Let's Go To Court! - 83: Bad Dads! (Featuring DP)

Episode Date: August 21, 2019

Guess who’s baaaack? It’s none other than Daryl Pitts, a.k.a. DP. For some reason, you people just can’t get enough DP. We don’t judge. We just indulge your every whim.   For this episode, we let the judges on Patreon pick our theme. We asked them to choose between spoiled kids and bad dads, and bad dads won by a mile Brandi starts us off with a predictably dark case. When Christian Longo met Mary Jane Baker, the two hit it off almost immediately. They were both Jehovah’s Witnesses, and both eager to start a family. But Christian didn’t pay much attention to the commandments. He stole regularly. He committed adultery. Eventually, he committed murder.  Then Kristin tells us about a sketchy family business. Scott Catt loved robbing banks. It was easy. The tellers never put up a fight. There was a downside, though. The payoffs were never very big. So one day, Scott got to thinking. If he recruited some more robbers, he could get into the vault. His haul would be so much bigger. So he asked his son, Hayden, and daughter, Abby, to join him.   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: Episode of 20/20 “A Family Affair” “I would only rob banks for my family,” by Skip Hollandsworth for Texas Monthly Catt Family wikipedia page  In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “The Trials of Christian Longo” by Elizabeth Engstrom, The Crime Library “Christian Longo” entry, crime museum.org “Oregon v. Longo: A family’s murder” murderpedia.org

One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts! I'm Kristen Caruso. I'm Brandi Egan. And I'm DP. Let's go to court! On this episode, I'll talk about a family business. And I'll be talking about the true story of one bad dad. My goodness, how exciting! This is the first time we've gotten together in a long, long time. Many moons. Okay. Wait a minute.

I thought we were just together a few days ago. Shut up, dude. Full disclosure. We had some audio issues. We recorded on Wednesday. Did the whole thing. Yeah. Oh, and it was great, by the way.

Best episode ever. Best episode ever. And I don't know, something happened. It's no one's fault, as we keep telling Kristen. And here we are. Really important to point out here, guys, if you heard that intro, guess who's back? Back again. DP's back.

Tell a friend. Is that some reference to some 80s song that I should know? Not an 80s song. No. 90s. 90s. 2000s. 2000s.

Sorry, I don't get it at all. Yeah, you dropped out after the 70s. That's right. So, Dad, thank you for being here yet again. Glad to be here. Excited to be here. I didn't bring a case, though. Can I still sit in and just make witty legal insights on these cases?

We'll decide how witty it is. Yeah, really. If you've prepared witty ones, I mean, you didn't bring those earlier in the week. Woo! Do you need some aloe for that bird? Now, wait. But here, I've got a comment. Okay. Do you need some aloe for that bird? Now wait, but here, I've got a comment. Okay.

Okay, you have your dad on and you're doing cases about bad dads. Yeah, this is not my choice. This was voted on by the people. When we decided to have you back on after, you know, you begging and pleading with us and, you know. You saying, please, I'm retired. I have nothing else to do. We posted a poll on our Patreon. We let people choose between either spoiled kids or bad dads. And I am sorry to tell you, sir, bad dads won by a landslide.

Yeah. I'm guessing that's because you have a younger audience that might have experience with bad dads and wouldn't have any experience with spoiled kids. I've got more experience with spoiled kids myself. Did you raise spoiled kids? Because that seems like it's on you. It might be kind of a bad dad situation.

I raised two Johnson County princesses. And Brandy, you were one as well. Oh. Dilly. I've not left the bubble. So one good thing, though, about us re-recording is before we re-recorded

today, I asked the patrons, the members of our Supreme Court. Good job, Brandi. Wow. I gave you the look. I gave you the point. I gave you the point. I'm sorry. Do you need the double finger point? I didn't follow where you were going at all.

I'm very sorry. Well, the point is, we asked them if they had any questions for DP. Turns out, a lot of people had burning questions for DP. So stay tuned until the end of the episode for those. And if you are wondering where all of this stuff is going down and how to get involved, all you have to do is head on over to patreon.com slash LGTC podcast and, you know, subscribe or whatever they call it at the... Sign up.

Sign up. Yeah. It's not a subscription. Well, Norman. Yes? You weren't even listening. We've gotten, you guys, we've got Norman in as our audio engineer today. Norman's in the booth.

Just to make sure nothing goes wrong. And it turns out he was spacing out on his phone just then. What do you call it, a subscriber on Patreon? A patron. All right. You just head on over there and you become a patron, apparently. And you can become a patron at the appellate district appellate or supreme court clearly kristen usually does this part of the program all right brandy let's get started

with let's get started okay before we start you know what let's i want to talk a little bit about kind of where we've been for the last several months since I've been on. Can I do that? Sure. I think we've had some major changes. Milestones, some might say. Just like the Christmas card. Oh, we're sending out the DP Christmas letter.

A very DP Christmas letter. A very DP Christmas. Hey, you know, speaking of this DP nickname you've slapped on me. No, you gave it to yourself. No, I did not. You did. Oh, no. Oh, no.

Uh-huh. Yes, you did. But we were children. A DP for DP. Oh, well, that was before I thought it was a dirty thing. Now, my wife, Sherry, tells me that this DP is a filthy sexual deal and not just a cute little nickname. And here's why she tells me that. and not just a cute little nickname.

And here's why she tells me that. On the Patreon and on the Discord, I should say, people are saying, I want more DP. Can't wait to see getting more DP. And they're just making sex jokes, and they're not really wanting me on the podcast. Can't it be both? Both, yeah. I think they want both.

Okay, maybe both. But it's very uncomfortable now that I know that it's dirty. Is it? It is. So so i was saying so big changes so first off brandy that's me this is a change since episode 49 when i was on yes you kicked divorce's butt thank you you came through that with flying colors thank you you did and it's one of the most difficult things a person has to deal with tons of support from family. Oh, yeah. Friends and even you guys, the listeners.

Oh, tons of support from listeners. Yeah, it was amazing. Yeah, I saw some of that. That's just fantastic. Thanks. And, Randy, you have turned a new chapter and you're doing great. That's right. I am.

Kristen, you and the gaming historian, Norman Caruso. Oh, my God. Whoa. Rumors are true. You guys have seen it in the tabloid. Can you imagine what kind of tabloid would that be? IGN.com. And they'd say, who?

Yeah. No, you guys are, we are now recording in your new palatial estate here in Kansas City. Sold the old place. Bought the new place. We are now recording in your new palatial estate here in Kansas City. Sold the old place. Bought the new place. Must have had a fantastic realtor to pull that off. Not so much. It's amazing. Daryl Pitts, you are an excellent realtor.

And I recommend you to anyone. Oh, now I'm a sponsor, it sounds like. Where are you licensed? Just Missouri? Missouri and Kansas? Missouri and Kansas. Excellent. Brandi, I can come over there in Johnson County and get you a new place.

I have to stay in my house for a bit now. I just refinanced, Daryl. Okay. Don't know if you heard about the divorce. I did hear about that. But then here's the other thing. Even Sherry and I have had a big change. We have a new grandson. Yes. Can you believe that?

He's so cute. He's so cute. And what we've done, we used to have Pawpaw's daycare with our granddaughter. Yeah. And now we've got Nana and Pawpaw's daycare with the grandson because Sherry's now retired like me. That's great. So we are having a blast with our little guy with the Nana and Pawpaw daycare. It's fun stuff. It's fun stuff. Sounds like fun stuff. Now, the only downside to it is we didn't get the house sold, and so we're not traveling the country

in the motorhome and having a blast that way. We're kind of here in Kansas City for a while. Yeah, Darren, you have to stay in that hole you guys call home. Should we start a GoFundMe for you guys? Oh, that'd be great, because we're not getting paid for this daycare thing. Yeah.

You guys are getting ripped off. We are working for free. We are babysitting and cleaning houses that you guys move in and out of. That's not the way we envisioned our retirement. Wow. Spoiled kids. Wow. But here's the deal.

This weekend, Sherry said, you know, we ought to put the house back on the market and try to sell it. So I put it on Zillow this weekend. Oh, you did? Just on Zillow. Wow. Yeah. So we'll see what happens. Okay. All right. Do you want to shout out an address? Don't, Daryl. Just go on Zillow and put in DP. Search DP. You know, just open your internet browser

and search DP. See what happens. They'll find me. DP, Missouri. So those are the three of us who've had a lot of changes in the last, like, it's been seven or eight months since I was on. Yeah. And pretty big changes. And we're all... Just killing the game.

We're killing the game. Ch-ch-ch-changes. All right. Ooh. I'll find a friend that changes. Hey, I'm going to recommend you cut what you just did. If you can. Yeah, no recommendations from you, sir.

Oh. All right, should we get to the business? Let's get to the business. Okay, so we let the people vote. Spoiled kids, bad dads, bad dads won. I initially thought about doing a case that could encompass both. Okay. But it's too big of a case and i chickened out so i almost did the menendez brothers because is it a bad dad are they spoiled kids is a

little bit of both who knows i'll let you find that out on your own when the kids kill the dead i think i think the kids win the bad record but if he was molesting them oh is that what happened that's what they claimed it's been too long That's what they claimed. It's been too long. That's what they claimed. Claimed. Okay. Okay. Well, it could be. Who knows?

Anyway, that's not what I'm talking about at all today. What I'm talking to you about today, if I can say words, is a true story about one bad dad. Kristen, I felt like you might know this story, but, well, you do now because we've already covered it one time. I was going to say, you told it to me like two days ago. Three days ago? Okay, just right off the top, most of this comes from this awesome article.

Fudge buckets. I'm having trouble with my words today. Should we tell them what happened earlier? We'd been sitting around talking for like half an hour. Yeah. I said one semester of law school, brady said one semester of criminal justice it was terrible okay most of this comes from an article by elizabeth angstrom for the crime library let's get going mary jane baker was 24 when she caught the eye of 17 year

old christian longo love it what could go? Yeah. Kristen loves the age gaps. Loves the age gaps. It still bothers you even though it's the girl who's older? Of course. Of course. You think she's taking advantage of him? She's anti-cougar all the way. She's very anti-cougar. In fact, wait a minute Brandy.

Aren't you dating a 17 year old? Oh! No? No. No. Okay. Here's the thing. At that age,

24 to 17, that's too big a life difference. I feel like that is 17. You haven't gone to prom yet. 24. You might, I mean, you might be out of college by that point.

That's a huge life gap. Whereas, you know, if you're both in your forties, you're both in your 50s, that's not a huge life gap. Well, yeah, like think about like 27 to 34. That would be... Would that still bother you? No, because that's

you and David, and that's really sweet. Okay. Let's calm down. It is not. Hey, but what if he had gone to junior prom? You said he hadn't been to prom yet. Is it all about him going to prom? It's all about him going to prom. Yeah. No, this is gross.

I don't like it. Okay. All right. Well, let's see what happens. He's the bad one. Wait a minute. Let me just ask. Brandy, is this going to be one of those deals where somebody gets killed?

Obviously. Brandy, they don't all have to be murderers. Let's be real here for a second. You said let's do an episode about bad dads. Of course I'm going to do an episode where the dad murders the whole family. Spoiler alert. Oh, spoiler. Not really.

This is in Brandy's blood. She can't help herself. I cannot help it. A challenge for her would be do a lighthearted case where no one gets hurt. What kind of bad dad would that be? Like, oh, dad left his kid's favorite stuffed animal at the airport. What about attempted murder? You could have an attempted murder so somebody wouldn't have to die.

Go ahead, Brandi. Mary Jane and Christian were members of a close-knit community of Jehovah's Witnesses in Ypsilanti, Michigan. I don't know a ton about Jehovah's Witnesses. I'm looking at you, Daryl, because you're kind of our resident religion expert. Absolutely, absolutely. Kristen is aware of this. Brandi, I took two theology classes, postgraduate theology classes. Wait, do you have one semester of theology? Well, I have six hours of theology. Excellent.

It's about one semester. Here's the funny thing. I had this dream that I was actually going to quit my corporate job and go be a pastor. Can you imagine someone who acts like Larry David being a pastor? You know, Sheree Ray basically talked me out of this because it was a terrible idea. Would have been a great reality TV show. Would have been.

You could have done it. You know, I'm a little light on the compassion. And so it was really good that Sherry backed me off of that. That crusade? So anyway, so I know squat about the Jehovah's Witnesses. Oh. No, seriously. They're the ones who come around and they hand out the literature. Yeah, the Watchtower pamphlets. They're a denomination of Christianity.

That's what I didn't know. I didn't know if it was a Christian faith. Within Christianity. Now, here's the thing about Christians. All Christians have kind of some strange beliefs, really, if you think about it. Because Christians believe that God put the Jesus fetus in Mary. Jesus fetus. That is a very graphic way to put it.

Well, she's a virgin, and so you've got to put the Jesus fetus in there. I know the story of the Bible. Brandi knows the basics. I knew the basics. So we've all got some kind of different beliefs, and the Jehovah's Witnesses, they're good folks. They believe good stuff. Brandi, are these going to be good folks? I already told you that he murdered his whole family.

Well, but, you know, he can be forgiven. I hope. Jehovah's Witnesses turns out not real big on forgiveness, but we'll get to that later. So, like I said, I don't know a lot about the Jehovah's Witnesses. I know that they don't celebrate holidays and they do what you talked about. They go door to door, hand out literature, spread the good word. And this particular group, I think Jehovah's Witnesses as a whole, but I don't, I don't claim to be an expert on that. We're super conservative. And so it was a big deal to date at all inside this community. But Christian and Mary Jane were quite smitten

with each other, despite the age gap, all of it. And when Christian turned 18, he told his parents he was very interested in courting Mary Jane. And they told him, no, you're too young. They, okay, the way it's phrased in this article is like they told him he was too young to date at all. But I'm guessing if he was like, I want to date a fellow 18 year old, they probably would have said something different. OK. Don't you imagine? I mean, maybe. I hope so.

