a frequent commenter on our social media and every time we we like talk about like she's all she is not just a frequent commenter she makes the most hilarious comments yeah and so when kristen and i talk about them like we'll screenshot them and send them back and forth to each other we're like that lady we like so mari we are so excited to learn how you pronounce your name. And I wish we knew. And we're going to assume that you like vanilla. Ookla. Rocky Road.

But only dryers with the actual mini marshmallows. None of that marshmallow swirl crap. Denise. Chocolate peanut butter. Nikki. Denise. Chocolate peanut butter. Nikki. Strawberry. Mike, our favorite patron,

Pickering. And he wrote, it's a weird name, but I swear it's real. Chocolate brownie from Thrifty. That was good. That was really good. If you would like to be inducted on a future episode, be sure to head on over to our Patreon and join at the... Did I say Patreon?

You sure did. I was going to let it slide because it's getting late. Patreon and join at the Supreme Court level. And then while you're on your computer, you know, head on over to our social media. We're on Facebook. We're on Twitter. We're on Instagram. We're on YouTube.

We're on Reddit. Hey, put some pep in your step, ladies. It's an exciting place. And then please head on over to iTunes. Leave us a rating. Leave us a review. And once you've done all of that, if you're not, you know, too worn out and tired, then be sure to join us next week. When we'll be experts on two whole new topics.

Podcast adjourned. And now for a note about our process. I read a bunch of stuff, then regurgitate it all back up in my very limited vocabulary. And I copy and paste from the best sources on the web, and sometimes Wikipedia. So we owe a huge thank you to the real experts. For this episode, I got my info from the court cases, CNN.com, Snopes.com, and the commercial itself, which is on YouTube. And I got my info from an amazing article in The Washingtonian by Jason Fagone,

as well as an article for NBC Washington. It's an interesting way to say Jason. What did I say? Jason Fagone. I did not! Jason Fagone! Do I need to re-say it? No, I think you're good.

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. Jason Fagone. You don't have to read your own article, Jason.