My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 101 - Live At The Majestic Theatre in Dallas

Episode Date: December 28, 2017

Karen and Georgia cover cult leader Terri Hoffman and the case of Sandra Bridewell.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is exactly right. We at Wondery live, breathe, and downright obsess over true crime. And now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C, on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music. Exhibit C, it's truly criminal. This is our third and best show in Dallas. Wow.

Pretty sure I saw UFO up there. Yeah. Did you see that? Uh-huh. It's an assortment of lights. A lot going on. There's so much. Oh my God.

It's so exciting. This is our third and best show in Dallas. Yes. Oh, I ruined it. My pocket's out. I ruined it. It's no longer the best show. Let's start over.

God damn it. Take it from the top. This shirt needs to be burned. Let's just say that. Yeah. I didn't even give a pass over. No, I love it. There's hair.

There's the tears, sweat of others, myself combined. I realized today that all the clothes I brought to Texas smell like barbecue. And I haven't even been in a barbecue restaurant. It's not like I've been in a restaurant. You can think backstage and in the hotel room. Yeah. And yet. And also, where was the picture that you sent me today?

I sent her a photo of a trough of mac and cheese. Close up. Very close up. It was a close up. That was actually just whole foods. But I just thought it would be a good photo. Because we didn't text that morning. We hadn't texted all day.

So I was like, this will be a funny thing just to send someone randomly. But then after that, fuck you guys. Okay. Did you just say fuck you guys to Dallas? No, no, no. That's crazy. They will get so mad at you. No.

Fuck. Comment. You guys. Okay. No. Because. All right. I love LA.

However, I had to move somewhere. It would be a place that has a really fucking good barbecue in a gas station. Would that gas station be our friend Bucky's gas station? Yeah. That's right. We know the lingo now. We can fucking speak your language. Yeah.

Bucky nuggets. One thousand. Yeah. I ate those two today. So good. How can you not? I mean, it's like cotton candy in your mouth. But beavers.

But beavers. Don't. Stop it. This is supposed to be the best show. Was it really at the gas station? Yeah. It was like fucking just whatever gas station and then there's a barbecue place on a drive-through in the gas station.

And it was like really good barbecue. Were you still asleep? No. And then I took it back to the hotel room and sat and ate barbecue in the hotel room. Yeah. And well, Vince watched football. And I was just like, this is my life. And I love it.

That fucking life. This is the life. Free glass of rosé from the downstairs hotel area. Oh, did you go mingle? I know, I fucking grabbed a glass of wine and went upstairs to eat my barbecue in peace. You're like, do you have any pictures or large containers, maybe a flower vase that I could take with me? I don't want to mix with these people.

Vince did really disappoint me in our marriage, though, because. Oh, no. And like, this is, you know, he's amazing, but I went to the, they're like, they pour you glass, don't like rosé. It's like two to six rosé hour or whatever the fuck. And then the guy goes to pour two glasses and he goes, oh, no, just one. I don't want one. And I was like, no, dude, you get a second glass for me.

Team playing. Yeah. At all times. But it probably was a sign of you're drinking too much. Do you think he was quietly judging you? No, he wouldn't do that. Now with counterpoint, Vince. You just chalk massive shit on him and then I like hand the microphone over.

Well, that's interesting. I have nothing to say about it. And then Vince does. Why is he on the ground? Um, there he is. He's down in the, he's down in the little opera spot where you can call for your line down in the old, this is an old theater reference I'm making only certain people understand. Want to know what I did?

Yes. Um, I got a massage in the hotel and fancy, right? That's amazing. It's so much easier to communicate with you when we have a crab-like clasp on each other. The intensity of that. Yes. Um, it's a conduit. So I called down, I look, this is brilliant.

If you have a business that has, you offer two things that don't go together, put them on the same menu because as I was ordering breakfast, I was like, oh, massages. It was right fucking there, which I've never seen before and it's so smart. I was like, I want oatmeal and I want someone to rub my back. And in this place, they have forehand massage, which means two people massage you at one time. I feel like that, that's a creepy way to say that, forehand massage. What isn't a creepy way to explain what that might be?

Yeah. I feel like, hey, two people massage you at the same time. Okay. Forehands from, from who knows where. Coming up out of the walls in the ground. They're all strangely silver and gray. Don't worry about it. You're face down.

Yeah. What species of hands are we talking about? But two people. Oh, interesting. You say that. Monkey hands. That's when you read this small print. Monkey and raccoon hands.

The one's too small and one's too strong and could kill you. That'd be pretty cute. That'd be sweet until you die. Right. Right. I am so Catholic, I could not order the forehand massage. I was like, that's not right. I can't, I can't ask for that.

That's too much enjoyment in this life. Who am I? I think that's the perfect way though to like treat yourself without guilt is always have one thing that's too much. So like, even if you want like, well, I'm not going to get a Lexus, I'll just get a, what's one step down from Lexus. Oh, clearly it's, it's a Dodge Charger. Yes.

But what you really wanted was the Dodge Charger to begin with. Oh, you've inside your mind are doing all of this? You're doing it to yourself. To someone on the street. To yourself. Okay. Writing it on paper or just this is a mental situation. You have your Jewish friend tell you that you're worth it and you deserve it.

Come on. Cause that's how we are. That's our new thing. That's our new campaign. Everyone get a Jewish friend. Cause she'll say, you know, I think you, I can, I can justify any purchase for anyone in a way that makes you like proud. Like yeah, you're right.

I should get that. The Lexus. I don't know. Right. I should get like raccoon palm massage. I deserve raccoons. I deserve this. She's right.

I work hard. Imagine, cause you've seen raccoons wash their food, right? And it's so thorough and fast. The little, they do that little, but it's on your shoulder. And they stare at you. Did I ever tell you about that time? I thought this was right before I got my dog George and I was here. I was by myself in my house and I would hear shit every night and just be like, here we

go. This is it. I knew it. Here we go. Every fucking night. That's when I started sleeping in front of the TV because any time I would go into my bed, there would be some weird noise and I'd be like, great, dead. I had that party tomorrow, but now I'm going to be murdered.

So, but I always knew I was, you know, that it was probably just all that shit they say, the house settling or a man living in your attic or whatever the things people tell you. But this one night, I hear a sound that I swear to God, this sound, what I pictured in my mind when I heard it was someone threw an old-fashioned word processor against the back wall of my house. I don't know why, but that's exactly what it sounded like. Like a huge crash? A crash with plastic involved.

Like an outdated electronic machine crash. It was like one of the guys from office space. Instead of this, they were like this. It was that. Weird. It was scary. It fucking scared the shit out of me, right? So, I go to check and we used to have a cat.

I never talk about him. His name is Angus. Don't mention it to me. My cat Angus, who was feral, awful, long hair, which is the fucking worst in a pet of any breed, mean he watched him almost scratch out. I've told you that story where he's hiding. There was like something leaned against the wall and my 18-month-old niece was like, let's stay over here.

And right as she leaned down, the cat paw was like this with all nails out. Toward face. Yeah. And that's what Pete ran and just picked her up really fast. So, it was like one of those like, it was a matrix-y this, but she wasn't leaning. It was just, guys, anyway, I can't remember the story I was telling, oh, because, so we had this built-in cat door. Oh, no.

Yes. Don't do that. Right. So, in my mind, I'm like, well, someone with the longest arm ever reached through it and it's like... That's already what I was thinking. Was it? Yes.

Well, someone with a long arm could just come in and lock it. The long arm bandit is coming. It's a raccoon that grew up in your nuclear test facility. Oh. That's not his fault, he has those long arms. One long arm. Just the one. Just the one.

So, he has a crazy limp. Yeah. Fastest hands. Okay. So, I get over there. And of course, I think it's someone trying to like physically break into the back door. And when I get to the back door, I flip the porch light on and there's a raccoon who is just coming back out of the cat door.

So, like, he had gone, he had gone, I think, halfway into it and then come back out really fast. He must have heard a noise or something. Yeah. And so, when I'm standing there, I flip the light on and the raccoon is like trying to figure out a way to go back, like, re-approach it. And when the light flicks on, he goes like this. He goes...

And then just fucking stares me down. Oh my God. Like, oh, you're up. And yeah, like, I thought you were away. He's like staring at me and so, I kick the door because of course, at this point, I'm so angry and scared and feel so stupid that I was, that asshole is the way I thought was going to murder me. So, I kick the door so he'll go away and he just goes like this.

He pulls his little hands and he sits back on his haunches like, okay, lady, let's take it easy. He's like, huh, okay, that's a stride, that's one. She's not going to let me have the garbage and I have to get it a different way. I want, I want a raccoon. You want a raccoon? So bad. You want your own raccoon?

I do. Yeah. Short arms or long arms? Surprise me. Okay. Well, Christmas is right around the corner, everybody. So is Hanukkah. Hey.

Shit. That's why you need a Jewish friend. You never think about Hanukkah. Hanukkah sooner. It's more pressing. Get your Hanukkah shopping done now, Texas. Uh, this is my favorite murder, the podcast. This is my favorite murder, the podcast.

