Murder In America - EP. 39 TEXAS - Murder in My Family (OUR Murder Stories...)

Episode Date: October 25, 2021

In this special episode of the show, we will be giving YOU GUYS an EXCLUSIVE glimpse into our lives and into our stories of death, missing persons and MURDER. Get ready... this is one HELL of a ride... - Get 20% off your first order and FREE SHIPPING with MANSCAPED, by using code "MIA" at checkout, at the link below! (Trust us... it's worth it!!): https://www.manscaped.com/ - Use PROSE and see the difference in YOUR hair!! Seriously, PROSE gives you a spa experience right there at home. And if you use our custom link, you can get a FREE hair consultation AND 15% off!! Just click the link below!! https://www.prose.com/state - Sign up for BetterHELP and take charge of your mental health with Colin and Courtney at the link below!: https://betterhelp.com/mia - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week's episode is sponsored by Hocum, the new film that critics are calling Damian McCarthy's most unnerving horror yet. From the director of Oddity, Hocom stars Adam Scott, in a deeply monstrous horror that bloody disgusting called pure nightmare fuel that holds you firmly in its grip. Don't miss Hocom, the groundbreaking new horror from Damian McCarthy, now playing in theaters. This episode is sponsored by Better Help. is a journey. I know this. I think we all know this. Some days feel good and other days feel absolutely overwhelming. Whatever's keeping you up at night, it's easy sometimes to feel like you have to figure it all out on your own. But the truth is, nobody has all the answers. And no journey should be taken alone. However, having someone with you to listen, to understand, and to

support you can make all the difference. I know that I'm a huge therapy advocate I've advocated for therapy for years. And if you want to give therapy a try, BetterHelp is a great place to start. Better help therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the US. BetterHelp also does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences, and their 12-plus years of experience and industry-leading match fulfillment rate means they typically get it right the first time. And something that I love is if you aren't happy with your therapist match, you can switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored recommendations. I've personally used

BetterHelp in the past, and I think that if you're on the edge, if you're thinking maybe it's time to start therapy, I say just go ahead and do it. There's literally no downside because you don't have to be on this journey alone. Find support and have someone with you in therapy. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com slash MIA. That's betterhELP.com slash MIA. I really love to get dressed up every once in a while when I'm going out with my girlfriends or on a date night with Colin. But lately, I've been trying to be more intentional with my everyday wear, and I've found that the best options that work for me are good quality, effortless pieces that will last me forever, and they still look cute, which is why Quince has always been my go-to. The thing I love about Quince is that all of their

fabrics feel elevated. Their clothing always fits me perfectly, and I can just throw on anything from theirs, and it looks so put together, but it's so effortless. Now that the spring season is upon, us, Quince makes it so easy to refresh your wardrobe with spring pieces that feel as good as they look. I love that they always use premium materials like 100% European linen, organic cotton, and ultra-soft denim. And everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They also work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen, so you're paying for quality and craftsmanship, not the brand markup. I recently have been to on the hunt for a good denim skirt. And so I went to Quince and I ordered their stretch denim

mini skirt and I am absolutely obsessed with it. It is so cute. I've already worn it several times. I have made a ton of different outfits with it and I could not believe the price of it. I actually had to go back and double check it because it is such good quality. I could not believe how affordable it was. But that's been my experience with everything I've gotten from Quince. They are so affordable and their items are amazing, and I know you will love them too. So refresh your every day with luxury that you'll actually use. Head to quince.com slash America for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too.

That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash America for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash America. The following podcast is not suitable for all audiences. We go into great detail with every case that we cover and do our best to bring viewers even deeper into the stories by utilizing disturbing audio and sound effects. Trigger warnings from the stories we cover may include violence, rape, murder, and offenses against children.

This podcast is not for everyone. You have been warned. Hey, everybody, it's Colin here, so today's episode is going to be a bit different. As you probably have already noticed, There are breaths in this episode because this week Courtney and I have been filming. We are in Wisconsin. We've been in Wisconsin all week and it is a lot of work to get this podcast written.

I know Courtney takes so long to actually write every episode. She puts so much work in. So we don't want to put out a half-ass product to y'all who are listening. But today is actually an episode that I'm pretty excited for because we're going to go through some of our true crime connections. We're going to talk just Courtney and I together. right here. Hello everyone. Yeah, so we're in our hotel room right now, and this is interesting. You want, should, should we keep it till later? No. No, we should, let's tell them later. Let's tell

them later. Okay, well, we'll keep it a surprise where we're recording this episode. It is from a location that we covered in a previous two-part episode of the show. Crazy, crazy, crazy place. But we're going to be going through so many different things today, so many different mini true crime stories. We're going to talk to you guys. We're going to be laughing. And on top of all of that, we're back next week with the regular uploads and everything. But yeah, this is the episode where we get to actually tell you guys a little bit about ourselves because Halloween is our favorite time of the year. And we figured that if we can't get a full episode edited and produced, we can at least get on here and talk for an hour with you guys and share some personal stuff about us since we really haven't

ever in the past. I was going to say, yeah, like, Usually we just come on and it's very scripted and we have music in the background. Today is just us talking. So it's a little different, but I think you guys are going to like it. Anyways, y'all, I'm Colin Brown. And I'm Courtney Shannon. And you're listening to Murder in America. Decided, we're just going to tell you guys where we're at right away because it's way too interesting to not share.

