My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 135 - The Multiverse Trajectory

Episode Date: August 23, 2018

Karen and Georgia cover the Party Monster murder of Angel Melendez and the story of Clarence and Melinda Elkins.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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. Hello. Hi. And welcome. This is my favorite murder. And we're here to provide you with all your true crime slash comedy needs via podcasting your earhole. That's right. Any content that you're looking for that involves true crime and comedy. This is what, hi, we're here. That's it. Yeah. We've got the audio version to please you. Stop asking. You've got it. Hey, let's kick this off. Oh, God. Let's just do this. Yeah. So with heavy hearts, we're quite

heartbroken that last week we had to shut down our Facebook page. But essentially, we could no longer be responsible for the things that were happening on it. First and foremost, pretty much first and last, I would say was somebody posted a racist post on our Facebook page. That's kind of the beginning and the end of it. Everything that happened after that was because there was a racist post on our Facebook page. There was fighting, but we went in there and went, there's no way to solve this for us because that's unacceptable to us. We are trying to have a zero tolerance policy about racism. And then we realize if it's not us doing it, then we can't be responsible for what happens. I mean, if our names are still attached to it, then it is our responsibility.

That's right. And so it's just gotten too big and those kinds of incidents, we just don't want that anywhere near us. We can't afford it and we don't want it. My favorite murder is a fucking open, diverse fucking audience. We welcome everyone and we have literally no patience in our lives and in this podcast for any kind of fucking racism and intolerance. Making mistakes about or being culturally insensitive is definitely something we have done in the past and that we probably will do in the future because we're two white girls from a lower middle class background. Right. So we have our own biases and ignorances that we work through on this podcast with our listeners. Thank God.

And that we're happy to learn. I love how much we've learned through this podcast of things we shouldn't do and did wrong and didn't even realize and it's an amazing learning experience. Yeah. And we are continuing to learn we're not going to stop. And so basically we just have to, we make enough mistakes by ourselves. We can't be responsible for mistakes other people make. I think overall for me, the most important thing is it's very important that this community is united. It's a very powerful group of people that listen to this podcast that have reached out to each other and that have connected to each other and whatever problems that we all might face and stumbling blocks that we all might hit along the way. Let's continue to reach toward each other

because we're stronger together. And it's really a powerful thing that we're beginning to move toward each other. And I think the effort, I think that's just the key thing that we, that we continue to do that. And I, and from what I've seen, that seems like what the majority of people want to do and are interested in doing and are putting work toward doing. So we thank you very much for your patience and we apologize for the hurt feelings and, and some of the anger that's out there. It's not what we want. It's nothing we can control. And we just, we hope to do better in the future. Yeah. And I just want to address really quickly the TP design, which is one of those things that, you know, as fucking culturally woke as we believe we are, we just completely

fucked up and missed. And I take total fucking, you know, it's culturally appropriation. It's something that we now realize and will be a lot more attuned to in the future. We took down the TP design. It's now just a tent. And we're also donating $10,000 to the First Nations Development Institute, you know, as an apology. And we're sorry for that. And, you know, in the future, I hope we make better decisions. I mean, this is the, that's the way we learn. We talked to several people who also have popular podcasts. And my favorite comment was somebody said, I can't believe you even still had a Facebook page in your name. 22,000 people? No, no, 200 to 238,000 people. That's, it's way too, it's way too big.

Too many people. And yeah, I mean, I think we went much longer than the average fan site goes without infighting and the, and the fold. But anyway, I'm sad because that was a good place for me to go like late at night with insomnia. Like people would post these links to stories. But now we have the fan cult. There's also a forum on the fan cult where you can post stuff. And that is a little bit of a neater, more contained group of conversations and links and discussions. Well, and, and we have direct control over it. I think that's, that's the key. All right. Well, here's my corrections corner from two weeks ago when I did the Gainesville Ripper. And man, I got a lot of flack for this. And I totally understand. Listen,

everyone, I went to community fucking college and dropped the fuck out. You pissed off some college people. I think you went, you planted yourself right in the center of some kind of a, some kind of a rivalry, a Florida rivalry. I totally did. Did you? Because, and I remember, I remember getting to the like, you have whatever. And I was like, Oh shit, Georgia, you have two choices to make. Like just fucking say one thing, you should have looked this up. And I said that it was Florida state when really it was University of Florida in Gainesville fucking shit, which of course is represented by their mascot, Karen, the, the leafy sea dragon. Exactly. So go leafy sea dragons. I'm so sorry

that, you know, we fucked this up and we, we meaning me. Yeah. You try to drag me down into that shit. Karen should have known. I have to say it. It did hit my ear odd. No, I have no idea what's going on most of the time. That's true. Okay. So you are watching fucking finally watching succession. Oh my God. How? First of all, Karen Colkin, my fate, this, he needs to win 100 million Emmys, make new Emmys. Here's the beauty. And I think if you're trying to be a film or television actor, if you could just please show us that you're having a great time being that person. Sometimes those giggles that he lets out when he's just about to be an asshole are like the most delightful thing that happens to me all day. This is like,

he knows this. He was made for this character. Yes. And also those personalities are, they're like tropes of people that you, you encounter in life so often where so often I'll be in a, in some kind of a biz or have been, I should say, in business situations in, in, in my career and watch the dude talk like that. And then like, I think I'm being funny, but I'm actually being a monster asshole, but I'm doing it under the guise of humor. Yeah. And why aren't you laughing along? 11 year old boy or whoever they decide. You don't get the joke anymore. Like it's your problem for not understanding the joke. Or, or yeah, it's a totally, it's not a joke. It's just someone being a passive aggressor and they go, dude, I'm fucking with you. And then you're just like,

in your mind, you just check off, like never be in the room with that guy again. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Why don't you get it? Calm down. I'm kidding. It's just a, it's a bevy of assholes. Also the, the one and only Mr. Darcy, Matthew McFadden is in that, and he has, he's told me this, sorry, I'm repeating what you told me. But I was, but I just like, I'm so glad you know now, because all I could say was like, oh my fucking God, oh my fucking God, you can have it. Mr. Darcy has an American accent and he's one of the bigger assholes on the show. Just, and he, just wait this, the whole season, he sucks so bad. It's so beautiful how much he sucks. It's a study in people who suck and why. And then the big brother, what's his name from

Ferris Piracy Off? Oh, oh, Alan Ruck. Like those, oh God. When he told the little girl, I have an aquifer and you can have, I'll share it with you. It's just, there's everything about it, it's amazing. Truly, truly, one of my favorite fucking shows. And okay, my show that I want to fucking mention for no reason, just to tell everyone, is there's a show called Castle Rock that's out now. Okay. And it's set in them in the Stephen King Multiverse, which I read off of their Wikipedia. Which you also live in. Yes. Which means that, so it's Stephen King, I don't know, he's like kind of somewhere, part of it somewhere. Oh God, does he write it? Stephen, will you check that I'm not fucking this up? So like they'll be going through old newspapers

and then the living Castle Rock and it'll be like one Easter egg that says like, rapid dog trolls town or whatever. But it's produced by JJ Abrams. And it's this like creepy, like something happened to this town and this guy played by Andre Holland from Moonlight as a kid and like, did this thing happen or didn't think this thing happened? And fucking Bill Skarsgard, who might be the hottest scars, Skarsgard. Which Skarsgard is that? It's a new one. They created a new one in a fucking laboratory. I swear to God. And he's like, did he escape from Westworld and come over to the Castle Rock? He's like bony and like angular and super fucking hot. I got to say, and I, you know, I support the whole Skarsgard family. They've been great to

