Let's Go To Court! - 85: The Dartmouth Murders and an Evil Phlebotomist

Episode Date: September 4, 2019

Dartmouth College professors Half Zantop and Susanne Zantop were hanging out at home, waiting for their friend to arrive for dinner, when two boys showed up at their door. The boys said they were working on a school project. Could they ask Half a few questions? Half obliged. He’d devoted his life to academics. Of course he would help 16 year old James Parker and 17 year old Robert Tulloch. But James and Rob weren’t there for a school project. In fact, there was no school project. Then, Kristin talks about a phlebotomist named Bryan Stewart. When Bryan and Jennifer Jackson first got together, things were great. But Bryan quickly became abusive. When Jennifer left Bryan, his threats escalated. The thought of paying child support for their infant son enraged him. He promised Jennifer that their son, Brryan Jackson, wouldn’t live to the age of five. Around that same time, Bryan “joked” with coworkers that as a phlebotomist, he could inject his enemies with disease-tainted blood, and they’d never know what hit them.  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: “Brryan Jackson: My father injected me with HIV” by Lucy Hancock, for BBC News “A positive life: How a son survived being injected with HIV by his father,” by Justin Heckert for GQ Magazine “Man accused of injecting H.I.V. in son,” by Jo Thomas for the New York Times “Mother testifies that defendant hinted at son’s death,” CNN “Brian Stewart (phlebotomist)” Wikipedia entry In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “The Dartmouth Murders” by Denise Noe, The Crime Library “Hearts of Darkness” by Alex Tresniowski, People Magazine “Dartmouth professors’ murderer to get new sentence” by Peter Schworm and John R. Ellement, The Boston Globe “Man convicted in 2001 murders of professors asks for early release” by Elliot Zornitsky, The Dartmouth “2001 Dartmouth College murders” wikipedia.org

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

And I'll be talking about the dartmouth murders this feels like an after dark episode should we tell them why yes we had some very potent margaritas we were upsold margaritas we were okay so we went by the way norm's here with us hello hey hey norm okay last Norm was like, I'd like to be your audio engineer. I'd like to sit in. And we were like, yeah, that'd be great. We accept. And he's like, well, not this week. Yeah, I got stuff to do this week.

We're like, okay, okay. So anyway, he's here now. We went to lunch together. All three of us ordered a margarita. And the waiter was like, hey, you know, if you just get a pitcher, it's about the same. It's not the same.'s not the same we're feeling real good it was the most expensive pitcher of margarita i have ever seen you sound like the cheapest man of all time i i want the viewers to guess well we don't have listeners

okay yeah you're right uh listener homework write down what you think the value of that pitcher of margaritas what do you think they charged us for that pitcher of margaritas uh and he told us for you know full disclosure so you can get an accurate guess he told us it was the equivalent of five margaritas yeah okay okay get back to us yes Yes, please. Let us know. All right, I go first. And I am concerned. I was so relieved when I realized that I was going second, because I need time for this to wear off. Woo! Listen, I almost felt, we sat on the patio.

It was beautiful. It was great fun. We had a delicious Mexican lunch. We obviously had cheese dip. Duh. The guy asked us if we wanted cheese dip and kristen was like and brandy was like yeah i can interpret that when she's like oh well i could possibly all right i'm gonna gather my shit here and start us off with some murders. Oh, boy.

Let me drink my G0. That's Gatorade Zero, in case anyone's like, what the hell is G0? Glacier Freeze is the flavor I'm drinking today. Is that the only flavor they make of Gatorade Zero? Because that's the only one I've ever seen. Okay, I don't know the names of them, but there's yellow blue white and pink i like the white i like yellow oh that's the worst flavor that's so funny that's david's favorite too and like it's the worst flavor of gatorade no it just tastes like salty lemonade yeah and what's wrong with that it sounds here's what it tastes like.

It tastes like you had a nice, big thing of lemonade. And then a big, sweaty dude sat in it. That's what lemon Gatorade tastes like. It is. Promo code LGTC. Is this sponsored? It is sponsored. It's brought to you by Gatorade.

Would you like your lemonade to taste like aatorade. Would you like it a little bit? It tastes like a big sweaty dude sat in it. That's the Gatorade we always had on the bench in my high school soccer. When you were riding the pine? Whatever. I was a starter. I started. You said on the bench.

You know, I got taken out of the games a few times I can't run around for 90 minutes straight you're being too much of a badass yeah you know when they were like oh no we're up by 500

we better give somebody else a chance Norm you're killing them out there get to the bench alright let's start this fucking episode okay

I'm gonna get it together you don't look like you're getting it together I don't feel like I have it together at all you have too much smile going on I can going to get it together. You don't look like you're getting it together. I don't feel like I have it together at all. You have too much smile going on. I can't even control it. It's January 27th, 2001. Kristen, you are trying not to laugh right now.

I'm sorry. Well, it's not funny. It's just the margarita. We're in Aetna, New Hampshire, which is just like kind of an upscale, really small, like village-y part of New Hampshire. It's what I imagine all of New Hampshire, which is just like kind of an upscale, really small, like villagey part of New Hampshire. It's what I imagine all of New Hampshire is like. Just trees for days. Beautiful.

Yeah. Yes. Gotcha. It was about 630 p.m. when Roxanna Verona, who was a professor at Dartmouth, arrived for dinner at the home of her friends and fellow Dartmouth professors. Half, it's spelled like half, H-A-L-F. Okay. But it's pronounced Half.

It's a German name. Okay. And Suzanne Zantop. When Roxanna got to the house, the lights were all on, and she had been told by Suzanne that the front door would be unlocked. And so that was kind of normal. Like, come on in when you get here. She was going over for dinner, you know, whatever.

She turns the front door and all of a sudden she realizes that there's no noise coming from inside the house. And she wasn't met with like the usual like aroma of Suzanne's cooking. She was an amazing cook. And she totally expected for like dinner to be almost done, ready to go. And so just like hit in the face with the smells of this delicious meal. None of that was going on. And so she immediately became anxious as she opened the front door. She called out, Suzanne, Holf, I'm here. Where are you? No answer. She walked through the living room to the kitchen. There was food on the counter and nothing had been cooked. It was like in the prep stages still. Half. Is anyone here? Nothing. She continued past the kitchen and into the study where she was met with a horrifying scene. Half and Suzanne lay on the floor, clearly dead. There was blood everywhere. She ran from the house, got in her car, and drove to the nearest neighbor's house.

And the nearest neighbor happened to be, like, the retired dean of the Dartmouth Medical School. And so he's familiar with his neighbors, and he knows who Roxanna is. Right. She's, like, pounding on the door. They're having a party, a birthday party for a family member. So they come and there's all these people and she's like, freak the fuck out.

Yeah. And she's like, something horrible's happened next door. And so like two of the people from the party get in the car and go over to the Zantops house. And so they get there, they walk in,

they see the same thing horrible bloody scene how many people need to see this before we call the police don't know i think that's an odd choice that they went over first and then finally someone called the police yeah yeah like well let's make sure she's telling the truth this lady lies about dead bodies all the time. Right? So they get over there. They see, holy shit, something horrible's happened. They call the police. And police come out. And they secure the scene.

They call backup. They're just crime scene investigators. Everybody descends on this home to try and figure out what the hell has happened here. There was no sign of forced entry. The Xantops had clearly been stabbed to death. Oh. There was a partial bloody footprint on the floor, like a shoe print. But nothing else really looked like it had been touched

there were two things that were found at the scene that did not belong there and one thing was missing so on the floor very clear that they didn't belong there were these two 12 inch long knife sheaths so like the thing you would store a big hunting knife in. Right. And they had the letters S-O-G, which is apparently a brand name, like embossed on them. And then Holf's wallet was missing. But this is a very nice home. Yeah, you could take a ton of stuff, right?

There's fancy computer equipment. There's stereo equipment. There's fine silver. There's Suzanne's diamond wedding ring. All of that stuff is still all there. The only thing that is missing is Holf's wallet. Immediately, the police are like, What did he teach?

He taught geology and earth science. And she taught? She was the faculty chair of the German department, and I believe also taught German. Okay, okay. I mean, I guess we'll find out when we get to that part. Oh, I'm terribly sorry for my many questions. No, I love it.

So immediately they're like, this is super personal. Stabbing, we've talked about this before, is a super personal crime. You have to be very close to the victim. You are, there's no chance that you won't get your victim's blood on you like it is the most personal way to murder someone when i think about what i could offer in a crime scene would be this i'd be like this is personal and then i throw up not only were was it very clear that they had been stabbed, their throats were slit. There were multiple stab wounds.

It seemed like a case of overkill. It was. Yeah. They had been stabbed way past when they were dead. In fact, one of their throats had been slit after they were likely already dead because the slit had very little blood coming from it. So that meant that his heart had likely already stopped pumping i believe that was half so his heart had already likely stopped pumping by the time his throat was slit good lord brandy is that too much detail you know what i acted like you were the one who's i'm sorry i'm just like god and i actually edited out a bunch of the details did you really oh my god um and i will say sorry

for not saying this already um a bunch of this comes from an article by did you do all this research yourself i did not i did not most of this comes from an article by denise no for the crime library um so they're like super personal we have to to figure out, you know, who did this. The fact that there was no forced entry was like they willingly let someone into their home. And so they started taking a look into the Zantops. Who didn't like them? Did they have enemies? What was going on with this family?

But by all accounts, the Zantops were well-liked and well-respected by everyone who knew them. Both Hoff and Suzanne were born in Germany, but had actually met in the United States while they were attending Stanford. The couple spent years traveling around the world, advancing their educations. Ultimately, Hoff had earned his PhD in geology, and Suzanne earned her master's in political science. They had a couple of daughters who were adults at the time of their murder. And they had finally settled in New Hampshire when both had accepted positions at Dartmouth. The Zantops were popular with students.

They had a very active social life. They hosted dinner parties all the time there was no one who stuck out stuck out stuck out who stuck out as like a possible suspect as i mentioned already half top geology and earth science. Oh, I'm so sorry. And Suzanne was the faculty chair of the German department. By 2001, HALF was 63.

Suzanne was 56. They had spent years together, as I mentioned, traveling the world. And they too were beginning to talk about retirement. And they would never get there.