All right. Let's Karen Kilgarra. This is Georgia Heart Stark. Can we tell real quick? We've had some, oh, wardrobe issues. Oh, yeah. Oh, I thought you were pointing at our feet. No, no, I'm just, now I'm just doing things with my body, I'm not, I'm so, I don't know

what's going on anymore. I'm so tired. And last night, somebody posted a great picture from, uh, the show, which was very sweet. And they, people love to show us pictures of ourselves. I personally resent it, but I understand, I understand it's not about me. And whoever it was, it was somebody that was up in this balcony. We see it because, hey, is that the queen of Spain? God, they're right there.

That's so funny. Hi. Um, they, I think it might have been up one or is there, no, it's just that one. Um, it seemed very high. It could have been a bird's picture, I'm not sure, but my, I didn't dye my roots before I left for this trip because I was like, they're just sticking out a little bit right there. I look like I'm balding just on my part, just tons of hair everywhere else. But then that's sad, just only on the part, it's like, fucking, I don't, I don't, I don't.

This is why you're not on Instagram and shouldn't be. It's just, you just are like, there's that problem area. What about the time we were in Australia and I showed Georgia a picture of myself and I was like, cause we, she's always like, can we take a picture? And I'm like, no. I stopped asking. She had to. She had to.

This is how we work stuff out. Let's hold up this thing. It'll be so cute. We'll put it on here and let's take a photo of this. No. Never so cute. Not so cute. I'm almost 50.

I shouldn't be here. What do you mean by here? Just on earth. No, no, that's not true. It's what a great time we're all having. But I took this picture of myself and because I was facing the window and it was like morning light, there was this odd combination of things where it actually was this fucking majestic picture of me that I ran next door to your hotel room and I was like, oh my God, look,

I actually took a good picture. It was really weird. My hair was back and I didn't have any makeup on, but it somehow worked. And Georgia goes, amazing. And then she goes like this and goes, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, and puts all these filters on it. And then it looked fucking incredible and I go, what did you just do? And she's like, you don't know about filters?

That's why I didn't like Instagram is because I didn't know everyone's fucking cheating on there all the time. Oh yeah. We're all cheating. My cats are cheating. Everything is cheating. I didn't know. The fucking sunset?

You were like, oh, I guess I didn't see that sunset tonight. It's because it didn't look like that. Even that? Some fucking asshole put a bunch of filters on it. I mean, all those gorgeous dinners that people have been taking pictures of. Have you seen unfiltered food? Oh. Not post photos of food unless you know how to filter the shit out of those things.

What a revelation. I'm just saying that for the other people and the crowd who might not know that you can fix your fucking face. It's such good news. It's such good news. Oh. It's also, yeah. Thank God.

Should we sit down? Yeah, we really should. Let's give these, we're never going to have chairs like these again. Let's give them a moment to shine. This chair was made when Robert Wadlow, the tallest man in the world, got an office job at IBM. And he demanded an ergonomic chair to sit in. You know, for when you want to pretend like you work in a giant office.

Yeah. And there you go. Who made this? I've never heard my life. I mean. Yeah, it's okay. So then we climb in. Yeah.

All aboard. All right. All right. You got it. You got it. And now the pull-in. And that's how you sit down in America just real quick. Karen, we had last night at the second show, the hometown was just like someone's mom,

which was like always funny. I'm here with my 15-year-old daughter, she was like the cutest thing. The best. The best, cutest. We always thought moms were mad at us. They're not. Yeah. It's such good news.

She was a Bible teacher in prison and she's like, and then I found out what one of my favorite students did and it was bad. She was the one who, it was the girl who hit the homeless man on the freeway. He got stuck in her windshield and she drove home with him. Remember that whole story? She taught her the Bible too late, right? Yeah. You need to skip straight to that fucking repent part because you're done.

You're done. No. So Karen stole her red flag. She came up and she was like, we made these. And I was like, well, that's mine now. Mine. I was like, you can make another one, right? Because I can't.

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Okay. Okay, I'm first this evening. Okay. Okay. Let's do this. So this is a true crime comedy podcast. It's all you strangers. Thank you.

And Stephen's not here. Sorry. Yes. It's so disappointing. I know. He's sending me photos of my cats and there was one photo that he sent today and I said to myself, they look hungry. I'm such an asshole.

They look hungry. They look hungry. She was like, don't they look hungry in this picture? And I was like, mm-hmm. I'm trying to fix this. Since they look hungry, it's hard to tell, he said. Yeah, hard to tell. The consummate politician, well, it could be, it couldn't be.

Okay, once again, this story, and it seems like we're underwritten by the magazine Texas Monthly, but we're not. We're not being paid by them in any way. But we get so many amazing stories from them, for real. It didn't, it dawned on me the first night we were here when I was looking up one of my stories and there's a lot of people, obviously, that write for that magazine, but there is a guy named Skip Hollinsworth that writes tons of great, it's always that guy. I just found out today, when I was looking up my story and used his, also used his information,

that he wrote a book. What's it about? It's about a serial killer in Austin, like the first serial killer in Austin. Shit. Oh, is it the Servant Girl Annihilator? I don't know. I don't know. I just did one Audible and it's there.

Okay. So we're going to, well, everyone download it now, let's blow the wipe, I am. So this is another one that I found searching Texas Monthly, because you can go in. They have like articles from back in the 80s. It's amazing. They also, somebody has done that thing where they make a Google book out of the old magazine. So while I was reading the article for this story, there were these ads coming up on the side that were fucking, they were from 1982 and they were amazing.

What were they? It was just a bunch of blonde people being thin and rich all over, all over the Dallas Fort Worth area, just, you know, it's like always that one lady with gold earrings and like kind of a weird blonde haircut that was like, I fucking love oil. They just drank oil at that point. It was just, there's a lot of, you know how sometimes it's like beef, it's what's for dinner. There's just, there's commercials for things that is not a company, it's just a concept.

Oh yeah, like milk or whatever the thing. Yeah. Yeah. Milk, milk. It's good for your bones, okay, that. Tom Kenny, who was on Mr. Show with me, who's one of, he also, he's also the voice of Sponge Bob. He's one of the most.

But his biggest, his biggest thing was being on with you. That's right. It's what I mentioned first because I'm in it, but he's so brilliant and hilarious. He used to do this thing in a stand-up act where he pretended that he was also hired by all those companies like the milk board and the beef association or whatever, the farmers association. And so he would do alternative jingles for all of those things. And that was like, it was like milk, it's good for your bones, but singing it like a rock

star. And he also did one. There's a restaurant in LA called Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles, that's amazing. And he would go. Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles is your chicken and a waffle connection. Sidebar nation. I don't think you're allowed to do other people's acts during your show. He doesn't need it.

He's got all that Sponge Bob money. Yeah, that's right. He doesn't even know. But you can just sue me. You're rich bastard. Okay. Anyhow, the article I got, almost everything from what I'm about to tell you, I'm essentially rereading you this article.

And it is so fucking crazy and long that it's like, by the end I was like scanning, scrolling really fast. I'm like, don't look at the ads. Don't look at the people that are, you know, drinking by a window. Just focus on the article. But it was called The Curse of the Black Lords by Peter Elkind. There was also an article that I looked at for a magazine called D Magazine. Yes, me too.

Did you look at that one? I used both of those magazines too. So good. And that article is called The Rise and Fall of a North Dallas Cult by George Rodriguez. And this, my friends, is the story of Terry Hoffman and the conscious development cult. Cults, cults, cults, cults. This is one of the fucking craziest things I've ever read about. And I can't wait to read more.

Like, I want to read a whole book on this because this is straight up nutso. And I cannot believe in all the years of all the 2020s and things that we've all been watching for years and years. I've never seen anything about this. Love it. Nutso. Okay. So we start now.

Yeah. Crack that beer because this is going to be long. Actually, I want to start, um, I wonder if this is the first picture. I wonder. Let's see. Oh. Oh. Okay.

It wasn't. Shit. Okay. Here's how this article starts. And here it's such a brilliant way to get into the story because it's not the beginning, which is always a good fucking left turn, but this is basically how the cops found out about this cult. Yeah.

It's Thanksgiving in 1989. Yeah. Put yourself there. I'm there. So much hairspray. Oh my God. All of it is the Aussie. What do you call it?

Products. Yeah. That purple hairspray. Got it. It starts with a smell in an East Dallas neighborhood of Lake Highlands. They love smells. They love the smell. It's so bad that the neighbors call the cops firemen of the first on the scene.

They kick down the door, take a step into the house, walk back out and throw up on the front lawn. Oh, they always do that. Don't change the crime scene. And or here's a tip to killers and bad people. Walk outside. Just put that knife right there on the lawn. Yeah.

It's a chopping arc. So then they have to put on their Scott airpacks and which is like the gas mask for firemen and go into the house. The house is filled with flies, clouds of flies. Oh, the red flag so far. This house wet the bed, we'd know something bad was happening. In the back of the house, they find former Southern Methodist University business professor David Goodman and his wife Glenda, both 48.