Courtney, you want to tell them? We are recording from Room 507 at the Ambassador. at her hotel. If y'all don't remember where that is, it is the room where Jeffrey Dahmer killed his second victim. Stephen Tuomi. Yes. So this was the only location that you can physically go to where Jeffrey killed someone. The Oxford apartments are torn down. The places where he killed his other victims are private residences, so we can't go there, obviously. So this is a really crazy location. Yeah, I got to tell you guys, just being in here, this. This room is off. You know what I mean? It's so creepy. Literally when you walk through the front door,

you can just feel a heaviness. Yeah, what's interesting is that actually, when we were coming to the room, we noticed that the placard that says 507 is a paper placard. It's not a real, like, hotel, official bronze plaque. It's, it's so many people I'm assuming have stolen it because of its relation to Jeffrey Dahmer in the story that all they have is a paper marker in place of it, which is crazy to see. Yeah, it's literally taped on because I guess people keep stealing it off the wall. But it definitely feels so weird in here. And it's even weird that we're telling you guys this, because we're going to talk about Jeffrey

a little later on. Yeah. Basically, I want to tell you guys. So we've talked about this before. I know a lot of you guys listening are paranormal files fans. We have been in Wisconsin for the last. over a week now. And we've been in South Dakota for four or five days before that. We haven't been home in almost two weeks in Texas in our apartment. But we filmed an episode the other day.

Actually, let's just talk about this for a second. Wednesday of this week, we actually got to film a paranormal files investigation, my YouTube channel, with some items that Ed Gein personally owned and used allegedly in his crimes. We got to investigate Ed Gein's knife. We got to investigate Ed Gein's hunting rifles and his snow skis. We even got to investigate Ed Gein's razor blade that allegedly he used to skin a lot of the flesh from his victims. And these are all items that were bought at the auction that we mentioned in our podcast

when they auctioned off Ed's items before his house, quote unquote, burned down. Also, I got to tell you all, this is interesting. somebody when we were filming at Ed Gein's property for the episode came and pulled over right next to us and the guy actually told us that his grandfather knew Ed Gein. He, the grandfather really liked him a lot apparently. And the, uh, the guy who pulled over told us that the house burning down Ed Gein's farm was not an accident. It was, you know.

The townspeople. Yeah, the town's people. He was like, he looked at me like, oh, yeah, that was in. accident. And this is on film. You can see that in our Ed Gein episode, which is going to be premiering on Halloween, October 31st, on the paranormal files on YouTube. But Courtney, like, how did that feel? I also got to add, too, to everybody. It wasn't just the items that we investigated. We actually got to go to the jail. The actual jailhouse where Ed Gein was booked and processed after the initial arrest, where he spent that first period of

time. We got to talk to somebody who had lived there in the jail. Her father worked for the police department. And she had seen Ed Gein. Her father had been handcuffed to Ed Gein. And it was such a cool opportunity to get, you know, so close to such an infamous crime and to be able to investigate it. Courtney, to everybody online. How did that feel? It was very cool to be there. And I know Ed Gein is Collins, one of Collins' favorite true crime stories. And one of my favorites is Jeffrey Dahmer. So this trip, we've really got to go to both of our kind of favorite true crime story locations and really get to feel everything that's going on. So we did the Ed Gein, all of the Ed Gein locations.

And then we've done a bunch of Jeffrey Dahmer locations. We've actually been, we're investigating some of the bars that he used to, frequent back in the day. We made our way. Oh, go on it. No, no. I was going to say, yeah. So we went to the bars that he used to frequent.

We went by the Ambrosia Chocolate Factory where he worked. Tomorrow night, we're investigating where the Oxford apartments once stood. We talked to some people that said the energy there is just insane. And then obviously the ambassador hotel. And then we even went by his grandma's house where he, murdered and dismembered many people. We obviously couldn't go in, but it was really cool to just be on the outside of it and see the actual house.

Yeah, and this has also been really, Courtney agrees with me, very strange, the way that all this has fallen into place. The other night in, in Milwaukee, Courtney and I were out at a brewery. We had a night off. Her and I were on a date night. And we were just drinking some beer in Milwaukee, obviously, one of the beer capitals of the US. And this woman came up to our table that we were sitting at and was like, hey, do you guys want to donate to this diaper charity? What were they giving diapers to? They were giving diapers to

mothers in need. And of course, I'm like, yeah, I'd love to donate. So I gave her some cash. It was a raffle. And there was just something inside of me that wanted to ask this woman if she knew anything about Jeffrey Dahmer, like if she lived in Milwaukee her whole life, all of that. And I asked her, and the woman actually says that, yes, someone in my family was there. He was one of the hazmat suit workers who carried out some of the body parts from the Jeffrey Dahmer crime scene. And he's here right now at the bar. We were freaking out.

We were like, are you mean to tell us that one of the, what, 30 guys that were at the crime scene is here at the very brewery that we're at. Like, it was just insane that is such a small world, you know? And that was like, we just chose that brewery totally randomly, like, just looking at, oh, great breweries in Milwaukee. We're like, okay, this one's cool. And we showed up there. And so I asked the woman if we could do an interview with him.

And she said, yeah. And I went out to go ask her, like, if I could get her contact information at the booth that they had. And literally, the guy walks up. He comes up and I got to meet him. He was such a nice guy and he looked at me in the eyes. I told him, yeah, man, we're here doing a documentary about the crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer. We have a true crime podcast.