us. They like to be called clan. They're a clan and they've been so good to kill Garrus, but that's not my type at all. That he's not, he's not a tall, skinny blonde. Wait, well, that other one isn't okay. Yeah, I guess he's, but the other Skarsgard, the one who is on like Wormwood, he's kind of Neveshy. I didn't see Wormwood. I like the one where he, it's like the documentary kind of thing where he got like LSD in the fucking military and shit. All right, man, tangent. Sorry, I totally forgot about Wormwood. I just wrote a thing in my mind. I was like, did Neil Gaiman write Wormwood? Isn't that Worms? And Melanie Linsky, who was in Togetherness. So I fucking love her so much. Yes. And she's from, originally from Heavenly Creatures. Oh, right. She's the

girl with Kate Winslet and Heavenly Creatures. Right. I love, I just like watching her on screen a lot. So it's a really good show. Melanie Linsky is a great unsung, great actress. I think she's being sung on fucking Cassara. Oh, good. Well, now I have to watch it. Yeah. And also because you and I have talked about this, but Stephen King books were so my thing. Like when I was 12 and I realized I could read a book that was very easy for my eyes to read. Like I didn't have to concentrate too hard. Complicated. But it was very adult. And it was so like, it was so visual. It was so cinematic. Yes. No one can, I feel like no one can do it like him in that way. Like when I read the stand, I was in the stand. Yeah. The world was ending because of the flu. My 13 year old, 14 year old

existence was just Stephen King book after Stephen King book. Yeah. And it's just, it was amazing. I had to hide mine and pretend I was reading Judy Blume. My mom didn't care, but my dad be like, why does that book have a skull on the front of it? Why can't you sleep and you're scared out of your fucking mind? You're my brother in high school named as stupid, like sweet, dumb, mutt dog, Kujo. It was the funniest thing because it was like the sweetest dog you've ever met. I saw him as a puppy and he was just like, Hey, I remember his name is Kujo. Asher. Kujo was filmed. There's one part where they're driving out to the mechanics ranch and it's filmed in Petaluma. Oh, shit. Yeah. It's filmed on Bodega Avenue, like on the way out to my house. And when, you

know, that came out and whenever it was, I was probably 14, the pride that we all felt. We're like, look, it's our street. It was just so exciting. I bet. That's all this week. Watch, stand by me again, just to have a moment of our nostalgia and our youth. I don't like that movie. That is one of, oh my God, listen, Corey Feldman. I was a Corey Feldman freak as a child. Were you? Yeah, because he was Jewish. So I thought it was like, Oh, he's Jewish. I like that. That fucking River Phoenix. Oh, he is. Dreamboat. See, River Phoenix in that movie was like, when you're a little girl and there's a boy in your school and he's like a little man. He does everything manly, except smoke cigarettes, but like right up to where like they have,

they have like a sensitive voice and they kind of take care of business and they, they're not mean to little kids and they're kind of like, Hey, hey, there's always that one boy that's like that. But I think what he did was spawn a generation of girls who grew up to be women that when guys are hot and quiet, they love them. Really, it just means they're crazy or boring when they're quiet. But you know, the idea that first of all, the idea that that movie is built around, do you want to go see a dead body? Which is like, of course I do. If only there was one girl in that, so I could have really, really gotten in there. But second only, that fucking scene where Lard asks bars at the pie eating contest is like the greatest thing that's

ever happened. It's the best. Life's changing. It's so, it's so great. My dad used to talk about that scene constantly. It was his favorite. I mean, it's kind of fat shame, but he won in the end. It's kind of what? Fat shaming, but you know, it's body positive. It's body positive. Because he won in the end. And then also, because our young Jerry O'Connell, who in the movie is a little fat guy, grew up to be Mr. Atlas Rock solid body, body, body. Can I just say I follow Jerry O'Connell on Instagram. And he and Rebecca Romain just seem like the fucking nicest people. And so funny. And so normal and adult, but like the most beautiful people you've ever seen. But like, they're just, they seem so cool. It's, once again, it's like

people actually having a good time with their fame and fortune. They should fight Chrissy Teigen and John Legend to see who's a cooler couple. Wouldn't that be funny? They should have a cool fight. Shit, I felt like I had something else to tell you. This, that, the other. There's a bunch of on the fan cult site. We're posting weekly on Friday's unboxing videos of us opening what is now a fucking like tower of unopened gifts in my loft. You guys send us so many rad presents. It's always Christmas up here in the pod loft. And I think we just filmed one the other day. We filmed a bunch of them for the month. And I think it's some of the best fucking gifts we've ever gotten. Like, I truly this, I just want

everyone to see this shit. It's boiler alert. There's tiny food. Let me just tell you, there's tiny, tiny, the tiniest food you've ever seen. This is my absolute, like I started, I literally started crying when I started to cry. Yeah, it's exciting. Oh wait, I think I should read this to you. Okay, great. Because you'll like it. It's an email, Steven, just hand it to me. Great. It sounds like on the news. That was absolutely a lie, but I thought it'd be fun to say like, oh, oh, Steven, just handed me this email, hot off the presses. The subject line is Food Network Boiling League. Hey friends, I'm literally at work right now at the Food Network listening to the podcast and you guys talking about having a boiling TV show made me shit my pants. We love

you guys here in the Food Network offices. Toads come to boil some pasta with us when you're in NY. That's literally all I have to say. Okay, bye. That was from Casey. That's nice. Tell Casey they didn't love me when I had a TV show that they didn't want to fucking renew. Hey, listen, I got 20 years of stories like that, baby. You got to put in your time in this business. Look at me now. I have a boiling water show, bitch. We both had to go. Steven handed me, hot off the presses, handed me this email and I was like, what is this about? And he's like, remember in the Cleveland show? I was like, a bowling show. Why do I have a bowling show? What do we have bowling? And then he had to basically remind us of our own jokes and experience.

And I was like, that's funny. I didn't like, I didn't mean I'm funny. I meant like a boiling show would be great. I have to say that when you have a podcast and I recommend you start one. Apps of fucking Lutely, everyone. Everyone. Everyone. I think the new everyone has a book inside them is everyone has a podcast inside them. And they truly do. Record two hour conversations and then four weeks later, go ahead and try to remember anything from those conversations, which is why, and I don't think we've ever plugged this, which is why there is a Twitter feed called MFM out of context. And some, some saint is taking quotes, random quotes from all different shows and just tweeting them. And it makes me laugh. And I hate everything I say and

do. I don't, that's not, I don't, don't enjoy normally don't enjoy going back over things to try to sound so Catholic of you. I know. And also it's very like, you know, I'm being very, I'm being presentationally like self-loathing right now, but truly normally it's painful. And the other day I, I started reading it because somebody retweeted one that I was like, that's funny. And then I started reading it and I texted Georgia. I'm like, this shit's funny that we're doing. I didn't really, I don't know if I was like, we're funny. That was question mark, question mark, question mark. Have you heard of this? I guess I haven't been paying attention. I think it's best I don't pay attention. We haven't told Karen that any of this is being

recorded from the very beginning. We just, she thinks that the thing, the mic in front of her is actually a cat. And I just think when people tweet at me and tell me things, I'm like, oh, they really know me really well. But instead of the fact that they've listened to my conversations. Karen thinks every moment of her life is a multiverse and doesn't realize it's just one long trajectory. I have to say, there's a lot of big words there, Georgia. I have to say that I right now just had the recovered memory that I thought of the Truman show before the Truman show. Because I'm so Truman show of you. I know. And before the person who sued the Truman show for saying they also wrote the Truman show earlier. But when I lived in San Francisco,

I had this feeling the way and this may have had to do with the amount of pot I was smoking and the amount of beer I was drinking every night. But I always had this feeling that when people walked by me on the street, they, I didn't, they weren't convincing as like extras in my life. Like they're playing a role and they're not doing it very well. It'd be like the, it came to my mind one time I was walking down the street in the mission where, where we all lived, me and my friends. And this guy crossed the street, like came from around the corner and crossed the street. Action extra. He was so stiff. He was so unnatural. There was nothing about it that said he was really doing it. And I went first day of extra work. Yeah. I was like, this is fake.