They have both been shot with the gun directly against their skulls. So and they've been dead for over a month. You guys mind your business here. Like nobody's like, tell it fucking tanks. So bad. Yes. Property. I respect it.

Yeah. Property. Something goes down. Don't worry about it. We're raising flies. That's our choice. It's what we get to do. I bought this property.

I paid taxes on it. There's a shooting gallery in one corner of the room, which is a metal stand with a paper on it, there's guns on the coffee table, and there's pellet guns leaned up against a wall. Sounds chill. Yeah. It was like a rumpus room, man cave. So also there is an alarm clock at their feet. Police and medical examiners conclude it's a murder, suicide or some kind of a consensual

double death. Geez. Which is the name of my new band. Sorry. Sorry. That's good. No, that's not a problem. That's not.

No, no, no, no, no. How's my part up there? You guys? Thanks. Thank you. Next time you just... So you like scalp? Okay.

Okay. So he was an investment advisor who owned his own company. She kept his books. He'd been married three times, she'd been married once, and friends and family said that they were deeply in love, they were ecstatic in each other's company. Which is the nicest sentence. No suicide note of any kind, two dogs had been left in the backyard the whole time. But they were alive, pacing, pacing, angry, and the second they ate food, they would

forget about everything that happened to them. Some neighbor was just fucking throwing a handful of kibble over the back. Can you shut the... Like I just... That's nice. That's a good thought. Right. An angry yet caring neighbor who's like, here's a pork chop, you stupid shit.

Okay. But then police find two handwritten journals and they find out that they have been planning their death for months. God told them to do it and God's spokesperson was the leader of a spiritual group that they belong to called Conscious Development of Body, Mind, and Soul. Like if anyone didn't know that was a cult immediately, by that name. Any time it's like kind of vague words that suggest a slight idea but won't get specific, get out, get away.

Okay, they had been advised to stay away from family and friends because of their negative energy. Absolutely. And they also stipulated in their will that they were giving the leader of Conscious Development of Body, Mind, and Soul half of all their future earnings, which must have meant that their company was doing really well, and $100,000, like what they had in the bank which was $100,000. And the leader of Conscious Development of Body, Mind, and Soul was a woman named Terry Hoffman.

Let's take a look. Oh shit. I saw Stuart in that photo. There she is. Hi. I'm crazy. Hi. Hi.

That's such a good voice. That's what she sounds like. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi, eye contact. Don't look away from my eyes. Don't look away from my eyes.

Hi. Would you like some juice? Do you want a forehand massage? I bet you that was like a secret fear somewhere deep inside where it's like, yeah, you're going to get on the table and the forehand massage is going to start. Boom. You're giving someone $100,000 and you're dead. You're in a fucking cult.

You're in a cult and you can't get out and you're like, I love her. I love Terry and I want a shirt just like hers. Okay. Boop. There we go. Thank you. Okay. So after they find this death, reports of patterns of deaths like these in the conscious

development group, they don't call it a cult, start up and so police start an investigation that year and they find out that eight members of this spiritual group had died prematurely, eight. Really? And three of them were sudden accidents and five had committed suicide and two of the suicides had been Terry's husbands. Oh no. So they're like, it doesn't seem like a coincidence to us.

But all of the dead people had named Terry Hoffman as the sole beneficiary of their estates, all of them. So Terry, of course, it gets talked to by the police and her explanation is very simple and clear. The people who joined her group, which was basically what she said is, you know, it was a kind of a new age meditation group. They were all emotionally troubled and invariably prone to take their own lives. You know how people are.

You know, you just attract a certain type. Yeah. Meditation, new age, suicide, right. Very common. Yeah. Be careful. And she said they had left her their money in exactly the same way that other people leave their money to traditional churches.

So what's the problem? And the cops were like, great. See you later. Now, very soon after the police investigation started, Terry's two stepchildren filed a lawsuit against her saying that she had contributed to all those deaths through hypnosis, behavior modification, mind control and emotional manipulation, AKA Terry was the leader of her own death cult. Wow.

Wow. Okay. She seemed so innocent. I know. Look at her again. Okay. I don't see it. And I'm even.

I don't. I don't see it. Okay. So we'll talk about Terry Hoffman's background. She was born into a poor family. Her mother died of tuberculosis. And she was sent to an orphanage when she was nine years old. So there she realized at the orphanage at age nine that she was the reincarnation of St.

Teresa of Aviva, who as we all know, all the good Catholics in the audience know that St. Teresa was a 16th century Spanish nun. I had no idea of any of this. I was like, shit, did I teach you guys a lot? Yeah. And we memorize it and we take it with us through our lives. St. Teresa was a Spanish nun who had visions of the Holy Trinity. That's the father, son and holy ghost.

I know that one. Okay. So it's, it's Monty Python God. Spectacles, testicles, wallet, watch, what? Spectacles, testicles, wallet, watch, I, is this what you say about Catholics when we're not around? Is that from an airplane? I think it's, what, Austin Powers?

No, it's older than that. I'm glad I don't know that reference then. I got taught that at a young age. Okay. I think my dad taught me that. Good day. Okay. Good to know.

Uh-huh. I was much more concerned with, do you know the Holy Trinity? Because I was trying it back and Terry Hoffman you into my cult, which is Catholicism. If you just have five minutes, I can tell you about the good word. Okay. But St. Teresa had these visions. She believed that she was visited by the Holy Trinity. She also believed that you could visit the kingdom of heaven, like rooms in a castle.

So she would basically kind of like astral project into heaven and she told everybody about it. So Terry is like me too. When she was 11, she was adopted, but she ran away four years later to Durant, or Durant, Oklahoma. Durant. Oklahoma has been representing so fucking hard at our shows. Hi guys.

Okay. Hi, we had no idea. We had no idea. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Um, so she runs away to marry an 18 year old truck diver named John Wilder. What's a truck diver? What'd I say?

Truck diver. Oh, you've never heard of that? They drive trucks off of piers and then, and then the truck, they go fishing. It's okay. I did the addict to addict switch Peru every show this weekend. This is the weekend that we find out that we have several speech impediments and we're proud of them. Okay.

So Terry, now that she's a married old 15 year old, drops out of high school, kiss bucket, and she has a daughter in 1954. She has a son in 1958, another daughter in 1963. They all live on a farm in South Dallas County. So her, of course, her husband, her 18 year old husband goes away on these long haul trucker trips. And so Terry begins to dabble in the occult. She reads books about Edgar Cayce and she takes classes in hypnotism.

By the late sixties, they'd moved to farmer's branch and good times, gorgeous yet small houses there or big, we'll talk about it later. So once they get there, she starts leading meditation classes at her house. And this is basically when conscious development started. Okay. So far it's on the level. Yes, exactly. Sounds like everyone in LA.

Yeah. For fuck's sake. Oh, that's the thing I forgot to tell you when I went over my, when I actually got, I just stuck with aromatherapy massage because I was like, that's what people get. Be normal. I got their people. Smell shit. Yeah.

While you get massage. Yeah. Smelling it. But the woman goes, is there any particular areas that you want me to focus on or any problems you're having? And I just go, no, I'm just trying to get back into my body. And then we both just stood there staring at each other and then I was like, I'm not in LA.

You're not supposed to say things like that. Oh my God. It's so embarrassing. Get back in my body. What are you trying to get back in my body? What does that mean? It's deep. It sounds deep.

It just came out and I thought she'd understand and she was just like, okay, you can put the robe over there. She just pretended like it never happened. I'm going to use that. Did it work? Use it. Oh, I'm in my fucking body tonight. Let me tell you what, she must have understood me.

I did. Getting back. Thank you. It's nice to be here. Okay. Okay. So it was basically just a talking meditation class. So she also, she would write up and sell lessons like in little pamphlets herself.

And this was the first lesson. It was first degree lesson one. This is how it starts. This is your first lesson. It is yours in a special way since the knowledge contained within it is sacred, secret and mysterious. It's fucking on the page. It's none of those things. This information has been treasured and carefully guarded since ancient times.

For knowledge gives its possessor power. That's true. That sounds like a really long fortune cookie so far. By being exposed to the teachings of the masters, you will not only become aware of the truths which others rarely possess, yay. But you will also learn how to use and control energies few have mastered. I'm already out. You don't like.

No. Harry Potter. Okay. So it turns out the masters are, according to Terry Hoffman, 12 wise spirit guides who would visit earth to give advice or warnings to mankind. Only a few people could, very rare few could communicate with them. Of course, Terry was one of those people. And she said that the 12 masters included Jesus Christ himself and a guy named Marcus.

So I'm in 100. I bet Jesus Christ is stoked. He made the fucking grade. Yeah. He made the list. He's like, great. I have so much to tell you guys. Sorry, Marcus is talking.

You're going to have to hold on. Okay. So according to Terry, the masters first appeared to her when she was four years old and they told her that she could have anything she wanted if she tried hard enough. It might be true. I mean, depends on what you want. True. Yeah.