Yeah. The cougar aspect bothered them just as much as it bothers Kristen. Yeah. So he but he was not going to be dissuaded. He was like, this is this is it for me. I'm into her. She's into me. So he moved out of his house, set out out on his own got a job at a camera

store and started dating Mary Jane Mary Jane had lived a super sheltered life she was super sweet and upstanding and a devoutly religious woman she was sure of her purpose in life from a very young age she was sure that she was meant to be a wife and a mother. She wanted that picture-perfect home and family. She wanted to marry a religious man and dote on him, be the ideal Christian wife and mother. You know, that's a positive spin, but my thought here is that she wanted a young guy that she could mold in her the way she wanted her husband to be. And it's just... Okay, my more charitable view, I'm wondering if you're in this relatively small religious community,

you want to marry within that religious community. Slim Pickens? That's what I'm wondering. He may have been the best one going. Well, and by all accounts, he's super attractive, super charming. I know the type. I know the type.

Did you just raise your hand? When you said super attractive, super charming. I know the type. I know the type. Did you just raise your hand? When you said super attractive, I raised my hand. You know, it's a good thing this isn't on YouTube. Well, I guess the audio is on YouTube. It's a good thing that the video is not on YouTube because picture me as a really good-looking guy. Yeah. You want to compare yourself to someone? Who is that guy? We talked about a guy larry david

oh no that's i was thinking uh matthew mcconaughey oh oh yeah oh bradley cooper bradley cooper so we talked about the last episode you were on he was gonna play me in my life story uh-huh bradley cooper that's the one thank you thank you brandy i appreciate that absolutely so brandy says i look like bradley cooper is that what i said Life story. Bradley Cooper. That's the one. Thank you. Thank you, Brandi. I appreciate that. So Brandi says I look like Bradley Cooper. Is that what I said? Kristen, who do you think I look like? Okay, it's interesting.

I did look at some of the questions people asked. This is one of the questions. One of the questions was who would play you in a movie? And I have always thought, and Kyla thinks this too. Brandi. Yes. Do you remember it was one of the guys in titanic not the captain of the ship with the beard but the guy with the kind of dark obviously oh yeah yeah he at the time looked i don't remember what his name is i know who you're talking he does look like me a little

bit yeah yeah now let me tell you there i've been mistaken for two famous people in my life. And this is when I didn't actually hear it. Larry Bird and Sheila Neal. No, no. I have been mistaken for Art Garfunkel. Oh, I could absolutely see that. Hold on, I'm looking him up. Art Garfunkel.

Well, you've heard of Simon and Garfunkel. Yeah. He's the much, much less famous of the two. And then. Oh, gosh. That's not a compliment. That's not a compliment. That's not a compliment.

Hey, I'm not a good-looking guy, Kirsten. And the other one is John McEnroe. Oh, I could also see that. Yeah, look up John McEnroe. He's a tennis player. I know. Okay. So Sherry and I were in a mall one time.

I can see that. That's a sport with a ball and a racket. We're in this mall like 30 years ago, and Sherry hears somebody talking and saying, I think that's Art Garfunkel here in the Bannister Mall in Kansas City. Yeah, right. Well, he had fallen on some hard times, so it was possible. And I don't remember where the McEnroe thing came from. Were you yelling at somebody?

Were you throwing tennis rackets? You're an idiot. And then a lady I worked with at Hallmark one time said, I was like, who's the Full House dad? Bob Saget? Bob Saget. Said I looked like Bob Saget. I think Bob Saget's got a big nose.

Oh, he does have a big nose. But that's it. And I don't have a big nose. That's what's amazing. Yeah. Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah. Brandi, I'm going to keep a head-on look so you can't see my profile.

Yeah, because you can't see the toucan if he stares right at you. Oh, toucan. Oh, burn. I got mom's nose. Oh, I'm so proud of you. What did Kyla get? Kyla got yours. Oh, don't laugh.

Kyla wins the lottery. Kyla wins the lottery. All right, back to my story here. Oh, sorry. So Mary Jane was working as a secretary when she met Christian, and almost immediately the two hit it off. They were smitten with each other. As a devout follower of Jehovah, Mary Jane didane did her duty and every wednesday went door to door

spreading the good word when she said she did her duty i thought it was wifely duty i thought you know sexy times i'm sorry that's what i thought i'm not even married yet first of all that would be he's not even out of high school oh he now, Kristen. Well, congrats to him. And Christian, in an effort to be able to just spend more time with her, started joining her on her Wednesday routes. And she saw this as proof that he was the Christian man of her dreams. But really, he just wanted to be with her. He was not a devout Jehovah's Witness like she was. And if she would have maybe been like less in a love cloud, she might have noticed that there were things going on that she shouldn't have turned a blind eye to. Like the fact that he was caught stealing from his employer while they were dating.

And that did not sit well with the church elders, obviously. They were like, shame on you. You brought shame upon our good name and whatever. And so by this time, Chris and Mary Jane had decided to marry, and the church refused to let them marry in the church. Because he stole something? Because he stole from his employer. Wow.

I told you, Jehovah's Witnesses are not real big on forgiveness. They are. Yeah, that's a strict deal it is it is and mary jane's parents refused to give their blessing to the marriage but as i mentioned christian super charismatic super charming she went she he went and sat down with mary jane's parents and by the time that they left they had given their blessing and the two were married in 1993 in the high school auditorium, since they couldn't have the church. That sounds sad.

Chris had the hookup, right? Because he was still in high school. Yes! They got married at the senior prom. At the senior prom. It was March of 1993. Scott! By 1996,

Mary Jane was pregnant with their first child. They welcomed their first son, a boy named Zachary, in February of 1997. And then very quickly added a daughter

to the family. Fourteen months later, they named her Sadie. At that point, Mary Jane quit her secretary job to become a full-time wife and mother. It was her dream life. It was what she'd always wanted. And 18 months after that, in October 1999, they added a third child, another little girl that they named

Madison. Mary Jane was living her dream. She was building a home and a family and taking care of her husband. And they had all the things they needed. Nice clothes, a nice place to live. Christian kind of just like worked intermittently at different places. But he always brought home money. There was always food on the table. Mary Jane didn't ask a lot of questions about where it came from. Oh, I'm suspicious. Oh, are you? Yeah. And not because he just heard this

story three days ago. I'm just suspicious. This sounds like a little bit of a loser who's always has cash on hand. Yeah. He's selling drugs or something. No, he's just like pilfering money from anywhere he can. He's stealing money from every employer he's ever had. He steals items and sells them, ponds them, whatever. Any way to bring home cash, he'll do it. He has no problem with any of that. Your tax bill is a lot lower when you steal stuff, too. Absolutely.

Well, to him, it was his duty to provide and provide well for his family it didn't really matter how he did it and he was like the king of justifying things to himself like sure this is how i have to do it now to get by but everything's gonna turn around and then i'll pay back everybody that i've stolen from and everything's gonna be fine Because he was taking meticulous notes on all this stuff, right? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, sure. Yeah. By January of 2000, things are starting to pile on Christian pretty bad. The baby by that time was a couple months old, and Christian was out of a job. Unclear to me if he was fired for stealing, but he was always getting a new job.

So he was like, you know, you know, nobody wants to keep me on as an employee, so I might as well just start my own company. So he starts his own company, Final Touch Construction Cleaning, which actually I think this is a great idea for business. It was a cleanup company that would take a newly constructed building or home or whatever and do all of the final cleanup before it was turned over to the new owners. And at that time, it was kind of a booming business like the there was lots of things, lots of development growing on going on in the Michigan area where they were living. And so the company did pretty well, but it required a lot of labor. And so he

had to hire a lot of employees. And soon his payroll was out of control and he was not great with money if you can imagine that and he was bouncing payroll checks he was not having a great time and he just really felt like Mary Jane deserved a new car. These were the things that were important to him. That's the first thing that pops into my mind when you've got no money. Yeah. I think now's theivan for a test drive and never came back. I actually think this is not a bad plan.

He went far enough away from home that he wouldn't be recognized. He gave them a fake ID under a fake name and, yeah, drove the car back home. Brandi, there's a lot you're admiring here. You like his business idea. No, no, no, no, no. You like his plan for getting new cars. No, no, no. Brandi, can we see the license and registration on your car?

That is mine and it's paid for. Thank you very much. Oh, sorry to... She said that in such a charming way. the car i'm wondering and it's paid for thank you very much oh sorry dad yeah but you're she said that in such a charming way you're really convinced aren't you kristen kristen i'm with you on this brandy is really admiring this christian guy i'm not admiring christian one bit just for his financial skills no and when uh when he showed up at his ipsilanti home with a brand new minivan and promptly took the license plate off of their old crappy car and put it on, Mary Jane didn't ask any questions. She was just pleased as punch to have a brand new minivan. I'm guessing he kept the old car so it wouldn't get re-registered.

Oh, this guy. He's thought this through a little bit. Daddy's won you over, too. But things were getting out of control. He was bouncing checks. He was forging checks on customers' accounts. It was not long before all of this caught up to him. And at the same time, he had an extramarital affair, which very frowned upon, I think, just, you know, in society, but also with the Jehovah's Witnesses.

We're going back to that cheaters episode, aren't we? Yeah. Yeah. At some point, he manages to try, like, get a line of credit. I believe he took it out in his father's name, forged a document saying either that he was his father or that he had his father's permission. Took out a line of credit of, like, $100,000 and kind of, like, caught up some of the things that were piling up. Good grief. Yeah. I mean, I think it's nuts that he managed to even get that line of credit. I mean, it speaks a little bit to how charming he was and how I really do not mean to keep compliments. Wait a minute, I got a question on this.

Did his dad know that he had given him the line of credit or is that a stolen line? No, no, no, yeah. He stole his dad's identity. It's June of 2000 now and Christian is just drowning in debt. And to try and keep up with it, he knows. So he's been forging these checks on his customer's accounts, and he knows that that's going to catch up to him. So he makes one last-ditch effort to get as much as he can out of them. His biggest customer was this um company

called wexford builders and he forged like five checks from them totaling over thirty thousand dollars and they called the police and we christian was actually in the act of trying to cash one of these checks when it was like flagged at the bank and the police showed up and arrested him but cool calm and collected christian had a perfectly reasonable explanation this was just money that was owed to him he had sent this customer of his wexford builders multiple invoices and they were just taking too long to pay him this was money that was owed to him this is the definition of white privileges i don't know anything about this guy but i know he's white because only a white guy and you're gonna tell us he got out of this somehow uh he

yeah got out of it with way way less less than I can believe. Yeah. Yeah. So he he was arrested and Mary Jane came and picked him up from the police department. And by all accounts, like, wasn't that surprised that he'd been arrested? But, you know, whatever. And so he went to court for this and he pled guilty and admitted to everything that he'd done. But he had no priors. guilty and admitted to everything that he'd done, but he had no priors. And so he got off with three years of probation, some community service and a small amount of restitution. Unreal. For over $30,000. How do you, how do you get small restitution? I mean,

if you see the 30, you got to start with paying back 30, right? I don't know. I know. Not always. Wow. Because I think they kind of go for like what they think is actually like, you know, realistic. Yeah, what you can get out of that person. Yeah. But the biggest punishment was yet to come. Remember what I said about the Jehovah's Witnesses? They're not big on forgiveness. Mm-hmm.

Christian was disfellowshipped from the kingdom hall of Jehovah's Witnesses. So this is the Jehovah's Witnesses version of shunning. He was completely disowned by the church and its members. According to the Jehovah's Witnesses, shunning is like an act of love. It is intended to like an act of love. It is intended to inspire a change in a person, bring them back to the way of right living, to, you know,

get right with the Lord again. With the Lord. With the Lord. Get right with the Lord. Well, here's the other thing it does. If it doesn't take, they're gone. Yeah, exactly.

So we don't have to deal with them anymore. It's occurring to me now, though, they's the other thing it does. If it doesn't take, they're gone. So we don't have to deal with them anymore. It's occurring to me now, though. They're the only ones who had this guy figured out. Oh, yeah. That's amazing to me. His wife didn't figure it out. Yeah.

Well, they could be more objective. Do you think she didn't figure it out? I think she knew to some degree what he was up to. I bet she knew to some degree, but I think it's got to be really hard when you are completely reliant on that yeah yeah yeah you're a stay-at-home mom yeah you're deeply religious you you know i imagine divorce was not an option for her yeah oof i wonder what her parents thought i wonder if they were kind of in tune saying come on honey come back home we'll take care of the grandkids we'll do nana, come back home. We'll take care of the grandkids. We'll do Nana and Papa daycare

here, and we'll take care of everything. And I think to some degree they were, but Mary Jane was, you know, a big fan of that country, that old country standard. Stand by your man. You gonna sing that for us? No. I am not. Kristen?

Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. So they were completely alienated from everyone they knew. Christian's own family would not speak to him. Wow. That's pretty harsh. All of his employees at his business were members of the church, and so they all left. He lost everything.

All that he had left was a shit ton of debt, his wife, his three kids, and they did own a home in Ypsilanti so they decided it was time for a new beginning they sold that home and jumped his probation and left town they moved into a warehouse in Toledo Ohio with about with about $8,000 in their pocket. It was like the profit they made off of the house sale. In addition to that $8,000, they had, they, I said they, Christian had managed to lift some heavy equipment along the way. He had a construction trailer, a forklift, a boat and trailer, and then the Pontiac minivan. Those were all of their belongings.

They moved it into this warehouse and he set up a little shop to sell his stolen wares. Kind of eBay center. The warehouse was $1,600 a month in rent and he had eight thousand dollars and five mouths to feed and so you can imagine he went through that pretty quickly so he was like i gotta offload this equipment real quick but it backfired on him because one of one of the stolen items is a forklift as i mentioned and it was valued at like thirty two thousand dollars and he's trying to sell it to this guy for $5,000. And the guy's like, hmm, this seems too good to be true. And so this guy calls the police.

And so the police, in August of 2001, show up at the warehouse. And they get the serial numbers off of all of the equipment that's in the warehouse. And failed to notice that all of their belongings had been packed up into the van and that the whole family was sitting in the van like ready to jump on out of there. But the initial search of the serial numbers came back fine.

Nothing had been reported stolen. Stolen? Oh my Lord. Oh my Lord. Well, if he would have like asked a reasonably higher price, like $25,000. I know. Although I assume with that, it's like you have to have a title.

I think he was so desperate for money that, yeah. I got a first idiot that walks in here with $5,000. $5,000. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But that does send off red flags. Oh, yeah.