And he looked at me, it was a very cold, cold stare. And he said, yeah, that's one of those things you just don't forget. It was like being in a movie, you know. And we did not expect that. And that's while we're here in town filming for Jeffrey Dahmer, this just randomly happened to us. And today, we actually got to talk to someone who had met Jeffrey Dahmer in the past at his bar. Yes, he said that it's Shakers Bar in Milwaukee on Second Street, which is where Jeffrey Dahmer used to pick up his victims. And he told us that he met Jeffrey Dahmer several times.

And he told us that there was a look in his eye that was like it cold. And he said that he just had a dead look in his eye. And it was insane meeting someone that actually had interacted with the. Dommer on multiple occasions. Yeah, and Shakers is a famous bar here in Milwaukee. It's known as one of the most haunted places in the U.S. It took a lot of effort to get the access to the building because it's so famous. The owner, Bob, is a really great guy.

Courtney and I just did an interview with him on his YouTube channel. And he was the one who has owned the bar for what, 30 years? Like that's back to the 80s? Yeah, in the 80s. So it's been almost 40. Yeah, almost 40 years. And he, yeah, said Jeffrey used to come into the bar, sit at the same shorter chair that he would always sit at and order gin and tonics. And he also stated that Jeffrey would ask.

He said that Jeffrey, there was a bunch of women that worked at that bar. And he said that Jeffrey always requested that a male would serve him the drinks. So that's an interesting little tidbit. And that Bob is obviously a man. So he was one of the people. He said there were two male workers at the bar. And he was the owner. So Bob would be one of the people that would come out and serve him every time he came in.

And if you don't know, Shakers is a stones throw away from Club 219. And what was the other club's name? Phoenix. Phoenix, yeah, where Jeffrey would pick up a number of his victims. It was like his almost his prowling grounds right there. And you can feel it walking on that street, truly. guys. We've been there this whole week multiple times. We're going to go to Shakers again in the next couple of days in film and investigation. But wow. It's been a very interesting week.

Usually whenever I come on trips with Colin, we're mostly doing paranormal stuff. But this week's been really cool for me because I've got to do a lot of true crime locations, which is obviously my passion. And yeah, I want to say too, back to the Ed Gein episode. So the Ed Gein episode is airing on Halloween on the paranormal files YouTube channel. Jeffrey Dahmer is going to probably be one of the last episodes in the series in November or early December. And what was crazy to me, I totally forgot about this, something that should be noted with the Ed Gein story that I don't think we covered in the actual story. Ed Gein is buried in the Plainfield Cemetery. It's a, it's a situation similar to the Candyman, Dean Coral, Courtney Knight's, Courtney and,

I filmed a documentary about the candy man just a month or two ago in Houston. Normally, serial killers are convicted, you know, criminals, death row inmates are buried in prison cemeteries or their ashes are cremated given to family members, stuff like that. Dean Coral, the canyman from Houston, he's buried in Deer Park, Texas, which is a suburb of Houston. And then Ed Gein is buried in the Plainfield Cemetery, which is crazy to me because Ed Gein used to rob graves the most frequently, I believe, from the Plainfield Cemetery, he would actually go there to rob these graves. And not only is he buried there in the same grounds where he was robbing these graves, Bernice Warden, his final victim, is also buried there. And she's literally

buried, like, 50 feet away from him? Yeah. I would hate to be in the same cemetery as my killer. So that's just crazy that they would bury him in the same place. And I got to tell you guys, It was a beautiful fall day when we were there. Just a very, you know, gothic almost ambiance to the cemetery, leaves falling, the clouds and the wind. Those episodes are going to be amazing. And we put some flowers on the grave of Bernice Warden, Mary Hogan, one of Ed's other victims, is also buried there in an unmarked plot. So, yeah, it was a really strange, but just eerie moment, you know. It was a great week.

Anyways, y'all, we got to take a commercial break, so we'll be right back. Support for murder in America is brought to you by Manscaped, who is the best in men's below-the-waist grooming champions of the world. Manscaped offers precision-engineered tools for your family jewels. And Manscaped just launched their fourth-generation Trimmer, the lawnmower 4.0. You heard that right, the 4.0. Join the over 2 million men worldwide who trust Manscaped, with this exclusive offer for you.

20% off and free worldwide shipping with the code MIA at manscaped.com. Now, obviously, Courtney doesn't have any ball trimming experience, hopefully, but let me tell you, I've got some horror stories. I know this is a bit cringe to talk about, but I've cut myself many times in the past. I've shed blood. Trust me, it's not fun. It's honestly pretty freaky and also extremely painful. This literally just happened to me a few weeks ago, and it was a scarring experience.

Not literally, but, you know, scarring in my mind. But ever since I started using the Manscape Lawnmore 4.0 hasn't happened. Just imagine shaving with a sleek, well-designed, optimized trimmer that makes shaving time your favorite time in the bathroom. Well, that can be achieved with a new lawnmower 4.0 from Manscaped. I was actually one of the first people to try the new 4.0, and I'm absolutely blown away by the performance. Manscape engineered the ultimate groin and body tremor by focusing on intelligent functionality and an incredible, comfortable grooming experience. The fourth generation trimmer features a cutting-edge ceramic blade to reduce grooming accidents

thanks to their advanced skin-safe technology. After using the lawnmower 4.0, let me tell you, I have no more fear shaving. It's helped me get through the experience a lot quicker and with a lot less blood. Sorry, I really do apologize for the graphic details, but you have to know the truth. You can get 20% off, which is a great deal. End free shipping by using the code MIA at Manscape.com. That's 20% off with free shipping at Manscape.com. And be sure to use our custom promo code, MIA, like Murder in America.