Oh, that's so sad. Oh, yeah. The entire community at Dartmouth, staff and students alike, mourn the loss of these two professors. But at the same time, there was this fear that spread. And suspicion. Well, yeah, who could have done this? There was this fear and that spread and suspicion because it seemed like it was likely that the murder or murderers, of course, was somebody was somebody amongst them. Absolutely. So from the beginning, investigators were pretty sure that two people were involved with this because two knife sheaths were found at the scene. That is hard to say, especially when you've had margaritas

so of course the police initially focused on someone who knew the xantops well and who was the first to discover the bodies poor roxanna who had just come to have dinner with her friends they cleared her like immediately and so then they started looking into who else? There was a couple of suspects that came up. There was this weird guy who was like a cook at a restaurant or a custodian at a restaurant like on the school campus. And he was super odd. And he started making these weird Internet posts about the murders and how um he he suspected that it was likely a suicide or you know they each murdered each other weren't two knives yeah

weren't two knives found at the scene and all of this stuff okay yeah that is super weird it's super weird and so they looked into him but he had an alibi he was in like south dakota at the time of the murder so okay wasn't him um and so they interviewed hulfe's teaching assistant um sir can you turn your phone off wow sorry it's my first day and you're fired so they interviewed hulfe's teaching assistant his name was Tom and he thought that he might know someone who could have had an opportunity or a motive

to off the Xantops am I crazy I'm thinking who did these people give F's to oh yeah I hadn't even thought about that

because this is I mean that's Ivy League right yeah it's Ivy League yes it's an Ivy League university there's gotta be some crazy weirdos

probably I mean that's actually a really good point I had not considered that well obviously that means that that's not the person Yeah, it's Ivy League. Yes, it's an Ivy League university. There's got to be some crazy weirdos. Probably. I mean, that's actually a really good point. I had not considered that. Well, obviously that means that that's not the person who did it. Maybe it is, and maybe they don't know their motive. No. Yeah, that's not it.

So this teaching assistant, Tom Douglas, was like, there's this professor who really wanted, he had like earned his master's degree and thought that he should have Hoff's position. And like the only way he was going to get that is if Hoff didn't have it anymore. Oh, God. And so they start looking into that guy. and they look into his activity on the day the Zantops were murdered and it turns out that he was in Hanover, which is near where the Zantops lived, I guess, and they found a rental car that he had had that day

while he was in Hanover. And in that rental car, they found a large cardboard box that had this suspicious reddish brown stain on it they were like no there might be something to this it's a rival professor who just wanted halsh job i mean tenure is very competitive absolutely oh my god so they start looking into it and this guy i guess like lived in arizona but he really Oh, my God. gets leaked and the boston globe runs this front page story about how they that investigators believe that he is the one who killed him that there it's likely a crime of passion that he was likely having an affair with suzanne they post they print a story about this on the front page of the newspaper and then it comes out that there's no way any of that was true

oh my god and they had to run a front page retraction whoa yeah so the following day they run they run a retraction that says the extramarital affair theory is not correct and they apologized for their earlier article and they said it was certainly never our intent to increase the suffering of the Zantop family, their friends or the Dartmouth College community. Did they have a source for that? I don't know. I don't know. Because I feel like I feel like you wouldn't print a retraction if you had a good source for it. Yeah. retraction if you had a good source for it yeah i mean you'd only print a retraction if somebody

had like yeah made some leaps right that's shitty yeah it's really shitty so then that same day in that same newspaper where they print the retraction they also printed uh in the like the letters to the editor section, they printed a letter from a close friend of the Zantops. And this letter said, My wife and I have shared a close friendship and close quarters in small sailboats with Suzanne and Hoff Zantop for more than 15 years. never in the intimate confines of our time and space together did any inkling surface of a relationship that might motivate crimes of passion the speculation about an adulterous love affair is irresponsible sensationalism on the part of the globe wow yeah So people were like pissed that this got printed. Well, absolutely. Yeah.

And so, meanwhile, investigators are looking into this guy, this prime suspect, whose name has just been printed in the newspaper. They're looking into that reddish brown stain. Was it nothing? It was moose stew. Ew. What the? It was stew made from moose. Oh, gross. It was stew? It was moose stew. Ew. What the? It was stew made from moose. Oh, gross. It was stew.

It was just stew. Well, that moose stew sounds like it should be a crime. That is disgusting. I would try moose. I eat moose. I would try it. Well, I mean, yeah, you try it, but would you want it in a cardboard box in your car? In the trunk of your car.

That would not be the ideal way for me to try a mousse. No, what probably happened is he was transporting some mousse stew. He was invited to a party. He was like, I know what I'll make. I'll make mousse stew. No, he was transporting mousse stew. It sloshed because he probably didn't have a lid on it properly. Okay, calm down.

He probably brought it in his brand new car. He's one of these people. Norman, do you have something you'd like to say to the listeners yeah i do actually okay when you you guys norman is heated about this kristin is guilty you should see him following kristin has a habit of bringing into a vehicle just like a cup of drink i like no lid on it just like you know like a cup you would drink in your house a glass like a glass of like tea or coffee into a vehicle no lid or at all so of like if i slam on the brakes or i make a sharp turn. Sloshing right out. That stuff's gonna slosh everywhere. Sometimes a lid. So we finally decided to get a better vehicle. They upgraded.

We upgraded. They got an 06 Prius. We upgraded from a Like new condition. We went from an 05 to a 16 vehicle which is like light years ago. Like even basic stuff

like wow this has a has a tire pressure monitor. I can't, this is new technology. Yeah, like the people at the dealership didn't even know what they needed to tell us because we're so out of date with what's standard in a new car. So we have this nice, shiny new vehicle. And Kristen and I are going to go, where were we going that day? To the furniture store.

Yeah, we were going to the furniture store. to go where were we going that day to the furniture store yeah we were going to the furniture store and kristin gets in the car with i kid you not a banana mousse stew a granola bar and then a glass of tea i don't think this is that so norm loses his mind no no that's not what happened he starts making faces and i was like is everything okay and he's like everything's fine but it's a long drive to this furniture store it's like 30 minutes and so i was like norman i know something's wrong what is wrong i said i said, I'm annoyed that you brought just the banana, right? Yeah, you started off with the banana. Because I'm annoyed you brought a banana into the car. And she ate the banana and she put the banana peel in our cup holder.

Christian! Where else was I supposed to put it? Not in the car at all! Was I supposed to throw it out into the road like I'm in Mario Kart? Like, what was I supposed to do? You could, it's biodegradable. It is biodegradable.

So he tells me that, and I'm like, okay, since did I pull out my granola bar? And then she pulls out the granola bar. And he's so mad. Is it a crunchy granola bar? Yes, the crumbly, crunchy ones. It's not a soft, chewy one. Kristen it a crunchy granola bar yes the crumbly crunchy ones it's not a soft chewy one kristen just granola and by the way it's a peanut butter one so it's smeared with peanut butter all over it fucking crumbs everywhere haven't you seen that meme no where they like do up the packaging

and they change the name and it's just like granola bar fucking crumbs everywhere anyway i ate it and my darling has been looked like he wanted to murder someone i wasn't sure who so i was like what's wrong nothing norman what is wrong i know something's wrong norman you want to take it away oh Oh, he looks so mad right now. And I finally, I exploded. We've waited a million years to get this fancy car, and then you bring... We waited

a decade to get this. Yeah, literally a decade. We waited a decade to get a new car. We had an appointment at the furniture store, so we knew what time we had to be there. You could have eaten before you got in the car i did eat before i got in the car kristin chose not to kristin still does not see the error of her brings a banana a crunchy crumbly granola bar and then a glass of tea into the car and that is why i was annoyed well so then kristin's trying to tell this story to me

and gain sympathy from me. I wanted my long-term friend to back me up. But the last time you got your hair done, you came into my salon with a glass of tea. And I was like, what the fuck are you doing? Where's your travel mug? And you're like, I like this better. Just to confirm, in our kitchen we do have glasses

with lids that you could use. I don't know what you expected me to, like, you really expected me to be on the opposite side of Norm? Honest to God. I thought he overreacted so badly. I was like, I'm going to wait for my long-term friend to show up. I start telling you the story. And lo and behold, you and Norm are one in the same i should have never told you i should have kept it all to myself anyway i'll put a lid on it folks yeah just get a travel

beverage container i'm gonna for your birthday i'm gonna buy you the nicest travel mug that's the worst present ever because I clearly don't like travel mugs. Maybe for Norm's birthday he's going to buy you a travel mug. Yeah, it'll be for my birthday. Okay. Back to the moose stew. Back to the moose stew. So this poor guy is completely cleared. It's moose stew on this cardboard box.

Oh, my point was that he used that box to transport. This is my cleared. It's moose stew on this cardboard box. Oh, my point was that he used that box to transport, this is my theory, he used that box to transport stew at one time. Yeah.

Got a little stew on the box and was like, perfectly good box, I'm still gonna use it. There was no stew in the box. Yeah, exactly.

He was just like, meh, there's a little stew on there, I'll still use it. So yeah, was not blood, had nothing to do with these, the murder of these two professors.

Meanwhile, his name and everything has been out there in the press. Horrible. Yeah, that's really, really awful. So he's cleared. Investigators are kind of back to the beginning. So they start trying to track down the bit of evidence that they do have. They have a couple of fingerprints. They have that bloody footprint and they have a couple of fingerprints they have that

bloody footprint and they have those sheaths from the knives and so they start looking into that and they put together a list of of retailers in the vermont new hampshire area that sold these the list is so fucking long. And so they're trying to narrow it down. They're trying to narrow it down. Well, they find out that this particular sheath, like the knife manufacturer changed the sheath like after, like in the beginning of 2000. So this is the latest model sheath.

And so they were able to eliminate a bunch of retailers based on that okay and so they find a retailer who remembers selling two knives to one person that's the thing there were no sales of two knives at the same time and so they find they find this retailer fox firearms in someplace in massachusetts i mean that's freaking massachusetts towns do it i dare you skid away skid away massachusetts give us the spelling s-c-i-t-u-A-T-E. I have no idea. Hold, please.

Okay. Situate. Okay, Massachusetts. Come on, Massachusetts. Situate? Okay, so they track down. It's February by now, by the way. So they track down this retailer in Situate, Massachusetts called Fox Firearms. And he has sold in that time period, he sold like 84 of these knives, but only one pair. And he remembers when he sold it and he

sold it to this kid, James Parker, who went by Jim. So they tracked downim and he lives in chelsea vermont which is like 30 miles from etna um new hampshire vermont small states right next to each other all of that shit in new england is just kind of mashed together you can get from one state to the next real quick this kid jim parker lives just like 30 miles away from etna where the murders happened um in chelsea vermont which is a super small town, like 1,200 people. Everybody knows everybody kind of thing. And so the police that are investigating this murder in New Hampshire, they head off to Chelsea the next day. And they first meet up with the Chelsea Police Department. And they're like, tell us everything you know about Jim Parker. And they're like, we don't know anything about him he's never been in any kind

of trouble he's a 16 year old kid 16 16 no kind of record he's never been a troublemaker what nothing yeah and so they bring him in and they interview him and he said yeah yeah i bought those i bought those knives for me and my best friend rob rob robert tullock who was 17 but he went by rob so jim and rob i don't know why i'm thinking that's gonna be confusing for people wait robert went by rob that's weird i mean have you ever heard of it he's like yeah uh I bought those knives for me and Rob. We were going to use them to build forts. But turns out they were like way heavier than we thought that they would be. And they're just not feasible to be, you know, like climbing through the woods and building forts with them.