So the police officer's like, well know don't leave town i'm gonna be checking up on this well as soon as he pulls out of the parking lot they're off for the for the west coast as far as they can go and all of the stuff came back stolen like a couple days later it just had not been reported stolen yet and so they show back up at the warehouse the police do and it's empty man they had the equipment is there they left all the stolen equipment behind but the longos are nowhere to be found have they caught up with him on this stolen vehicle yet no nobody's checking the vehicle driving the stolen minivan you know the police when they show up and something seems sketchy check the uh numbers on that van, too.

That should have happened. Yeah, it didn't. So they head west. They stop off for a few days in South Dakota. They ditch a rental truck that they'd stolen along the way somewhere. And then they keep heading west and they end up in somewhere in Oregon. I couldn't begin to pronounce this town. Portland.

No. It's either Yacats or Yachats. Yacats? I'm not sure. I like Yacats. Yacats. And they end up there in September of 2001. But, you guys, the Longos weren't running away.

That's not how Christian saw this at all. He was giving his family a fresh start. It's a relocation deal. It's not running away. It's relocation. Yeah. And remember I said, you know, he's the king of justifying things to himself. He's going to pay all of that stuff back.

Of course. He just needs a little time, a little breathing room to get it figured out. And a ton of cash. I've got the pronunciation. Oh, what is it? Yachats. What? Bullshit! Yachats!

Okay, so in case the mic didn't pick that up, Norman just jumped in with the correct pronunciation. It's Yachats. I think he he was complimenting you, Chris. Yeah, no, it was me. It was me. People are always saying to me, y'hats. And I said, I know.

I know. So they land at this like weekly vacation rental place in oregon it's like little little houses but it's like 300 a week for these houses and he tells some sob story about how they're just getting started and now he's waiting for his paycheck to come through on his new job and blah and so they like give him a little bit of time to pay and of course he he pays for a couple weeks because he had a little bit of cash because he had pawned mary jane's wedding ring by this point yeah um but the money runs out super quick and all of a sudden they find themselves in a 22 a night motel oh and this that's a good price what was the hourly rate on that. So this is it for Christian.

He has had enough. His family deserves better than this. They're not going to stay in some roachy motel and eat noodles for dinner every night. No. He has got to find a solution. Now, what a lot of people would do under these circumstances, they would, you know. Get a job. Get a job. You know, kind would do under these circumstances. They would, you know. Get a job. Get a job.

You know, kind of do some soul searching. Figure out what led them to this place. Introspection. Nope. Nope. That's not what Christian did. Christian came up with a solution. And it was fake it till you make it.

He found this luxury apartment building that he wanted his family to live in if they could just live there everything would fall into place and so he did finally get a job at starbucks making twelve hundred dollars a month and then he negotiated the rent down at the fancy new apartment to twelve hundred dollars a month That's all you need. All the other living expenses there might be. It sounds like a 13-year-old is being an adult

for a first time. Yeah, he's like, oh great, $1,200, $1,200. Everything will work out perfectly. Wait a minute, he's going to steal another $1,200. Oh, easy, right? Portion checks.

I actually think that maybe he thought he was so charming he'd be able to make that in tips. Oh. I mean, I'm not a coffee i mean do i don't i'm not a coffee drinker so i don't even know what starbucks how it works so you throw it into a can but then you got to share it with all the other baristas yeah but you know he wasn't sharing

oh yeah he says i got the tips yeah you know he was like oh guys low take today 12 bucks everybody gets 37 cents sorry so seriously he he yeah he had in his mind i'm working retail there's a lot of people probably paying cash oh yeah i can tips i'm gonna steal that stuff he had to figure it out yeah but it wasn't long before it all would just catch up with him again. It's like December of 2001. By this point, one night, Christian came home from work. He'd just gotten paid two days before and they were already out of money. He opened the fridge, try and make himself something for dinner. Not a bit of food in the house. He thought, this isn't, this isn't what I wanted. This isn't what my family deserves. That was December 14th. On December 18th, a employee at that motel where the Longos had lived for a while, found some belongings that, like personal belongings

of the Longos in a dumpster on the property. Found baby books, family photos, clothing. And so Christian had left some kind of forwarding address or they knew that he had worked at the Starbucks there in town. And so they called and left a message at Starbucks for him saying, you know, we found a bunch of your stuff. You guys must have left it behind. I don't really know. It made it out to the trash. We'll move it into the office for you guys, you know, come and get it whenever. Christian never picked up the belongings. On December 19th, Christian told his co-workers that On December 19th, Christian told his co-workers that Mary Jane had been having an affair.

It had been going on for three years and that she had taken the kids and moved back to Michigan. She was going to make a life. I'm not remembering this part of the story. I didn't realize he told this bullshit. She was going to make a life with that person. Uh-huh. His wife and his kids were gone. He was devastated, wasn't he? They wouldn't be back.

No. How could he be so certain? Well, she's got the boyfriend, Kristen. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That same day, a Dodge Durango was discovered missing from a dealership in Portland, Oregon. Left in its place... Oh, that minivan.

...was a red Pontiac minivan. No! You know, why'd he dump it? They hadn't caught up with him with that thing. On December 19th, the body of a boy, suspected to be around four years of age, floated up in the lint slough.

This is apparently some kind of estuary off of a river in the area. I've never heard of a slough, but it sounds like a really weird name for a body of water. But like, if this is an area, there was like a bridge and then this body of water and this body of a four-year-old boy floated to the surface on December 19, 2001. Three days later, divers found the body of a younger girl. Further down in the same water, she had been weighted down by a pillowcase full of rocks that had been tied around her ankle.

Right next to her, they found another pillowcase with a rope attached. They believed that it had been tied to the boy's ankle. Also in the water was a sleeping bag full of rocks. After the second body was found, police distributed posters with pictures of what the children would have looked like when they were alive. And almost immediately, a babysitter, who had often babysat for the Longos recognized the children. They were Zachary and Sadie, the Longos' four-year-old son and three-year-old daughter. This babysitter went to the morgue, identified the bodies,

and an autopsy would later note that the cause of death was drowning. The kids had been weighted down with pillowcases, put inside a sleeping bag full of rocks and thrown over the bridge while they were still alive. See, up till now, you just knew he was a bad guy. And now you think this is a sick son of a bitch right here. Absolutely. He went from, you know, loser to sick son of a bitch yeah so the police go to the longos apartment building and the apartment's completely empty of course the police wanted to speak to the parents but they were nowhere to be found and where was the baby there was another

child of the longos missing. The youngest would have been 18 months, two years old, something like that at this point. So divers continued searching the water in that same area. And further down river, actually in a bay, the Yaquina Bay near, actually really close to where the Longos apartment was, they found two green suitcases in the water. And when they pulled them out inside, one was the body of Mary Jane Longo. And in the other was the body of Madison, the baby.

They had both been strangled. This left only Christian unaccounted for. And boy, did the police want to track him down. So they were able to track him to San Francisco, where he'd spent a couple of days. Just long enough, in fact, to apply for a job at Starbucks there. And on that application, he listed the Starbucks back in Oregon as a reference. Good Lord.

Yeah. So by the time they tracked him to San Francisco, though, it was too late. The same day Mary Jane and Madison's bodies were pulled from the water, Christian Longo boarded a flight for Cancun, Mexico. The stolen SUV was found in the airport parking lot. He's leaving a trail, isn't he? Oh, yeah. Because he thinks he's smarter than everyone. I truly believe that he just thinks he's smarter than everyone.

How can you? I mean, but that thing with the Starbucks. That is just dumb. That is crazy dumb. Yeah. Well, he was having trouble getting a job and he thinks, the Starbucks. It's just dumb. That is crazy dumb. Yeah. Well, he was having trouble getting a job and he thinks, I gotta. I need a reference. I need the reference from where I stole from all those people.

Good grief. I think it goes to show that how much smarter he really believes he is in everybody. Because when he got to Mexico, he didn't really make any attempt to blend in. He did go to a tourist area. Right. Mexico he didn't really make any attempt to blend in he did go to a tourist area right like so because he's blonde haired like American right white privileged yes yeah you're not going to Chihuahua Mexico he did not he went to Cancun he went to a tourist area um but he didn't alter his appearance at all he went by his own name for most of the time occasionally he went by the name michael

longo which is just his middle and last name he dropped the first name um but he kind of talked to anyone like he stayed at a hostel for a while and he talked to this canadian woman and she thought he was sketchy from the beginning. She thought there was something off about him. And she caught him introducing himself by multiple names to different people. She heard him introduce himself as Mike. She heard him introduce himself as Brad. And she was like, I don't know, something's up with this guy. So she remembered him. She made a point to remember him. But he told everybody of his plans. He was hanging out in cancun for a couple days and then he was headed south to tulum to check out the ruins and he did just that on january 7th he headed to tulum right after the hostile guests noticed all their money was missing

so he sets up in uh in tulum meanwhile back in the united states he's been charged with seven counts of first degree murder um because the murder of the children each carry two counts because they're under a certain age so he at some point takes on a new identity he starts going by finally finally yeah it's really interesting this is the part that i initially had thought you might know about christian kristin oh my lord what's going on with you his name is christian your name is kristin i know that you're my long-term friend sometimes she forgets i don't so this is the part that initially i thought you would know about about only because it involves a journalist who was. Who became famous for being discredited. Which I had two guesses and they were both wrong.

So at some point he takes on the persona of this journalist from The New York Times named Michael Finkel. He carried around a notebook. He told people he was on assignment from the New York Times doing a travel piece on the ruins. He took notes and he told everyone who he was. Later, and we'll go into this more later, I'll tell you more about Michael Finkel later, but he was fired from the New York Times around while all of this was going on for unrelated reasons, because he wrote a story that there were real problems with. So we'll talk more about that later. But he like hooked up with this German photographer and they decided they were going to work together and like do a relationship and travel the world.

He's like banging this German photographer. He's smoking pot on the beach. He's drinking every night. He's living in a cabana. He is just having the time of his life. Is this photographer paying for all this? No. Christian's got money he stole from the... He's got the stone in the hostel.

He's probably telling people at this every resort, like, I'll write about this in my story for the New York Times. Give me drinks. It works. It works. I bet it does work. I had someone I worked with.

So that was the theory that I told you on Wednesday. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was just telling people, I'll write a great story. Yes. And they gave him stuff. Absolutely. So he's living his best life. Everybody thinks that he and this, and maybe they were, and she thought they were, they

thought this was like a very serious relationship. They were in love. They were making plans to travel the world together after he was finished with this ruined story. Whatever. Then back in the United States, on January 11th christian longo was added to the fbi's 10 most wanted list and you know what brought him down america's most wanted yes they aired his picture his story um the very next day so january 12th, his pictures all over America's Most Wanted.

And this is what John Walsh said about him. Do the John Walsh voice. I can't do his voice. I don't do voices like you, Kristen. Thank you for pointing out my shortcomings. Numerous flaws. Okay, Brandi, you say the line and Kristen, you say the John Walsh.

I can't really do a good John Walsh. Yeah, I don't know. This is what he said though. He said, he's very, very He said he's very, very charming. He's very, very charming. He's very, very smart. He's very calculating. And he's

really, really good at disappearing. Brandy, you put you in a trench coat and say that? I think that's pretty good. Thank you. And you say it while you're walking down a dark alley? See, I wasn't a fan of this show, so I'm not cluing in here. No, what you do for the John Walsh thing, you do your lines of dialogue.

Yeah. You're walking. You're moving the whole time. Yeah. And at the very end, you get close to the camera and you stop. That's exactly what you do. That is exactly what you do. That is exactly what you do. That's perfect. Does he call people like scumbags and stuff?

No, no, no. He's not Nancy Grace. Oh. We're not big fans of Nancy on this show. Well, hey, I got to correct something from the last time I was on. I said Dr. Phil was good because he was good on the one show. Brandy, are you going gonna be okay dr phil kind of sucks brandy i love dr oh brandy i started trying to watch some because i had

had really tuned in on that last case i can't watch it do you know that he had the freaking family from abducted in plain sight on there before that was ever a thing. Daryl Pitts is not impressed. I am not impressed. That blew my mind. Well, he obviously gets some good guests because he had that lady from my last case, and I was fascinated to see she and the ex-wife and everything on there together.

But I tried to watch about three or four more episodes of it. Oh, it just seemed like trash you know what I feel like they do here's my one beef with Dr. Phil too many freaking commercials

that thing goes to commercial every three minutes I swear I hope you're taping it so you don't have to watch the commercials oh I'm sorry my VCR is in the shop

what about your DVD player Brandi go I want you to roll your windows up What about your DVD player? Brandi, I want you to roll your windows up. I want you to pop your 8-track tape player in your car. VCRs in this. Kristen, don't laugh. That wasn't funny.

She's making fun of me, Kristen. Kristen, you jump in here and defend me, too. I don't want to be the only one defending myself time okay so back to christian longo remember that canadian woman that was like something's up with this guy i'm gonna remember everything about michael brad chris she sees the episode of america's most wanted and she recognizes him and calls up the FBI. And she's like that dude is in Mexico and he's up to no good. He's Mexico's Most Wanted now. Yeah. And so

they send a bunch of agents on, you know, surveillance down there and like they surround his cabana. There's like 20 Mexican federales, a bunch of FBI agents, and they storm in. He's got all these people in his cabana. They're passing back and forth a joint, and all of a sudden they get raided.

And so I swear, like, Christian, like, flicks his joint off into the thing. He thinks it's a drug raid. Is this on TV because America's Most Wanted? No, this is a reenactment you're doing. No. Yes, I'm doing is a reenactment you're doing. No. Yes, I'm doing a dramatic reenactment. I wish you guys could see this reenactment. She is smoking the joint.

She's flicking the joint. She flicked it toward my closet. Brandy is, in fact, it was so real I thought it was him. Yeah. So everybody hits the deck. Christian is sure that this is a drug raid. Everybody, so everybody hits the deck. Christian is sure that this is a drug raid. And then one of the FBI agent comes up to him and is like, are you Christian Michael Longo?

And in classic Christian style, super calm, super collected, he says, yes, I am. And he. Wait, he thought that all of these agents surrounded his cabana for a couple of joints? I don't know. Maybe he was selling drugs there, or maybe the people he was with were selling drugs there. Maybe there was more than one joint in the place.