If you want to upgrade your shaving experience and help support your favorite podcast, do us both a favor. Head to manscaped.com and use our promo code MIA. Anyways, guys, if you didn't hear about enough bloodshedding in that ad, let's get back to the gruesome story. Okay, y'all, so now that you've heard a little bit about what we've been doing this last week that has to deal with true crime. We're going to dive into some of our personal connections to murder. Courtney has a way more direct connection than me, so I'm going to let her take over right now. Here, I'm going to, there might be a little rumble, but take the mic. So I have been interested in true crime my entire life, and I want to say it started all from

a really young age. Ever since I was really little, my family has been kind of discussing the story that's happened in my own family. So ever since I was little, my grandma's been telling us these stories about my great, great grandma and grandpa. So my great grandma was mentally ill. And she was actually put in an institution back in the day. They obviously didn't treat people with mental illness the same way that they do today. And so, yeah, anytime anyone had a mental illness back then, they just, you know, they just

threw them in an institution and kind of got them out of their hair. But during the holidays, they would bring her back home, because obviously you want to spend the holidays with your loved ones. So they brought her home one year. I don't know if it was like Thanksgiving or Christmas, but she was home. And that very night that she was brought home, one of the neighbors saw her on the front porch and she didn't have a shirt on, which was obviously concerning. So they went in the house and my great-great-grandpa was found near the back door and he had an axe wound to the head. He had actually been axed in his bed and then he had crawled to the back door, I guess to go get help, but then he ended up dying right there at the back door. So they

immediately arrested my great-great-grandma. They assumed that she was the one that did it. And she was put in a mental institution the rest of her life where she would later die. But it was always assumed that she was the one to kill him. But my family and I kind of have some suspicions that maybe it wasn't her. In the house, they found a broken window. They found a shirt, a male shirt with blood on it that didn't belong to anyone in the house. Okay. That was my diabetes speaking. if you guys heard that beep. That's Collins diabetes thing. But anyway, so they found a shirt, a bloody shirt that didn't belong to anyone.

The window was broken. And they also found that my great-great-grandpa's pistol was missing. So that's just some weird stuff that they found, that they noticed about the crime scene. But they didn't, I guess the police department didn't really want to look into it. And they just placed all the blame on my grandma. then that was it. Um, they didn't really look into it any further, but people in my family, they might, like, my great, great grandma died like on her, on her deathbed.

She was, she was like, Lizzie did not murder him. And also crazy that her name was Lizzie and she allegedly axed her husband to death, which Lizzie Borden, obviously. Oh, yes. But Lizzie Bord, some people think Lizzie Borden was innocent too. Yeah. Well, that's a, that's a very, very. popular theory with Lizzie.

Also, I got to add in here, I have studied the case with Courtney. Her grandma has a big file of documents relating to the case. She actually went into the court system and requested all of these files. They couldn't give her all of them for some reason, which I think is suspicious immediately off the bat that they're not willing to release all the information that the authorities gathered. And this was back, you know,

In what year? I don't even know. My great, great grandma, that would have been probably the early 1900s when everyone was axing people back then. And yeah, it's like, to me, one of those things where with mental illness back in the day, it was a very easy excuse. And obviously, like, Courtney and I've been to asylums filming for the paranormal files. I've been to many. You see how poorly people were treated. It's just disgusting how inhumane a lot of these treatments were because people just didn't understand what mental illness is or was, you know?

Right. And my, like I said, my family members have on their deathbed claim that my grandma Lizzie did not murder him. And it's funny because my grandma, she was so interested in getting all of the information about the case. She's clearly interested in true crime. It must be where I got it from. But a really interesting part of the story is that my grandma actually still has the axe that was used in the crime. She kept it. And the other day she was asking me, like, when I die, like, what do you want of mine?

And I told her that I want the axe because, I mean, no one else in my family is going to take it. No one else wants it. And it's a part of my family's history. and I think it's cool that we're going to get to have it one day. Well, also, nobody in your family has a true crime podcast, so naturally. True. We would be the people that would grab it. But yeah, that's a very interesting story to have a family member, allegedly kill another family member.

And years down the line, their granddaughter, great-great-granddaughter, is so passionate about, you know, true crime and murder that you're talking about it again. And I personally want to film a documentary about this and really dive into the details and see what information we can bring to light because I just have a feeling inside of my soul that your great-great-grandma is innocent. I mean, the man's shirt that was found with blood on it

should have been a major red flag. The missing pistol, the broken window. Like there's just a lot of information, but like we said, the police just blamed it on her because she was mentally ill. But yeah, I've been hearing that story since I was a little girl. And I mean, I feel like usually people don't talk to their children about murders, but that's just, it's a part of my family's history.

So I've been hearing that story since I was little. And I think it's a huge reason why I'm so fascinated with true crime, you know? I agree. And I mean, like, truly, that's to get, we really don't get into theories on murder in America because on this show, as you guys know who are listening, we go by the facts. We just state what happened. We don't ever input our personalities really or anything into the podcasts.

But in my opinion, that's like such an easy answer to a crime for a police department, Houston area that's like very overwhelmed with a large growing city and a large number of homicides. If you have a woman that already can't really speak for herself because she's institutionalized in the past, it's really easy to, you know, to just jump that bridge and say, oh, we know that it was her because of her past. And that was back in the day, too, like, you know, rights and segregation.

Right. And my family's come to the conclusion that somebody knew that my grandma Lizzie was coming home from the institution that night. And they did it that night because they knew it would be blamed on her. So that's my personal true crime story that is just really interesting to hear about. You hear about all these people getting axed back in the early 1900s, but you never think that it could actually happen to someone you know. So that's my personal true crime story.