And so I decided to murder two people. So I just sold them to some some stranger. I don't have them anymore. Who who who did you sell them to i don't i don't remember just some guy and so they're like okay yeah no problem that makes sense and so they bring in rob and they talk to him he tells the exact same story they did learn that right around the time of the murders, Rob had shown up at school with like this giant cut in his leg, kind of like right above his knee. But don't worry. He had a perfectly reasonable explanation for that. It is the most Vermont explanation you've ever heard in your life.

Are you ready? Something to do with maple syrup? Yes! What? What was his explanation? Oh, my God. He was just walking through the woods looking for a place to build a fort. They're very into fort building.

He slipped on a rock and he tripped up an embankment or down an embankment. Not real sure. And he fell into an old metal maple syrup tap and cut his leg open. That isn't just the cutest, most Vermont thing you've ever heard. Or the most murdery thing. Oh, no. These are good, good boys. They don't have the knives anymore.

They sold them to a scary stranger who they can't describe. No, he was, you know, kind of tall. Wore t-shirts sometimes. Excellent reference. Okay, so it's Vermont. Yeah. What time of year is this again? Winter? Uh-huh excellent okay so it's vermont yeah what time of year is this again winter uh-huh how did people know at school that he had a cut above his knee i don't know that's a great question i'm sure he was like telling everybody look at this cut i got on this old maple syrup tip more like i murdered two people i'm super proud of it I'm going to wear something fucking crazy like shorts in January in wintertime.

I don't know. I guess we'll find out. He's like the kid who gets the tattoo, and then he's like, ugh, see? Is everyone seeing? Like Norm at that dinner when I first met him? Norm when you first met him. He was scratching his arm to show off his tattoo.

I want to impress Brandy so bad. I know what'll work. I'll scratch my tattoo. I'll scratch my tattoo! You know what's funny to me? So you posted a picture on Twitter the other day, and your tattoo was visible. And there are some people who are like,

whoa, the gaming historian. Look how badass you are i had no idea if only they knew how not badass i think they do know and that's why they're surprised are you claiming that he's not a badass a tattoo does not equal badass i've studied people with tattoos that are i don't I don't know. Have you seen my sweet Mary Poppins tattoo? I'm so badass with my Mary Poppins tattoo. Don't mess with Brandy. You two,

you're the only two in this room with tattoos and yet you're the biggest sticklers about crunchy granola bars. I can tell you for sure you two are not the biggest badasses. Not badasses? What? You got into a moving vehicle with a beverage with a lid? No, no, no, no, no, no. Not just a moving vehicle.

What? A fancy new one. It was a new vehicle. You're only proving my point about how you're uptight. You're just sloshing your tea all around. Okay, this wasn't like some Disney movie where the, you know what I'm saying? Alright, as your audio engineer. What? Let's there's always that scene. As your audio engineer. What?

Let's get back to the story. Oh, wow. Whoa! Oh, you're also quality control? I am. I'm giving myself that role. So the police are looking into Jim and Rob, and they're like, there's no way these kids did this.

And so just to clear them, they ask for their fingerprints. They agree. they give fingerprints um rob owns a pair of boots and so he gives the boots to the investigators to all of this is just to rule them out and they're like by the way could you give us half's wallet back and rob just to clear you out hold on i gotta not be right here and so they're like hey guys thank you so much for being so cooperative we're just gonna take all this stuff just to eliminate you guys as suspects and the parents are super cooperative too they're like sure of course absolutely whatever you need meanwhile police go back and they're like, these boys, these good boys, there's no way.

The next morning, Rob and Jim are gone. What? They're missing. They're in Canada. They're missing. One of them leaves a note at home that tells their parents not to call the police. And so their parents immediately call the police. Yes.

Don't call the police. And so they immediately call the police. And the police are like, yeah, the fingerprints came back as a match they were at the fucking crime scene whoa yes yes fingerprints are a match boot print is a match it was rob and jim 16 and 17 year old rob and jim what the fuck yeah yeah but they've they've skipped town so they search their houses they find the knives in a cardboard box in rob's room along with hulph's empty uh wallet good grief yeah yeah 16 and 17 year old kid i bet they went to canada so they take off for the west coast they did not head to canada canada is so much closer yeah yeah than the west coast no they from vermont they drive they drive their car to jersey and then they decide that they need

to ditch the car because it's like an oddy and they feel like they're going to be seen and so they start they decide they're gonna hitchhike that word would not come to me can you describe what you just i just gave chris a thumbs up brady just slowly extended her arm with her thumbs up. Which I took as a compliment and as a hint. So, as a compliment. A hint. So they decide they're going to hitchhike to California. And I don't know, do what the fuck when they're in California. Oh good, because there are no laws in California.

That's brilliant. It's nuts. So they get picked up by a truck driver. And they tell them some sob story about how they're just trying to you know they got rough lives and they're just trying to make it to the west coast and he puts a call out on the cb radio for anybody he's only making it as far as and he's only going as far as indiana and so he puts out a call on his cb radio anybody who could pick them up in Indiana and take them the rest of the way so some sheriff in Indiana is listening and hears this and he's like two kids that got picked up

uh-uh something's up with that and so he immediately responds like he's a truck driver and he's like absolutely I'll pick him up in Indiana I'll get him you know this far or whatever oh good for that guy ranges it with this truck driver for him to leave them at the Flying J in Indiana. And then all of a sudden, all these police swarm up and they take Jim and Rob into custody. That is. They don't even know at this point what they're wanted for, but he's sure they're wanted for something. That's amazing. Yes.

I love it. It's just like the Brady Bunch movie. What? Oh, Jan. Remember when Jan. Yes! I love it. It's just like the Brady Bunch movie. What? Oh, Jan? Remember when Jan runs away? Yeah. And they pull out a call on the CB radio. So, when this truck driver drops, this truck driver's like, tells the

boys this story about how he feels really sorry for them because he's got three kids of his own. One who died and two that are I don't know, still trying to make it in this world. And so, he drops them off at the Flying J and he gives them $10 to buy themselves breakfast. And then the police, like the police swarm in. And so he's like, what the hell is going on? And they tell him, you know, that they, by this time they figured out that they're wanted

for murder. He's pissed. Does he ask for his $10 back? He asks for his $10 back. Good for him. He asks for his $10 back and he's so pissed. You're not getting a breakfast sandwich on me, buddy. No, and he ends up losing his job because he picked up hitchhikers.

He gets fired over it. Oh, that's no good. Yeah, but he said, I have no regrets. Everything seems so set up for them to be captured here. Maybe it's the way it was supposed to happen. I actually feel lucky. You know, yeah. Yeah.

So he's not bitter about losing his job over it. He felt like he played a part in making sure that they got captured. He did. He did. He absolutely did. He absolutely did. He'll find another job as a truck driver. Yeah.

I see those trucks all the time with the sign on the back that's like, do you want a career? Oh, yeah. You can be your own boss. Oh, yeah. Or Beachbody. I mean, you can also be your own boss there. Or, yeah, Herbalife. Amway.

All kinds of stuff. Brandy, you seen this? You heard about this? Hey, hun. I know we haven't talked in 15 years. Randy, you seen this? You heard about this? Hey, hun.

I know we haven't talked in 15 years. You know, truck drivers becoming beach body consultants. That's the new career path. That's exactly right. Okay. So they're arrested. We'll get back to that in a minute. But at this point, this is where the article from Crime Library kind of pisses me off. And you know I love my Crime Library stories. You're obsessed from Crime Library kind of pisses me off. Okay.

And you know I love my Crime Library stories. You're obsessed with Crime Library. I love it. Okay. Were they just cut off? No, they did that thing that you hate that 2020 does. Oh, it was a perfect life. Well, yeah. Everything was perfect.

It goes on to talk about how no one thought that these two teenagers could be responsible for such horrific crimes. Because they were good boys from and i'm quoting directly here intact families oh oh so let's unpack that murderers only come from divorced families so the fact that these were intact families means that they were inherently good yeah they just they just just meant their whole body was intact. They didn't have like prosthetics or anything. You know another one I hate?

A good all-American kid. Yeah. Have you ever seen a black kid described that way? No, absolutely not. Good all-American kid. No, that's white and blonde. So they talk about this, how good these kids are and blah, blah, blah. not white and blonde so that they talk about this how good these kids are and blah blah and then it goes on about how rob was like this giant asshole who thought he was better than everyone else

thought he was smarter than everyone else yeah like he wrote this whole essay in school about how he was a superior human being oh my god yeah but they lead into this in this article about how no one could believe it could be these two wholesome boys. Oh, wait. Turns out they thought they were better than everybody. It also goes into this whole story about how Rob, from the time that he was like in middle school, wanted to be the president of the United States when he grew up. And so he decided to start small. And in 1999, when he was small.

Don't just jump for it. Wait till you're 35. So in 1999, when he was small, don't just jump for it. Wait till you're 35. In 1999, he ran for Stucco president and he ended up winning, which was actually like a really big deal because it was like this big upset and whatever. Only then once he won it, he didn't actually want the position. He would show up late to meetings or not at all. And it was so bad that the student council actually attempted to impeach him yes hmm imagine that someone who runs for president but doesn't actually want the job can't imagine it i can't picture that it could only happen in a stucco situation

so i call bullshit on this nobody could believe that it could possibly ever believe it i believe yes a million people were bullied by these guys and they were like oh yeah i'm pretty sure it was these two guys yeah so they're arrested they're taken in and fingerprinted and photographed there in indiana and then they're held there until they're able to be, you know, transported back to New Hampshire. And reportedly, Rob, who was kind of the ringleader, he's the older of the two, definitely seems to be the one who's in charge.

He cried unconsolably for hours after his arrest. And he just like sat there, like with his head in his hands. And he just kept saying, I'm so his head in his hands. And he just kept saying, I'm so sorry, Jim. I'm so sorry, Jim. I'm so sorry. And Jim kind of managed to hold it together the whole time. Hey, when one falls apart, the other one has to hold it together. Yeah. I mean, that's just the way it goes. Exactly. The future president of the United States is crying on your arm. You got to keep together yeah so they're arrested they're brought back to new hampshire they're charged with the murders and in november of 2001

the court ruled that jim parker who was 16 and i believe that rob was had was 18 by this time even though he was 17 at the time that the crime took place. I believe he turned 18 by now. Despite all that, he had a birthday? Yes, he did. He had a birthday at some point. So they decide that they're going to try Jim as an adult, and then Rob will be an adult. He'll be tried as an adult as well, because he's actually an adult.

Right. So this meant that Jim could face life in prison without the possibility of parole. So a first degree murder charge with extenuating circumstances carried a mandatory life without the possibility of parole sentence. So since he's being tried as an adult, that's what he's facing. Wow. And so he decides to take a plea deal. And so he decides to take a plea deal. He agrees to testify against Rob in exchange for being allowed to plead guilty as an accessory to second degree murder only in the killing of Suzanne, not in the killing of Hoff.