Maybe there was another murderer in the cabana. Maybe there was a murderer in there. Maybe he didn't kill his kids and his wife. Oh, that must be it. That must be it. So it's January 14th when he is arrested. He's taken into custody

and they ask him if he wants to fight extradition and spend a few months in Mexican jail or if he'd like to head on back to Oregon without fighting it. And he's like, I'll go back to the United States.

Please, thank you. This would later become an issue. He would actually be able to appeal on this because he says that he was not told that oregon had the death penalty at that time and that had he known that he may have fought extradition oh yeah right yeah okay should that be a thing he should be able to appeal on i mean i think my thing is more like that's just bullshit he would not have fought no he wouldn't have been like actually i'd like to stay in this mexican prison for a while thank you but yeah technically if i'm not being clouded by how much I hate this guy, then yeah, you should know, okay, you can go to this other place, but they have the death penalty. Yeah.

So, January 23rd, 2003, which happens to be, which I can't imagine that's correct. I'm questioning that date. Who wrote this bullshit, Brandon? I'm questioning that date. Who wrote this bullshit, Brandon? According to my notes here, on January 28, 2003, which was his 28th birthday, which I made a point of this because I love poetic justice, he was indicted on seven counts of aggravated murder. But his trial began in March of 2003, so surely that can't be correct. So he was indicted in January. His trial began in March of 2003, so surely that can't be correct. So he was indicted in January.

His trial began in March. Yeah, that seems really fast. It does seem really fast. I don't know. I'm not going to question my knowledge at all. Okay. He wasn't going to get F. Lee Bailey. He was getting a public defender, so they made sure he got him. Oh, yeah.

He got a public defender, and his public defenders were none too pleased to have to be representing him they did not even present an opening statement they said yeah we're ready let's go yeah when his trial began in march first of all his defense is fucking bananas hold on to your pants while i tell you what his claims are but yeah when the trial began, his defense team did not even issue an opening statement. Okay. That's... Yeah. That's grounds for appeal on, you know... Yeah. Ineffective counsel. Yeah. That really

does surprise me that they didn't do an opening statement. Yeah. Are you ready for Christian's official defense? Yeah. Did his legal team come up with this or was this his idea? No, this is what really happened. Oh, this is what he's telling what happened.

It was Mary Jane, not Christian, who had the breakdown. Mary Jane had killed the two older children by throwing them off the bridge. Then she tried to smother the baby, but she couldn't off the bridge. Then she tried to smother the baby. But she couldn't complete the job. And then in a fit of rage. Christian murdered his wife.

And then had no choice but to complete the killing of the baby. No. This is the same thing that the guy claimed who stuffed his kids in the oil tankers? Yeah. You guys did a case like this? Yeah, Chris Watts. Chris Watts had a very similar defense.

The wife had killed the children, and so he killed her in a rage. Which just infuriates me so much. Oh, yeah, it sullies the reputation of the innocent victim. Absolutely. It's bad enough that these children are dead it's bad enough that this woman is dead and then you you try to act like she was the murderer yeah that's terrible so in a shocking move

christian pled guilty to the murder of his wife and youngest daughter and pled not guilty to the murders of the two older children because she had killed because she had killed them that's ridiculous yeah her poor parents oh disgusting uh the prosecution of course was like uh bull fucking shit that's not what happened at all. He murdered his entire family so that he could go live the life up somewhere else, unburdened, uninhibited. Brandi, I've got to interrupt here.

You don't think the prosecutor said bullfucking shit? Yeah, I don't think so. And I think, remember, we had an agreement. We had a renewed commitment. I'm not giving you a renewed commitment. Bull sexy time shit. There you go. There you go.

Yeah, DP, despite being nicknamed DP, is a little sensitive about the F word. You know, it just wasn't my, I guess it's my generation. You guys throw it around a lot, the younger generation. Guys my age. We weren't raised well. Guys my age, we just don't drop it yeah don't drop it yeah you call it dropping the f-bomb which is like the that is cool isn't that the coolest way to say it now so the renewed commitment i did recognize that you did say sexy times in the place of the f-word during episode. But since that time,

you've gone right back to it. And you're F-bombing right and left. And there's no excuse for it because I had a renewed commitment that you would never say the F word again. Is this my punishment? That's right. In the episode that didn't really record,

we talked about the ways that we were punished as children. And the way you punished me and Kyla was just talking us to death. Yes. And I can do it, too. You don't have to tell me. We would talk about what an appropriate punishment was for whatever they had done. They would always shoot low.

And I would shoot high. And then we would negotiate. I'm on top of her chair right now. And I did really. I think part of the punishment was, because we weren't corporal punishment parents. We were timeout parents and talk them to death parents. Yeah, which people are always like, oh, that must have been so nice. No, it wasn't.

It was not nice. It was torture. It was meant to be painful. You talked to this man for half an hour. It was meant to be painful. You talked to this man for half an hour. So the prosecution is like, bull sexy time shit. This dude murdered his entire family.

How dare you besmirch poor Mary Jane's name. Right. And they were able to present a witness, a man who was driving at like 4 30 a.m on that lint slough bridge and he said that he had seen a man in a red minivan pulled over to the side and that he had been concerned about that and so he pulled over and he asked the guy if he needed help and the guy was like no no i'm good and so the guy had kept on going um and that was at 4 30 a.m on december 17th yep yeah two days before the bodies were pulled out of the water yeah so the defense team is hating their life that they have to represent this douche canoe hey i've got i've got an idea here from this for this defense team yeah they should have gone for

the the evil cougar they should have laid it out that this guy was 17 and she nabbed him out of the high school before he had even been to the prom, to Kristen's point. You know that wouldn't have been bad. It's actually not a bad strategy. It wouldn't have been bad. I would have gone with – because obviously she's an evil cougar if she has murdered her kids and stuff. Yeah, that's not a bad strategy. You think I should have been a lawyer, shouldn't I? There's still time.

So they hate their lives even more when Christian decides he's going to take the stand in his own defense, and he testifies for four days. God, no. He reportedly was super relaxed when he was on the stand often laughing and smiling while recounting bits of his life and history gross and then things took a more solemn turn when he recounted the day december 17th what had gone on and so this is what he said that that day

he and mary j Jane had gotten in this horrible argument in like the early morning hours, the middle of the night, he, for the very first time revealed to her all of the lies and crimes of his life, and was crying out for help. He didn't know how to get them out from under all of this, it was catching up to him. It was too much. He needed her help. Well, according to Christian, she was devastated by all of this, had no idea, and was heartbroken by the years of deception, and so much so that she refused to speak to him for the rest of the day. So he'd gone off to work, and Mary Jane had come when he'd gotten off at 11 o'clock that night and picked him up wearing only her bathrobe and as they were driving home still she refused to speak

to him and then she began to cry and she cried the entire ride home and then when they arrived back at their luxury condominium that they could not afford she begged him not to go inside and he became very alarmed by this and he pushed his way inside and inside the house Zachary and Sadie were nowhere to be found and the baby was lying motionless on the bed. He believed she was dead. And so he flew into a fit of rage and asked where Zachary and Sadie were. And Mary Jane just kept saying, you did this to us. You did this to us. It's our fault. And then she said the thing that really set him off. She said, you killed us. And then he grabbed her by the throat and threw her against the wall and held her there until his arms could no longer hold her. At that time, he dropped her to the ground and she was dead. And then he went and ran to the poor baby that

was laying on the bed and she was taking a breath every now and again. And then he went and ran to the poor baby that was laying on the bed and she was taking a breath every now and again. And so he attempted to resuscitate her. And then he thought, I don't know what kind of life she could possibly have. She's probably brain damaged. She might be traumatized by having gone through this whole thing if she isn't brain damaged. And so he made the decision at that point to help her by killing her. Why didn't he pin that one on his wife too? I don't understand why he kills the baby. Because it explains the next part of the story. It explains why the bodies are found in two different locations.

Clearly there are two murderers in this case because the bodies are found in two different manners in two different locations. What explanation did he have for the guy seeing him on the bridge? Right? On the bridge? None. None to my knowledge, yeah. He just happened to be oopsies in the exact spot where his two older children's bodies were found. Yeah.

Yeah, this guy's full of shit. Yep. In closing arguments, the defense pointed out the... And in closing arguments, the defense pointed out the very clearly his story is correct because the two the bodies were found in two different locations. And all of that evidence, you know, that the that the prosecution have, it's all circumstantial. There's nothing tying him directly to the murders of the older children. Give me a break. How could you you can't know that it wasn't Mary Jane that did it.

Do you guys think that, that lawyers who are representing somebody who is obviously guilty kind of half-ass it? I mean, Kristen, you could check with your legal expert team that you have that monitors the show, but don't you think you'd have a tendency to half-ass it if, if you had a scumbag like this and he knew he'd killed his kids and his wife? Do you think maybe you'd go, oopsies, I forgot to do the opening. Yeah. Well, yeah. So we know they kind of half-assed it because they didn't do an opening argument.

I don't know. I kind of feel like you can give someone a good defense, but if all the evidence is kind of piled up on one side, even if you give them a really good defense, but if all the evidence is kind of piled up on one side, even if you give them a really good defense. Okay. I mean, unless you give them like a defense that's so good, it's like OJ Simpson level defense. I'd have a hard time. Maybe that's why I never went to law school. Like I seriously, I think I have a hard time defending somebody like this. Oh yeah, absolutely. And as a public defender, you don't have any choice. No,

this yeah oh yeah absolutely and as a public defender you don't have any choice no they hand them to you it's your yeah yeah the jury deliberated for four hours before they found christian longo guilty of both of the murders one juror later said that the circumstantial evidence did not convince them of his guilt it was christian's own testimony that convinced them that he did it. Yeah. Yeah. Next came the penalty phase. The prosecution sought the death penalty in this case. They said that Christian was a professional con man and that he had manipulated everyone he'd ever come in contact with and that doing anything but sentencing him to death was dangerous. He would continue to be a threat to everyone he met because you never knew what he was plotting, what he was scheming, and he truly believed he was smarter than everyone. The defense said that

Christian deserved some kind of leniency, some kind of mercy. He't have you know an extensive criminal past well you know he only had that one prior conviction okay and uh he'd been abused by his adoptive father and probably his biological father and probably his mom who was an alcoholic so you know okay they did everything except the wife see i still would have jumped on that cougar wife defense, but okay. Yeah. The jury deliberated for six hours after the penalty phase before delivering their sentence. They sentenced him to death. Okay.

Let's talk about Michael Finkel for a second. So this is the identity that he took on for some time while he was living the life in Mexico, pretending to be a New York Times journalist. This is what Michael Finkel says on his website. I'm going to read directly from his website how he talks about how he, what happened to him

at the New York Times, which you hate. I hate this. And then how he came to learn about Christian Longo and what he was doing. Okay. During a New York Times assignment

about allegations of child slavery on the cocoa plantations of West Africa, I found that the young workers on the plantations were extremely shy. And when writing the article, I combined several boys quotes together to create a composite character. Such fictionalization is against the rules of journalism. And when the story was published, an aid agency questioned my reporting. And after I confessed my actions to my editor at the Times, I was fired. Then came a twist so bizarre and unexpected that it practically defies belief, yet is completely true. On the same day that my firing from the New York Times was made public, I learned that a man named Christian Longo, who was on the FBI's 10 most wanted fugitive list, accused of the horrific murders of his wife and three young children, had just been arrested in Mexico. While on the run, Longo had briefly

taken on a new identity, which was not a surprising action for a most wanted fugitive, except that the identity he took on was mine. He told many of the people he met that his name was Michael Finkel and that he was a writer for the New York Times. I wrote a letter to Longo, who was being held in jail in Oregon where the murders took place, and this initiated a bizarre and disturbing two-year correspondence during which we exchanged more than 1,000 pages of handwritten letters while Longo tried to convince me of his innocence. I became obsessed with discovering the truth of his crimes. Oh, really?

And this obsession resulted in a book, True Story. The book was later optioned by Brad Pitt's production company, Plan B, and adapted into a 2015 motion picture, also called Story starring James Franco and Jonah Hill which I think this case is super interesting I think it's crazy that he took on this identity that movie is boring as shit I've seen it it's so fucking boring that's why I don't go to movies because movies are bad. So, Kristen, you have a real problem with this guy's statement because he's like, oh, this poor thing happened to me. It's just

kind of frowned upon that I made shit up. Okay, so can you go back to that sentence? This fictionalization is frowned upon in journalism? That such fictionalization is against the rules of journalism. Okay, such fictionalization. against the rules of journalism. Such fictionalization. Yeah.

You're not supposed to fictionalize at all. Well, but what he admitted to it sounded to me like was making a composite character out of several characters, which, Kristen, I mean, tell me this.

Wouldn't it be even more compelling to have different people saying kind of the same type of thing? Yeah, no, his point was that there wasn't enough of each. They were so shy, you could barely, you know. Okay, so he must have been making stuff up, too. Of course he was.

Of course he was making stuff up. Because seriously, he could have written a really good story here if he would just kind of stayed after it a little longer and gotten enough quotes from enough people instead of, so it wasn't just compositing and it was making up quotes too, you think. Because that's not what Brandy read that he made up quotes. OK. So let's pretend that all he did was do a composite. That's something you do for a novel.

Yeah, you don't do it for – And I disagree with the idea that like if you get a bunch of stories, it's way more compelling than one really good one. I think... What's that quote from that terrible dictator? Like, 20,000 deaths is a statistic, one death is a tragedy, or something like that. I think if you can get

people to really identify with one person... One character, yes. One person who has this... It can be very compelling but i like it when 22 women say they were sexually assaulted by a person versus one i'm more i'm more convinced when 22 women have similar sounding stories a lot of people aren't convinced at all but no i just i think he's such an asshat because that's not an apology. It's not an apology at all. And it's just, oh, it's against the rules of journalism. Everybody.

I'm not a journalist and I know that's against the rules. Everyone off the street knows you can't just make shit up like that. Yeah, but Brandy, you had one semester of criminal justice. That's true. I'm guessing you're way ahead of the curve. Yeah, I don't think so so apparently those letters and conversations between michael and christian resulted in christian telling many different versions of how his entire family wound up dead but michael believes that he got one version that comes the closest to the truth and is basically a

full confession to all of the murders and i guess that's in the book christian currently sits on oregon's death row however while oregon does still technically have the death penalty and 35 inmates are currently on death row they have had a moratorium on the death penalty since 2011 34 men and one woman on oregon's death row dudes are bad who's the one woman on Oregon's death row. Dudes are bad. Who's the one woman? I actually have their website pulled up. I just didn't know if we would have heard of her. I had never heard of her.