This is all fake. You're like bullshit, motherfucker. Get back to one. Let's try that again, sir. I thought I must have had some sort of weird, I had such extreme self conscious anxiety as a child. So I wasn't high on pot and beer yet. Yeah. Um, that I, I concocted this idea in my head. I also wasn't sleeping very well. Listen, I, I wasn't crazy that I concocted this idea in my head that I, that everyone just played along and felt really bad for me because I had this disease where I was always naked and I was the only one who didn't know it. Whoa. Whoa. And I'd go to school and I did this and everyone was like, don't tell Georgia. I might make you cut this out. But keep talking, just work through it and then you can cut it out later. That's the extent of my anxiety as a child

because I just thought everyone was fucking with me constantly. So I knew everyone was fucking with me. And then you just, then you just plan for that being the reality of how do you don't, how do you not get fucked with? Which maybe is why I'm always so naked now. Like when I answer the hotel room door, when you knock on the door and I think it's hilarious to answer when your friend comes to the door and you happen to be naked, just to be like, what? So now I'd like, I don't care. I probably am. That's still, it's my favorite joke. To this day, I wish I could explain how my eyes didn't accept what I was seeing because I was like, no, no, people don't do this. And Georgia's just standing like, Hey, I just don't care. And it's like,

and it was like in the hallway of the hotel. So I'm, I'm betting on no one walking by, you know? Oh, you were rolling those dice. I absolutely was. Also, that was member Australia. We had so much fucking fun on that trip. That was in Melbourne. That was so much fun. But we were also, we were having the best time while simultaneously trying to write that fucking book. Yeah, you guys remember that book that we never told you about that? So we had, we were like having great fun and traveling and taking in all this great shit. And at the same time, there was this intense cord of stress because we're already like three chapters late. Yes. You're already immediate. Like right when it started, somehow we were already late. We were

already behind. And then it was kind of like, what do we do? We have to do it. Do it. Like every time we try to get together, get out and talk about your paranoia as a child, psychopath. And we were fucking planning, which we haven't talked about in the podcast yet, a fucking podcast network the whole time. Yeah, that's right. Oh, now do we get to talk about that? Yeah, exactly. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. All I want to talk about is how many fucking names we tried to come up with for the podcast network. I'm not kidding you, it took months before we finally got one that wasn't taken already. Yes. Well, okay, so but just for those of you who can't follow this and we understand and we do apologize. Listen,

we are now starting our own podcast network, which means that are this my favorite murder will be on it, as well as a bevy of other podcasts, which we can't we're not allowed to tell you what they are right now. But when we do tell you, you're going to shit. Here's a here's an Easter egg of us of a hint. Yes, yes, yes. You want to guess at this? I love it. What's gonna be? We are your friends are going to be on this. Yeah, your friends are going to be on this and people that you know are going to be on this podcast network. It's going to be a my favorite murder multiverse. There we go with fucking Easter eggs that what did you what was the other word you use from the trajectory from the beginning of the trajectory of my favorite murder, the fucking Easter eggs that are

going to come in that guy. We did that thing. Remember that thing we talked about? Yeah, it's going to be happening. It's going to it's going to take some time. We're going to like slowly roll them out, not slowly, but it's just we're so excited to curate this fucking network. And it's been working on it for a while. And we have been working on it with you in mind. Yeah, with what you might want to listen to and who you might want to be involved with very much every step of the way. And we wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't for you because your guys you guys listening to this podcast and giving us these numbers has enabled us to have people go Oh, we think because you did that you can do this. And so it's just as much yours as it is ours.

I know sometimes we say shit like that and it sounds really cheesy, but that was just a fact. Yeah, like we're we get to build this because of the support that we have with you guys and we're so, so excited. Karen, that's exactly right. That's the only camp. That's the one that finally we were like, what stupid shit do we say all the time? And it was George's idea. That's what I love. It was my quote, but it was your idea. I didn't know that. Yeah, great. You it was like the last minute where they were finally like, we want to be SSD GM or not. And we were like, no, it was down to these ones. We were just going back and forth. And then we wanted it to be red flag media. That's Gwen Stefani's company. We want I wanted we wanted it to be fucking Starling media, Starling media,

like an agent, Clarice Starling wouldn't be fucking perfect, but there's some like media in don't fucking don't have them, please. Can you bleep or that? I don't know. And the best thing is alone. And yeah. So then finally, it was like, oh, let's try exactly right with no hope at all, because everything we look and listen was taken. Yeah, and everything was taken. Everything was all the slogans were taken. Kill hard just sounds too intense. Yeah. And we're doing more than that. And we're doing we're developing out. Right. So anyway, yeah, that that's a we're we've been excited to tell you about that for a long time, too. There's been so much happening in the LBC. Oh, and here's the EL

VI S. Hi, friend. mascot. I like when you come over to me first Elvis. Elvis. Hi. Do you ever pull his tail a little bit? Yeah, yeah, that's cats like that. Okay, good. Yeah, when you give him like a little kind of a just a little massage. Yeah, but a little like get over you hard just like it. Yeah, more of a suggestion. Hi, Mr. Looking for a better cooking routine with meal planning shopping and prepping handled. Hello Fresh has you covered Hello Fresh makes home cooking easy and affordable so you can stay on track and on budget in the new year. Hello Fresh meals are convenient seasonal and delicious. Stay cozy all winter long with classic comfort foods available weekly.

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ad free on the Amazon music or Wondery app. Okay, do we have any other business? I think that's it. So many big pieces of business this week. Yeah, like scars guards. For example, any big piece of business is a downright scars guard at the end of the day. I think you're first, right? Yes. Yep. I just got them. Like a heart flutter. Because you love your story. I got like a nervous excitement. I'm glad I'm going first because I'm like excited about it. Okay. And it's just like, it's gonna be, it's gonna be something. Okay. Wow. Now I'm excited. Hold on. Let me reposition and turn towards me and really face you. Yeah. I like to normally I like to sit parallel to Georgia like we're both on the bus and that

it's just some lady talking to me that I'm not necessarily listening to on the bus. Karen hasn't made eye contact with me in six months. I think it's better for our performance. And now that we have this new couch from article, I don't, we, there's like nowhere to sit good. Okay. And because they don't have stores shipping, glipping, blipping, shippy, shippy, shappy, promo code murder. Okay. All right. Speaking of Culkins. Uh-oh. This is the murder of Angel Melendez. Yes. And the AKA the party monster murder. That's right. It's fucking right. It is. This is this story. Yep. How have I not done this already? Yeah. That's very, that's a good question to ask yourself. It is. I was a wannabe club kid when it was all over.