So he doesn't have to plead to that at all. But as part of the agreement, he has to tell them exactly what happened. Yeah, I am dying for the motive here. Oh, you're going to hate it. May I tell you what I would hate? Yeah. We just want to kill somebody. Oh, they've got a door open.

Let's go in and kill somebody. Is that the motive? Kind of. It's part of it. Okay. Yeah. Kind of. It's part of it. Okay.

Yeah. So with this plea deal, he would be sentenced to 25 years to life, and he would be eligible to apply for parole after 16 years. Hmm. So he agrees to all of this. But before that plea deal is made public, Rob's defense team says that he's going to plead not guilty by reason of insanity. He is suffering from a serious mental illness and that his acts were a direct result of the mental defect or disease. Okay. So, in December of 2001,

Jim went before a judge to formalize the plea deal. And it was kind of a weird, there was like a weird interaction between him and the judge. The judge was asking him if he was, if he understood

what he was pleading to, if he understood the charges brought against him, if he was under the influence of any drugs or alcohol. And like, he reacted to that very weirdly. He thought that the judge was asking him like if he'd ever done drugs or alcohol. And he said, never. Like, it was like he was super proud of it.

The fact that he'd never done drugs or alcohol. And the judge's like, oh, all right, calm down. These are standard questions. Good Lord. So then he was asked how he pled and he pled guilty.

And then he had to tell exactly what happened that day. So he talked about how the, what the that day. So he talked about how the what the motive was, he and Rob were done with this life. They both had the grades to go on to college, but that was not what they wanted. It was too confining. They wanted to travel the world. They wanted to see it all. They talked about going to Europe or New Zealand, but ultimately they'd settled on Australia. That's where they were going to go start their new lives. They thought that they would like Australia because it had a, quote, varied natural environment and good places for rock climbing. Okay, so far I'm with you.

And they thought that they might be able to support themselves there as hired assassins. What? Or perhaps they could just live off the land. One or the other. They were such dumb teenage boys. And so they thought that they would need $10,000 to get them

to Australia and then get them set up to start a life there. To start their assassin business. Assassin business. And they thought they'd find this all in one man's wallet? Nope. Nope. Okay.

So they needed to make $10,000. And so they came up with some ideas of how to do that. Initially, they thought that they would steal credit card numbers from people's mailboxes. Like go through people's mail, get their credit card information and be able to steal money that way. Only even when they were able to find credit card numbers, they couldn't figure out a way to use them because they didn't have all of the information. And so they're like, well, damn it, that's not going to work. And so then at one point they stole an ATV and they like took the like rubbed the serial number off of it and then they listed it for sale for three thousand dollars and some guy came and looked at it and he

was like yeah absolutely i'll buy it um i'll just i'll take the title please and they were like the what now i didn't know you had to have a title you. A title, you say, huh? I thought this was more of a Barbie Jeep situation. And he was like, you don't have a title for it? And they were like, no. And so he's like, yeah, not interested in the deal then. Yeah. Yeah. And so they were like, damn it.

And so then they were like, well, obviously, the next obvious way for us to make this $10,000 is we're going to have to rob people. So their plan was to break into people's homes. Did it ever occur to them to get jobs? No. That would take so long, Kristen. No, their plan was to break into people's homes, tie them up, get their PIN numbers from them. And then once they had the pin numbers they would kill them great and then they'd go rob them take all of the money out of their accounts

like 200 at a time i guess because essentially that's all you can get why kill if they've seen them if they're tied up i mean just put on a mask no no they have to kill them if they're tied up you get their pin number you can withdraw these guys are gonna be trained and hired exactly it's it's good training for their assassin business they're about to start they're gonna have to form an llc if they wanted to be assassins are us llc we kill for you have you ever thought about killing someone no thank you no like what you would do, because I think about this, this gives me like flashbacks to BTK.

Yeah. Someone comes into your home, they tie you up. Yeah. If someone tied you up and then asked for your ATM number, what do you think you would do? Well, I don't know.

What would you do? I have no idea what I would do. You'd probably give it to them. Yeah, probably. I mean, unless I think they're going to kill me anyway. That's what I always wonder. And I feel like, you know, do i have no idea what i would do you probably give it to them yeah probably i mean unless i think they're gonna kill me anyway like that's that's what i always wonder and i feel like you know somebody would punch me in the face and i'd fold completely have you seen the movie the ref no okay so it's a christmas movie it's really funny it's um oh hell

now i have to look up who's in it the ref no one's even heard yes they have it's like my mom's favorite movie well that doesn't mean people have heard of it it's dennis leary okay dennis leary judy davis and kevin spacey okay so dennis leary is a burglar he breaks into a house he ties up the husband and wife but they fight with each other so much that they drive him fucking crazy okay it's funny anyway uh apparently in some countries it's called hostile hostages instead of the ref wait is that the end of the story no i'm just talking about an instance of what might have, like, they, you asked what would happen if somebody broke in and tied me up.

I'm just asking, yeah, what you would do. I don't know what I would do, Kristen. I'd probably give them my PIN number, and then they'd murder me anyway. And then they'd have all $12 from my bank account. That's what I'm saying. I feel like you'd have to not tell them that information, because then what reason do they have to keep you alive no i'd probably ask them if they needed a drink and if everything was okay that's what i did when the guy broke into my garage you didn't know for him i didn't but i asked if i could help have you told that story i think so i think

help me carry out this tv uh can i help, guys. A man broke into Brandy's home a couple years ago. My garage. He didn't make it into my home. Oh, is that not attached to your home? It is attached to my home. Okay, so you went out to the garage. You saw this stranger standing there and you said, hello, sir. May I help you? He did?

Yeah, but you had like a tone to it. You weren't like, hi, can I help you? No, I was like, can I help you? Big difference. And he was like, whoopsies, wrong advice. That's exactly what he did. So they come up with this plan that they're going to break into people's homes or get people to let them in willingly somehow

by asking them to use the phone or something like that and then they'll tie them up they'll get their pin numbers and then they'll kill them great practice for their new assassin business right they'll have their ten thousand dollars that they need to start this new life in no time perfect plan only they try to do it and like the first time that like they show up to this house in december in vermont this big house they drive up to it in their in jim's mother's car okay and they knock on the door and the man answered and they said that they needed to ask him some questions for a school project would he mind answering them and he said no i'm tarring my pool which why is he

tarring his pool in december is my first question well because you can't well yeah it would probably be filled with snow right i would think so and it seems like too weird a lie i know it's a weird answer okay like is it the equivalent of like no i have to wash my hair yeah so he's like no i'm tarring my pool i can't be bothered right now and so they're like okay thanks they were like oh shit we didn't prepare for that no and so they leave and they don't try again until late january it's january 27th okay so they it's january 27th 2001 they arrive at this big home in etna new New Hampshire. They have a backpack that's got some notebooks in it so they can pretend to fill out questions about this survey that they're

going to ask about. It's got duct tape. It's got zip ties. It's got the two big knives in it. They're going to go to the door. They're going to get themselves in there. And then they're going to kill these people once they get their pin numbers they knock on the door Holf Zantop answers the door Rob tells them that they're students taking an environmental survey

for a class project Holf is a geologist yes oh and teaches earth science so he was excited so he's like anything to help a student.

And he's like, hold on. Oh, God. My wife's inside cooking. We've got people coming over. Let me see if I have time to do this real quick. So he goes inside. He comes back. And he's like, absolutely.

Anything to help a student, come on in. He brings the two boys into his study. This is awful. It's horrible. He brings the two boys into his study. This is awful. It's horrible. He brings the two boys into the study. One of them pulls out, Rob pulls out the notebook and realizes that he doesn't have a pen. They haven't rehearsed a story at all. Things are kind of falling apart a little bit.

He tries to pull it back together and starts asking questions he can hear suzanne in the kitchen the kitchen is just out like outside the study she's in there you know chopping food up getting ready for this dinner party that she's having meanwhile jim when he's recounting all this because remember he's recounting all of this in court and he says at this point he thought this guy just wants to help us like we don't need to kill this guy yeah but oh my god something happens that sets rob off remember rob thinks that he's smarter than everyone he's a superior human being and here's this geology professor and so he asks a question and then he he doesn't

really know where to go with it and half says you know you really need to be more prepared if you're going to do this kind of thing and so rob is set off by that he's pissed that this guy would question his intelligence question question his preparedness. And so Holf says that he's got a friend that can help them with this survey. And so he turns towards his desk to get a phone number, like, out of his Rolodex. And while he's turned around,

Rob opens up the backpack, pulls out a knife, hands a knife to Jim. And when Holf turns back around, Rob's got the knife out. He's pulled the sheath off and he lunges at Holf and stabs him directly in the chest. Holf falls out of his chair. He's like sitting at his desk. He falls out of his chair and Rob just continues stabbing him. Holf is screaming.

Oh, my Godzanne runs into the room of course she does um and she is obviously freaking out rob looks up and yells at jim and says slit her throat and so jim grabs his knife grabs suzanne and slits her throat and she dies well sure, immediately. Almost immediately. Holy shit. Yeah, at that point. This is the saddest thing. I mean.

Oh, yeah. Just two professors on the brink. He invited them into their home because they had the perfect ruse for him. They didn't even know that. They just lucked into it that this is a professor. This is a sweet old man yes who wants to teach people uh-huh and they're like hey can you help us with a school project yeah rob just he at this point rob slits half's throat i mentioned that

earlier and he's already dead um and but it doesn't matter to rob he just keeps he wants to see what his knife is capable of so he sees if he can if it will stab through his skull oh and it does finally they're like we got to get out of here and they take half's wallet that's all that they take from the scene and they leave yeah they get in the car they stow the bloody knives under the floor mat of the car and they take off they had prepared to some degree they had gone to some rural property and pre-dug graves that they had intended to take the bodies to. Oh, God.

They didn't do that, but they did drive there and clean off because they were covered in blood. Of course. They used the snow on the ground to clean the blood off of themselves and off of their weapons. And it was at that point that Rob realized that in his crazy stabbing that he had actually stabbed himself in the leg. He had a giant wound on his leg where he had stabbed into his own leg. And so he cleans that off. They empty out the wallet and realize that they never got the PIN number. So everything in it is useless.

Whoops. Except for the $340 in cash. That's all they got. Jim said in court at this time that he thought, this is not the way I want to make my money killing people and it wasn't even that he was feeling remorse it was that he felt like it wasn't worth it for the amount of money that they got out of it good lord yeah oh this is so upsetting oh yeah um they ended up they go back home they realize on the way home that they have left the sheaths to the knives at the xantop house and so they decide they're

going to circle back by run in and get those and then go but when they circle back by the xantop house there are police in the driveway and so they just take off and left it yeah and a couple weeks went by and then they were id'd and that's when they took off and so jim has pled guilty and he has agreed to testify against rob and then in march of 2002 just as Rob's about to go to trial and present his insanity defense, all of a sudden he drops it and he pleads guilty. No deal, nothing. One article that I read said that he's the first person in New Hampshire

history to, to plead guilty to all charges and not present a defense at all. Hmm. Which I don't know if that's true, but I only found that in one source. But OK, that's kind of odd. It's super odd. I don't know what led to that. His lawyer said that Rob wanted to spare his family the trauma of a trial, which I guess could be true.