Do you have any calling? You know, I do actually. My family does not have the connections that you have, obviously. But coming from South Dakota, to Texas. I mean, South Dakota has a low murder rate because there's not even a million people in the state. So you're not going to have nearly as many murders. There have been some brutal murders in South Dakota. Like I said, in one of our earlier podcasts, Gitchie Manitou is a place that I used to go to all the time. And it was literally 15 minutes from my house. Courtney and I actually had an

argument before we made that episode about whether we should classify Gitchie Manitou as an Iowa crime or a South Dakota crime because all the people were from South Dakota, but it just took place in Iowa. You should tell them exactly about that argument. Yeah, that was, I mean, funny in retrospect, because, yeah, we did go with Iowa. I'm like, yeah, you were right. Okay, let me explain it. So, you know how we do two crimes per state? Well, Gitchie Manitoo is technically in Iowa, but Colin wanted to classify it as a South Dakota murder because all of the victims were from South Dakota.

but I was like, we can't classify it as a South Dakota murder if it happened in Iowa. And you've come to the conclusion that I was right in that argument, right? Yes. Yes, I have. But yeah, that's like growing up, that was my connection to murder, really. But when I moved to Texas, I came from South Dakota, a long, long journey to move down. I had no family in the state. I had no friends in the state.

It was a big leap of faith to go to film school at UT. But just a year into my educational career at UT, a girl named Heruka Weiser went missing on the UT campus. So essentially, Heruka was seen riding her bike to class, I believe. And there was a guy following her in this security camp footage that emerged. And then a couple minutes, I believe, later, the guy was seen on the same security camera footage walking with her bike. And Heruka was missing. I actually, so to put this into perspective, I lived at the gesture dormitory on campus, which was very, very close to where she went missing from, where the security camera was.

So there was days of confusion at UT. people had no idea where Heruka was, what had happened to her. Initially, people just thought it was a missing person's case. The people that I talked to when I was, you know, living right near where she had gone missing from. People thought that, you know, she had just left UT or something. No one assumed that it was murder. Then a couple days later, after people had been looking and searching for these clues, students started to report a rancid smell coming from a cafe that was located right above a creek on campus.

And these people reported it. The police followed up. And lo and behold, they found Haruka's rotting body down there in the creek, right near where all these kids were eating lunch every day, 100, 200 feet from the dorm that I lived in from the entranceway. So it was like very close to home. And at this point, nobody knew who had killed her. No one knew that, you know, somebody would be brought to justice. It was, it was insane.

It was a very, very eerie time to be living at UT because it was total chaos. I remember personally, friends of mine, there was a service that UT instituted after this incident had happened with Heruka, where you could have somebody walk with you from your dorm building to your class room area to your building you're going to. And almost everyone I knew was having somebody walk with them to their building on campus because it was so scary because nobody knew what had happened to Heruka, who had killed her and all of that. It was total chaos. And so eventually pretty shortly after they released the security camera footage, to the public and people started looking into all of this. They found the guy who had perpetrated this crime.

His name was Mikhail Kriner. He was a homeless young man who lived on the UT campus. He had lived in various buildings on campus. People knew him. And he was identified through a fire that he had set, which led investigators to come put it out. and the officers responding noticed that he had some of Haruka's possessions in his possession. And yeah, eventually he was convicted of the crime of murdering Haruka.

But I can't even express to you guys how weird that was coming from South Dakota. And all of a sudden I'm in Austin, Texas, living totally by myself, meeting new friends, new people. Then this girl gets murdered, literally a couple hundred feet, away from where I lived. And this was like national news. It was on NBC, ABC. And the people that I was friends with at UT at the time, they knew her. And they went to the vigil. It was like a very, very sad thing for the whole campus. And when I was there talking to these people, I could feel the sadness, the emotion of all of it. And it was really something that I hadn't had to deal with before. And I remember, I've told Courtney this story many times because it is so funny. So I,

I used to be in a frat. You know, I'm not a frat guy at all, but I didn't know anybody in Austin at the time. People recruited me. I said, yeah, I'll be in the frat. I dropped eventually for circumstances that I won't talk about right now, stuff that I didn't agree with. But I was walking back from my frat house, which, uh, interestingly enough is completely abandoned now at UT. And I was walking back. It's about a 30, 40 minute walk back to my dorm. And I remember this vividly. There was nobody on the street. And this was before the, uh, guy had been caught. So everyone was still in that panic mode of like, who did this? Like, who could be out here? Is there a serial killer? Is there someone targeting students? And I was by myself walking.

back to my dormitory. It's about two or three a.m. I had this hoodie on. I used to wear rip and dip clothing all the time if any of y'all know what rip and dip is. And I had this sweatshirt on with a big grim reaper on it, given the middle finger with like weed leaf eyeballs, like something like super edgy. And I came back to my dorm area and I was like two minutes from my dorm and there was this guy walking in front of me. And I noticed that he was, he was kind of looking back at me, like, just kind of weird. Like, I'm walking. He's about 20 feet in front of me. He keeps looking over his shoulder, walking like faster. I'm like, what the hell's up with this guy? I don't know what's up with this, dude. And there's a stairway right before you get to the dorm, about 10 feet from the dorm doors.

And I'm at the top of the stairs. The guy goes down the stairs, and I had kind of come up on him because I'm tall and I walk pretty fast. But I come up to the stairs, and the guy turns back and looks at me and goes, Please don't kill me. Please don't kill me. And I was like, holy shit, dude. What the fuck? No, I'm not going to kill you, dude. I'm just walking back to my dorm.