You had huge Junko jeans, right? I didn't have Jinkos, but I had the huge stack shoes. Oh, okay. I had like, you know, Adidas that were stacked up high. I had like the pig tails that were crimped in the, I wanted, but this isn't fucking Orange County. Like I wanted to be a club kid in like Manchester. No, in New York. Oh, okay. Yeah. But yeah, Manchester works too. I was just thinking the Hacienda. Oh wait, sorry, really quick. Did you ever, have you seen, I went down a bit of a Killian Murphy hole as I want to do during my days. There's video of him as like a 19 year old at the Hacienda dancing, which by the way, for those who know what we're talking about, that's 24 hour party people, the movie first of all, but when we were in

fucking Manchester, we stayed across the street from the, where the Hacienda was, which is now, of course, high rise buildings. Yeah. Okay. All right. Okay. So back to America hand. Okay. So I want to say that I got, there's so much online of information, but I got a couple of my sources that I want to go ahead and give credit to is there's a shockumentary called party monster from 1998. And then The Guardian, there's a good article by Emma Brox, B-R-O-C-K-E-S. Brox? Brox. B-R-O-C-K-E-S. Brox. I'd say. Brox. And also there's a fucking American justice about this. Hell yeah. You know what I mean? Hell yeah. It's bananas. No, this story was humongous when it happened. Yeah. It was huge. It was. So here we go. Let's fucking time and place this motherfucker.

Okay. It's the 1980s in New York City. These crazy mega dance clubs like Studio 54 are all the rage for the rich, famous assholes who want to see and be seen and hobnob and do designer drugs and shit. Like it's like the fucking rich, famous people are all the rage. Hell yeah. That's Karen's scene. I'm into it. So going to these clubs met, seeing legit celebrities like Cher and Andy Warhol and Mick Jagger and the guest list is fucking tight. It's hard to get into these clubs. It's like there's not for nobodies. You know what I mean? Like you have to be somebody. And it fit in perfectly with the Reagan. Or be hot. Or be gorgeous. Yeah. It fit in perfectly with the Reagan era values of money and celebrity obsession and excess and vanity. But then

the 1987 economy crashed. Yeah, it did. Yeah, it did. Interest rates increased. But all these things that happened when economy crashes happened. You're not going to go into that. Do you want to hear about a debt that had accumulated in the late 1980s began to catch up with people? Did the Dow Jones industrial average move around a little bit? That's right. Yeah, the biggest bust in the... Okay. And then of course in 1987, the death of Andy Warhol. So it's kind of like this era came to a motherfucking end. And this led to the mega clubs closing down. And in their place, these smaller clubs popped up that were like, fuck the Reagan era values of excess. And also remember, this is pre Giuliani, New York. So this was kind of a fucking

trash fire. There was piles and piles of garbage on the street type. Right. It was that kind of thing where there was not so many cops and lots and lots of garbage. It was a very... What's the word? Urban fucking anything goes insanity. Be yourself or be a homeless person on crack. Like it was just... There is a lot going on at the time. You didn't go there for tourist stuff. Tourists didn't go there. Right. Nobody was really being tough on crime the way they like to become later. Yeah. Look it up. There's videos. There's all kinds of elements to it. Right. So before it became a family friendly tourist trap. So there's the seedy anything goes attitude going on. So in 1984, into this world comes a 17 year old kid from South Bend,

Indiana. He arrives and begins hosting small events. And his name is Michael Aleg. He says he knew he was gay since he was in kindergarten. But in fucking South Bend, Indiana, which probably doesn't... Isn't the most tolerant place in the 80s. So he never felt like... No, nowhere was. I mean, it's really... There was a very intolerant time. Nowhere was tolerant. That's right. So he felt like he never fit in. He was effeminate. So he was an easy target. And his youth was just spent being bullied. And that included his father disapproving of him and eventually abandoning the family. His mom seems like she was fucking obsessed with him in the party monster Chocumentary. She talks about him and she's clearly just adores him. Now, real quick question. Is the

term Chocumentary, am I supposed to have known that? Is that something that's happened before? Or is it just this one? I think it's like part of this is like, it's like party monster, the Chocumentary. It's not just a document. You know what I mean? Okay. But there are... It's part of the name of this movie. Oh, got it. It's a documentary, but they want... There's not like a whole bunch of other Chocumentaries I need to rent. I'm not going to answer that because I don't want to get yelled at. Got it. I might be wrong. That's part of the name of this documentary. Got it. So Michael... So he's played... Okay. Here's how to picture him in the movie party monster. He's played by Macaulay Culkin. Right. Perfectly, I think. He's this skinny, gawky kid. His mother described him

as an honorary little fellow and an instigator. So he's just always kind of this like troublemaker. He moved to New York and he was finally able to come out of the closet and be the weirdo self that he had always tried to hide. So Michael begins to frequent these anything goes clubs, like Tunnel in Chelsea, with a band of these misfit kids. They're all outsiders. They're fringe people from small towns who came to look for a group that would accept them. It almost seems like you... Now you would think of like art students, like a bunch of fucking artsy fuck everything, but like they had this playground of New York City in the 80s to do anything they wanted with. So cool. Yeah. So also, so like that's how a lot of like trends come about or kids like

that. Like the outsiders that are doing whatever they want and doing drugs and then they for some reason pick up a thing and put it around their neck and suddenly someone else sees it and then that's the trend. And they're doing it to eschew the fucking mainstream and fuck you to the mainstream and then it becomes mainstream. And like everyone also remember probably fucking 20-year-olds out there, like there's no internet. There's no fucking... You maybe see some people in magazines doing these things, but you know, it's not... This isn't... There's no internet to influence anyone. Yeah. When you were trying to be cool in the 80s and 90s, you had to go out and earn it. You had to go find where the cool people were, copy what they were doing, try to get in what they were doing,

get the drugs they were doing. Like it was all very... You had to be like a man on the street about it. You couldn't just stay home and be like, oh no, I'm going to get that same tattoo or whatever. You had to really... And also that was back when like being a poser was a real threat. You didn't want to be seen as a poser. It's all very clicky. So... Okay. So they're giving the moniker the club kids and Alec... It's like this mini movement of these outlandishly dressed party goers. They get inspiration from punk, SNM, and clown styles. I read one article, which kind of is perfect. They look like these circus freaks from the future trying to look like vintage circus freaks a lot of the time. I mean, to me, that just says you did your drugs

before you got ready. So instead of getting ready to go out and then doing drugs on your way out, you did your drugs at 3 p.m. And then you started going, what if I paint my whole head red? But here's the thing. In the beginning and for a lot of years, the drugs weren't really a thing. In all of these early videos that they have of them online, they're drinking vodka and orange juice. Drugs were not part of the scene at the beginning. It was almost this like, you know, it was like, what's the word? Performance art. And that's what fueled them. So maybe they fucking did a bump here and there, but like mostly it was just drinking. And kind of just being like, hey, here's my crazy outfit. Yeah. Fuck you. Yeah. That's very fuck you. But the drugs weren't really

there yet. So they fucking got ready, not on drugs. Probably drunk, which explains the painting your face read to. I was just trying to relate it to how it used to be for me when I would end up in a weird, in some kind of weird turtleneck with a vinyl dress shit that I would always do. I line her up to your fucking ears. And then, oh, maybe I'll take an hour and pluck all my eyebrows off because I'm on speed. Not above it. They're getting runnaker club kids. They wear over-the-top outfits. They're often homemade or assembled from thrift store costumes, which like, can you imagine the New York City in the 80s thrift stores? I would die. The outfits were unique and crazy. And they showed expressions of who they were. One person just fucking wore a chicken

mascot costume. That's taking the easy way out. I mean, look, do your best. Alec was accompanied by people like familiar names like Ru Paul fucking grew out of this shit neighborhood area. Amanda LePore, of course, she's the gorgeous woman. And then they all made up. And James St. James. I know he's in there. He's absolutely in this story. If you have never gone onto the World of Wonder website, which is basically the production company that makes Ru Paul's Drag Race and a bunch of other stuff, in the early days of the internet, I lived for that website. Everything, all the good videos were on there. They had everything first. They knew all the memes first. It was the coolest. I haven't gone on as much anymore. In all of these documentaries,

the James St. James part where they like cut to him and he starts talking is like, it's the best part. Like everyone shut up. He's talking. He's everything. He's everything. So they made up names for themselves. There's this girl named Jenny Talia. And I just love that so much. I just love that. This is right up your alley. This is so, this is like, I fucking emulated this so hard. I can't even tell you like I wanted to go to New York to live with these people. Yeah. There's a guy named Ernie the P-Drinker. There's Junkie Jonathan and Woody the Dancing Amputee. And they push, they also push boundaries of drag and fashion. And they were just fucking out there. So the club kids are led by Michael A. Lig, Alec, known as he's like the king of the club kids.