I did check her out. Think how bad she has to be. So here's something interesting. So the 33 of the men are actually held on death row. The one woman is held somewhere else because she can't be held on death row with 34 men or 33 men. And then one of the men requires dialysis. And so he is held at a medical facility. That's not really fascinating.

I was going to say this is kind of interesting. Not really. No, not at all. Sorry. I was going to say this is kind of interesting. Not really. No, not at all. Sorry.

I can't believe you said that because I was sitting there thinking, is that it? She acts like she dropped a truth bomb on us that was meaningless to me. That was interesting. Brandy's going to pack up her laptop and go home. She's pissed. She's pissed. Kristen, it's you and I the rest of the way, I'm afraid. Oh, no.

How's those cheese doodles treating you? Cheese doodles are laying in a tummy very comfortably. Okay. You guys, my dad overdid himself on some cheese doodles, so we're just hanging in there. Well, in my defense, Sherry went to Costco or Sam's Club or one of those places, and, you know, they've got like a five- jug of cheese, those little cheese ball thing that are delicious, by the way. And you can basically have those for dinner. You just hit it too hard tonight. I had those for dinner. And, you know, I'm doing all right. I'm doing all right. Okay. This story comes almost entirely from an episode of 2020 called A Family Affair. Love 2020.

And a smidge from an article from our favorite journalist of all time. Skip Hollinsworth. That's right, for Texas Monthly. It was October 1st, 2012, in Katy, Texas, a suburb of Houston. It was a quiet Monday afternoon at the first community credit union, and there were just seven people in the bank, and they were all employees. All of a sudden...

Sorry, I'm... I have a real problem with that. Okay, yeah, last... Why are there so many employees there? Well, seven doesn't sound like a bunch. It is, it's a lot. To have no customers, yeah. Yeah. It's a lot to have to have no customers yeah it's a monday afternoon what are seven employees doing hanging out at the fucking bank i'm the

sexy time bank randy wants to bring an engineer in to do a time study okay here i think here's where this comes from okay i spent a lot of years in management and controlling payroll to me that sounds like a ridiculous amount of workforce for your payroll's got to be through the roof. Send them home, right, Brandi? The bobs from Office Space. What'd you say? I like the bobs from Office Space.

That Office Space. What do they do here? Explain their jobs to me. I don't watch many movies but that office space that is a classic right there that is some good stuff oh it sure is thank you for bringing that up well all of a sudden a silver ford focus pulled up to the bank two men i drove a silver ford focus when i was in management that was my company car i'm probably are you getting flashbacks probably me rolling up to find out why their payroll is so high.

Hey, don't be bragging about your Ford Focus. Are you like Michael Scott off The Office? Didn't he have like a Sebring and he thought that was the hottest car going? Mine was free. Well, yeah, so was his. So was his and he thought it was the hottest car going. No, I did nothing. I was like, and he thought it was the hottest car going. No, I did not think my mom thought mine.

I was like, yay, free car! I only had one job in my life that had a free car, and it was pretty sweet. It was a terrible car, but it was sweet having a free car. It was sweet having a free car. It was a Ford Taurus. It was a Ford Taurus. It broke down in the middle of the Chihuahua Desert twice. Oh, that's awesome.

That's not good. No. And once when we were trying to catch a flight. Yeah, we were trying to catch a flight, and so we left it in the desert, and a family picked us up and took us into El Paso. It was terrible. They don't have good transmissions, those Ford Tauruses. I don't think they make them anymore.

Do they? Yeah, they still make the Taurus. No, no way. Yeah, it's been redone. They still using that same transmission? I don't fucking brandy who's paying you big ford okay so brand now we know brandy's beholden to big ford yeah i'm concerned about the payroll of this bank is really where we're at well so so were these guys

who walked in they were concerned about the amount of money in this bank. Oh, okay. So these two men emerged. They were wearing bright orange construction vests. They had on blue latex gloves. One guy had a painter's mask on and a walkie-talkie clipped to his shirt collar. And the other one had this

terrible fake mustache. How do you know it was fake? Just hang on to your pants there, lady. Wait a minute, is it where the glasses and the nose and the mustache are all hooked together? The Daryl Pitts look? No, it was just the... I don't have a mustache.

What are you talking about, the Daryl Pitts look? It's clean shaven. I'm sorry. Sherry is anti-facial hair. Anti-facial hair. Brandi, you're not anti-facial hair. No, I like a beard. Sherry? Kristen, anti-facial hair. Anti-facial hair. Brandy, you're not anti-facial hair. No, I like a beard. Sherry?

Kristen, anti-facial hair? Hello, my name is Kristen. You've been called Christian and Sherry on this episode. It's like we're all acquaintances. It's like we were put together for one podcast episode. You're a composite character. Yeah, did network people put us together what's your feeling on facial hair i don't really care i i like a beard but it's got to be a well-groomed

beard you can't come at me with a homeless beard oh homeless right up rude well you're that's your business hair i mean do you guys do you do uh guys uh beards yeah oh i didn't realize i should show you a before and after david oh you put him you know sherry does the eyebrow treatment on me that's that's her and she cuts my hair too i think i mentioned that i think you're due for a haircut that's maybe the longest i've seen your hair don't you think yeah you're talking smack on sherry now no no i'm just saying i think that's the longest i've seen your hair i'm i'm gonna ponytail it man bun it i'm gonna it's gonna look really good actually when all you when all you have to be a real low pony i think the listeners need to understand i got maybe a quarter inch of hair where the braids start way back here. Do you think he knows what it looks like?

How would he? How would he? He can feel it, right? Or, Kristen, you're a tinfoil hatter. Do you think Stevie Wonder can really see? No. What?

Yeah, that's a conspiracy theory. If you get on YouTube right now, there's a bunch of videos out there that are like examples of like where he has reacted to stuff that maybe he wasn't supposed to be able to react to those. You know what I'm conspiracy theory-ing about right now. What?

It's Jeffrey Epstein. Oh, heck yeah. No, no. No. You know, you got to trust the medical experts. I mean, the medical experts said he hanged himself, so go with it. Don't waste any more time, Kristen. Well, I'm not wasting time.

Are you involved in this? Just back off. Don't look any closer. Jeffrey Epstein paid my dad a bunch to go live out in Missouri. Bill and Hillary and I, we are not involved at all. Norman, what do you think? Can Stevie Wonder see? No.

That's the worst conspiracy. I mean, there's a whole thing about it. People don't have enough to do. That's true. That's a waste of time. But I do think someone should tell him that his brains don't start until way far back. You're doing it right now. He's a big fan of the podcast. He is not.

Maybe people are telling him it looks good. I keep telling myself this hair looks good. They may be telling him your hair looks good, Steve. You're fine. I do think maybe once you get to a certain point in life, no one's going to tell you the truth. Yeah. Nobody's going to tell Stevie Wonder his hairline's receding. Yeah.

No one's going to tell Oprah anything except for Gail. Yeah, Gail will. I think Gail will tell her. Yeah. Okay. Hmm. Kristen, do we want to talk about how you're the, you tried to gale me? What?

I tried to gale you? Yeah. What? I tried to gale you? Yeah. When did I try to gale you? You tried to talk me out of my chest tattoo. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. You and Norman are the most evil people on Earth. Actually, Norman, can you come over here

and talk into the mic and tell the people what you did? Oh, he's walking so slowly. I'll give up my seat for Norman to come and tell his story. Hello. Hello, Norman. Hi. Okay, so last week I was texting with Brandy because we both wanted to see scary stories to tell in the dark.

And you knew if you asked Mom for permission, she'd say no. So you had to ask Brandy. Kristen wouldn't see with me, so I had to text Brandy. And I was like, hey, do you want to see it tonight? And it was Saturday. And she was like, no, me and David are getting tattoos. And she texted, I'm getting his name across my chest. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha so I was like yeah all right whatever

and I was like hey let me prank Kristen with this so I came home and I was like Kristen has Brandy talked to you about tattoos recently Kristen was like no what's going on I said she's getting David tattooed across her chest because it's like, no, no, no. She's not doing that. So I pulled up the text, but I scrolled only to the part where Brandy said, I'm getting David tattooed on my chest. And Kristen bought it. And she was convinced Brandy was getting David tattooed across her chest.

So Kristen texts me. I was flipping out. She said, Brandy, period. Brandy, period. her chest so kristen texts me i was flipping out she said brandy period brandy period yeah and i said kristen what's up and she said norman told me about a tattoo you're are you really getting David's name across your chest? And I said, oh my gosh, no, no, no. I'm getting it real small, like under my collarbone. Just a little one. You two are evil.

So then I agonized. She was pacing back and forth. I was. And she was like, well, what should I say? What should I say? And I was like, well, you can't really tell somebody what tattoo they should get. That's kind of a personal thing. And you asked if I wanted your opinion.

Yeah, so my solution, because I was like, Norman sold this to me. She's getting it done in like three hours. And so I was like, do I drive to her house? Do I, you know, like. And she was getting a legit tattooed in like three hours. And I was like, do I tell her? And I was like, it's her body, her choice, but this is the wrong choice. So I did text you, would you like to hear my opinion?

And I said, of course I want your opinion. And then you did not send anything for a very long time. Because I was writing the novel of a lifetime. She was writing a huge novel, super stressed about it, so I was just like, okay, I can't let you agonize over this. No, so I wrote it all out, then I read it out loud to Norman, and he started cracking up laughing. He goes, I can't

let you send that. She's not really getting tattooed. And that's the story of my evil husband. And evil long-term friend. That's right friend and then they made me go see that movie and it was terribly scary pretty scary for a pg-13 it was pretty it was good i liked it yeah i i didn't really like it but you liked it as an independent like as a separate if it was its own thing it would be a good pg-13 horror but book justice. I think it should be an anthology film. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did we say the name of the movie?

Yeah, Scary Stories of the Town of the Dark. For the record, I did get tattooed. I did not get David's name tattooed on me. Don't give me that look. I was concerned about you,

you tool bag. Thank you for your concern. I got Mary Poppins and Bert. It's cute. I'm going to go be an engineer again. Okay. Thank you.

That was a good intervention story there. I appreciate hearing that. But yeah, I was Gail to you. an engineer again. Okay. Thank you. That was a good intervention story there. I appreciate hearing that. But yeah, I was Gail to you. Yeah, you totally were. I was like, this is bad. You were like, she's going to probably hate hearing this, and I'm going to tell her anyway. Yeah.

Yeah. Brandy, if I would have been involved, I would have said, why don't you shorten it to Dave, save a little money? Not have David, Dave. Your concern would be be this sounds expensive is it charged by the letter i think it is i think it is and i think you could save some money with dave and i do appreciate the idea of going a little smaller yeah you were thinking maybe go two or three inches high david across the chest just a smaller one would look much better and

would uh nip to nip to nip kristip oh hey hey i don't feel comfortable in this environment sorry dude so back to the story i don't even know where we were okay um oh yeah terrible fake mustache wow okay so one guy has on the painter's mask. The other guy has on the terrible fake mustache. One of the bank employees saw these two guys walk in, and at first she was like, hmm, what are they here to fix? But then she saw the older one had a gun. The older dude immediately took charge. He yelled, hands up.

This is a robbery. The younger dude jumped over the counter like a gazelle. The young one said, give me everything you've got i've got bills to pay i've got bill that's just a terrible line did he practice that in the mirror i bet he did you know he did with his fake mustache and the bank employees did as they were told they handed the robbers everything they had, including some fake bills, which had serial numbers that investigators could track down later. Mm-hmm.

Smart. Hey, well, did they give him those ink packet things? Yeah, dye packs. Yeah, dye packs? The robbers specifically said, no dye packs, no GPSs either. So they were on to those two things. Seasoned.

Mm-hmm. But they didn't say no fake bills right oh they should no funny money oh that's the term that's the term no funny money i've got bills to pay brandy you are ready have you been working on this at home no i have said multiple times this is a terrible crime. Bank robbery is horrible. It's like so not worth it. It's like second in line to art heist. No, art heist, you can make so much money.

No, I disagree. How does she know? How does she know you can't make- Because I've got a garage full of stolen art I can't sell, Kristen. You've got the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist. It's in your garage. It's in my garage and I can't sell, Kristen! You've got the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Heist. It's in your garage. It's in my garage and I can't offload it. Okay, well, I finally agree with you.

Brandi, we can't put your house on the market with all that stolen art in the garage. You're going to have to offload. Your house is going to go for millions. So this robbery was so fast. Every 30 seconds, the older older guys walkie-talkie would go off and a woman's voice would say 30 seconds one minute hurry up they rounded up the employees and put them in the office the older one went after the branch manager who evidently was not worried about payroll at all he held the gun on her and told her to open the safe.

And she was like, sure, no problem. My payroll's out of control. Take the rest. I'm about to get sacked anyways. I can't get my payroll under control. That's seven employees hanging out on a Monday afternoon. But before she got up from her desk, she pressed the silent alarm. They didn't say no silent alarms?

Yeah. These guys are not as good as you think. Maybe they did, but I didn't come across it in my Skip Hollinsworth article or my 2020 episode. Well, and even if someone says no silent alarms, you just, you know. Okay, no problem. Oh, I accidentally tapped that silent alarm. Look over there. So here's the really weird part of the story.

This is the part where you flip out. So this happened. I was just, it's so ridiculous. This happened at like one o'clock in the afternoon. So some of the bank employees were still on their lunch break. There's fucking extra employees hanging out on this bank. This is part of the seven, Brandy. Don't lose it over there. I assume it's part of the bank employees were still on their lunch break. There's fucking extra employees hanging out on this bank. This is part of the seven, Brandi. Don't lose it over there.