And he was like so embarrassed. He just took off running into the dorm. It was so funny. Like, this dude thought I was the killer. Like, because, I mean, I had black skinny jeans on, this black Reaper hoodie on with my hood over my head. Because it was like a misty cold night in like March or April. And in his defense,

I would be kind of scared too. That just happened on campus. You have your creepy hoodie on. Like you're walking behind him for several minutes. Like he probably thought he was the next victim. Yeah, but I just, that scared the shit out of me because I was already just like getting into my head walking back. And then the dude screaming, please don't kill me.

Like, loud as shit will always stick with me because that's just a funny memory. Not funny, you know, with the murder and everything, but funny because of that situation. But yeah, they eventually got justice for Heruka, but I mean, that will always stick with me because that happened 100 feet, 200 feet from where I lived. And I remember being a student and just thinking, holy shit, there's someone here that's like targeting people, students, you know? And UT has a history of being just, there's a lot of dark stuff that has happened at UT. first of all, one of the first school shootings ever, Charles Whitman. He went to the top of the UT Tower, which is a big tower in the middle of campus,

and he went up there with a gun and killed, what was it, 12 people? I think so. I don't, don't quote me on that, but he killed a number of people, and he was actually a sniper in the military, so he was very accurate with his shots, and he killed a lot of people on campus, and that was one of the first tragedies that had happened on campus. So that happened.

The Heruka Wiser stuff happened. And then... Also, I'm going to add in there a couple years, I want to say, before Heruka happened. And Courtney and I have talked about doing a whole episode on UT because there's a lot of weird stuff that's happened at UT. University of Texas at Austin, if you guys don't know. and I don't know if he was a student or not, but somebody had an assault rifle, just a year or two before I came to UT,

and he ran around campus, pointing this rifle at people, and then he ran into the library, which is right next to the dorm that I lived in, coincidentally enough, the steps are going down from the library to my dorm, where that guy yelled that at me. And this dude went to the top floor of the,

UT library and committed suicide with the rifle. And it's like I've talked to people that go to UT and they have no idea that that just happened, you know, a couple years ago. Like I was studying actually one day on that floor. There was security camera footage that was released of the guy. And I'm telling my friends, like, you know a guy actually ended his life right here a couple years ago and nobody had any idea, which is crazy to me that you're in that room and that just happened recently and you have no idea, you know? Every building has a story. Then a few years later,

a guy walked onto campus and he was just, he had a machete in his hand and everyone was kind of like, like what is this guy doing? Why is he holding a machete? And then all of a sudden he just started stabbing random people. I think he stabbed like three or four people, right? He stabbed three or four people. One person was actually killed by the stabbing. I think his name was Harrison. And he died, but several people were injured. So it's just, it's just creepy that all of this stuff happens at UT from way back in the day with Charles Whitman to that. There's also the orange tree apartments. Oh yeah. That's, we want to save. that story for a full podcast, but I will say Courtney and I were both students. Also, Courtney wasn't

at UT when Heruka Weiser happened. That was a much bigger story than the stabbing. But we were both students when the stabbing happened. And I remember vividly, we had like group chats with friends that I had at UT and everybody was putting in those group chats like lock your doors, someone's knocking on doors and stabbing people. Like it was total chaos. And for me, I was walking to my film campus, the building, the UTRTF building, and there was actually a bomb threat called in to that building that I was going to. And so I was about to get to class and I got this notification, oh, there's a bomb threat at the RTF building. And I was like looking at the building thinking, yeah, you know what? I'm going to skip class today.

So I turned back and just walked home. But that's like a very vivid also memory of mine, the stabbing. There's Heruka and the stabbing. and the Austin bomber. It's just, it's sad nowadays how you don't feel safe in a school setting. You should always, you should be able to go to school and not have to worry about these things. Even on campus, it's really eerie. They have these signs by every, in every single classroom.

They have a sign and it says, um, first you run. Like it says like if an intruder comes in the building, first you run. If you can't run, you hide. If you can't hide. fight. And I think that's just really eerie that they post that on every single room at UT, just because that's something you have to consider these days in this era of mass shooting and violence that we have. Yeah, and I'm going to add in here real quickly. Austin itself is the darkest city that I know. I mean, New Orleans is a very similar

vibe in the darkness levels to Austin. But you look at Austin, you think it's this like polished up-and-coming city. But it has one of the darkest histories I have ever heard of. For example, also while I lived in Austin and Courtney, too, there was the Austin bombings. This guy was just mailing bombs to people. A number of people died. And what's crazy is we watched the 2020 about the Austin bombings. recently. And just this, you can't make this up. I was watching the 2020 and they said that this guy

mailed one of the bombs from a FedEx location in Austin. And I was eating lunch with my parents at this restaurant called Mad Greens that we always eat at in Austin. And I looked over to the side and I thought to myself, that FedEx building looks like the one that was on 2020. And it was. This guy had mailed these bombs, or one of the bombs, from this FedEx building, like eight minutes from where I lived. And my parents, that whole time when that was going on were texting me, you've got to be very careful when you check your mail, your mail and stuff. It was, it was crazy. If you haven't looked up the Austin bombings, that's a very intriguing story. Then you also have Servant Girl Annihilator, one of America's first serial killers in Austin.