He's like the fucking Pied Piper they call him. And his mentor slash rival I read in this magazine, the equally flamboyant James St. James. Yes. I'm on his side. Yes. You didn't do anything. Oh, right. Yes, you should be. They're known for flamboyant behavior, outrageous costumes in 1988. So a village voice writer and frequent party guest, Michael Musto wrote about the club kids. He's just like, he was just like, like this not as flamboyant dude who just kind of like hung out with them and wrote about it, which is pretty great. He said they are terminally superficial, have dubious aesthetic values, and are master manipulators, exploiters, and thank God partiers. Yes. The club kids aesthetic, it was the emphasized the outrageous fabulousness,

gender fluid was a thing. And though not everyone was gay, their scene had an LGBT bent and was popular among the drag queens. And it was kind of just this thing of like, we finally have our place where we get a fucking, you know, all these people come from small towns, we get to actually like go over the top. We've been fucking hiding this for years. Yes. Let's let's be ourselves and normal fucking people in the preppies who used to not let us into club 54 and shit. They're not fucking allowed in here. That's right. That's and I think that's also the at the nearing the end of the AIDS epidemic. Well, yeah, I was just going to talk about that. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. I literally next fucking sentences. This was

in the midst of the AIDS epidemic. Yeah. And I was going to tell you to please jump in at any moment because I know you know this too. And that may have helped this drive the party scene, because Michael once said there was a prevailing sense that you and your friends might not be around this time next week. So enjoy the now we party too hard, drink too much and laugh too loud. Yeah. So there's real reason behind that. It's like you can say it's superficial. You can say that it's right that they're being mean anything. Yeah. But actually, it's there's very strong. It's almost that thing where the, you know, the AIDS epidemic for so many people to deal with their mortality in the literal way with their friends dying left and right, you know, and a

government who truly doesn't give a shit, didn't give a shit and did nothing. Yeah. I mean, you know, why not say fuck you and put on crazy pants and go do whatever you want. Yeah. Live your life right now while you fucking can. Yeah. The group became an artistic and fashion conscious youth culture. And so it's all experimental. The club kids become a force that the media fucking got up, became obsessed with, of course, because they're just so over the top. Michael and the club kids appear on several talk shows, including Geraldo, which you can totally watch online. I remember watching it at my fucking house as a kid. I think it was in like there was they were on a couple of times that I

remember being like 12 or 13. So like right on the cusp of when I was going to say fuck it too. And I was just like, well, I need to go to fucking New York immediately. Yeah. And in 1990, the biggest so so Michael's doing this thing is making a name for himself. He's going to these parties. They're having this fun. And then in 1990, the biggest club owner in the city named Peter Gation puts Michael in charge as the promoter for his string of downtown clubs, which included this club called the limelight. You know that gothic revival fucking crazy, like a multi building church in New York that you drive by and you're in a cab and you're like, what in the fuck is that? Yeah. That was a club. Yeah. In the fucking 80s and 90s. I know.

How insane is that? It's the best. It's a gym now. Doesn't look like you want to cry. Oh, really? Last I read it was I could be something else now. That's so that's so the teens, the 20 teens. Yeah. That was the job I wanted. The promoter was such a weird you're like, what do you do? All I knew is you all you had to hand out flyers and you got way more money than should be given to people handing out flyers. Right. But but part of it was being beautiful, fashionable, edgy. You had to be the kind of person that if somebody gave you a flyer, you'd want to be go to the party they were having. That's exactly right. I remember girls in high school being like, I'm dating a promoter. And I'd be like, what is that? Yeah. And who cares?

And then you meet the promoter and you're like, I want to be with you forever. Right. So that's so he becomes this promoter because he is like the fucking top dog, whatever. So Michael got to just throw these lavish parties he would pick, you know, paid for. He would pick a theme, hire DJ, make sure all his fabulous friends would show up. He'd pay them to show up. Wow. So suddenly they were getting paid to go fucking clubbing or go to parties as you weren't supposed to call it a rave. You call them going to a party. Why? Because the cops would bust them? Maybe it just sounded cooler. Yeah, I don't know. So it would. So when all his wild friends would show up with fucking, you know, painted red heads and diapers and with their nipples xed out with fucking masking

tape and you know, like all these incredible thing, a candle fucking stuck on their head or whatever. That all these people wanted to go to these clubs to watch them because they were like kind of getting famous in the like, you know, because the news would cover them and shit. And because we love people who are who don't give a fuck. That's what a relief it is when you see a person like that. So it's like, yeah, I don't care. You can't. There's nothing you can do. Like it's such a good feeling when you're around people who are all like, yeah, fuck it. I don't care. Well, Michael Lusto from the fucking Village Voice talks a lot about how like in like before this, everyone was on their best behavior and wanted to look the coolest and be the coolest and just be

like, you know, perfect and then people. Yeah. And then fucking Michael came along and he would he was a dick kind of he pee and drinks and make people drink it. But that's not Woody the the peer. What's that guy's name? Maybe he maybe it's because he's a pee drinker. Yeah, maybe because he drank pee like all these things that he did. He was like kind of a dick that everyone let a like he was like a child that nobody there's one thing that I read about where he had he had a like he got hepatitis and made it into a party and like kiss as many people as he could to give it. He was just like he was literally a party monster. He was a true party monster. He just didn't care about anyone and everyone loved that about him. There was no feeling like he just

was there to have a good time. Yep. As Vin says, we're here for a good time, not a long time. That guy I mean. Okay, so so he did that scene. Okay, he would be there. He draw crowds to these venues and the club kids began holding they also a way to promote that these actual parties would be that they would have these what now we know as flash mobs. But then with guerrilla parties, guerrilla style parties, they they called them outlaw parties. So they show the fuck up at a Dunkin Donuts like 200 deep or a fucking Burger King and just take over and ruin this poor these poor people who work their night for sure and just have so much fun and party and put music on and shit. They went did one in the subway and like and they do it until you know the cops would come

which was like their their highlight of the night and then they go to this club that was already ready for it. So it's just these like flash mobs in a way. So he loved all this attention he got. Okay, so there's a pee drinker. There was a woman who went on stage and gave herself a champagne. Anima. Great. So healthy. Hepatitis. Good for the flora and fawn and your gut. Don't try that at home. It was just like these people. It just really seemed like performance art for everyone, but in a club setting. Yeah. So in the beginning, Michael and the club kids didn't really fuck with drugs as I said, but then ecstasy came along as Michael just explains it. It felt like a drug for people who didn't do drugs because it wasn't some like fucking cut crazy snorty drug. It was

like pharmaceutical made in the lab and it made you feel spiritual. So it didn't feel like you were doing drugs, which is the and I say this any chance I get the problem with pills is that you can tell yourself you're not a drug addict and you can just take a bunch of fucking pills and suddenly you're different, but you can't tell because you didn't snort it and you didn't like it was my prescription. It was prescribed to me. Yeah. And but then all of a sudden you're on the other side of pill behavior. Yeah. Not really knowing what's going on. Right. It's so dangerous. Yes. 100%. And it's become so normalized now. So normal. Really frightening. Yeah. It's horrible. So Michael, of course, and his followers then begin using drugs heavily, which is what