That's fair. I can I can get behind that yeah and with his guilty plea that meant that rob was sentenced to the mandatory sentence life in prison without the possibility of parole damn yeah they were both formally sentenced and at their formal sentencings, the Zantops children made statements. And during Jim's sentencing, when the Zantops children were making their statements, Jim was sobbing and he stood up and he said, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. There's not much more I can say. I'm just really, really sorry. At Rob's sentencing, he made direct eye contact with the Zantops children

as they made their statements and reportedly had, like, this little smirk on his face. Gross. Yeah. Following their sentencing, both Rob and Jim were remanded to the new hampshire state prison in concord to serve their sentences but they're held in separate parts of the prison and are allowed no contact with one another in 2012 in a landmark ruling the u.s supreme court oh sorry the u.s supreme Court deemed mandatory life sentences without parole

for juveniles as unconstitutional yeah I agree with I agree too in their decision they said that juvenile offenders have diminished culpability and greater prospects for reform and that judges should be able to consider the mitigating qualities of youth in sentencing yeah i totally agree with that your brain's not fully formed yet yeah following that ruling the new hampshire supreme court unanimously decided that the ruling should be retroactive wow and in 2014 it vacated the sentences of four men who had been convicted as juveniles and sentenced to life without parole. Among them was Rob.

So as of 2014, his sentence was vacated and a judge ruled that he should get a new sentencing hearing. As far as I could find, the attorney general said that they intended to appeal that decision. And so far, Rob has not been resentenced. He remains in prison and a resentencing hearing has been ordered. But so far, he has not had that hearing and has not been resentenced. Wow.

Yeah. So they tried him as a juvenile juvenile they tried him as an adult but he was a juvenile when he committed the crime he was 17 but if he was tried as an adult why would he qualify for that because he was a juvenile why not try him as a juvenile if he's literally a juvenile because then if he's literally they do this all the time and i don't know what the requirements are to be able to move something to adult court but they but they do this all the time because if he was tried as a juvenile they would only have the ability to hold him until he's like 21 and so they commonly do this because that would only be four years especially if you're like 17 yeah and you do something horrible they want to be able to keep

you in prison for a long time yeah so jim got life with the possibility of parole after 16 years he got 25 to life with the possibility of parole after 16 years and so he was not impacted by this ruling at all right in may of 2019 so just a couple months ago jim parker applied for early release he has served about 18 years of his sentence his petition for release states that he has been a model prisoner and has rehabilitated himself he has earned his master's in science and advanced his artistic skills by painting multiple prison murals advanced his artistic skills by painting multiple prison murals no word yet on whether or not his release has been approved that's the story of the dartmouth murders oh that was terrible yeah isn't that crazy they just wanted to make ten thousand dollars so they could go live in australia

they were such stupid well i'm sorry ten thousand dollars is gonna set you up to live somewhere no it just shows it just shows how stupid they were they were stupid kids no no they were smarter than everyone right i forgot about that part yes hired assassins yeah i those poor professors oh yeah yeah okay y'all ready for this first of all thank you to lyndon for suggesting this in the discord excellent by the way a lot of fun things happening on patreon we forgot to say this at the top of the show we've got bonus episodes on timothy mcveigh's trial oh yeah on the playboy model who body shamed the woman in the gym yes brandy had that crazy case that made me want to throw a rock through my own window

oh gosh the hammer murder yes and the catholic church what was your other case you did? I couldn't possibly remember. Oh, Taylor Bell. The 17-year-old college student with the creepy... Creepy is an understatement. Creepy dude. Age gap. I need an age gap bell that I can just ding. You do? Yeah.

We can make that happen. So, Patreon is awesome. We have in our Discord a suggestions area. And so this comes from Lyndon. This is a crazy story. I'm going to say right off the bat, this might be the most fucked up story I have ever told on this podcast. Whoa. This is really, really bad.

Those are bold claims. I know. In my first episode as engineer, I get to hear the most effed up story. Yeah. Thank you for censoring yourself, Norm. Yeah, thank you. Sexy times.

Most of this info comes from a BBC article by Lucy Hancock and an article from GQ by Justin Heckert. Both of the titles, if I told you it, would ruin it, but I'll save the titles for the end. Got it. Okay. Brian Stewart and Jennifer Jackson met at a military training facility

in Troy, Missouri. Oh, I know. This is St. Louis suburb. Uh-huh. Yeah. They were both studying to be medics, and sparks flew. Pretty soon they moved in together, and five months later, in 1990, Jennifer became pregnant. How?

I assume through sexual intercourse, Brandy. Oh, I don't, is that how babies are made? They were lovers. We gotta pause the podcast. Talk about the birds and the bees. Let me verify. But as great as things had been in the very beginning, everything went bad super fast.

Brian physically and verbally abused Jennifer. He made very specific death threats against her. He told her he'd kill her by injecting her with a needle full of air. Yeah. One horrifying day. I'm so sorry for this story. When Jennifer was pregnant, Brian demanded sex and she wasn't interested. So she said no.

So he stuck his entire hand into her vagina. Christian! And he said that he would ruin her for anybody else. Yeah. Oh my gosh. After that, Brian was arrested, but the charges were dropped. Brian called Jennifer from jail and Brian was arrested, but the charges were dropped. Brian called Jennifer from jail and was like, Oh, I'm so sorry. I promise I'll get help.

And, you know, Jennifer's in this position. She's in this abusive relationship. She wanted her child's father to be in the child's life. Right. So she took him back. Shortly after that, Brian was sent to Saudi Arabia for Operation Desert Storm. Jennifer and Brian talked on the phone while he was away, and things seemed to get better. He seemed really excited about becoming a dad.

The baby was born on February 24, 1991 while brian was still in saudi arabia okay this part god so jennifer and brian agreed to name the baby brian because you know in case brian didn't make it back from war which is sweet i get it but it's hell for storytelling. So we got two Bryans in this story, okay? Okay, my friend, her son's name is Jaren, and then she's dating a guy who also happens to be named Jaren. How is that possible? Jaren is not a common name. No.

And so her boys have nicknamed boyfriend Jaren as Giant Jaren. I think it's hilarious. So they've got Jaren and Giant Jaren. I am shocked she found another Jaren. I know. I think it's nuts. Did she go Googling? No, she met him at work.

Okay. Wow. Wow. Checks out. Okay. Yeah. Oh, you know this friend. Who?

It's Jenny who used to work at the oh yeah yeah oh my gosh from the block jenny from the block don't be fooled by the rocks that she's got yeah yeah so let's call them brian and giant brian okay that's my point so when brian when giant brian came back from saudi arabia things were either the absolute best or the absolute worse yeah classic domestic violence situation either he's smashing a car windshield with his fist like you fucking do oh my goodness he's like opening doors for her and talking about the future you know just a great guy it's the worst kind of douchebag. I know. I know. Oof.

I prefer consistency over anything else. Yeah, can't you just always be a douche? Jennifer really wanted to make their relationship work. But that wasn't in the cards because Brian was a total shithead. Yeah. And you can't make it work with someone who's abusive. So at this point brian

starts saying things like oh i don't really think the kid is mine you know this isn't my kid it was ridiculous it absolutely was his child eventually jennifer left him she was like i've had enough of this. I'm out. So she left, but she obviously needed child support. Yeah. Which is all very reasonable. If you help bring a child into the world, you have to help pay to raise it. Nothing controversial here. But Brian didn't see it that way. In fact, just the idea of paying child support pissed him off

did oh because it didn't he didn't believe it was his kid and he's a shithead uh-huh i you think he believed it was his kid yeah yeah well later a court determined that it was his kid well yeah yeah yeah no i just mean like did he not want a relationship with this kid at all like i imagine he wanted um all of the above no relationship for the kid to not exist oh great yeah nothing excellent i want nothing no consequences to my actions please yes perfect just like when he sexually assaulted jennifer and didn't want to go to prison yeah you know one day jennifer says he told her you won't need to look me up for child support anyway because your son's not going to live that long oh okay and she said what do you mean by that

and he said don't worry about it i just know that he's not going to live to see the age of five. I'm sorry, what now? Now he's threatening the life of the kid? Yep. At the time, Brian was working as a phlebotomist. Oh, right. You talked about that. He used to make these super funny jokes with his coworkers

about how with all the different blood that they had in the lab, he could infect someone with a deadly virus and that person wouldn't know what hit him. That's a hilarious joke. Oh, the best. Never heard one better. I hate this guy. He's the fucking worst.

By this point, Jennifer and Brian didn't have any contact. They got the paternity test, and whoa, shocking, Brian was Brian's. Brian was Giant Brian's. That's right. Okay, for our dumb viewers, or listeners, can we say what a phlebotomist is oh it's basically this guy worked in a lab with a lot of blood you know blood testing specifically the person he's a the person who draws blood yeah and by dumb listeners i meant the audio engineer because i did not know what a phlebotomist is. Okay, wonderful. So the person that takes blood samples. Yes. Okay.

So they're not in contact with one another, but when little Brian was 11 months old, something really scary happened. He had an asthma attack. And Jennifer rushed him to the hospital. At this point, she's like, okay, Brian is the child's father. I should let him know that his son is in the

hospital. She called Brian's work, and the co-worker who answered the phone was like, Brian Stewart doesn't have a kid. So Jennifer's like, oh, great. Okay, thanks. I appreciate it. I get it. But then, on the day that her son was scheduled to be discharged from the hospital,

Brian showed up. And he brought his lab coat with him. Because he didn't want to leave it in the car, Brandy. No, why? Well, you don't want your coat to get hot. Uh-huh. Or lonely. You need to smuggle something into the hospital.

Whoa, that's quite a charge. Brian's presence was kind of strange and unexpected, but, you know, a father showed up to visit his child in the hospital. What could possibly be wrong with that? Does he have a syringe full of air? He's got something. It's worse than that. he's got something that's worse than that. So Brian enters the hospital room,

probably on a horse with his cape billowing in the wind because, oh, here I am to be a father. And he very kindly told Jennifer, hey, why don't you go down to the cafeteria, get yourself something to drink. No, Jennifer, don't leave me alone with a kid. Jennifer was thirsty and she'd been with

the kid for you know who knows how long so she yeah she goes down to the cafeteria but when she came back the baby was screaming he was behaving very strangely his breath was rapid he was inconsolable jenn Jennifer called in the hospital staff, and they were, like, super confused as to what was going on. The baby was obviously very distressed for no apparent reason. But...

What'd he inject him with? They got his pulse back down to normal. They got him breathing steadily. They checked his temperature. Everything seemed okay, so they sent him home. Weeks went by, and Jennifer was just sick with despair. Something was wrong with her baby.