Let's think about it for a second. Okay. I'm here. Let's do it. She also said that the problems that you have in your life are coming up because you're paying for bad behavior from your past lives. So it's like, Terry, that's karma. You didn't make that up.

That's Hindu. Stop it. Terry. I wish I was Terry's friend. I could just be there when she was writing up this pamphlet and be like, Terry, you're lying. Stop it. Stop typing about Marcus.

That's a fucking lie. Terry. You're being a negative energy. Quit it. Karen. That's why she had to get rid of all the negative energies. Yes. Because it was Karen telling her.

Yeah. Because I'm trying to copy edit her bullshit. And just be like, you can't pretend you made up karma. People will catch you. Okay. She also preached there's no difference between life and death as, quote, you will become conscious of the continuity of life. Death then will not exist in reality because your existence is not dependent on the mere

existence of the physical body. What? What? You can't just put the word existence in a sentence seven times and be like, I talk to God. Well, apparently you can. I mean, you can. And she did.

Okay. So most of her ideas were borrowed from the usual texts that inspired new age, the new age movement, except her doctrine that offered forgiveness for sin and was very pro sex. Like have it as much as you want and can. Jews. Yay. Is that what you guys are about? That was ours.

Well, yeah. That's your jam? We dig it. Particularly? Yes. Yeah. So people were super into this concept basically because they were like, Oh, I went to, I thought I was going to a yoga class, but it turns out I should fuck way more is kind of what

happened. And people are like, I got to go back to my class. I might start taking it two days a week. So as the people who are as old as I am know, the eighties were a time of great materialism in this country. Great expansion of materialism. Yes. And of course, Dallas was a hotbed for it.

There's tons of rich people here because of the oil industry and the TV show Dallas. I don't know. I'm making it up. I mean, it was everywhere obviously, but it was the thing that always happens with materialism where it creates an empty hole and people are like, but I bought a $80,000 car and I'm still upset. Now I'm really freaked out what's going to happen to me and normal religion wasn't helping most people with this feeling and they were turning to new age options.

There were a lot of people became spiritual seekers. And so Terry's meditation classes, she acted, she was the wise guru. She had all the answers. She had a fucking direct line to Jesus and Marcus. And as her students sat cross-legged on the floor, she sat there lecturing, this is straight from the article, lecturing everyone on anything from personal finance to sex to ghosts. Yes. All right.

I don't know how. I'm in that class like, sorry, how do you balance your checkbook again? What's haunted? And meditate. But then after the lecture part, then she would speak in a softer voice and she would lead the group in a trance-like state. And then the evening ended with a round of prayer, which I think is really fascinating. She studied hypnotism when she was younger and then she kind of like, I think they're

insinuating that she practiced it with these groups of people. And for an additional fee, she would give people individual consultations on their show about their checkbook. Yeah. She'd be like, you have too much money, I need some. So when her husband, John, the truck driver, confronted her about taking her leading a meditation group thing too far, she claimed that he was impeding her spiritual growth and she divorced him.

And soon after, he and her adoptive mother actually had her committed to a psychiatric hospital for examination because she was going crazy. Or she was just a woman in the early 80s. But she did end up losing custody of her children when the divorce was finalized in March of 1971. Three months later, she married conscious development member Glenn Cooley, who was a student at North Texas State University. Yeah.

After they got married, he dropped out of school, and he went to work full-time at conscious development. He was 20 years old. She was 33. Okay, that's sexy. So she was volun. Then she gets this great idea that she introduces the concept of crystals and precious gems to the group.

And she starts to implore her followers to start using electrically-charged crystals and gems because they had protective and healing qualities. And luckily, she made jewelry with just those very crystals and gems. Beautiful. Her and the 20-year-old made jewelry together, and so she urged her followers to buy it. And she said, the more expensive the pieces were, the more they protected you. That's not how religion works. It's not.

It feels like it has been working that way for a long time. Well, I'm here to tell you. Oh, no. Marcus? Can we see the picture of the whole group? Oh, yes. Is that okay? Yes.

In fact, check this shit out. Wow. Okay. Which one do you think Terry is at this point? Because this is the late 70s. Okay. The one with the beard. No.

Terry. She's a woman. That was the one in the middle. No. The one... It's all floral shirt over there on the side, yes. And her husband is over here in the karate outfit. What?

Yes. I asked Stephen if he would zoom in. This is from a little bit later on in the relays, but not that much later. She's not 33. Ooh. No. That's a rough 33 right there. This is like 10 years later.

Still, that's not 43 either. Sometimes when your boobs are big, they take up all this space. And then you're like, I don't want to wear this fucking bra anymore. So you're like, fuck it. I have my own cult. I'm not wearing a bra anymore. And also I'm going to wear this tablecloth as a dress. There's her husband.

Aw, shit, y'all. Did you know that's where Matthew McConaughey got his start? Can we real quick, though, go back? Sure. Okay. Can you guess, wait, which one Stephen is? When you see it. Oh, wait.

In the very middle. In the middle, because there's also a secret Stephen over on the left. Oh, shit. Yeah. Wait, they're all Stephen. Stephen. Stephen. Stephen.

It's all time. You were a whole cult. No, I didn't even know it. So they're deeply in love. Okay. So there's a person in this group, and her name was Sandy Cleaver. And she had all the jewelry. She bought into this whole concept, hook, line, and sinker.

And she had a family trust. She came from a lot of money. So she had the time and resources to dedicate herself to conscious development. And she, like, of course, many people, she had a life marked with tragedy. Her mother had been in and out of mental hospitals. Her teenage sister died in a car accident. And her father had died in a plane crash. So she was a seeker.

She was looking for some kind of spiritual answers. And she had been in this group since the beginning. And she really believed that Terry was all the things that she said and was really helping her. Terry begins to prescribe a holistic medicine to her followers. Just rando pills that she had literally driven up in a truck from Mexico. Oh, don't take those, you guys. And it was like, these are my crushed up crystals.

Eat them. No. No, no, I mean, that's what I imagined. Why would you, it's like, this is a bunch of, I'm like, cumin. But it's magic. It's kind of like, I'm giving you powers or whatever. That's why I don't have a cult. So she also convinced, she begins to convince her followers that she can heal, she can,

she can diagnose people's problems telepathically and then prescribe them these holistic medicines. And this is basically how she sells her believers these medicines so they will give the medicines to their family members. Oh no. So Sandy Cleaver, she, Terry basically says your five year old daughter is very sick and needs these medicines. And so Sandy's like, let's, let's do it. When Sandy filed for divorce a month after Terry filed for a divorce, she told her husband

it was because he was blocking her spiritual development. And he, they, they got in, he sued for custody because he could tell that she was going off the deep end with this meditation group that she was in. And he testified at their, at the hearing that Sandy was giving their five year old daughter 110 pills a day. Yeah. 110? Yes.

I can't even take six vitamins. I know. That poor baby. I know. It's super nuts. But he ends up letting Sandy have, have custody of their daughter. Their daughter's name was Devereux. If you weren't sure if they were really rich, they're super fucking rich.

Because have you ever even heard that name before? Okay. He was so afraid that Sandy was going to, because he knew that Sandy was studying this thing that said there's no difference between life and death and it's just another realm and it's just a different place to travel to that he was, he was afraid if he tried to take Devereux away, she would kill her. So he let her have custody. But they actually put a special provision in the divorce decree saying that Sandy was

only allowed to take Devereux to licensed physicians, which is an insane demand. Right. No, just kidding. Okay. So Sandy becomes, once she gets a divorce, she becomes Terry's full-time unpaid assistant. Oh, interns. And when the company gets incorporated, she becomes the secretary treasurer. She's like, you know, yeah, she's there, front line.

She continually leaves Devereux with their elderly housekeeper and goes to meetings, weekend retreats. She's never around. When she took in a member of a group that was homeless, her ex-husband's like, sorry, what are you doing? We have a child in the house. And she said his negative energy was making Devereux sick. So as the group grows larger, Terry then tells 25 hand-selected special people, now this

is the group, but you are my teachers. And so they got sworn to secrecy and she told them something that could never be spoken outside of their small group. And she said that was that they're all members of what's called a white brotherhood and that they were chosen by the masters to destroy the forces of evil, which was a group called the Black Lords. The wording of this is very problematic and uncomfortable. I want to assume she was just doing that as a, like, a color thing, but she absolutely

could have been racist. We don't fucking know what this woman's deal was. She thought she was St. Teresa. The good news is the evil force had only existed on the astral and mental planes. So that's, you had to fight them there. So to kill them, you had to take them to the pits of hell where their soul and lower bodies would be dissolved, but the Black overlords could not be destroyed in the pits of hell. They must be destroyed in the electromagnetic dissolving cave.

Jesus, I already need a fucking map. Like, when I got to this part of the story, I started getting that weird stomach ache where it's like, when you're little and you get left alone for too long and there's no adults in the room and you're like, there's too much kid talking and like kid pretending where you're like, you need to shut up for a while. Everybody turn the TV on like, we don't, I don't want to hear your weird story anymore. That's what this is. This is a woman with no filter and no editor who's just like, I have another idea.