happens when you start taking drugs. Well, and when you party for a living. I mean, it's part of the reason when I was hospitalized for alcoholism. I tried to explain to the doctor. I'm like, I'm a comic. I'm in a club every night. We all drink eight drinks a night. If I don't stay and hang out and party with them, I won't get booked on shows. Yeah. It's part. It's like the yin yang of the whole lifestyle. But like, but when that's your lifestyle, you then you're truly living it and it's very hard on the system. It is. Definitely. So he began. So so Michael, who's kind of in charge of these clubs begins adding drug dealers to, you know, who's paying people to come to the clubs like his friends who are club kids,

he adds drug dealers to the payroll of Michael Peter's guy, Peter Gation. He's like, add this guy to the payroll at that guy. So they're fucking drug dealers getting paid like an hourly rate to fucking be there, which is bananas. Well, it's not. I might be wrong about this, but at the Hacienda, weren't the doorman drug dealers? I don't know. I feel like there was some kind of similar thing like that where it just became part of the business. Yeah. Which seems so normal. Yeah. When you're like in it. So they become all addicted to drugs like Coke or Hypno, Special K, which of course is a fucking horse tranquilizer. And you can fall into a k-hole, which means the ground goes away. It sounds like a nightmare. It sounds like that's

the thing. Also, those drugs where you take one pill and then you're out of it for hours. Yeah. I hate that when I used to go to raves in when I was young. And this is like 95. So this is by the time anything hits Orange County, it's fucking played out. So like I was like, and cusp of this shit. But it wasn't in Orange. It was in Los Angeles. But yeah, man, there are just people wandering around, you know, selling drugs like it was out and about. No one gave a shit. Yeah. Horse tranquilizers, everybody. Horse tranquilizers. Thank God I never tried those. And eventually, everyone's fucking favorite heroin. Yeah. Yeah. So one of those club kids was one of these club kids who was just super into the scene was named Andre Melendez. And his name, his like club name

was Angel. And that's because he wore these different kinds of ornate, beautiful angel wings. That was his thing. His like, you know, what's it called? Look, he had immigrated from Columbia to New York as a child. And he lived in Queens. And like Michael, he had tried to make a name for himself and found the club kids a good place to do it. And he wanted to be accepted by Michael, especially. And the club kids. So to do so, he started dealing drugs as his ticket in. And whenever it's it's this thing of like, if you look a little deeper than this, the basic articles, it says like Michael, a leg killed the drug dealer angel, you know, Melendez. But it's like, well, he wasn't a drug dealer at first. It wasn't just that he was like there to deal drugs. He

actually was a club kid who loved the scene, loved the people. He was part of it. Dealing drugs was his way to like to get people to like him. Yeah. And then make a name for himself. Exactly. Yeah. So he wasn't just a drug dealer. So he eventually got put on the limelight payroll as well. And Angel idolized Michael. So he let him get away with a lot. And of course, Michael would took advantage of him like fucking crazy, including like stealing drugs from him. There was one account according to James St. James that during a snowstorm where they broke into Angel's stash and did three to $4,000 worth of Angel's drugs. And James St. James was like, how are you going to tell Angel? And then Angel walks in and Michael's like, we did your drugs,

like just fuck you, do something about it. I feel like I have four stories like that. That's the thing too, is when you start to get into that very bizarre lifestyle, you just do things like you don't care anymore. After a while, you just only care about getting hot. I mean, it sounds like he was had some narcissistic tendencies to begin with. And then you put in drugs and fame and goodbye. You're fucking, no, you don't give a shit. Yeah. You're like, it's me from the limelight. Yeah, you know, you can't get in here without me, which is true. Like he could fucking ban whoever the fuck he wanted. Yeah, that's a lot of control. Yes. So escalating drug use and overdoses and more cases of AIDS among the club kids kind of starts

and then mayor fucking new mayor Rudy Giuliani's crackdown on nightlife and starts to lead to the beginning of the end of the club kids. So in September 1995, hey, I was 15 and probably had a rave limelight is raided by federal agents and shut down because they were using drugs so openly and rampantly, like it was just as you walk in and you get a bump of coke, like it's just everywhere. It's not a big deal to anyone. So sad I wasn't there. So, so sad. All right. So Angel, who had been working at the club, he gets fired. So he's pissed about that. He thinks that that he's owed money. And on top of that by 1996, Michael was a full blown fucking junkie. Okay. He's injecting heroin every day. And as his addiction grows,

his demand for drugs from Angel grows and Angel just starts to get resentful and feels used. And he couldn't get into limelight anymore. And that pissed him off a lot too. Wait, sorry, Angel or Michael? Angel couldn't get in anymore. Michael's live in the fucking high life. Angel gets fired because of the drug raid and he's a drug dealer. Oh, yeah. And so he's just pushed out. Yes, that sucks. Yes. But also let me just say too, just the way this this trajectory is the story of all all drug stories. It starts fun. As my mom used to say, it's going to end in tears. Yeah. You're laughing now, but this is going to end in tears. I mean, the difference in I highly recommend people watching the shockumentary because

you can see that from the videos in the beginning, it's these bright eyed, bushy tailed fucking cool like, you know, smart kids who are like leading this incredible revolution. And by the end, it's like dark circles under their eyes and no one's smiling. And it's just addicted to drugs. And that's what drugs do. It just like it becomes about you go to parties because you need to get drugs, not because you you are so happy to be around these people that are like minded and, you know, right? Because you're not having fun anymore. You're not having real experiences anymore. You're not like, oh my God, I love dancing and it feels great. You're just like drugs or even like I want to be famous. It's like not that anymore, either. It's just this negative

thing. Yeah. So around this time, Michael, a leg throws a themed party called blood feast. This is just an aside. It's named after a horror movie that he had loved as a child that he had watched with his mother as a child. His mother was obsessed with watching horror moves and like watch them with him, which also Joe Doros as mom did love that. I talked to her about it once and she told me that she just wanted someone to watch with because she was scared. So she put her four year old child next to her. I do love it, though, when parents like get their kids into movies at a young age, whatever style they like. I don't care. But so in the in the movie, Blood Feast, this this dude kills people and dismembers his victims. That's what the fucking horror movies

about sounds like a real blood feast. Exactly. And in the flyer for the event, my favorite club kid, Jenny Tellia, she's just like she just she just looks like she's what I wanted to be when I was that age. Sure. Yeah. She's holding a hammer to Michael's head and it looks like it's all bloody and gross. It's like this is going to be the gore party. Like they had these insane parties. So maybe the gore one, the phrase legs cut off is like all these crazy phrases like that are on the flyer. And then I write all caps foreshadowing. Okay, got it. Got it. I'm seeing it foreshadowing. So on Sunday, March 17, 1996, Angel shows up at Michael and his roommate, Robert Riggs, who's known as freeze. It looks like the devil kind of,

but like the hot devil. So he had a goatee and just a little trident. Yes. And he and he liked devil town. What's the guy's name? Remember the movie? This is so random. Remember the movie go? Yes. And the drug dealer from that movie. Yes. What's his name? Oh, even got it. Timothy Oliphant. Yes. Yeah. I've done it again. You're scaring Elvis. Sorry, but I've done it again. Timothy Oliphant. Also, I just recently watched the girl next door, which when it came out real time, I was like, this is sexist and against women. It's one of the better movies I've ever seen. And Timothy Oliphant is so hot in it. And he's playing this like kind of scummy guy, whatever that shows up. And he shows up at the at the boys high school. And he's like in a cool