And don't forget about Heidi Broussard. That's a story that I have a big connection to. Well, I'm going to add in here to The Yogurt Shop murders. Our first episode ever. Like, Courtney and I, since that episode, have gone in there two times to get our nails done. Yeah, if you haven't known now, it's a, the yogurt shop is turned into a, um, a nail salon now. And we have plenty of nail salons by us, but we,

purposefully drive 20 minutes out of our way to go to that one just because of the history. Sorry guys, I got to interject. We're going to take an ad break. There's no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to hair care. A product that works wonders for curls might make straight hair limp and greasy. I have very thin hair myself and I've always struggled to find a shampoo and conditioner that really works for my own hair. But thanks to my personalized pros routine, I can honestly say that I've never been more in love with my hair. Pros makes custom hair care that's effective because it's personal. Using natural ingredients with proven results, Pros customizes every product in your routine

from shampoo to supplements. First, Pros starts by asking about you as a person with their in-depth consultation. Pros asks me about really unexpected things like what my eating habits are, how stressed out I get on a daily basis, how often I exercise, and I genuinely had no idea. that all of these things affect the health of your hair. Courtney and I both took the surveys, and next, Pros analyzed all my answers and determined what unique blend of ingredients

should be in every product of my custom routine. Together, Pros got all my hair goals covered. I have long, blonde hair myself down to my shoulders, if you guys haven't seen a picture of me, but it gets damaged in the sun during the summertime. When I received my hair care routine, I was given a pre-shampo mask, a shampoo, a conditioner, and a curl cream to put in after the shower.

Pros is the healthy hair regimen with your name, name all over it. Take your free in-depth hair consultation and get 15% off your first order today. Go to pros.com slash state. That's P-R-O-S-E dot com slash state for your free in-depth hair consultation and 15% off. Once again, guys, if you support the show, go pick up some hair care products. They really are awesome and we love them. I just use mine earlier today from pros. But anyways, let's get back to this incredibly bizarre and great. gruesome story. Our final murder story that occurred in Austin that we were affected by is the story of Heidi Broussard. I'm sure if you're into true crime, you're going to know about this story.

It made national headlines. There was actually a Dateline episode made about it, but I was lying in bed one day and I got a call for my mom. And when I answered, she was like, oh my God, thank God, you're safe. And I was like, what are you talking about? I hadn't I hadn't texted my mom back in a few days. I'd been really busy. And she told me that a woman went missing right around where I lived. Um, I hadn't heard anything about it at the time. So I googled it. And a woman, a woman from across the street from me, literally from my bedroom, I could see exactly where she lived, her exact apartment. Um, she had gone missing. Um, there was footage of her dropping her son off at school. She had like a son in elementary school and then she had a two week old baby.

And she and the baby had gone missing. No one had seen her after she dropped her kid off at school. And then there was footage of her husband begging her on the media to come home. And I personally thought at first that the husband was involved. It kind of gave me like Chris Watts vibes. Yeah. I lived in Austin too at that time. And it was the exact. exact type of situation with Chris Watts where a mother and child had gone missing and the dad was on the news stating like, please come home and he was emotional. Well, I was, I personally thought that he did it. I mean, he did give kind of a weird reaction, but that in itself proved me that you cannot judge people on the way that they react to certain situations because I was like 100% sure

that he did it. Spoil alert, he didn't. Spoiler alert, he didn't. But so anyways, she was missing for a few days. Nobody knew where she was. And then they eventually, they were looking at all the people in her life, the people close to her. And they saw that in her, one of her best friend's phone records, that her friend had drove from Houston to Austin to the area that Heidi was living. So when investigators went and searched her friend's property, they found Heidi Broussard's body in the trunk of their car in Houston. So she, the friend, her name was Megan. She had driven from Austin.

She kidnapped Heidi across the street from me. I was literally lying in bed while Heidi was getting kidnapped. across the street and she murdered her and actually stole her baby. They had been best friends since they were little. They met at like church camp. They were best friends. And Megan had pretended like she was pregnant, Heidi's entire pregnancy. And she basically had a plan to kill her and steal her baby.

And she did. When they went to Megan's house, Heidi was dead in the trunk. and Megan had her baby claiming that it was hers, but it clearly wasn't. Yeah, that was a big story in Austin. And I remember vividly, because this was pretty recently, this was last, no, I think this was last year, 2020. I'm pretty sure it was 2020. Let me look it up. So I just Googled it.

It was actually December 2019. So close to both of our answers. So yeah, I was a, I mean, that's almost 2020, you know. Mm-hmm. But yeah, that was, I remember sitting there, I was so invested in the case that I was watching a live stream on YouTube of people talking about this new development that they had found something dealing with the Heidi Broussard case. And it was like aerial footage of the, house, yeah, where Megan lived, and the car where they found Heidi Broussard's body. And I remember sitting there thinking, what?

What? This was not at all what I expected that she was in Houston dead. You know, it's just weird. Yeah, and it proves that you really can't trust anyone. That was one of her best friends since childhood. And she killed her and stole her baby. So be careful who you friend. Yeah.

can't be friends with everybody. Also, Courtney and I are, I was going to say, we're friends. Courtney and I live in downtown Austin. And just this summer, there was a mass shooting, just a couple blocks from where we live, which was like, just so eerie because I woke up in the morning and my parents had called me a bunch. My phone's on silent when I sleep, so I didn't hear their calls. But what was it? 15, 14 people had been shot. yeah it was 14 um and yeah that was just you know you don't expect something like that to hit so close to home but it did and uh it's just you know there's a problem in the u.s with these mass shootings definitely there's something that needs to uh to change i don't know exactly what it is but it can't keep going on like this because from sandy hook

to, you know, even the 6th Street shooting, like 14 people getting shot. That's way too many people getting shot. And that's just in a different city. Like, then there's cities like Chicago, Baltimore, where there's massive amounts of gun violence. And I don't know the exact solution on how to end it because we're not going to be a political podcast here. But it's just important to recognize that there is a problem, you know? But yeah, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, a little history on the dark side of Austin.