No, let it marinate. Okay. Because also, there are also garbons. What? O-beans. No, there were things called garbons, zobies. I didn't hear that. I get it.

This is how un-fucking creative this woman was, that she's like, literally finishes a salad and she's like, there's also an evil force called a garbons, zobie. Garbons, o-beans were six feet tall, covered in slime. Oh, it's like garbons, o-beans. Exactly like that. They had long beaks. They looked like gargoyles and they were known to cross into the physical and touch you and leave slime.

Yeah. That's gross. So, if that happened to you and if after 30 seconds your hand tingled or shakes, that's a garbon stuck to it and you have to use your imagination, wrap it in barbed wire, stab it and kill it and then imagine the dead garbons spinning straight up and dissolving into the universe. Someone stop taking their meds. Someone...

A while ago. This is like when you do a ton of coke with a stranger and you're just like, I don't want to talk to you anymore. Oh, my God. Can I have two more cigarettes and I'm going to leave? Okay. So... I'm going to go way faster, sorry.

Okay. So, she said that these teachers needed to arm themselves with magic symbols, a rod, a sword, a cup and a cloth bag containing a cup of dirt. My God. Yeah. She said that they had to wear headbands of gold or silver, the protective jewelry and she said they had to wear robes because, quote, a properly made robe can give you up to 15 times more power.

This isn't a fucking video game. What is happening? Yes, you're in the worst fucking after school theater class you've ever accidentally joined. So they would sit in circles and they would battle the overlords for hours mentally with their imagination and then they would call Terry and give her the body count. We killed 260 dark lords but no, I mean black lords but no overlords. Yes. And Terry would be like, I would do that with you but your negative family is making me

sick and I have to fight, I have to fight my own garbant, so be it. I mean, I was there when we were meditating great but now I have to do all this homework in my head. Yes. And like over it. And she, there's this whole part, I mean you guys have to read these articles because there's so much I'm leaving out and it's so dense but they would, she described, or the author sorry, describes them having to fight these black lords where they could use

as a rod or I mean as a sword, it didn't have to be a sword, it could just be a pen or a letter opener. So they would be like going, like sitting there and going like this to kill the garbanzo beans. Wow. Okay. Basically, and they listed the kind of people that were in this group, a college professor and advertising agency executive, a counselor for the Dallas school district.

All off their meds. So she made them, everything she told them was making them more and more paranoid. No one could be trusted outside the group, especially the people who had been in and were like, hey, I'm not into the garbanzo thing, I have to go. Yeah. Okay. There were people who were like goodbye. Yeah.

Okay, good. Way goodbye. Then on February 2nd, 1977, her husband, Glenn Cooley, was found dead. Karate kid? The Karate King. Okay. Okay. So they'd been married for six years at this point.

He worked for the jewelry business, but basically when he started hearing about this black lords thing, he wanted out and he'd actually told his family, like this whole thing has gone a little crazy and I need to get away. So they separated in September of 1976, but he still worked for CDGems, which was the name of their corporation. CDGems? CDGems. Okay.

Like CDGems. Like CDGems. She wasn't a smart woman. So the divorce goes through in January of 1977, five days later. He goes to spend the weekend at his parents' cabin in Lake Grapevine and the next day, she says she finds a handwritten will in her safe, the most convenient place to leave something. And in the will, he left everything to Terry. And so there's actually a line in the will that says, I will ask that this last will

of mine will not be contested in any way. Oh, that's convenient. It's written in. So she says when she saw that, the will he put in the safe, she got two of her teeth and the teachers drove to that cabin and when they got there, they found her 25-year-old ex-husband dead in bed with a strange ooze coming out of his mouth and they found a can of beer and some capsules and when the toxicology report came back, it was Valium and Librium in his system.

So she tells, Terry tells the authorities he was despondent over the divorce and she told him not to go off alone, but he was basically suicidal. And his death was uncontested for 13 years. Everyone just took her story at face value. So then we get into the part where she starts losing followers because she said the proof of his death was proof that the black lords were winning and the overlords were winning and so now they need to introduce the next level of protections, bloodletting. Oh, fuck.

So basically she tells the teachers, the black lords have the power to poison the blood and so the blood needed to be drained and it was fine if it was just like a syringe. You just take out a syringe of blood every day and all these people are just like, you know what? I've been here for the crystals and the gems and I've bought your bullshit. I'm taking pill after pill for you. So people start bailing even in the inner circle, but Sandy Cleaver stays in and then Terry starts to tell her that her 14-year-old daughter of Devereux is now 14 and Terry says

she's been infected by the black lords. So in December of 1978, Sandy was never home, never went to Devereux's games. She played basketball. She was in high school and doing all the stuff and Sandy was completely negligent. But then she comes to her daughter and says, I want to take you on a trip to Hawaii. So of course Devereux is so happy and excited and Sandy's fiance at the time went with them and they went to this area that was basically, it was like a certain beach and they took this blue raft out into the water and then they don't come back.

And so Sandy's fiance calls the cops and they end up finding Sandy bloody and stranded on this coral reef. And her story is they were out on this thing and a huge wave hit them and they got washed up onto this coral reef and she couldn't find Devereux. And they end up finding Devereux's body like four hours later. So when Chuck, Sandy's ex-husband and Devereux's dad, he finds out that they call him when she's still missing and they haven't found the body yet. So he hustles it up and takes the next flight to Hawaii and when he gets there, Terry's

already in Sandy's hospital room. So Sandy's been beaten up on these rocks or whatever, Terry's already there. And back home in Dallas, somebody had called Chuck's house and a family friend answered the phone and they said, we have a document that you need to see. And it was Devereux's will, a 14 year old's will. And in it, her $125,000 trust that she'd gotten from her mom was left to Terry. And so in and in it also, there was the line that said they specifically asking not to have the will be contested.

So two months later, Sandy takes out a $300,000 life insurance policy on herself, which was twice the limit. The insurance agent's like, you don't need that much. And she's like, no, I insist, 17 rings. No, I need to. And in it, Terry's the sole beneficiary. And then she transfers the deed to her home or the title of her home to Terry and then begins paying Terry rent to live in her home.

No. Yeah. So in September of 1981, Sandy persuades Louise, the old housekeeper that basically raised Devereux herself. She's like, we need to go on a trip to Colorado. The conscious development has bought this plot of land for a retreat that we're going to build one day. And we should go look at the land.

And the 77-year-old housekeeper's like, fuck off, I'm putting my feet up. But she basically made her go and they fly out and it was in an area near Cripple Creek and a near on this mountain and they are in the station wagon. They drive up the road to the mountain and fucking off that mountain. The cops say there were no break. There were no skid marks. There were no break marks or anything. It was she just drove off the mountain and killed them both.

And then they find Terry shows up in Colorado to claim the bodies and she's carrying both women's wills. Oh no. Everything is left to Terry and the housekeeper didn't even know Terry and she left everything in her will to Terry. What? Yeah. So Sandy Cleaver's brother takes Terry to court.

And she's like, this is all a crazy cult and this is like mind control and crazy bullshit. And they end up, because it is a document, I don't know what happened, but she has to pay, she immediately cashed that $300,000 check from the life insurance policy. So she has to pay him back half of that money and then they split the rest of Sandy's estate. So she got half of it. Yeah. Let's see. There's still a couple of followers left after that.

The Goodmans, who are the people we talked about at the very beginning, they're still in and they were kind of like late adopters. And David Goodman had testified at Terry's trial saying that conscious development was a discussion group that fosters good vibrations and fucking Beach Boys or some shit. Four other group members also testified on Terry's behalf at that trial. And three of those people would end up killing themselves. Wow. Eventually, Terry came out with her own perfume.

Oh my God, is it called Good Vibrations? And also an acupressure massage therapy course that she sold. A criminal investigation was launched by the Dallas District Attorney's Office in January of 1990. What? Yeah. And they, the problem was that it's so difficult to determine if mind control can be determined, it can be cited as a cause of death because it's hard to prove.

They of course, deny any wrongdoing that Terry Hoffman's lawyer said this is a witch hunt and she's a great person. She's a witch. Yeah. But a bad witch. They can't find evidence linking Terry Hoffman to any of the deaths, so she doesn't ever go to jail for any of them. But she does file for bankruptcy in October of 1991 as she sentenced to 16 months in prison

for bankruptcy fraud in May of 1994, which she only served a year. And in 1995, Unsolved Mysteries did an episode on the disappearance of the Terry Hoffman's follower, Charles Southern. She ended up marrying five men altogether and at the end, they wrote a book, I'm really mad at myself because I took a picture of this thing that I wanted to write in the end but I fucking forgot to write it down. The book they wrote was called, I think it's called something like money colors and it's basically like how to attract money to yourself through wearing different colors in your clothes.