He'd been healthy before the hospital visit, but now he was just deteriorating. For the next four years, Jennifer took her child to every doctor she could find, trying to figure out what was wrong with her son. No one could help her. They tested Brian for everything under the sun, and it all came back negative. But the fact that he was dying was undeniable. Over time, Jennifer and little Brian spent a lot of time with their pediatrician,

Dr. Linda Steele-Green. Linda did everything she could do for this kid, but she was baffled. But in May of 1996, something clicked. She remembered that Jennifer had told her that little Brian's father had said that the boy wouldn't live long. Okay, so one source I read said that this premonition came to her in a nightmare. Oh my gosh. And like she woke up in the middle of the night and called the hospital. Who knows how this really happened, but the bottom line is that after a lot of thought,

Linda had this weird, bad feeling because she tested this kid for everything. And finally, she's like, I think we need to test him for HIV. Oh, my gosh. They tested him, and he had full-blown AIDS. Oh! What the fuck? I'm sorry, this is the most messed up story.

This five-year-old boy had full-blown AIDS and also three other infections that just happen when your immune system is just shot. His chances of survival were minuscule. They figured he had five months to live. Jennifer was told to, like, pick out the outfit. Five months? Yeah. Jennifer was told to pick out the outfit that he would be buried in he'd been a ring bearer so she was like okay i guess we'll put him in that little suit holy shit but no one gave up on brian they gave him whatever medication they could and

hoped for the best but this whole time they were like how did this happen so this is where i have to like touch the mic yeah like an idiot no this is stop it it's everybody listening loud employer i can hear you so keep in mind at this time people were still really dumb about hiv and oh yeah a lot of people were not well versed on how it could be transmitted but he probably got it from a toilet seat yeah remember that i do remember that was like that was a thing people thought people had no idea how you could get it so there was this assumption that like well if anybody has is hiv positive you can't go anywhere near yeah who knows yeah

luckily detective kevin wilson from the saint charles county sheriff's office was no dummy he was a detective but he was also a paramedic so he knew how you could get hiv yeah and he'd heard jennifer's story about how her douchebag ex was a phlebotomist who hated paying child support. And he was like, oh, boy, I think I get it. He got blood tests from like 30 people who had been around the baby. And they all came back fine. What had happened here was as horrifying as it was obvious. A man who didn't want to pay child support. Injected his child with hiv

yeah that's so fucked up yeah that's what i'm telling you this is this is hard difficult to imagine i mean just who the fuck right prosecutors started building their case meanwhile miraculously little brian started to get a bit better and i think it's just like okay now they know what he has so they can at least do what they know to do but life was still so hard by the time he was seven, he had a swollen liver. He had fungus growing under his fingernails. What? He had, he constantly had ear infections,

zero immune system. He took 23 oral medications a day. He was able to go to school part-time, but a lot of kids didn't want to play with him. Which is terrible, yeah. And a lot of their parents didn't want the want to play with him. Which is terrible, yeah. And a lot of their parents didn't want the kids to play with him.

Because, again, people had all these misconceptions about how you can contract HIV. Maybe it was from a toilet seat. Maybe from swimming at the same pool. You know, who knows? Do you remember that movie? Yes. About Ryan White? Well, do you remember in fifth grade mrs harrison read it aloud to us

yeah yeah read us his story and then we watched the made for tv movie about it how do you remember the movie i remember the book i remember passing out oh i don't know well anyway he was a hemophiliac and so he had to get regular blood transfusions and he contracted hiv from a blood transfusion and then yeah nobody would be friends with him. Yeah. Because everyone thought that they could catch it super easily. Yeah. They, like, lobbied to keep him out of school

and, like, all of this crazy stuff. Oh, the poor kid. Yeah. That's just what I'm picturing. Oh, yeah, that's what I was picturing, too. Yeah. Sometimes I forget that we have all these life experiences together because like this whole time i was picturing myself in fifth grade yeah taking notes on this book and like i was sitting

next to you while i did it we're just there being long we were new friends at that point that's weird isn't it we became friends no norm's looking not even touched at all. Stop touching yourself, Norm. Norm's touched by her story. Touched by himself. Continue the story. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Quality control.

Oh. Continue the story. Are you going to cut out all these comments from him? I might. She could. She's the editor still still what's gonna happen to me she hasn't been fired yet it's gonna inject me we'll never know no one will ever find you brandy would find you i would yeah brandy like this podcast would really

take off because brandy would be like my long-term friend My long term friend is missing. Brandy would be on the case so hard. I would be. What would you do? If you went missing? Yeah. I'd probably go to Brandy. You'd be like hey Brandy and then just like leave it at her doorstep and be like bye. No I'd like Brandy you have to help me find Kristen. You know what?

We'd team up. Okay. It'd be you two and my mom. Yeah. Powerhouse. Oh yeah yeah yeah that we'd find the shit out of you you would you totally would my dad would be in front of all the tv cameras the family spokesperson we have no leads at this time i have nothing to say i just wanted to be on camera again. By the way, guys. Oh, the DP.

DP got recognized at an event. Brandy and I had never been recognized for the podcast. You know, we realize this is a very small podcast. We have no expectation of being recognized. My dad got recognized and the man was high as a kite his head was huge already sizable but man he kind of grew into that nose grew into his nose anyway so brian is battling just to stay alive meanwhile, his douchebag of a father had his own battle. A legal battle.

Brian Stewart's six-day trial began in 1998 in Charles County, Missouri. Okay, do you remember this case at all? Neither do I! And we were like practically right here. Yeah. The prosecution laid out a simple but horrifying argument brian took hiv infected blood from work put it in his lab coat and he went to the hospital where his son was staying and when jennifer left to go get herself a drink

he used a butterfly needle which is like a really small needle. It's a baby IV. Yeah, to inject his son with the blood. All in the hopes that little Brian would die and he wouldn't have to pay child support. Holy shit. What? I mean, I know there are no words.

How did it even come up? What kind of psychopath even comes up with that plan? I don't know. A phlebotomist. We don't need to be accusing all phlebotomists of being psychopaths. I'd say if anyone would come up with that plan, chances are high it's a phlebotomist. You just learned how to... That's when you do the blot tests. The prosecution called witnesses who attested to the fact that Brian was a super douche.

Yeah. His ex-wife was Elizabeth Stolte. She had two protective orders against him. She told the jury that Brian was abusive and that he'd threatened to kill her. So in other words, yeah, he's always been this charming. Then one of Brian's friends took the stand. He said that one time when they were driving around, Brian said that if anyone ever tried to screw with him,

he'd just inject them with something. Excellent. Yeah, great. Little Brian's pediatrician phlebotomist don't have to take that do no harm oath huh yeah maybe not little brian's pediatrician also testified she talked about the reaction that he'd had in the hospital that day when he was 11 months old she said looking back the baby's reaction was consistent with a bad reaction to an infusion from incompatible blood but of course at that time she had no idea that that's what had just happened i hadn't even thought about the the problems with it not being his blood type because

he just injected whatever the fuck he wanted in there absolutely yeah it wasn't his blood type because he just injected whatever the fuck he wanted in there absolutely yeah it wasn't his blood type and of course it was hiv positive holy hell then jennifer took the stand to talk about her horrible relationship with brian and also to talk about what her son had been through she talked about how he threatened her son's life and she said that when they lived together brian kept vials of blood in the freezer, which like, what the fuck, dude? He was also one of those guys who would like wear his lab coat everywhere, which, okay, Norman and I used to live by a hospital. And every now and then you would see these guys wearing their lab coats to like go to

Chipotle. You're like, come on, dude. Do you really need everyone to know that you're important right now? Dirty John did that because he wanted people to think he was a doctor. Yeah. Um, I 100% think anyone who wears their lab coat outside of their office setting is a super douche. Yeah.

And like 50% of them are up to something. And it's not just ordering some barbacoa. I want to let everyone in Chipotle know I am important. That's right. I mean, that's what... Every time I see someone out,

I'm like, oh, okay. Can we back up for a second? What? Is that what you get at Chipotle? Barbacoa? Yeah, every now and then. It's very good.

Kristen loves the barbacoa. What's wrong with barbacoa? Yeah, every now and then it's very good. Kristen loves the Barbacoa. What's wrong with Barbacoa? Too spicy for you? No, I can't eat that mass-cooked pork. What's wrong with mass-cooked pork? I'm not a big Barbacoa guy either.

I like the... That's gonna fuck your stomach up. Oh, well. If you shit your pants, that's part of the Chipotle experience. 75% chance you ate mass-cooked pork. I like the steak at chipotle experience five percent chance you ate mass cooked pork i like the steak this is what you deal with when you eat delicious pork i mean i

actually the sickest i've ever been like food poisoning wise was from pork a mass pork yeah it was at the dinner theater well they had problems i know it was before then but yeah i had to hold a trash can while i was on the toilet so that tell us more no that is plenty you're just holding it for comfort no it's just violently coming out both ends out of my eyes it would have like no so norm you don't you probably don't remember this you've never been to the dinner theater it's like a it's like a 65 plus oh yeah we've i i am aware of the dinner theater never been um so a couple years ago they had like nanovirus yeah so like everyone who went got horrible like 400 people got like crazy sick they They had to shut the place down, completely disinfect it. I think they missed a couple showings, like way to bring in a whole crew.

I wonder if those people had pork coming out their orifices. Pork-ifices? Pork-ifices. It's such a dumb joke anyway i like pork i don't i well you were scared straight by pork i was scared straight by pork i always became a vegetarian after that i don't like very many vegetables what would you eat if you were a vegetarian? What would you be limited to? Cheetos. They are vegetarian friendly.

Peanut butter. Peanut butter dipped in Cheetos. Which incidentally are delicious together. No. Not dipped in. But you have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich

and you eat Cheetos with it. It's delicious. That is very good. Cheese and peanut butter crackers, Kristen. It is very good. It is a delicious combination. I cannot believe you two will not eat barbacoa, but you want PB&Js with Cheetos on the side. That's disgusting. What?

Yes. How is it disgusting? It's a delicious flavor combination. If you're five. I have the palate of a five-year-old. Jack and I, very similar food tastes. He's six, but yes. So he's going to pass you up soon.

He will. He's going to become way more adventurous than I am. Yeah, he'll be like. Avocado. Yeah, Brandy, can I please have the avocado off of your sandwich? And I'll be like, oh, yes. Brandy stocked up on Go-Gurt for herself and Jack. I think Go-Gurt is the weirdest.

We do have Go-Gurt. There you go. Why? He loves it. It's yogurt to go. Why can't you have like, okay, you know how much I love food to go. Even I'm not going to do a Go-Gurt. The good thing about having a six-year-old in your life is you got go-gurts, you got Capri Suns,

and you always got chicken nugs. Why do they make Capri Suns so hard to get into, though? You have to get into it for them. You can't just hand a six-year-old a Capri Sun. You poke the bottom. The bottom? Yeah, you get it from the bottom. No.