I assume it's part of the seven. Well, we can't be certain. There's probably nine employees in this bank doing nothing. So two of them were in the break room, like, heating up their lean cuisines. And that's when they noticed this red alarm light start flashing. And they started watching the robbery on the closed circuit tv in the break room so they're literally watching their workplace get robbed so what did they do kept eating that link was in their life they were like this break's gonna be real fast

no so they took diligent notes on what these robbers look like genius because i think that that might not be your instinct to do that i think that's really smart well and especially when it was this fast thing they had nine employees there exactly this is why you need so many employees eventually the robbers ran right past the break room with the bags of cash they busted out the back door and the employees who were hiding in the break room went over to the window, and they watched these guys run down the alley. They saw them haul ass, and then all of a sudden walk very leisurely to their silver car. And they got in the car where someone was sitting in the driver's seat and drove away.

The robbery had lasted three minutes and they'd gotten twenty nine thousand dollars okay that's nuts that's a ton of money for a robbery robberies you you're lucky to get five grand yeah okay well i yeah i've got a story i went into a bank one time and tried to rob them. And I said, I need $11,000 and I might as well have asked for a million. I went in, I was paying somebody cash for a car or something. And they looked at me like I was crazy for asking for $11,000 in cash. And they said, you got to call ahead two days ahead and we can't give you $11,000.

We don't even have that much. I'm like, you don't have $11,000 cash on in this branch. And then I looked around. I saw there were seven people there, Brandy. So the police were pretty disturbed by this robbery. These criminals had been fast, competent and fearless. And it all sounded pretty familiar. There'd been another bank robbery a while back,

two months earlier in Texas. In that robbery, there was also a young robber and an older robber. And in both of these robberies, the bank employees were like, man, those two robbers had a special bond. Father and son. They seemed to know each other so well. Immediately, they began scouting around the area, trying to find eyewitnesses.

And they did. There was this chiropractor nearby. Dr. Lambert Collins said he saw, I love this, he saw these two guys dressed like construction workers, trying to be all casual leaning against the wall of the bank and he was like nobody does that well wait a minute are they on smoke break because a lot of times you can't be near the doors so you have to be you know away from the doors maybe one okay here's my question did one like lean up and have like one james dean style like bit at the knee

against the wall and the other one kind of out. The other one was whistling a tune. See, when Brandy is acting this stuff out, I think we've got to be on YouTube because they've got to see Brandy acting these parts out, flicking the joint, leaning against the wall. Is that what's holding us back? You guys would be YouTube stars.

You'd put Norman to shame. So they're, you know, trying to act all casual against this bank. And they look so sketchy while they're doing it that Lambert goes over to them. And he says, hey, how you doing? And they're like, we're good. And Lambert looked at the younger one, who, again, was wearing the fakest mustache of all time. Can you describe the mustache? Is there a picture of the mustache?

I wish. The picture I saw was too grainy. So Lambert says, nice mustache. And the guy laughed and that was the conversation. It wasn't until Lambert was talking to the FBI that he learned that he'd actually been talking to the robbers. But who were these robbers? Ooh, that was fancy handwork. Thank you.

Since I'm following the timeline that 2020 laid out for me, let's go back in time to 1986 in McMinnville, Oregon. Scott Catt and Beth Worrell were a young married couple. They had a nice four-bedroom house and two young children. Life was really good. No boy and a girl? Yep. Brandi's really putting it together now.

This is the second retell. He wasn't paying attention at all the first time. So life was good until it wasn't beth was diagnosed with breast cancer and in very little time the cancer spread she died two years later when the kids were five and two it was horrible scott didn't take it well he did a bunch of cocaine he drank heavily but that's not taking it well do you think that's taking it well no i don't but when you say he didn't take it well like he you know went into a depression he couldn't get out of bed not like he he self-medicated brandy okay he took it horribly are you okay is that

better so but he managed to hide it all from the kids. Well, they're five and two. What are they, sleuths? That is a fair point, Daryl. We got Harriet the spy. And one of the kids from Read All About It. Oh my gosh. I loved that show. We both did.

See, you guys are talking above my head now. Harriet the Spy. I have no clue. Read All About It. Tracking all the clues. Guys, I'm going to describe this. They are dancing in their chairs. Imagine dancing on your buttocks.

That's what they're doing. Oh. Imagine it. Imagine it, if you will. What are you Googling now? Read all about it. Oh, we're not going to get stuck on this, are we? It was a Canadian educational television show that aired from 1979 to 1981. We were watching.

Well, remember, we would make fun of it because the kids all were dressed dorky. But it was such a good show, we couldn't make fun of it for too long. They played them. We watched them every Friday in fifth grade. Yeah. Take off, eh? And you could bring any snack you wanted. It was called Read All About It Friday.

And Brandy always brought corn nuts. That's my favorite snack. That's a good choice. No, it's disgusting. Except the cheese balls would be better. Oh, gosh. Not after what happened to you today. Not after what my toilet witness.

Hey, I was fine. You wish we could say the same about the toilet. We're back down to one toilet. Wait a minute. Are you poop shaming me? Do not be poop shaming. Sorry, I didn't know that was a category. So, according to this total bullshit from 2020, the kids had no idea.

Despite their super- I'm assuming this is when they get older. That two-year-old really should have caught on. I'm disappointed. This younger generation. Yeah. Millennials. So, the kids had no idea he had a drug problem or a drinking problem,

and neither did anyone else because he was the perfect dad. He made them dinner. He was the president of their swim club. He took them to church. Perfect dad. Christian, I think you missed the assignment. What? We're supposed to do an episode about bad dads.

Oh, just wait for it right here. Not the perfect dad. We're already doing cocaine, so we're on the right track, Brandi. I just hate when 2020 does their thing of like, it was the perfect life. No, it wasn't. No. Until one day. I have a good chance.

So he's perfect completely. No one has any idea what's perfect, completely. No one has any idea what's wrong with him. Except for the fact that he never disciplined his kids. And when they became high school age, they were basically allowed to drink whatever amount of alcohol they wanted whenever. He got a couple DUIs, went to rehab, his car was repossessed, he was in and out of work, the house got foreclosed, you know, just normal stuff that no one would ever notice ever. Yes. You know, on that

didn't discipline the kids, he should have had those long talks with them. Oh, gosh. Ask for a renewed commitment. Renewed commitment. Think of the punishment that is appropriate for what you've done. See, and you said earlier that when you would ask kyla and i what are we thought our punishment should be that we would always undersell

no i would always oversell do you did kyla undersell well you guys probably tried different you probably tried different method conversation faster if i was like, I think I should be put to death. And I said, no, this is a non-capital punishment house, Kristen. Back off of that. So one day, Scott got a phone call, and it was a recruiter. An oil company in Texas needed an engineer. Did he want the job? Wait a minute, this guy's got an engineering degree?

Apparently. And he's robbing banks. He's a structural engineer engineering degree? Apparently. And he's robbing banks. He's a structural engineer. We don't know that he's robbing banks yet, Tara. Yeah, that was a total surprise. No one had put it together. Everyone was thinking he was the perfect guy. No, your listeners are sharper than you think. They're smooth like those little kids.

This two-year-old didn't figure it out, but the average listener has put this together. So he moved to Texas, and Hayden and Abby both... Okay, one site said they both dropped out of high school. I think Abby dropped out. I think Hayden had actually already graduated. Eventually, both kids came to Texas to live with their dad. Scott made good money, but it wasn't quite enough. But don't worry, guys. Was he still doing coke at this time?

Um, I assume because he did have a side hustle. And the side hustle was bank robberies. What? And I kind of assume coke habit goes hand in hand with that. In fact, he'd robbed five banks in Oregon. He never made much money, but it was super easy to do. His dad had been a loan officer at a bank,

so Scott had this higher than average amount of knowledge about a bank. The inner workings of a bank. That's pretty smart. He knew that bank employees... Stop complimenting the criminals on this episode. This guy seems really sharp. In the bad dad

episode, the dude is the one who's bad, okay? I think I am impressed when people have the forethought to figure things out that I never would have thought about. I would never even try to work a scam on anyone because I'd be like well they what i think they wouldn't they'd figure it out like that's my that's the

only thing stopping you from not scamming people no no not at all i mean there's you know ethics and blah blah blah moral fiber and all that yada yada yada, yada. Brandy's yada, yada-ing ethics. That's the best part, Brandy. He knew that bank employees comply with robbers. And that all the money in the bank was federally insured. Yeah. He knew that he'd never actually fire his gun at anyone.

So, victimless crime. No. Victimless crime. It's not. It's a victimless crime. It's not. Victimless crime, Brandy. It's not a victimless crime. It's a victimless crime, Brandi. It's not, though. Because that teller doesn't know you're not going to discharge your weapon. Yeah. Well, and somebody's paying for this money. Exactly.

It's not like it comes from... Yeah. Money doesn't grow on trees. That's coming from big business. He never made more than like ten grand. He was usually more like five. What Scott really needed was just some help. He needed an accomplice. He needed a getaway driver.

And if he just had those two extra people, he could rob the tellers and get into the vault. Who would catch him? It was perfect. The only problem was, where do you find two people who you can trust like that? You birth them. You know, I like this guy's thinking.

Now, think about this. So he's got this family business. It's robbing banks. He wants to bring the kids in. Brandi, this reminds me, your dad has a business. He does. Your sister works there. She does.

They don't rob banks, to my knowledge. They sell cocaine. So just like Brandy's dad, who is providing an opportunity for the next generation, this guy's doing the same thing. Boy, Tim's going to love this. We should add that it's a legit business. It is a legitimate business that they run. It's a legit business. It is a legitimate business that they run.

So Scott goes up to his 20-year-old son, Hayden, and said, would you be willing to do something to make money that is more illegal than selling drugs? Hayden's like, boy, would I? So Hayden said yes, and that's when Scott let his son in on the plan. We could rob banks together. We could make so much money. It would be so easy. Hayden could intimidate everyone. But Hayden said, but Dad, I'm gay.

I don't intimidate anyone. That's the weirdest thing. I love it. I think it's hilarious that he was like, no, the only reason we can't rob banks together is I'm gay. So Hayden says, but dad, I'm gay. And Scott is like, hey,

we can cover up your baby face. You'll be really intimidating. Why? Because he's like large and in charge? Like, is he? So he jumped over the counter like a gazelle. He can't be that big. Okay, here's the thing. Hayden is really tall.

I can't remember if he was 6'2 or 6'4. But he does have kind of a baby face. I mean, he's only 20 years old. What if they put the Hitler mustache on him? That would be intimidating. You don't see that. You don't see people wearing those. Okay, you know what? That would be really disturbing. Yeah don't see people wearing those. Okay, you know what?

That would be really disturbing. Yeah, you see a big guy. If I saw a young, skinny, white guy with a Hitler mustache, I would run. And his dad's got a gun? This is intimidating. I mean, you're not wrong. Hayden was hesitant, but Scott was like, look, I've done this before. It's super easy. Eventually, Hayden was hesitant, but Scott was like, look, I've done this before. It's super easy.

Eventually, Hayden came around. And that was very important because Scott wanted Hayden to talk to 18-year-old Abby about becoming their getaway driver. So Hayden went to Abby and said, Abby, we need your help. You're a crucial part of this money-making scheme. Will you help us? Abby said, sure. this money-making scheme. Will you help us? Abby said, sure. You might be thinking, gee, Scott seems like a pretty bad dad. What with the convincing his kids to start a criminal enterprise with him. But you would be wrong. Because Scott was helping his kids gain self-esteem. Exactly. Brandy, I go back to your dad. This is just like your dad with the business, helping the next generation along.

He was helping them to see that with hard work, they could get an instant reward. And he figured that if they could pull off some fruitful bank robberies, maybe they could use that money to start a coffee shop together. Is that really what he thought? Yeah. This goes back to your Starbucks coffee experience. It really does. It goes back to like, we're going to do this bad thing and eventually we're going to make

it right. Yeah, it is kind of the same. Their first robbery was in August 2012, just a few months before the robbery I just talked about. They robbed a bank like two blocks away from their apartment. For this robbery, Scott and Hayden were visions in white. robbery i just talked about they robbed a bank like two blocks away from their apartment for this robbery scott and hayden were visions in white they had on white painter's overalls white gloves painter's masks guns a black trash bag to hold their money and their chapstick

abby had only recently gotten her license and she could barely drive the stick shift car but you can't pick your family that's the only car they had available yeah i mean this was their first bank robbery they had to get the money for the car wait a minute they're two blocks away why do they need a car well you can't leave the scene on foot daryl you strip that stuff off they got clothes on underneath you strip that stuff off you look like a homeless man carrying a big You look like a homeless man carrying a big bag. You're a homeless man carrying a big bag with a fake mustache. Hitler mustache, by the way.

Yeah, that won't raise red flags. Should have taken a note from the phony pony bandit and gone on a bicycle. Yeah, you're right. Did she wreck the car? Is that what you're going to tell us? No. No, she just went like... Yeah, it was just terrible.

They were jumping. Well, probably the police were scared. They were like, stay away from that car. So that robbery went great. They got like 70 grand, which is unheard of. And I've got money in the bank and I can't get 11. Exactly. So Scott, Hayden and Abby were thrilled. I'm going to ID and ATM card next time and see how much you can get.

See, this makes me think they were lying to me. They had $11,000. What kind of bank? How did they get that much? Do you want to take notes from them? I don't know. But they blew through that money. So they partied.

They bought cars. they bought a motorcycle. You're not going to believe this, but they ran out of money pretty quickly. Yeah. Within two months, the 70 grand was gone, and oopsies, they'd forgotten to buy that coffee shop. So they needed to pull another B job. Oh, God. Oh, Brandy. That's like for bank robbery.

That's like for... Oh, my God. Oh, Brandy. That's like for bankrupt. That's like for bankrupt. Oh, my God. Oh, Brandy. My father is here. Is it? Okay, that's number two. I'm in the Me Too movement here. You get the nipple to nipple, and now you got the BJ.

First of all, nobody said nipple to nipple. That's what Kristen said. I said nip to nipple. That's what Kristen said. I said nip to nip. Oh, totally different. Sorry for misinterpreting what you were saying. Brandy is wildly inappropriate. What'd you call it, a B-job? Brandy, that wasn't funny, Brandy. That's your job. That's my job.

Brandy, that wasn't funny, Brandy. That's what they call it. I'm not making this up. Oh, you are too. It's like a handy J. What? Brandy, stop. Shore around the house. Hey, where's your HR department here?