That's something my mom would have read in the 80s. A lot of people read it in the 80s and were like, have you gotten your money colors done? I only eat great freaking cottage cheese and I wear purple for money because the purple symbolizes $500. Anyway she died in 1997 and that's the end of that, I'm sorry that was so long. I've never had a murder that was less fucking skippable, like normally when we're reading these you're like this isn't important, that's a strange detail, every single thing is not so.

No, I'm down. I'm here for the murder. Thank you, I appreciate it. Okay, this is the illustration, how awesome is this? This was the fucking illustration, now I'm not going to be able to get back to page one. This is the illustration that was in God Bless It, Texas Monthly magazine. Yes, that is a tattoo for the ages. Look how round, wait and the guy that drew it's name was Joel Peter Johnson.

How amazing is that? That is glorious, we need prayer candles, that image. Oh, good idea, and it sucks because I had to do the thing, I made Steven edit that for me because I had to do the control shift four thing where I had to take a picture on my screen because you can't drag and drop and her little feet are dangling down, she's floating in the air. Put the flag over here, get the flag ready, get this out of the way. My murder, you guys, is, again all the information from the same place, is Sandra Bridewell, the

black widow of Dallas. I love a black widow, I know you love a black widow, just love it. This is a weird story, all right, so let's talk about Sandra, let's see a picture of her, she's hot, that's her, she's gorgeous, beautiful. That was an inappropriate reaction, you guys, she's a gorgeous woman, do you want to see them? Yes, please, we'll be just because, look at her friends, they're all so pretty, they're all really rich, they're having the best fucking Halloween ever, because they're really rich.

Oh, because they're rich, okay, let me talk, let's talk about her, okay, Sandra is born April 4th, 1944 in a little town of Sadalia, Missouri, okay, Sadalia, Missouri, thank you, and was adopted as an infant to parents, according to parents, I guess that's weird, right, because I cut out their names, okay, according to reports, by the age of three, her adoptive mother, Camille, was killed in an auto accident, and her father, Arthur, who managed and ran a Dr. Pepper bottling plant remarried and they relocated to Oak Cliff, Texas, you guys are rich, no, I'm kidding, no, that's not a rich life, that's later when she's older. Now they're mad, can I just say that I had a Dr. Pepper today and it was so goddamn delicious,

isn't it the mini bar and I was like, I always just drink, automatically drink Diet Coke and I was like, hey, I'm in fucking Texas, I get to have a Dr. Pepper if I want, you guys really know how to live, okay, apologies to Oak Cliff because you're not rich, I guess, all right, that's all kinds of problems, okay, there he worked as a cemetery plot salesman, which sounds fun, Sandra and her new stepmom, they fought all the time, apparently she was real mean to Sandra, she said her stepmother regularly locked her in the closet, told her nobody wanted her, and then one time was like, we're going to throw you a big birthday party, ready for your birthday party, it's today, and then she's like, JK, I didn't send out any of the

invitations, nobody likes you. Wow, I know, what's that lady's problem? After graduating from high school, where she really didn't date much, she was just kind of a quiet girl, she began dating lots of dudes, and it was kind of in her mind that she was like, I'm going to be a fucking housewife to a very rich person, that's my goal, she's like, okay, get it girls, get it, whatever, do it, I'll have different goals in life, we love it, and every dude became smitten with her because she was beautiful, and then her friends said that she would do a thing called the lady like poor helpless me routine, after one year of college, she drops out, and she apparently is like, she lies all the time telling people

that her adoptive parents had been killed, that her parents were aristocrats, all this bullshit. The aristocrats? Yeah. Then she meets a man named David Stiegel, he's a fancy dentist, he'd gone to school. What? Yeah. Lots of pinkie rings and stuff? He's fancy as fuck, he's a highfalutin dentist, you know what I mean? Yes. Like he's like, I'm not going to fucking give you a drill your teeth, I'm going to like do plastic surgery, like fancy shit. Oh, okay. This stuff that isn't covered by insurance that costs a lot of money for high fucking society, you know what I mean? Yes, got it. You're just like, hey, do you want me to give you a dent in your chin? I can do that for you. Right. I'm a

fancy dentist. What was your childhood dentist's name? Oh God, I don't remember the dentist. You don't? No. Do you? Of course I do. That's why I asked the question. Of course. Everything. I just thought it was one of those things. Do you remember your childhood phone number? Oh yes, 714-559-5589. Yeah, call it now. You guys, let's call it. Call it. Do you remember your childhood? We're just asking security questions. What's your mother's maiden name? That's dad. I didn't hear you. Who's your favorite niece or nephew? It's just like mean one. Is that true? I've never seen that one. Okay. I just know that every single one where they're like, what's your first car? And then I'll be like, you know, whatever

the answer is. And then the next time I go there, I'm like, well, there was that other one. Yeah. My mom sometimes let me drive the Volvo. I can't ever get into anything. No problem. Okay. So she meets fancy dentist, David. He had gone to school in Los Angeles and had Hollywood caliber clients, but in the Dallas fucking Richie Rich set. So this is like the mid-60s. Everyone's Richie's fucking Dallas. And he had a thing for fancy stuff, big Cadillacs and houses and pretty women. They get married in 1967. They have three children and they're raising their family in an upscale Dallas neighborhood. But despite his salary and his like highfalutin reputation, he couldn't keep up with Sandra's spending.

She was like, we're spending it all because I because because I said so. Yeah, you don't really need a reason. So she had lavish tastes. She loved buying art and expensive furniture and by 1974, the family is in severe debt. Oh, no. So he's forced to borrow money from his family to pay their bills. And in 1975, the situation and their marriage is falling apart. It had gotten so bad that David tried to kill himself. And by Sandra's story is that she told she found him in a closet with a gun pointed to his head called his coworker, like his business owner is like business owner. No, you know, his partner. Yeah. Thank you. He comes and they talk him out of killing himself. But a few weeks later, he he is found

lying in bed with both of his wrist slashed and a gunshot wound to his head. Oh, that's a bit overkill. Yeah. Seems like well, then I you know, and when I found all these like random articles and read it stuff and it's like and this it said that the gunshot wound was first, you know, so like clearly didn't do that. But I didn't find that corroborated anywhere. So I'm not saying it. Good use of the word corroborated though. Thank you. Um, this is a true crime fact. That's right. I know words. I know words. Some of them. Not most of them. Okay. So here that was her. Nope. That's someone else. Okay. That's her. All right. So after his death, she collects the insurance on her husband's life and sells

his practice and then she begins dating wealthy men again, which is like, man, her husband just killed herself. Like go get yours, honey. Poor thing. Like that sucks, right? Unless she killed him. Right. Okay. It's hard to know who's side to be on. Probably not the black widows. Right. I would assume. Um, so she kind of was, uh, men were spelled by and bow her by her blah, blah, and then a little more than, you know, she's hot. She had a really hot blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know what I mean? So a little more than three years after her husband dies, she marries a well-known Dallas hotel guy and investor hotelier. Yeah. That's right. Bobby Bridewell. So that's her new, her second husband.

He adopts Sandra's three, three daughters. They moved to upscale neighborhood of Highland Park. So she could have, she could have been in the cult maybe. Oh, that's right. She was right around the corner. Yeah. Sharpening her fingernails. But in 1980, Bobby is diagnosed with cancer. Um, so he, while he is recovering from radiation and, uh, is trying to get better, she is, uh, having the entire home remodeled. Yes. Because you have to cleanse, clap the corners, sage the house, get new Italian furniture, wallpaper, shag carpeting. The end. Very important. So she's having a remodeled and then she says to like her neighbor, you know, I'm getting this done today. Can you take him in your house for a week and let him live

there? Her dying husband. Uh-huh. So she moves in with the neighbors. He never returns to his home two years after his diagnosis and a couple weeks after this, he dies. Um, so she, Sandra becomes friends with her late husband's oncologist, Dr. John Bagwell and his wife, Betsy. They become buddies. Um, and so Betsy is the quintessential Highland Park housewife and mother. She's fucking, um, Highland Park high school cheerleader. She was not, she wasn't as an adult. That would be weird. You kind of said that like Yoda Highland Park cheerleader. She was. I get it. I get it. Yeah. Um, she, but, but, you know, she's like, you know, she's the shit. She's, she's a hardworking lady. Shakespeare

festival junior league active in the Presbyterian church, taught Bible class for children in her home while raising two of her own children. So the couple was like, great, we love this shit. She's our friend Sandra. Awesome. Wonderful. But then she starts becoming really like obsessive with them and fucking totally what about Bob's one of their vacations and shows up unannounced in New Mexico where they were vacationing. She fucking what about Bob's that shit? What are you guys doing in New Mexico? I think we have a photo of her. So that's her and her, um, that's her third husband, Steven. That's not him either. I thought we had a photo of her. There she is. That's Betsy. That I will. Okay. Wait, sorry. That's