That's a dirty sexual thing no you don't try to get it in the you know the little hole where they want to poke it you just flip it upside down and poke the bottom no sorcery is this you stab the bottom it's so much easier no you don't have to try to angle it at the top anymore. You literally flip it over, stab the bottom, and you're done. That would create a mess. It doesn't. That's what I did. We did it all the time.

What? Norman. Homework for listeners. I'm going to go home and try it. I've got Capri Suns at my house right now. Way easier. Stab the bottom. He heard it here first.

Go in from behind thick so at this point you know jennifer has just said yes he threatened my son's life he had this blood in the freezer like some creepy ass vampire and then defense jumps up for cross-examination and they're like okay okay so he threatens your son. Okay, but did he specifically say he would inject your son with HIV-positive blood? No, he said he would inject him with something. And she was like, well, no, not specifically. And the defense was like, heh, heh, heh, that's it.

That's a terrible point. Okay, I will say, for this defense you got to do something and i guess you know grasping at straws yeah yeah i mean this is the only thing you can say is that he never made a this very specific threat but good lord i mean yeah the prosecution showed the jury pictures of little Brian so incredibly sick. They also pointed out that all of Brian's blood samples prior to that hospital stay in 1992 showed that he had been HIV negative, which I guess they could go back and test. But the defense thought that this was all a bit much. Brian's defense attorney said,

A tragedy is not a crime and theories are not facts. Mom made an allegation and everyone ran with it. This was all circumstantial and frankly, not that strong a case. How could anyone say for certain that Brian was the one who infected his son with HIV? certain that Brian was the one who infected his son with HIV? Couldn't it have been Jennifer's sister or Jennifer's sister's friends who all used heroin? Or what if little Brian had been sexually abused? What?

Two convicted child molesters had lived with Jennifer and her son at some point over the past few years, which I got to say. That's not great. Too many child molesters. lived with Jennifer and her son at some point over the past few years, which I got to say, that's not great. Too many child molesters. That's way too. I have a really strict zero child molesters. One is too many.

Yeah. What in the hell? So Jennifer. So the prosecution was like, okay, we tested Jennifer's sister and her friends. They're all HIV negative. So the sister did testify and was like, yes, I tested Jennifer's sister and her friends. They're all HIV negative. So the sister did testify and was like, yes, I used heroin.

No, he never had access to my needles. No, you know, blah, blah, blah. And again, she was not HIV positive. Brian showed no physical signs of sexual abuse. He never had a blood transfusion. He never had surgery. Come on. Yeah.

So then the defense argued, well, okay, maybe we were wrong about all those other theories. Let's try this one on for size. There's so much we don't know about HIV and AIDS. Maybe we don't yet know all the ways that a person can become HIV positive. Maybe Brian got this thing some other way

that science hasn't even figured out yet. Hmm. Okay. Okay. You're making that face. I don't think that's a terrible argument at this point in time. It's not a terrible argument, but...

But yeah, I mean, it's very clear what was going on here. What if an alien came down from space and inserted a probe into his anus while he was sleeping? We have no way of knowing. I mean, that is just ridiculous. It reminds me of the evil twin thing where they have somebody on DNA evidence. They're like, but twins. Maybe there was a twin somewhere. We don't know.

Is this enough for reasonable doubt? We can't say for certain. That's a terrible defense strategy. The jury deliberated for about eight hours. The prosecution's case was circumstantial, but it was good enough. Yeah. They found Brian guilty of first degree assault. Okay.

Shouldn't that be attempted murder? So you guys are having the exact same reaction that I was. I was like, this is bullshit. Apparently, first degree assault gets you more jail time than attempted murder. So they were actually, yeah. They're good. All right. I'm not even saying attempted.

They should charge him with murder. Well, he didn't die. The kid wasn't dead yet. But he's going to die. Well, but you can't bring those charges until you have a murder victim. But if a doctor came for him and was like, he will die from this. Yeah, they still could not.

That's attempted murder. See, that's... I know, I agree. I think the same thing, and somebody talked about this in our Discord. I think the same thing with the case I did last week. Like, that was only, and he ended up getting a good sentence, but it was only attempted murder

because he failed at murdering her. He had every intention at murdering her. Yeah. He had every intention of murdering her. Yeah, I think intent needs to be weighed more strongly than the actual outcome. Yeah. All right, so this assault charge carries a higher sentence than attempted murder. Right. Okay, fine.

All right. I forgive you, Kristen. attempted murder right okay fine all right i forgive you kristen when it came time for sentencing little brian was seven years old and on his deathbed he was in no shape to go to court but the court did allow him to make a statement so he said what he wanted to say and his mom read his statements to the jury this was obviously very emotional jennifer could barely get the words out but on behalf of her son she told the jury i think he shouldn't ever get out of jail he shouldn't have done this why can't he say he's sorry oh my gosh i know like, she reads this out. I mean, it's horrible. It's emotional. And the judge just whips toward Brian the douche. And he goes, I believe that when God finally calls you, you are going to burn in hell from here to eternity. And maybe that's the only justice that will come of this when you are finally gone.

justice that will come of this when you are finally gone. My thought is that injecting a 10-month-old with the AIDS virus really puts you in the same category as a war criminal, as the worst war criminal. The maximum I can do with you is life in prison. I don't really think that's a very fair sentence, not with what your son is going to have to go through. He is going to die we all know that oh oh my gosh yeah so brian stewart was sentenced to life in prison but prosecutors were ready to elevate their charges little brian was going to die and when that happened they'd charge brian the douche with murder murder right and then what? Seek the death penalty? How do you elevate past life in prison?

I don't know. And maybe at that point you don't elevate it. But that's just what they were, at this time, they were like, you know. Prepared to do. Yeah. Except Brian didn't die. Is that what you're going to tell us? Yeah.

Really? Really. Oh, my gosh. Happy ending. Thank God. He's still alive? Oh Oh my gosh Happy ending Thank God He's still alive? Oh my gosh He's doing great How old is he?

91 he was born? So he's younger than us Like you know Five years younger than us Yeah Six years younger than you Okay Alright

Yeah yeah He only looks five years younger than you. Okay, all right. Yeah, yeah. He only looks five years younger than me. Now he's a motivational speaker. He has a charity called Hope is Vital. He's super funny. And he's as healthy as he can be under the circumstances. Oh, my gosh.

He said, I'm as healthy as a horse. Healthier than a horse horse i'm beyond that i might be slightly chunky but i still consider myself a good athlete that's awesome i of course stalked him on instagram of course since this article where he said i'm i'm a little chunky but i'm still a good athlete dude has buffed up a little bit he's now on keto i mean he's died his whole life norm are you feeling threatened i well i'm thrilled that he survived yeah but um i was hoping for that because i was like okay he's a baby when you're young you can fight yeah that stuff like way better and i'm just i'm very thrilled yeah I mean this is it's amazing are you all concerned

that Kristen has requested to follow him on Instagram I have not requested I just went through every photo for the past couple years so what happened to

to giant douche Brian yeah giant Brian okay so first just a little recap on good Brian good Brian says that he really wants to become a father

that's his next thing that he wants to accomplish in life he said a dad is one of those things in life that i think i'm meant to be i'd like to root my kids in hope i want to give them a vision that the world is a peaceful place and that i'm always going to be there to protect them through bad things great things are possible is he married? Not from what I could tell on Instagram. Oh my gosh, she didn't message him. So ladies, or dudes, I don't know. I mean, yeah.

Whatever. Just a few years ago, Brian traveled to the Missouri Department of Corrections because his dad was up for parole. Oh my gosh. Yep. was up for parole. Oh my gosh. Yep. Brian read a victim impact statement

where he detailed what it was like to live with AIDS and what it was like to be so horribly betrayed by his own father. I mean, this is just unimaginable.

Yeah. During the parole hearing, douchebag Brian kept referring to the good Brian as his son. And it pissed Brian off because he was like, at what point have i ever

been your son yeah was i his son when he intentionally injected me with hiv i don't think so good news brian the super douche was denied parole he remains in prison thank goodness uh he'll be up for parole in 2021. 2021. Is that different than 2021? 2021 sounds like I'm an alien and this is my first day on Earth. But anyway, that is the most fucked up story I've ever told. I'm so glad that little Brian is doing well. Oh my goodness gracious.

Yeah. That was nuts. Wasn't that crazy? Who does that? That is only a phlebotomist okay i guess we established that a like messed up phlebotomist uh messed up is too light messed up is like an evil phlebotomist okay only an evil phlebotomist would do that that's how i should title this episode an evil phlebotomist okay yeah very good i'm gonna change that real quick what did you title it before a phlebotomist that's it stop getting a phlebotomist phlebotomist you can't just call it a phlebotomist phlebotomist is a bad name

flip flip up them on norm yes do you have any questions for us do i have questions for you too yeah do you want to rebut any of the things that were said about you on the last episode have you listened to it yet it just came out this morning. Brandy talked about how when she first met you, she thought you were a super douche. She thought you were too cool for school. I did not know that you thought I was a douche. Yeah, huh?

No, I seriously did not know that. Yeah, I thought you were like, whatever. I thought you... I'm a giant YouTube celebrity. And here I have to be at this dinner. That describes me perfectly. No, it's so funny because I just think you were just quiet. And obviously that's just how it came off.

You're not like that at all. No. You're so modest. I'm just like new people. I'm shy and quiet. Yeah. Yeah. And we talked about this in the episode. I'm shy and quiet. Yeah. Yeah. And then it turns out that we're the same person.

And it turns out we were separated at birth. Did you think that Brandy was a super douche? No, I thought Brandy was great. Okay, hold on. First impression. Very first impression. What was your first impression of Brandy? I thought Brandy was funny.

Wow. Ouch. A little bit of a douche. Yeah. I thought I was funny. Wow, ouch. A little bit of a douche. Yeah.

I thought I was funny. I can't believe you thought I scratched my arm to show off a tattoo. Yeah, well. The simpler explanation was my arm itched and I scratched it. I lingered and you brought your sleeve up real high. I will say in Brandy's defense. What? Well, when you're around new people Yeah

And you know We talked about this on the episode But like You've accomplished something Pretty cool in life You know you've got this YouTube show I married Kristen Pitt

Yeah this is It's at the top But then when you're like Super quiet And people try to ask you Questions about yourself And you're really cagey Then it can come across As douchey Yeah super quiet and people try to ask you questions about yourself and you're really cagey then it

can come across as douchey yeah but if i had not done any of the youtube stuff if i was like a phlebotomist uh-huh would you without would i come across as douchey no you would come across as shy yeah this is well yeah because you don saying. Because you are reluctant to talk about your successes. Yes. Which I think is great that you're modest about that. It's a really great quality. When you figure out why he's reluctant, you're like, oh, this is great. But in that first initial moment where you're like, oh, tell me about your YouTube channel.