Shore around the house. Three inappropriate things. At least Norman's here in the room with me as my witness when I go to Human Resources. All of our listeners are your witness right now, Dad. Oh. Well, here's my concern. You're going to cut out all the dirty stuff that Brandy says in front of me. Oh, no.

No? I'm leaving that in. I'm leaving that in. Leaving that in. So, just as Brandy said, they started their new bee job. The family bee job. Handy job. What was her next one? Handy J?

Handy J. So, Abby went in the bank to get the layout. Then she and Andy. So Abby went in the bank to get the layout. We're at one of those points, folks, where Brandy can't stop laughing at her own joke. We're going to have to cut some of this. It's not even my joke. Right now, Brandy's been laughing for 20 minutes. And we're just now coming back.

We're coming back. So Abby and Hayden went to their local Home Depot to buy the disguises that Scott and Hayden would wear. And because this is a family full of geniuses, they paid for the disguises with Scott's debit card. So smart. They didn't use that fake currency, at least. The night before the robbery, Hayden went to the parking lot next to their apartment and stole someone's license plate off their car. Then they taped the stolen license plate over their actual license plate. Scotch tape. Yeah, just some scotch tape.

So that when they did the robbery, they'd have one plate number. And as they were driving out of sight, they could rip that other one off. Then comes the part you've already heard. They did the robbery, went perfectly, except much to their amazement, when they got home, they realized that one of the license plates, which they put on with tape, had fallen off. What? You know, they got a lawsuit against 3M there. Bad tape?

I'd sue that 3M company. Now I'm in prison because of your bad tape. So it had fallen off at the scene of the crime, and it had Hayden's fingerprints all over it. He hadn't used gloves when he taped it on there, huh? Ah, no. No, he sure hadn't. Thinking not so smart? No.

But how did police catch the family? Didn't take them long to figure out that those construction vests that Scott and Hayden wore looked really nice. Like, brand new, fresh out of the package. They still had the fold marks on them. So they found out that the local Home Depot sold that exact vest, and investigators combed through the recent purchases, and they found out that two of the vests were purchased using a debit card.

And the debit card belonged to Scott Catt. So, okay, Skip Hollinsworth was like, they did a background check. But 2020 was like they looked him up on facebook which i think is what is more accurate so they looked him up on facebook and saw that he was like 50 but then they looked at the surveillance footage and they saw these two young people so what do they do they start clicking through his facebook profile pictures and they see him with his two kids who were in the surveillance footage. If you're doing sketchy stuff

you should not be on Facebook. Yeah, I agree. Why would you have a social media presence at all? You're a sketch guy. Also, why wouldn't you pay with cash for your robbery disguises? Dumb. I'd be afraid to be using that fake stuff.

He didn't know he had fake stuff at this point. He doesn be using that fake stuff. Didn't he know? No, he didn't know. He didn't know he had fake stuff at this point. Well, he doesn't have the fake stuff yet. Yeah, he hadn't done that robbery yet. He's prepping for that robbery. This stuff that's not in chronological order really confuses an old guy like me. Sorry. It's 2020's fault.

Yeah, they always start off with some ending thing. Yeah, let's sue them, sue the tape, sue Brandy for traumatizing all of us. We got a lot of work to do. It didn't take long for police to arrest Scott, Hayden, and Abby. When police approached Scott, they said, you're under arrest for

bank robbery. And Scott said, which one? That's a terrible response. That's a good comeback right there. Keep keep in mind at this point they only knew about the two texas robberies police searched the apartment and like they already knew they had the right people but like this this made it too easy so they go through the apartment and they found all these bank straps which are those straps that go around wads of cash that say the date the dollar amount amount, where they're from. They found those things scattered all over this apartment.

So instead of like... So it was just they needed a tidier house, it sounds like. Well, they didn't dispose of the evidence of their crime at all. Yeah, that's a terrible idea. And even worse, the police found bank straps from Oregon in there. Oh my gosh. So they were like, okay, this is more than just Texas. This is happening everywhere. Then in case that wasn't enough evidence, they also found a scrap of paper.

It read, this is a bank robbery. All we want is the money. 20s, 50s, 100s, no alarms. Die packs or GPS. They spelled die, D-I-E. Or you, family, and coworkers will be hurt. In other words, the apartment was a treasure trove of evidence. And thanks to the Oregon bank straps, they knew that the crimes weren't limited to Texas.

Investigators sat down with Scott, and once once again he made their job super easy. Scott had the right to the to an attorney did not exercise that right. Scott said I'll tell you everything that happened. First of all I always thought that a bank was federally insured and it was a victimless crime and it seemed like an easy crime. Police asked him about the robberies outside of Texas, and he was like, oh, yeah, yeah. So at this point, there's this dry erase board back behind him. So he stands up, grabs a marker, and he's like, okay, let me think back to the first one.

So he starts making a list of all these banks that he's robbed. He's coming clean, Brandy. The first one he robbed was the one that his dad retired from what okay and i didn't include this when i told you guys this story on wednesday but from that first robbery they they got a shot like a grainy surveillance shot and they printed it in the paper and scott's mom saw that in the paper and said, well, son, that kind of looks like you. And he was like, oh, yeah, I guess it kind of does. And they never talked about it because she never really thought it was him.

Oh, my gosh. So that first one, he walked away with twenty five hundred dollars. So, you know, Scott's listing all the banks he's robbed. And why not? The statute of limitations had run out on all of his Oregon robberies. So he's telling the officer. I hate the statute of limitations. I do too.

It's like, oh, it's not a crime anymore. I don't understand that at all. I don't understand it at all. It doesn't make any sense. No, it doesn't. So the officer's like, okay, but which one of these did your kids participate in? And he said none. They never participated in the Oregon robberies.

So they wrapped up the interrogation with Scott. They let him leave the room and they brought Abby in, but they didn't erase the board. She saw what was on there. She cried. She defended her dad she said he was the only parent she'd ever known and that she felt like she had to help him and hayden with these crimes so she didn't seem to understand the level of trouble that she was in in her mind she was just the driver just doing what her family asked her to do she doesn't have the legal background that

we've got so she didn't understand watching 2020 yeah she didn've got, so she didn't understand. From watching 2020. Yeah, she didn't watch 2020 enough. She didn't go to one semester of law school, didn't have one semester of criminal justice. Clearly not. One semester of theology. Yeah, well, six hours. I'm not going to go. And remember, I dropped that pre-law class in undergrad, too. Yeah, that adds up to something.

I'm not sure what. You put all this together, and we know that the getaway driver is pretty much in trouble all the way. Oh, yeah. Equally culpable. That's exactly right. So Texas has an accomplice liability law, which means that if you intended to be part of the robbery, which she definitely did, then you can be charged just like you're the ringleader of that robbery. Police also talked to Hayden, and Hayden told them everything they wanted to know. Everyone in this family spoke freely to investigators, and they all faced five to 99 years.

That is a hell of a range. I agree. I think it's kind of a crazy range. You got to give, you know, you got to figure out who the leader is and hit him with a high one. And then you got to go to the lower end of it when you talk about Abby there and even the brother. What's the brother's name? Hayden. Hayden.

I mean, he's in there. He's probably, well, he didn't have a gun, though. So that's the other thing you got to take into account. Gun, no gun. Okay. Leaping like a gazelle over the countertop. How much does that add? That's pretty intimidating. Well, if you're wearing a Hitler

mustache, it's big time. If you've got some kind of phony baloney... If you've got a gazelle and a Hitler mustache, you get 99. So fast forward to 2013. Scott was sitting in jail awaiting trial and he agreed to do an interview with 2020.

He also agreed to an interview with our good friend, Skip Hollinsworth. And Scott told 2020, oh, I'm so ashamed for dragging my kids into this. Their mother would be so upset. Blah, blah, blah. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Oh, what have I done? I would do life in prison if it meant my kids didn't have to do time. Okay.

Right. That's totally believable. Yeah. Uh-huh. You can't really, that's not negotiable. It's not how it works, but okay. It sounds great. A month passed.

The entire family was still in jail, and Abby's lawyer reached out to 2020 and said, family was still in jail and Abby's lawyer reached out to 2020 and said, hey, you know, Scott's been writing letters to his kids and they're not exactly I'm so sorry letters. They're more like, hey, why don't you kids agree to do more prison time so that I can get out sooner letters? OK, not how it works. No, it's not like this is cumulatively how many years you guys will you guys divvy it up. No. It's not like a, this is cumulatively how many years you guys, well, you guys divvy it up between yourselves.

You decide. It's not like my mom packed a turkey sandwich in my lunchbox. Yeah, it's ridiculous. It's so stupid. In one letter to Abby, Scott wrote, as long as you're ready to do some time, I think it will better my chances.

I hope. Okay. Wait a minute. Are you saying he's a bad dad? I'm saying, my personal opinion is that he's a bad dad. So, I'm not sure exactly how this broke down with 2020. I believe they did one episode with them,

and then this shit came out, and then they came back and did a follow-up. So, they go back for their new interview this time they're super pissed and the interviewer is matt gutman who we talked about on wednesday as brandy's high school crush my high school crush matt gutman every every guy brandy had a crush on in high school looked like matt gutman from abc's 2020 let me i gotta pull up a picture. Yeah. Let me just take it in for a second. Brandy, you've already said some inappropriate things.

Do not get this picture in front of you and say something inappropriate. No, he just legit looks like every guy I had a crush on. He looks like Jake Ryan. Is Jake Ryan a guy you went to high school with, Brandy? No, Jake Ryan is a hunk from 16 Candles. So Matt Gutman. Although his neck looks ridiculous in this picture. What's wrong with his neck?

Like, why is he standing in front of a fire right here? Because he's your high school crush, and you totally would have had that on a poster back in the day. I love how Brandi acts like, oh, no. I don't like the fire behind you. That's my undercarriage. That's my undercarriage. My undercarriage. Oh, God.

Norm. Wildly inappropriate. Yeah. Don't worry, I'm not like Doug. So the interviewer showed him the letter that Scott had written to, sent to Abby. And Scott's like, oh, where'd you get this? And he looked at it and he starts stuttering and he's like, well, yeah, I'm trying to manipulate. I'm trying to get everybody something they can live with.

Did he mean to say negotiate or did he mean to say manipulate? I mean, obviously the truth is manipulate, but he had to have meant negotiate. So here's exactly what was said on 2020. Matt, with dreamy eyes. Wouldn't most parents say, I'll take the entire blame here? Scott, I would love to, but they have so much evidence on everybody that, what are we supposed to do? That is the dumbest statement yeah i don't know what i'm supposed to do i just blame it all on my kids because there's so much

evidence on all of us so dumb so here's the sick thing abby told her dad that she would do more time for him if that's what needed to happen, she would do it. Again, not how it works, but he asked for it. She was willing to give it. So in another letter back, he was like, thanks a bundle. Really appreciate it. You're a good kid. And then he told her, hey, when you do your interview with 2020, make sure you exaggerate about me.

Tell them I had a dual life involving drugs, alcohol, and women so we can fuck with them a little. I'm sorry, Dad. He did not say sexy times. Because you're a journalist, you have to use the actual words. I'm not in a journalistic capacity here. I'm retelling 2020. Wait a minute. You're saying 2020 dropped an F-bomb?

No, they bleeped it. They covered up. Yeah, they covered up the... Okay, let me know when you're going to drop an F-bomb on... No, they bleeped it. They covered up... A beep? Yeah, they covered up the... Okay, let me know when you're going to drop an F-bomb. I'll beep over here. Thank you. So the interviewer read this stuff to him, Chris Hansen style,

and Scott was like, my goodness, that last part was a joke. Okay. But it wasn't a joke. Again, it was more manipulation. Although, I don't think he really has to say, oh, play up the dual life. If he went to rehab and like... Yeah. It sucks plenty. You don Again, it was more manipulation. Although, I don't think he really has to say, oh, play up the dual life. If he went to rehab and like, yeah.

It sucks plenty. You don't have to play it up. Yeah. You were pretty shitty. You were shitty enough. So Scott says he was just trying to get some sort of movement on his case. He just wanted to get the wheels of justice a rolling. And they did.

After months of negotiation. Oh, my God. Brandy. These are the wheels of justice are rolling and they did after months of negotiation oh my god brandy these are the wheels of justice again the vision of brandy being like a big choo-choo train is what she's and she's rolling down the track like a more like a proud mary thing no you look like it looked like thomas the train little ancient engine that could is what you looked like i looked like the Asian in just the cut. After months of negotiation, Scott, Hayden, and Abby all agreed to plea deals. Hayden got 10 years. Abby got five. A month later, it was time for Scott's sentencing.

Although technically the statute of limitations had run out on the Oregon robberies, the court could still factor those crimes into his sentence. Scott got 24 years. He and Hayden were both sent off to state prison. But the Fort Bend sheriff knew about Abby's story, and he felt so sorry for her that he said, you know what, we're keeping her in the jailhouse. Let's not send her to state prison.

Wow. He felt like she was really a victim in all this. Well, only being 18, I kind of get it. She's not had great parenting. She's 18. She felt maybe compelled. So she's still going to do her five years, though, right? Let's find out.

Is that lap of luxury? Is that what that jail is? No, I think it it's just in a smaller setting than prison. That's really the only difference, right? So in this episode, they had Nancy Grace on. Was that out loud? Nancy Grace was on 2020? Yeah, so they're doing kind of a newish thing where they have, like, I guess normal people don't make the best interviews all the time.

Sometimes you have to do composite sketches. No, so sometimes they'll have, like, I don't make the best interviews all the time. Sometimes you have to do composite sketches. No, so sometimes they'll have like, I don't know, TV personalities retell the story. And so she's on there and she's like, you do not want to go to a Texas State prison. So she's acting like. That's a very good Nancy Grace. Thank you. Thank you. You could be on Saturday Night Live if Nancy Grace was a big enough deal to be on Saturday Night Live.

And if they really lowered the bar. So in jail, Abby enrolled in the GED program. She learned how to sew. And in September of 2015, after almost three years in prison, she was released. She went to live with a woman named suzy gregory she was the jailhouse's volunteer sewing instructor suzy believed in abby let her live in her house so abby had this great second chance she said she was going to enroll in nursing school at a local community college what could go wrong well for one thing, Abby was not used to living with rules.