the, that's the good woman. Yeah. That one tried, was just trying to go on vacation. Yeah. Okay. So she's like, surprise New Mexico. Um, and then they're like, we need to distance ourselves from this woman at that point. Um, so they, they are trying to break ties with her, but she's still really insistent with hanging out with them, even though they try not to get her like letter in their lives. But then in early June 82, uh, Sandra calls Betsy and is like, Hey, I need a ride to the airport. My car won't start. Some bullshit about that. Um, so Betsy goes to help her, takes her to the airport. When they go to the lot where Sandra's car is parked to get her, uh, because she'd forgotten her driver's

license. It's some convoluted bullshit story. Uh, so then four hours later after Sandra being the last person to see Betsy, uh, June 16th, 1982, Betsy's Betsy, 40 year old, she's, uh, found dead in her Mercedes in the airport parking lot where they had been. She'd been shot in the head and her death was ruled a suicide. Right. No. Um, so Sandra being the last person to see Bagwell alive, all these questions, of course, surface. Um, and there's no evidence. There's not a suicide note. She'd been living a happy life. Everyone who knew her was like, hell fucking no, there's no way she would have done that. Yeah. Um, but police, John Bagwell, the husband hires a private investigator, but police closed the

case and refused to open it. So, um, let's see. So when, when Sandra has the funeral for her husband who died of cancer, Bobby, uh, she got about $50,000 as like memorial funds. I guess people just like give you money. I don't know. Um, it's not usually how it works. Well, she, she didn't really spend any money on his funeral. She got like the cheapest, uh, casket and all this stuff and it pissed everyone off. Okay. June, 1984. She meets a guy named Alan Rear, uh, Rearig. He's a good looking 29 year old. Just moved to Dallas, a former college basketball star from Oklahoma. He was going to hit it rich in real estate and, uh, he's, so he's like, I'm gonna, I want to be rich and he's driving

around Highland Park. He's like, this is the rich neighborhood. Sometimes people who live in these big houses will rent out their back house for people like me. So he's driving around, sees a hot woman on her fancy lawn and gets out and is like, asks her, turns out it's our friend, Sandra. Uh-oh. And they, and she's like, I don't, but I'll help you. And of course they fucking fall madly in love with each other, which is like the creepiest way to meet someone, right? No, I love it. In a rich neighborhood on a lawn. Come on. Croquet style. Yeah. These are the 70s people. Okay. So within weeks, they're inseparable. Then in the fall of 84, she says that she's pregnant. She tells him she's pregnant. Um,

but unbeknownst to him, seven years earlier, she had had a hysterectomy. So she's fucking lying. That's a lie then. Yeah. And she also told him she was 36, but she was really 41. Oh, girl, that's five full years. No, they were really mad about one. Do not lie about your age in Texas. Um, so he didn't doubt her though. He had no reason to. So they got married in December, 1984. And then she was like, oh shit, I can't like lie about this for a couple of years. So she says she has a miscarriage. Um, and so I'm just still worried about lying. If you lie that you're five years younger than you are, you look like shit. I mean, dude. Yeah. A certain point, it all just starts falling apart. Yeah. I was a personally

attached. I'm 32 everybody. I want to lie up. She'll be like, damn, you look good for 41. Exactly. Right. I look really good for 41, but I'm 37. So it doesn't. I'm so disappointed. Sorry. Okay. Then. Okay. Loses the baby. They know there's no baby. Right. Loses imaginary baby. All right. So he quickly realizes that Sandra loves money. Who amongst us though, I'm going to go ahead and be fair to her. Stop casting stones. This goes super Bible really fast. So she's like pushing him to make more money. She takes out a big life insurance policy on him. Dang. He tells yes, they should do something at like when you're in all state and someone comes in and they're just like, yeah, hello, I'm just kind of 45. And I don't

know. I feel like looking into a humongous life insurance policy and then people are like, hold on 9-1-1, what's your emergency? I don't know what the emergency is yet, but it's going to be bad. You can call. There's like a future crimes hotline. Hey, hello minority report. Who's this? That's what I was trying to think of, but I was going to say the matrix. So I didn't do it. Hello, the matrix may help you. Oh, no, no, no, you want to call minority report. Okay. Good luck. Phone bits. Why haven't we been doing them all along? It was a great idea. And also the oldest phone we could be using. This is the iPhone 10. Hello. Well, what do they do now? This? Yeah. Hello. That's stupid. That looks so stupid. It's this. Why

didn't you text me? Okay, well, we're not friends anymore. Okay. We're not friends anymore. Now I have three huge zits right here. So thanks for nothing. And a brain tumor. I'll see you later, mom. Okay. Oh, he tells his friends that Sandra, guess how much money she spends a month on clothes, food and travel. Guess how much clothes, food and travel, I guess how much a month she spends a month. Okay. Well, let's just talk about how much I spend a month on clothes. Zero. Karen, as Jewish friend, I need to tell you, you just started spending more money on clothes. I have Catholic permission to buy more clothes. Yes. Um, I'm going to say, and it's the 80s, right? $5,000. $20,000. What? The fuck? But how fun of a month would that be if we could do that, you

guys? If we just had one month where we could do that, we would have the best fucking month. But we're, what's she doing? Like going to New Mexico four times? Like what? Oh, I don't know. It's the thing of when people buy expensive clothes, because we're all like, how that's a lot of clothes at forever 21. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. People shop at adult shop at real places. That's right. 41-year-old shop at real stores. God, that's so many shirts that are going to pull apart in three days. Why would she waste that money? Right. So she could have bought like two power suits and that's it, you know, and that's how much they were. We don't know. Okay. In November 1985, the couple separates because of all this money problems and she's a crazy

liar. So he moves in with a friend and they didn't see each other for several weeks. And then in December 1985, Sandra calls him and is like, let's me at the storage facility we rent because we need to get this stuff out of here. No, no, thank you. No. Never meet anyone at a storage facility. Why not say meet me in the middle of the desert, bring your own shovel? No. I met my dad at a storage facility once. What? I met my dad at a storage facility once, but I survived. It was really depressing because we helped, I helped him clean his storage facility out. So that's just as bad. But they're like, it's such a strange like desert of nothingness and weird secrets that people have behind some garage door. I would have not met anyone else I know at a storage

facility. Fuck no. I'm so mad at him. Okay. He kept trying to make me take things home. Do you want this? No, I don't want that dad. Throw it away dad. Just throw it away. It's going to be okay. Just a weird old mug from McDonald's. Okay. So they're going to meet at the storage facility and he doesn't show up, right? So she says, next thing we know, he is found slumped over in his Bronco in Oklahoma. He had been killed by gunshots to the head and chest. And it was apparent that his body had been driven to Oklahoma in that car. I don't know how they knew that, but that's the story. I want to say what I think it is, but it's inappropriate. What? Don't tell me. I won't. Tell me. Just his hair was blown back. You made me say it and now I'm the fucking bad guy.

It's not, it's sad. But within sad things, that's when my mind starts going, isn't there something funny about this sad thing that we could say? And that's when you laugh at a woman who just told you her sister's dying. That's how the world works. Yeah. Are you doing? I'm all right. Are you warm? You're hot. You're warm. Okay. Okay. So he, so Sandra's a suspect, but she's totally uncooperative. She won't speak to anyone and she won't let anyone speak to her daughters who are older now. And this time she becomes known as the Black Widow and Dallas. In high society, Dallas starts talking about shit about her all the time. And like, do you know about this thing? Do you know this thing she did? And everyone's like, oh fuck, this woman's crazy.

There were probably parties planned specifically to talk shit about her because that's the third husband sheet that's died, right? Yeah. Yeah. Within, in their purview. Right. You'd be like, buy the canapes we have shit to talk about. Come over. Break out the caviar. Everybody get a scoop of caviar and sit down. I'm going to tell you something. Exactly. So also, which is highly unusual, the FBI fucking gets in onto the murder probe and they're like, oh, I thought you meant the gossip. Oh. FBI, guess what I heard. Sorry. She's of course a suspect when they get a phone call from an anonymous woman called the Highland Park Deep Throat, which is like trouble some on so many levels. It's not creative. First of all, it makes everyone think of