car. And he's just like this badass guy. And these he's talking to these two girls and the boy comes out like, what are you doing here? And he turns to the boys lead the lead boy and goes, hey, you didn't tell me you had some real burners at the school. And I laughed for so long. The idea of calling hot girls burners. Maybe that was just maybe that was just for me. You've got to see it. It's so good. He's so good. Okay. And then goes on to become the sheriff of fucking Deadwood. Right. Calling no one burners. No, no, you don't do that. Loving the widow. Okay. Also, watch the movie go if you want. If you want to watch like what my life was kind of like at that time. It goes a great movie. It's a really good movie. And then that's what my life was kind of

like. Okay. So fucking elephants. Nickname is freeze. And he looks like the devil. Okay. So that Michael and freezes apartment in Hell's Kitchen. Angel shows up at like nine in the morning. And of course, no, no, not one of them has slept the night before. They've all been taking drugs all fucking night. And the grossest feeling. Disgusting. Angel is pissed off. Like trying to track down this money he's owed. He is like demanding this money. This argument ensues between Michael and Angel. And the calm it becomes violent. And Angel, this is all according to freeze and Michael. So, you know, please take take this with however you feel like nobody's nobody's told Angel side of the story because right, the only one that could have done it.

Yeah. So that, you know, take this with various levels of spice. He pins Michael, Michael cries out for help. So freeze grabs a hammer and hits Angel over the head with it three times. And sorry to ask this now, but this was after that, that blood and gore party? Yes. Okay. Okay. Awful. I'm almost positive. Yeah. Three times he gets disoriented according to freeze, but he's also still pissed off. So freeze grabs him from behind and there's a lot of different stories. So it's kind of hard to tell which one they're fucking sticking with. Okay. And and Michael grabs either a pillow or a sweatshirt and puts it over Angel's face and they smother him and he, he dies. Whoa. And then again, depending on his story, Michael takes

a cleanser or a chemical or drain or something, puts it down his fucking throat and uses duct tape to duct tape his mouth shut. And I think he's already fucking dead. Then thank God. And Michael says that it later says it was because he wanted to cover up the smell. But it's hard to be it's just like hard to know what really happened. Right. Yeah, I get that. Because that all fits in if you're gonna, if you're gonna argue self-defense. Right. You know, exactly. So the two freeze and Michael then strip Angel's body, place it in the bathtub and they put ice all over it and chemicals all over to mask the smell. It stays there for five to seven days. Oh, God. I know until freeze purchases, some chef's knife and a cleanser and I'm sorry, a cleaver at Macy's. I don't know why

that tidbit needed to stay in there, but I just found it kind of interesting. And the Macy's home home. Yeah, like the person who told them that was like, enjoy your dinner. And then it's like a guy with a lightning bolt across his face. It's like, thanks so much. Thanks. And heroin junkie. I need to let you out of his arm. Thanks. I'm making salad. Tell your friends. So Michael's like, okay, I'll take care of this. You have to get me 10 bags of heroin so I can get as fucked up as possible. I don't want to be fucking, you know, conscious for this shit. And then he's like, and I was kind of hoping I would dive a heroin overdose too. So I mean, that's what he fucking says. But so he's on all this. I bet he does though. Yeah.

He's on all this heroin and he removes angels legs. He cuts them fucking off just like the blood bath movie and or blood. What was it called? Blood Feast. Thank you. And he removes angels legs. He wraps them in garbage bags and then places them in a duffel bag. And then those are dumped in the Hudson River and they sink. But then the following day, they wrap the rest of angels body in a sheet and plastic garbage bag and they place it in a cardboard box. They take it down to a fucking waiting taxi, put it in the trunk. They drive to the west side highway to Hudson River. And by some instances, get the cab driver to help them throw the box. Oh, like obviously the cab driver doesn't know what's in it. Yeah, right. Help him them throw the box over the side of the

highway into the river. And then they watch as it doesn't sink and kind of just sails off and they're like, oh, shit. And on drugs and on drugs. And Angel when he was murdered was only 25 years old. Oh, God. So Michael, Michael, whatever reason can't fucking keep quiet about it. Maybe he's so horrified by what he's done. Maybe it doesn't seem real in his head because he's on drugs. Maybe he's fucking doesn't think it's a big deal. Like who knows why? Or maybe he wants to get caught. Right. You know, yeah. But he doesn't keep quiet and he tells people about it and rumors start flying. And in the scene, everyone kind of knows what happened, although they're like, that's, that sounds too outlandish about the Drano and shit. But it all ends up being true.

And so it becomes an open secret in the club community. And but everyone's loyal as fuck to Michael and no one tells the police. So Angel's brother, Johnny, starts to get worried when he doesn't hear from his brother. And of course, they only had pagers back then. So he's not answering his fucking page. And he finally is like, goes to clubs to try to track down his brother and can't find him. The police, he says barely bothered to fill out a missing persons report and didn't really give a shit. So he had to fucking start investigating on his own post flyers all over the city of Angel, the photo of Angel with his angel wings and everything trying to find his brother. He breaks down on the fucking Chocumentary Chocumentary documentary. And it's really fucking

sad. I bet. Yeah. So he spends the next few months. Okay. So Michael spends the next few months high as fuck, traveling in and out of the city. He's still throwing parties, but people aren't really going to them. And meanwhile, with the help of the media, Johnny is able to get Angel's disappearance out. And like it becomes front page news articles in the New York magazine and New York Post, which is like the best magazine for shit like this. Michael Moustow posts a blind item in the village voice that's basically like club kid who would get which club kid murdered like talks about it. No, he's horrified. Wow. Yeah. So well, that's the best way to deal with the murder. Absolutely. To gossip, put a blind item in a newspaper, just gossip it away. So okay. So in a month after the

murder in March 1996, so there's a tropical storm, which makes all everything wash up on the shore. And a group of children at a beach at Miller Field in Stanton Island discover a box containing the dismembered remains, which eight months later are linked to Angel. Wow. It took eight months because he was misidentified as an Asian male by the morgue. Can I just ask really quick, did you mean Stanton Island? What did I say? Stanton Island. Jesus. Stanton Island. Stanton Island. God. I was like, no, I don't want to act like I'm some expert about the burrows or anything. What is that? How did my brain do that? But you're trying to explain something. I am. Wow. Okay. But you're saying that the remains were found and then eight months later,

he was identified, but it wasn't eight months? No. A month later, he's found. Okay. And then eight months later, like another body washes up and a cop who actually was involved in Angel's case puts it together. That, you know, it all gets put together. Got it. Got it. But it's partly because the burrows didn't communicate with each other, of course, but also he was misidentified as an Asian male, whatever. Okay. Right. So with the final, with finally with identification, police are now involved. This whole time Michael hadn't been questioned once about the disappearance despite the rumors. He had fled to New Jersey at this point where you can't get away in New Jersey. Nine months after the murder of Angel, Michael Aleg is arrested on December 5th, 1996, and