And Susie had rules. Abby had to have a curfew. She had to go to church. Abby was not thrilled. Well, early 20s is kind of late to be slapping this stuff on a kid, I think. Especially if you've never had rules before. Especially if your high school rules were you drink as much as you want. And if you've never had rules before. Especially if your high school rules were, you drink as much as you want. And now you have

Texas Christian rules. It's tough. I mean, right? Yeah. Abby was not thrilled. She ended up totally disobeying the rules. Finally, Susie said, look, if you don't come back, I'm going to change the locks. Abby didn't come back.

So, ultimately, Abby went off and got a job driving a pilot car for wide loads in Laredo, Texas. And that's where she met a man named Ricardo Gonzalez. So this dude had a huge rap sheet, and they showed a bunch of his mug shots, but the first one they showed was really scary because he had all these cuts all over his face yeah he didn't look great but guys a crazy thing happened okay so one night she and ricardo went to a gas station and you know darn the luck abby fell asleep while ricardo was pumping gas and oopsies she woke up to police banging on her window because you see they informed her that ricardo was robbing people in the street abby had no idea she was shocked because she'd been asleep oh okay so abby was never indicted in this

whole thing but associating with this dude along with peacing out on her parole officer, was for sure a parole violation. So she went to jail in Laredo. And she's out now. She has a boyfriend. I think she's given birth. And Scott and Hayden are still in prison. That was the weirdest thing you've ever said. I think she's given birth.

I didn't even know she was pregnant. I'm sorry, I realized I skipped over a bunch of stuff in my notes. All of a sudden she's having a baby. Is it an immaculate conception? That Jesus fetus. She's got a boyfriend. I think she's given birth. I had in my notes she has a child, and then I was like, well, you know, she was pregnant in that episode,

but I don't know when they filmed that episode. So Scott and Hayden are still in prison, and that's the story of a family business run by one bad dad. Yeah. Both of these dads were bad. Bad, bad, bad dads. I can't stick up for bad dads. I can't do it. And you don't have to.

Yeah, no, we did not bring you on to defend the dads. Now, are we getting past your bedtime here? No, I am. I'm hanging there. It's after dark. It is after dark. It's after dark. You guys may have noticed the cicadas earlier on in the episode.

Dad, we have some questions, and I don't mean to intimidate you, but they come from members of the Supreme Court. Which I'm not allowed in for some reason. No, you have to pay $7. Anyone who pays $7, you're too cheap to pay. By the way, you are the only parent who's not a member of the Supreme Court. How does that make you feel?

Yeah. Speaking of bad dads. Sherry, read the two. Here's what I thought. I thought my contributions on the show would earn me a Supreme Court nomination. Oh, wow. Not so? These are not merit-based.

Yeah, they're $7, sir. We're going for the Felicity Huffman buy-away. Speaking of that, American Greed. Love it. They've got the episode about the college admissions scandal, and it is sweet. I will watch it. Are you ready for some questions? I'm ready for the questions from the Supreme Court.

Okay, Kate wants to know, do you really wear Costco sneakers? Okay, right now I am wearing, Brandi, say what this brand name is. Those are Timberlands. Timberlands. I paid $100 for Timberland sneakers. It's the most expensive shoe I have ever bought. 99% of the time I am in $15 Costco bright white tennis shoes like all cool guys wear. Okay, Brandy's face right now. I'm with you. For a solid six months after he bought these shoes, I thought someone was messing with me. I texted Kyla. I called my mom because I did not believe that he would spend $100 on shoes. Is there a story behind it? Well, we go hiking when we go camping and

a really good pair of shoes is kind of important. Yeah, so you don't fall and die? So I bought these Timberlands. So the Costco wants one, kind of cut it. He goes slipping and sliding, but he saves some money. So

I got these Timberlands. So I don't always wear, the question was was do you really wear i do wear them yeah this is not a joke this is not a joke in fact on i think on one of my accounts that's my profile picture it is on twitter on twitter and then also uh when we recorded on wednesday kyla posted a really sweet picture of you from that day in your costco bright whites with your socks pulled up to your damn thighs i swear that's what we wore back in the day brandy andrew asks mr pitts it is an honor to ask a man oh god so wise as yourself a question mine is simple what is one of your favorite silly memories of the girls when they were growing up?

Silly memory. You know, for some reason, it keeps popping in my mind. You guys running between houses, going trick or treating. Yeah, I knew you would say that. There was like five of you. And I was there to make sure no one slipped a razor blade in the apple for you. Jeez. But you little girls running from house to house. Yeah. slipped a razor blade in the apple for you.

But you little girls, running from house to house. I'd steal some candy from you, chocolate only. You guys would cry about the stolen candy that I was taking from you. But I would only take the best of the best. But it was a blast watching you guys just have fun running through the neighborhood, you know, getting your little sugar high there in Lenexa, Kansas. It was fun. It was fun.

God. Okay, so Kate asked another question. What's your most embarrassing story about Kristen? And I wrote back to her, wow, what a question. It'd be a shame if someone deleted it. So we're just going to pretend that didn't happen. Jalen wants to know, what color socks do you wear with your sandals? I do not own a pair of sandals. I have never owned a pair of sandals.

And I'm insulted that I would be asked about a sandal question with socks. All right. All right. Stephen asks, which Dr. Pepper do you prefer? Dr. Pepper Classic, Dr. Pepper Cherry, or Dr. Pepper Mixed Berry? I didn't even know there were other Dr. Peppers. I am a Dr. Pepper purist. And so.

Just the DP, no cherry. Just the DP. Don't be throwing fruit. Crazy. How dare you? Whoa. I'm saying awkward things? Wait a minute.

Whoa! I'm going to get my lawyer. Dad, I'm going to need you to do more time for me, okay? I'll call him Brad Bradshaw. Donald says, to go on what Kate said above, Kristen, what's your most embarrassing moment or story about your dad? You need to chronicle this, Kristen. I told him it would be a five-hour episode because I think of so many. A five-hour episode.

Okay. Go ahead and give one. Okay. The one that pops into my mind. It's not like the most embarrassing, but I just remember at the time being like, oh, God. It was, I think, my sophomore year of college, and designer jeans were like the thing.

If you were cool, you had designer jeans. And so for Christmas, I asked for a pair of designer jeans. Mom got me a pair from Nordstrom. I opened them up Christmas morning. Do you know this story? No. Okay. I opened them up Christmas morning and I was like, ah, thank you. I was so excited. And you were like, hey, hey, hey, just so you know, you can't wear them yet. So you, you worked for Hallmark Cards for many years and Hallmark has a nice high-end department store that sold designer jeans. So you were like,

you can't wear that pair. We've got to return that pair. We'll get you the same pair, but it's going to be from Halls and I'm going to get 20% off. And I was like, yeah, okay. Alright. So like the next day we were going to go to Nordstrom, just you and me.

I do not remember this at all. I know. I know. You were not embarrassed to return these designer jeans. So you were like, hey, come on. We got to go. We got to go. And so I was like, okay, well, I don't have a bag for these jeans.

And they were, like, $120 jeans. And you grabbed a hen house sack. And you were like, let's just put them in this. And it was like, I felt like too much of a brat to complain. So I was like, okay. Hen House is a grocery store

for those when I see a grocery sack. So I grabbed this grocery sack with my designer jeans. We go into Nordstrom. It's packed. There's a huge line. We're waiting in line with all these, you know,

nicely dressed, fancy ladies. And I'm wearing Costco shoes. I'm sure you were. And you're just you're kind of huffing and puffing. You're kind of angry. You were like, I'm going to get the discount here. We're not going to have to go to halls. And I was like, Dad, stop it. That sounds exactly like me. And you were like, no, I'm going to ask for the discount. And I was like, I was like, dad, stop it. That sounds exactly like me. That's not like you. And you were like, no, I'm going to ask for the discount. And I was like, I was already about to die. Like, dad, do not do this. We were in this huge line. So you get to the front and you were like.

Was I really smooth and suave? I doubt it. You said, let me tell you what I'm about to do here. So you set the hen house sack with the jeans on the counter. And you're like, we're just going to take these jeans and go across town and buy this exact pair somewhere else for 20% less. Unless you can give me the 20% off right here. And she was like, she was very nice about it.

And she was like, I'm sorry, sir. If I were to give you a discount, I'd have to give you, you were pissed. And I was just dying. Mortified. Kristen, I do not remember that at all.

I know you don't. But that is exactly what I would do. That's exactly what I would do. Because I always like to tell whoever I'm trying to convince, here's my next step unless you agree with what I'm saying. And it never works. Oh, it does. It works all the time.

No, it doesn't. There's no way that would work. Well, not at Nordstrom's, obviously. Oh, okay. Alyssa wants to know, Kristen and Brandy, what is your favorite DP memory as kids? Oh, okay. Alyssa wants to know, Kristen and Brandy, what is your favorite DP memory as kids? Oh my gosh.

Oh gosh, there's so many. One that comes to mind is so dumb, though. What is it? So we used to go camping all the time. I'd go camping with you guys and you guys had this really nice camper and i always slept um in the like the kitchen table yeah yeah that's where i slept well in one of the campers that you guys had like the the bench thing where the

where the that folded down had these like snap-on buttons at the top. It was just like a little trim. They were just like these little buttons that snapped on. And I was sitting there one day. I was snapping the button on and off. And you were like, Brandy, knock it off. And everybody laughed. Like, oh, she's just snapping the button on and off.

What's the big deal? And then you were like, no, no, oh, she's just snapping the button on and off. What's the big deal? And then you were like, no, no, guys. Serious business. Serious business. Oh, you guys have good memories because I said serious business all the time. Serious business. Leave the button alone. He must have thought it would affect the monetary value if that button had been snapped too many times.

Were you wearing out my camper, Brandi? Those buttons had unlimited snaps. I have my snaps in them. You know, at the factory, they check those. Yeah. And they're only good for about 100 snaps. I was just racking those snaps up. And you know he bought that thing used, so someone had already snapped it many times.

Well, what a wonderful memory, Brandi. Of all the memories, here's one where you snapped it, Brandi. One of my favorite Sherry memories where she yelled at me for sneezing in the camper. It was like a nautical game. Well, I will tell you, when Sherry hits the sack, it is bedtime for all. Yeah, everyone had better be dead asleep. So she used to fall asleep at like 9 o'clock at night. In a camper.

Yeah, and if you woke her up at 9.05, she would assume it was 3 in the morning. Yeah, so we were all being quiet. Yes. And I sneezed. And she woke up. Girls! Girls! It is time for bed!

You know, that is something. Our whole lives. She will fall asleep. I'm watching TV. She falls asleep. And she'll wake up at 9.30. Yeah. And say, Daryl, it's the middle of the night go to bed

well i think that about wraps up the questions from the supreme court thank you guys excellent questions those were great i'm glad you have more insights into kristin brandy and myself i do want to share one more DP story from camping. We always brought our bikes. I got this new bike one year. I had a garage sale and it was kind of broken. And I was riding this bike and I was having trouble with it. And I felt dumb because I couldn't get it figured out.

And we were old enough that I should have had no problems with this bike I could not get this bike figured out and I was having trouble keeping up with you guys and whatever and so we come back after a bike ride and you and Sherry were going to go out for a bike ride and you're like hey I'm going to borrow your bike because you guys didn't bring your own bikes and so you come back

and you're like your bike is stuck in the highest gear you're like you gotta bike is stuck in the highest gear. You're like, you gotta get this thing fixed. Now, I assume this story's gonna end that I was, I fixed your bike. No, I had to get a part replaced on it, but I did get it replaced after that. So I was hoping.

But I was so funny. Why can't, why can't it be a fond, I see this. It was, it is a fond memory like you made me feel so much better because i just felt like dumb that i was having problems with this bike because we were probably at knob noster where we biked everywhere and we wanted to go super fast dad you were the hero of that story i was hoping I was the hero that I fixed the bike, and Brandy said, oh, Daryl, you were great. Should we edit this in? Yeah.

Wow, so Dad fixed the bike. He fixed my bike. Oh, my gosh. What a guy. What a good guy. Wow. All right, so now it's time for Supreme Court Inductions. Woo!

Okay, if you are wondering how you can get inducted into the Supreme Court, don't worry. Kristen's about to tell you how. All you have to do is join our Patreon at the Supreme Court level. It's $7. You get access to bonus episodes. You get into the Discord. You get to ask random questions like happened today. All kinds of fun stuff.

If that interests you, head over to patreon.com slash lgtcpodcast today. Don't delay. Today we will be reading names along with favorite words. All right, if everyone could please stand and hold your left arm behind your back. Jordan. Onomatopoeia. Jessica. Oh, I'm so sorry, Jessica.

Nonetheless. It is gracious. Dustin Gibbons. Dustin. How dare you? Okay, I think he wrote something in Hebrew. I think it means demon. You have to say the word, Kristen.

I can't. I simply cannot. oh it doesn't say demon it says i'm sorry denom from here it's what is at one's feet i guess dust. Dustin, how dare you? How dare you? I feel so dumb. I feel like I'm driving around on a bike at the highest speed. Brooke. Hence.

Kay Nordhausen. Endoplasmic reticulum. Shannon. No. Ryan Allison. This gave me trouble on Wednesday. Brobdingdang Brobdingdangian It means something of tremendous size

From Gulliver's Travels It's the big people in Gulliver's Travels Why couldn't you like Lilliput? Yeah, why couldn't you like them? I can say that just fine Travis Bell Indeed Just sure Welcome to the that just fine. Travis Bell. Indeed. Jess Shore.

Bougie. Welcome to the Supreme Court! Alright. Thank you guys for your support.

If you are wondering how else you could support the show, head on over to our social media. You'll find us on Facebook. You'll find us on Twitter,

Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, Patreon. Once you've done all those, head on over to iTunes. Leave us a You'll find us on Facebook. You'll find us on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, Patreon. Once you've done all those, head on over to iTunes. Leave us a rating. Leave us a review. And 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 2020 episode, A Family Affair, the Texas monthly article, I Would Only Rob Banks for My Family, by Skip Hollinsworth,

and the Cat Family Wikipedia page. And I got my info from an article by Elizabeth Engstrom for the Crime Library as well as crimemuseum.org and Murderpedia. 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.