JFK and Nixon. JFK is dick. Someone's dad here tonight. I mean, absolutely. At least four of them. And then she scrimps again on funeral expenses. Least expensive casket convinces friend to cover the burial bills because she forgot her wallet at the funeral. Okay. Okay, bitch. No. But like you're going to a funeral. You're not going to be like, let me grab my wallet. You know what I mean? No, yes, you are. It's your wallet's in your purse. You're not a man. Right. You didn't forget it on the counter. It's all in that one satchel that women have carried since the dawn of time. Okay. So go ahead and throw that on your shoulder every time you leave the house and that would never happen to you. You're right. Imagine walking into a funeral freehand like that. Just

like, hey, I'm grieving. Where do I put my hands? It makes no sense. It's that friend who always goes out with that and didn't want to carry her purse. And so you have to pay for her dinner, except you have to pay for her husband's funeral. God. That's like high society scumbag action right there. Okay. And she was late for the services of her own husband's funeral. Yeah. She doesn't give a shit. No. She arrived at the very last minute dressed the nines in a fucking mink coat. No, no, no. Shit. Yeah. She rolled up like ludicrous at that funeral. She's just like, hey, she's like, what's up? Call me. Call me. That's, oh my God. Jesus. And by this, by this time she had gotten the $220,000 from the life insurance. Less than a year after his death, she gets the

fuck out of Dallas for good because I think everyone is just talking so much shit. Just like, sorry, let me light this torch real quick. Yeah. Relocates to Marin, Marin County. Oh, that's in the North Bay of California. Yeah, right near you. Kind of near me. But Marin County is the richest county in California, I believe. Yeah. And my county was Sonoma County with which we had the most chickens. Proud, proud fact. Impressive. Okay. So then, of course, she's still fucking hot and beautiful and no one knows she changes her name. No one knows her past. And so one man loans her $23,000 there. Another man loans her $70,000. Look at the dude she's hooking up with. Neither of them saw Penny have a back. And even though they both brought her to

court. So she moves around a lot from there using social security numbers of other people, takes out credit cards and other people's names, including her three kids, of course, who fucking credit she destroyed, which like, oh, I always hate those stories. That's her least favorite part of the story. Credit is so important. Good credit. In 2006, she resurfaces in North Carolina and began using the name Camille Bowers. And she tells everyone that she is not a nun, but like a religious person, I guess. And she does like, she goes to India to take care of children and build houses and stuff like that. Wait, is this the Mother Teresa story? Yes. This is how Mother Teresa started. So she's telling all these people that. And so she moved in with a woman named Sue Mosley.

She's a 77-year-old woman who lived in a million-dollar home on the Carolina coast. She's incredibly wealthy. And she was basically going to live in the house and take care of the housework. And she'd get free room and board, which is like, that's fucking sweet. Sign me up. So then, of course, she sets to work taking over this woman's finances. She collected tax records, regrouped her social security payments to a new account, took money off the mortgage, siphoned off the mortgage money. She'd like, intercept the money, and then she'd get the mail every day. And it was like, your house is going to get foreclosed on. And she'd be like, Shred. Yes, that's how I do everything. So she just fucking uses all this woman's money. She

goes to, she's like, I'll go with you to the bank. Sure, let's run an errand. And then meets the teller so they'd know her. And she's like, I'm with her. Whatever. So then her son, Jim Mosley, gets really suspicious. And in early 2007, he comes across a lengthy newspaper report in the Dallas Observer, chronicling Sandra's life. Oh, and the reason she left Marin is because in the D magazine, fucking our friend skips Holland Warth wrote like a tell all about her and like, people saw it in Marin and she was like, you get to get out again. Are you serious? Yeah. So finally, that with working with police, there's with Jim, there's a sting, police sting, which sounds fun. And on March 2nd, 2007, she's arrested in Charlotte, North Carolina, and she's charged

with identity theft, fraud, fraud. Fucking fraud is so much worse than fraud, you guys. Theft and theft and fraud. Yeah, fraud, theft and fraud. Let's make this easier, quicker, fraud, male, theft, theft, and social security fraud. Wait, sorry, but can you imagine you're like, there's like, oh, my, my elderly mom has a new young roommate who really has an interest in her life and the bank. And then you pick up a magazine that has an entire article about this woman. And how she may be killed husbands and a woman. Yeah, yeah, murders people. Murders maybe. Fucking nuts. Okay. So because of that, they new interest in the death of Allen Eraric is renewed Oklahoma city police put new resources and manpower into the investigation.

On February 2008, Sandra Camille powers pleaded guilty to one count of identity theft. And at her fucking trial, the mother of Allen is in the fucking audience just being like, yeah, bitch, I'm going to come out. She wears a pin with her son's face on it. Just so she could, she said, I wanted her to see his face and know that I'm fucking not giving up on this. Yeah. So, um, yeah, fucking moms. Damn. Yeah. So she's in prison and they are looking into the, the, the death and they're not giving up on it. Nice. That is your black widow, Sandra Bridewell. You guys. That was amazing. You know what I think would be fun? Huh? We should ask Steven because, you know, Steven puts that we find those pictures and then he puts them on those

amortices basically. We should tell them put up one, one random picture at the end because for some reason I just want to press this button one more time, but there's nothing. There's Betsy. Oh my God. Oh my God. All the lights. I just put us into a vacuum. Uh, well, that's her with, that's Allen right there with her, with her children. We'll count cutie. Wait. And so is that, is that her? She's her. Yeah. She looks different in every picture. Like I don't, the other one wasn't her. No, no, I know that. But then that's her there with him too. Right. But that doesn't look like the lady's laying sideways with her weird 80s hair to me. I think that's fair. Do you think it's a bunch of different women? Yes. Finally, I get to say my theory.

We solve it. It's quadruplets. Okay. Do we have time? Yeah, let's do a hometown murder, you guys. It's just like under that thing. I was like in that table big time. Okay. Tell them the rules. Okay. Listen, this is the hometown murder part where we want somebody to come up here and tell us your hometown murder. We'd love it if it was local. We love it if it's short. You're not allowed to read off paper and you can't be so drunk that you can't follow your own line of thinking. You have to be able to tell your story concisely. Can we get? Oh God. Oh my God. Don't panic. Don't panic. I'm panicking. I'm panicking. Everyone looks so nice. How about you in the front? Oh, she made a face like, all right. That's a good sign. There's Vince.

Hi. I'm Angela. Hi, Angela. Come get a new stand in the middle. Come here. Cool shoes. Cool shirt. Yeah. Where are you from? Fort Worth. Fort Worth. Yeah. It's really fun. I know. Is it crazy? It's bright or you have to see all the people and it's scary. So you just have to go play. Okay. So I went to high school with the killer. We hung out together. He was a jerk though. He made fun of me for being fat. Fuck him. Yeah. So y'all didn't cover anything, Fort Worth, but we had a serial killer in the 80s. Well, wait, did you come up here to admonish us? Because you'll get fucking kicked off this day. No, mine's really good. Don't kick me off. Please don't. Okay. Okay. So September 1984. There was a girl named Ginger Hayden and her

mother found her murdered in her apartment bedroom. She had been stabbed 57 times. Fuck. And I went to high school with Ginger and she was hanging out with all the same people I hung out with, but for whatever reason that summer I didn't hang out with them. So I didn't know Ginger well, but it was a cold case. I do remember I went to her funeral and that was one of the saddest things ever. Yeah. But so for years, they didn't know who did it. They for 26 years, they didn't know, but they thought it was either the boyfriend, the neighbor, or there was actually a rapist who lived in the apartments too. Like pick one, choose. Great complex. Great complex. They're like interesting stuff's happening over there. Ginger lived over there. But yeah, 26 years later,

the DNA showed that this guy Shane, we all actually knew he did it. And he kind of freaked out six months later after the murder and left. He said, you guys thought I think I did it. And he left and the neighbor saw him again, which is one of those. Okay. Instantly, you know, he's the one. Yeah. But yeah, so now he's serving a life sentence in prison. Yeah. That's great. So he was one of the kids to hang out in the group. And was he her boyfriend? Or he's in love with her. He was in love with her, but she was with somebody else. And they didn't look into him. They never suspected him. Oh, they did. They just couldn't prove it. Yeah. And then good old DNA or friend DNA. Yeah. Oh my God. That's amazing. Yeah,

it was really weird because when the when the trial starts happening, okay, there was a few of us girls who always kind of kept up with it. And we kept writing to the reporters going, are you going to cover it? Well, when it came about, the judge wouldn't let the reporters in or would not let them have TV cameras. So most of the local news didn't really cover it. But this one reporter wrote about it. And she quoted me saying, we never forgot her. That was not me saying I was her friend because that would be disrespectful because I didn't know her that well. But all of a sudden, 48 hours is calling me and different reporters are calling me. And I'm like, no, I can't. But there was so funny, the guy from 48 hours is like, you went to high school with my uncle.

And I was like, dude, you haven't get 48 hours. I did not let myself get interviewed. Okay. Nobody else would either because they're afraid if he was found not guilty. But he's guilty and he's away forever. He's away. Oh, good. Oh, my God, that was amazing. Here. Yes, here. You get the red light. I'm Angela. And by the way, my niece is with me. We have the VIP. You get to meet her. Oh, great. Her husband's family knew the eyeball killer. Oh, honey, where'd she go? I see her. She's laying on the floor. Let's hear for Angela, everybody. That was amazing. Great job. Oh my God, what a perfect ending. What a perfect ending. These shows have been so fucking incredible. We knew it was

going to be good because you guys from the beginning of this podcast have had this area in Houston, sorry, both places have had the highest number of listeners for our podcast across the board. Yeah, you guys have been so supportive of us and we appreciate it so much. Everyone we've met this weekend has been so kind and every show has been so much fun and supportive and fucking loud. You guys are so awesome. It really sounds super cheesy, but we really mean it. The fact that this is what we get to do for a fucking living now is the funnest and most exciting thing and it's because of your support. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for listening. And of course, as always, stay sexy. Bye, you guys. Thank you.