We're going to take one more ad break and then finish out the show. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Obviously, the whole last year and a half has been rough on everyone's mental health. At times, we've been quarantined, we've been unsure of the future, and we're worried about catching a mysterious and deadly disease, and it's all a lot to take in. Yeah, as a person that struggles with anxiety, I can definitely tell you that I feel like I need a break from the events of the last year. or so. But sometimes, appointments with doctors can't be scheduled for months, and it leaves a person

feeling helpless. Well, that's where BetterHelp comes in. Better Help. Better Help will assess your mental health needs and immediately match you with your own licensed professional therapist. And after you're paired up with a professional, you can start communicating in under 48 hours. There's no limit to how you can use Better Help. You can schedule weekly video sessions, weekly phone sessions or even keep it quiet and stick to online messaging. You can access BetterHelp anywhere on the planet. There are no limits. And there's a broad range of expertise available. Expertise and specialists that may not be available in other areas. But now you can access all of that mental health help online from anywhere with almost no effort. We love BetterHelp. Honestly,

it's a great service, a great company, and the licensed therapists that are on there really care about what you have to say. It helps when you just really need someone to talk to, but you don't have time to run into a therapist's office. You can get help quickly and easily with BetterHelp. So if you're ready to take charge of your mental health, join us in the over 1 million other people who have signed up for BetterHelp. Just visit BetterHelp.com slash MIA. That's Better, H-E-L-P, and start chatting with a licensed therapist today. To find folks at BetterHelp are extending a special offer for you, wonderful Murder in America listeners as well, guys. You can get 10% off your first month.

at betterhelp.com slash MIA. Once again, that's betterhelp.com slash MIA. Anyways, let's get back to our story. So,

doing the paranormal files has brought me, also, Courtney, to so many different locations across the world. And oftentimes, these places are

touched or forever changed by murders that happen there. Even this trip in Wisconsin, we did not only Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer, but we did a number of locations where people had been, you know, murdered in the basement. For example, the old Baraboo Inn in Baraboo, Wisconsin was an old speakeasy for the mafia, Al Capone, and allegedly people were taken down to the basement tied to this execution pole and shot in the head, shot in the legs. a woman was tied up there allegedly and assaulted and then murdered it's like it really touches you

when you get to you know go to these places and experience these things you really can feel that energy don't you agree yeah yeah it's crazy hearing true crime stories but actually getting to be at the locations where all of these tragedies took place really it puts in pretty perspective how prominent murder is in America. And that's why we initially decided to do the podcast called Murder in America. Obviously, there's murder everywhere. But I feel like America is especially violent. And we have a lot of stories like this, like everywhere, like I said, but America definitely is a violent place with a lot of violent people. And I mean, just by our stories we tell every week.

I think that it makes it pretty clear that, especially with the mass shootings and all of the violence here, America is a pretty dark place. Yeah. Yes, it is. And once again, I'm glad you guys have been here with us through this episode, just telling our stories. It has been a pleasure to be able to tell you guys about some of these things

that we've experienced and continue to. experience because based on the DMs that we received from all of you wonderful people out there, the Patreon messages, a lot of you guys have had experiences with murder. And it's just crazy to see how here in America, yeah, we really do have an issue. And I don't know what it is with the pressures of life here. I mean, there's murder everywhere. But here in America, there's just like a very different. element to it, a very depraved element. And I mean, people like Jeffrey Dahmer ran freely back in the

90s, 80s. And we're still recovering from all of that. And we're not trying to glorify murder in this podcast. We just take the facts and we tell them to you guys. So yeah, from the Velisca Axe Murder House to me holding an axe that was used to end the live. of an entire family, my career, my YouTube channel has brought me face to face with these murders and these crimes. And you can feel it. You can really, when you're there, just put yourself back in time almost. Just like right now here in the Ambassador Hotel, well, where we are recording this episode. You can feel it. It definitely stains a location.

Yeah, it's a forever mark. But anyways, y'all, thank you guys so much for listening. We're going to be back next week with our final Halloween series episode. It is a crazy story, a crazy story that I had never heard. Courtney had never heard. But it has relations. It's related. I should say it doesn't have relations.

It's related to one of the biggest murder stories. sprees in American history, one of the most influential. And we're going to be telling this story that's connected to this murder spree. And then the next week, actually doing a deep dive into this famous, famous string of crimes. Courtney's excited for it, I know. I'm really excited. But anyways, everybody, we love y'all so much. We're not going to do an outro tonight.

If you all want to follow us on Instagram, it is murder. In America. My Instagram is Colin Brownen or The Paranormal Files. My Instagram is Cort Shan. You can also become a patron. We talk to you guys all the time on there. It's awesome. And we have bonus episodes, I believe seven or eight now. Full bonus episodes. We're uploading another either this week. Well, it's going to be this week. Yeah, because it's the end of October. So, yeah, we can't thank you all enough. And stay safe out there at the end of the day. See on the next one, everybody.

And just always ask that question, you know? That's what we're going to be asking tonight here in the Ambassador Hotel in the room where Jeffrey Dahmer ended Stephen Toowmi's life. The dead don't talk. Or do they? See on the next one, y'all. Happy early Halloween.