And you're like, well, you wouldn't understand. Yeah, exactly. You wouldn't massively understand the inner workings of the YouTube. Well, let me just show you. I just get completely naked. Well. I'm just gonna go for a dip in the lake.

Is there a YouTube channel that's like the naked gamer? I feel like The naked gamer? No, because that would get demonetized What if you What if they blurred everything? It would still get demonetized The naked gamer?

Yeah The concept is they play video games naked? Yeah No one looks good naked sitting down That'd be like That's like the end of YouTube right there Really? When someone comes up with a show called The Naked Gamer

I think people have run out of ideas No one would do that because you can't make money off of it Why couldn't you make money off of it? Because it gets demonetized YouTube wouldn't allow it Even if everything's blurred You'd still get demonetized If it said naked in the title

YouTube might demonetize it. Yeah. Which is... Sorry to come up with a new channel idea. Could you do that on Twitch? Could you do Naked Gamer on Twitch? No. You cannot show any of that, even blurred out.

See? I'm sorry, Brady. They have a very strict nipple policy on Twitch. You can't have them? Even male nipples you can't show. You can't have nipples? Yeah, you have to cut them off. So you have to really decide, do I want to do them?

How are you living your life sans nipples? Speaking of court cases, there is a big case going on right now in the YouTube world There is a big case going on right now in the YouTube world where LGBT YouTubers are suing because they feel they are being discriminated against. They definitely have a case. Well, yeah, because YouTube, I think, understandably cracked down on what could be monetized. Because, you know, all of a sudden these big brands that care a lot about their reputation found out their ads were on, like, crazy Nazi stuff. You know, all kinds of gross stuff. Yeah, like Coca-Cola ads on, like, neo-Nazi YouTube videos.

Holy hell. So YouTube. Holy moly. So YouTube tried to correct that. Holy moly. So YouTube tried to correct that. Holy moly. I see. And they, in my opinion, like they overcorrected because then they're like, okay, nothing controversial can make money.

And so if somebody posts a coming out video or something, then all of a sudden it can't be monetized. When I think that most major brands, a coming out video is not controversial yeah no well youtube tries to make it easy by like incorporating into this like robot system that's like if the title contains the word this or this or this it cannot be monetized and the problem when you do a blanket thing like that is yeah that happens. I have got a case update. It's on your case from last week. Oh! Did you know the guy from your case who attempted to murder his ex-girlfriend? Yeah, the douchey douchey sin.

Did you know about his dad? No. Oh my God. What about his dad? about his dad no oh my god what about his dad his dad was recently caught in a cold case for murdering someone like 23 years ago oh my gosh now i've not looked up the details recently but like when i googled the guy's name yeah this week i was like holy shit does brandy know this google it now i don't remember his name. Well, hell's bells. Yosemite Sam. Robert Burton.

What'd you pull up? LeVar Burton's dad. The Reading Rainbow guy? Yeah, his dad's name is Robert. Oh, not LeVar Burton. Terrible mistake. Robert Burton. Terrible mistake. Robert Burton. Oh, 26-year-old sexual assault cold case.

Oh, so it wasn't a murder. No. Oh, so they have the same name, Robert Lee Burtonton yeah that must have been why robert and robert jr well the apple doesn't fall far from the shitty tree i guess not holy crap this is interesting yeah it says uh 26 years ago he assaulted a 37-year-old woman. Wow. Right? Oh, my gosh.

That's terrifying. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. The shitty apple doesn't fall far from the shitty tree. Thank you. I made that up. Thank you.

I made that up. Thank you. A little blurb came up that it has nothing to do with this case, but reminds me of something. What's that? So, you know, my spider case that I covered? Yes. Did you hear what recently happened to someone in the Kansas City metro area? What happened? So that's case, the spider house was specifically about brown recluse spiders.

So that's the case. The spider house was specifically about brown recluse spiders. And we talked about how that case happened in St. Louis. And there are tons of brown recluse spiders here in the Midwest. A woman went to her doctor because she thought she had water in her ear. No. Oh, God. And she just had that constant whooshing sound.

Oh, my God. She went to her doctor. There was a brown recluse spider in her ear kristin my god dime size so it had to be like a it was a juvenile and they pulled it out of her fucking ear canal fuck no i i'm gonna and it happened here in kansas city i'm gonna sleep with earmuffs on now yeah somebody posted about it in the Discord and I was like, well, fuck my life. Usually that stuff you can be like, well, that happened in a far off land.

That could never exist. Like, no, that happened right fucking here. You wanna take a nap on my couch? No! Is that why you pointed out that spider earlier on our porch? Yeah. I'm seeing him everywhere.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure. It looked right at Brandy. It did. It looked right at her. And it made this weird sexual move. Sexual? Towards Brandy. I think it was a black widow.

Black widow. Gonna love ya. All right, should we wrap this up? Yeah, we got some inductions to do. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Please remember folks, we are doing names and least favorite words.

Which I think is my favorite thing we've done so far. Where is my induction list? Why don't you pull it up on your computer? Of course, I can't admit to you that I don't know how to do that. I have always wondered why you always pull it up on your phone. How am I going to get it? What do you mean? Get into your Google Drive and search

Supreme Court Inductions. Do you not know how to get into your Google Drive? I do. What? What's, what? I, I didn't know that that's how you did it. I do know how to get into my Google Drive. How did you

think I did it? Oh boy. I'm keeping all of this in. How did you think I did it? Oh, boy. I'm keeping all of this in. No. Hey, look, there's a... Wait, where did you go on your phone to find them? I have a Google Docs app on my phone. But you didn't make the connection that you could...

Okay. I'm sorry. In Brandy's defense, it can be a little confusing. Because all the Docs... You have your 85. All the Docs are stored in Google Drive. Yeah.

And sometimes people think they're different things. But, yeah. Let me wait. I'm just defending my twin. Thank you. I appreciate it appreciate it oh that's embarrassing but yeah definitely pull it up on your laptop i got it now do you yeah see i'm right here guys thank you for joining us for this week's Supreme Court Inductions. Did you already tell them how to get inducted? Sorry.

No, I didn't. But I did bump the mic. I think you just picked out one of your eyebrow hairs, too. What did you just do? You guys. There's only three hairs there, Kristen. I got my eyebrows waxed. And the lady took up.

She chopped off the top of my eyebrows. And then she put the wax onto my eyelids and burned my eyelids. I look ridiculous right now. You look like Denise from SNL. And I'm Denise. I'm just kidding. No, I do look terrible. You don't look terrible.

They're just thin. They're just way thinner than you normally wear them. It's like 2006 in here. Do I look as young as I looked in 2006? Oh, oh! Your hesitation says it all. Hey, quick question before we get to our inductions. Did you wear that red dress to your anniversary dinner?

Is that what that was from? No, that was from like a month ago when we were... Oh, you looked super cute. I loved that dress. Oh, thank you. Absolutely. Are you complimenting cute. I loved that dress. Oh, thank you. Absolutely. Are you complimenting me now?

Yeah. Okay. I thought about, you know, a time when your eyebrows didn't look like this. Wow. I'm kidding. I honestly wouldn't have noticed your eyebrows without you pointing them out. Well, and here's the embarrassing thing. I do have stuff in them to thicken them up a bit.

But I didn't want to overdo it because you always see, you know, sharpied on. Kristen. Yes. Enough of this chit-chat about your eyebrows, your early 2000s eyebrows.

Or lack thereof. Tell the people how to get inducted. Okay. You might be thinking, how the hell do I support this wonderful podcast

when I'm not an owner of Blue Apron or Audible? There's a way. Go to patreon.com backslash LGTC podcast. If you join us at the Supreme Court level, which is only $7 a month, you get to listen to bonus episodes. You can join our Discord and talk to us, talk to the community. You get inducted and you get a sticker. What?

And you get our autograph, which right now values zero dollars, but it can only go up. It can only go up from there, right? All right. For this week's inductions, I would like everybody to cover their eyebrows in solidarity with Kristen. Summer. Gastronomy. Walter Sloan. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious because it really is quite atrocious i couldn't disagree more walter mary poppins is my favorite movie robin wake literally tina egan oh hey tina uh snot which is super close to my least Literally. Tina Egan. Oh, hey, Tina.

Snot, which is super close to my least favorite word, which is mucus. Mucus. Kim Earl. Hey, girl, hey. That's my friend. Oh, is this the everyone who knows brand new? I know seductions. Panties, which I actually knew this. I just saw her the other day.

We had a whole conversation about this. Which this, I think, is my least favorite word. And I hate this word. Jessica Wiener. Or, I'm sorry, Jessica Winer. It's spelled Wiener. She literally put an association right there. No.

Okay. You do. Quit trolling your audience, Kristen. I'm so sorry, Jessica. People are supporting you. Very clearly, Jessica Weiner. Sorry, Jessica. And her least favorite word is crotch.

Know the irony. Perfect. Helena. Spunk. Ew. Spunk? Ew. Ugh. Spunk? Yeah.

That means splooge. Yeah, we know. Wow, Brandi. Tell us more. Maya Cuellar. I've never liked the word serotonin because I've never had any. I like that. Malachi Smith. Irregardless. Oh. Which is not a word. I hate that. Malachi Smith.

Irregardless. Oh. Which is not a word. I hate it when people use it. I hate when people say that. You're right, Malachi. Every time they say it, I'm like, all right, dummy. Yeah.

Cindy Hanna. Chillmo. Cindy, I totally get you. Chillmo? Chillmo. That's like when you want to, like, relax at home, right? No, no, that's when you're wanting to say child molester, but you don't have the time. Yeah.

Chilmo. Oh, really? Yeah. I say this all the time. Do you? Chilmo. Chilmo is child molester? Yeah.

Yeah, instead of child molester, I sometimes say chilmo. You know, it's like fro-yo. Oh, now I get it. So, like, you could say that chilmo's hanging out in front of the fro-yo shop trying to get some kids. Gotcha. Sophie Myers. Emasculate. Welcome to the Supreme Court!

Ugh, that was fun. That was fun. I enjoy these. Hey, guys. Thank you for all of your support. Those of you who are already supporting us through Patreon. If you're looking for other ways that you could support us, find us on social media. We're on Facebook.

We're on Twitter. We're on Instagram. We're on YouTube. We're on Reddit. We're on Patreon. You know, find us all those places. And then when you've done that, head on over to Apple Podcasts. Leave us a rating.

Leave us a review. Don't forget the two assignments we've given our listeners. Guess how much the margarita pitcher was. Oh, that's right. And buy a Capri Sun and poke it in the butt

instead of the top. Okay. And once you've done all that, 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 a BBC News article, Brian Jackson, My Father Injected Me with HIV by Lucy Hancock, an article from GQ magazine by Justin Heckert called A Positive

Life, How a Son Survived Being Injected with HIV by His Father, as well as articles from the New York Times, CNN, and Wikipedia. And I got my info from an article for the Crime Library by Denise Ngo, People Magazine, the Boston Globe, the Dartmouth, and Wikipedia. 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.