Freese is arrested the same day. Wow. And Freese just fucking talks immediately. They both just like. That's so freeze. So freeze. So Aleg insisted to the police that he and Freese had killed Angel in self-defense and disposed the body in a panic. And he had photos of bruises that he had on him after the fight too. So he was not high. He was not so high that he couldn't take pictures of his own bruises. He couldn't go to a lawyer and get pictures taken two weeks after the, or like a week after. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So prosecute. So here's just like weird things. Prosecutors were hesitant to charge Michael with first degree murder because they hoped he would testify against his former boss, Peter Gation, who they had arrested for allowing drugs to be sold

in his nightclub. So the fucking DA or the feds want to get this guy Peter Gation on all these fucking drug charges. So they don't want to like throw the book at Michael because they need him to be a fucking credible witness. And if he's a fucking first degree murderer, they can't put him on the stand. And they don't prioritize the murder as a worst crime than selling drugs and clubs. They don't. Wow. So they eventually offer Michael and Freese a plea deal, a sentence of 10 to 20 years if they accept the lesser charge of manslaughter, which they do. Side note, Peter Gation charges are all eventually dropped. Yeah. So it didn't fucking matter. Anyways, he's a big rich guy, right? Well, because they couldn't prove anything

at that point. So they could have fucking charged him. I don't know. But also, you know, who knows much guy who knows what happened on October 1st, 1997. They both plead guilty and sentence sentence to 10 to 20 years. Freese is released after 13 years in 2010. Michael becomes eligible for parole in October, 2006. But he claims that the parole board watched the movie Party Monster that had been made in 2003, which portrayed him very poorly and decided to keep him in after watching it. Oh, yeah. So he's he serves eventually serves 17 years and released on May 5th, 2014. And regarding the 2003 movie Party Monster, whichever one you watch, it's fucking good. It's really good. It is Sean Green, the other person in that movie. And Chloe Sevigny is in

it as well. Sean Green is I just for four minutes watched Gold Gold member Seth Green. Shit, Seth Green. Sean Green is a stand up comic. I know who's very funny. Seth Green. I watched a little bit of Gold member Austin Powers and Gold member the other day, purely because of how fucking funny that guy is. And he has been I think he might also be in go. Yes, he is. He is. Right, Steven. Back me up. God damn it, Steven. Why won't you know he is. I think he is. Or I might be thinking of can't hardly wait. Yeah, I think anyway, because he plays like a raver kid club kid in that movie. Oh, is that what he's doing? Oh, yeah, he's not in go. Yes. Fuck you both.

You take your beer all of it and you shut up your ass. I haven't done it again. Yeah. But anyway, that guys, I feel like he has been a massive talent since he's like five years old. Yeah, he is so talented and continues to be with fucking robot chicken robot. I was gonna call it freeway chicken. Good night, Grandma. Seth Green, everyone. Seth Green, everybody. Okay. So the the movie, where are we? Party monster is based on the 1999 memoir, disco blood bath by none other than James St. James. Yeah. So Michael Ailig is now 52 years old. He says he doesn't like the way he's portrayed in the movie because it's he says it's one dimensional. So Angel, who's played by Wilson Cruz from my so called life. Right. He he turns

him into a minor side character. Yes. If Angel Melendez hadn't been murdered, he would be 57 years old right now. And that's the party monster murder of Angel Melendez. God, that's so. I mean, the fact that like he's Michael Ailig, Alec Ailig. Yeah, he's served his time. Like that's a that's so rarely happens where it's a famous murder. Yeah. Where the person gets goes to jail, serves their time and comes back out and then like is able to speak again. Yeah, it's really it's hard to track down exactly what he's up to now. Like it seems like he's got all you know, trying trying a bunch of other you know, fashion line and art and like maybe trying to still do club promotions. And it's just like hard to track it down. But I mean,

yeah, and it's hard to kind of know how to feel because yeah, it was this, you know, when you talk about a time like that, it's all so surreal. And the behavior is so surreal. And then the drug element makes it all very kind of like, yeah, there's a kooky element to it. But at the end of the day, there's there's a really tragic murder. And then just again, we've talked about this a bunch of times, but like when people have to dismember, or they're able to dismember human beings, I just it's such a it's so far beyond anywhere I even want to think about being totally nightmarish. Totally. Yeah, it is really sad. And then you think of all the club kids now and like we're looking back and being like, we were just fucking, we just like went off the deep end.

This could have been this great movement of, you know, and it did like it influenced so many people now like fucking Lady Gaga, she wouldn't exist without this club kid movement. And they talk about like Marilyn Manson was like direct landslowns, but you know, all this shit, Georgia Hardstark wouldn't have worn fucking vinyl pants and stacked shoes. That's right to raves if it hadn't been for this. So I tried to wear stacked shoes one time and I I can still feel myself going down on the sidewalk in San Francisco, walking home from a bar and just you take one weird step on mine were Mary Janes and my friend would call me a little Frankenstein when I wore them because that's exactly what I looked like. You take one wrong move and those things and

you're just you're down. Your ankle goes out from underneath you you land on your whatever this bone is and you look like a stupid fucking idiot. You look like a goddamn goon. So that's that. Wow, that was good. Thank you. I'm surprised we haven't done that one yet. That one is such a it's so infamous and kind of like its own little world. Well, I didn't realize how I thought about it a long time ago, but I didn't realize how like how I just seem so hard to wrap my head around and like express exactly what the time and place was like. But then my friend Crystal Langham, thank you reminded me of it. And and so I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good one. Well, mine this week comes because I drove I drove up to Petaluma to be there for my

old sister Laura's 50th birthday. Laura. And so she ended up having a birthday week, which is kind of hilarious. You're allowed to do that when you're turning 50. Yeah, I think it was big. So she had like a dinner at my dad's house and then I drove up and then we went to the Twin Oaks, which is this rad bar between Petaluma and Sebastopol. And that's like used to be old and scary. And it was like kind of a locals only just don't go in there. And now they've redone it and it's really awesome. And they have really good bands, the band that played there that night was really good. Anyway, I love driving to Petaluma because I love any time I get to leave Los Angeles. And the time I spend on the five between LA and Petaluma is so soothing because it's just

like, you know, sometimes I talk to you on the phone a bunch, make some phone calls, fall asleep for a little while, get a zone out, smell all the smells that are out there to be smelled. Every different type of livestock shit you would like to smell is there for you to smell. You go to yourself, I should be vegetarian every time you drive that drive. That's right. And then if you're on the 99, you might hit a patch of rose, rose smells. You might hit a patch of really strong onion smell. It's really, it's an exciting way to live. All your olfactory senses are being triggered. Do you like smells that you can't control? So anyway, but my newest thing is on both the way up and the way back, I was just binge listening

once again to Criminal with Phoebe Judge. And I just love that show so much, but there was one that one episode and it is, it inspired this week's, this week's murder for me because it's the story. And and hearing it this the way Phoebe Judge told it, it's all from the point of view of the wife Melinda Elkins. But we've seen it as a, as a forensic files and I think an American justice and it's the story of Clarence Elkins. I don't remember this one yet. Okay. So let me tell you all about it. Tell me June 7th, 1998. I'm going to buzz in when I know what you're talking about. Okay, great. Stephen, can you, are you picking up that buzz slap? Sounds great. Great. June 7th, 1998. It's in Barberton, Ohio.

So this is the suburb of Akron, Ohio. Okay. Okay. On the morning of June 7th, 1998, a woman named Melinda Elkins, she's puttering around the house and her son comes running into the house saying there are police outside in SWAT gear running out of the woods and at their house. Can you picture that people? I mean, first of all, just the boy outside, I'm not sure how old he was, but I like to think he was eight and because that would be the most impact if you're standing in your yard, like throwing something against a wall board and you look over and just a SWAT team comes running out of the woods. Mommy, mommy, there's a SWAT team. There's a SWAT team. Yeah, exactly. He knows all the terminology. So Melinda goes running out of her house and going, what's going on? And they

tell her that her 58 year old mother, Judith Johnson, has been stabbed to death and that her six year old niece, Brooke, who was staying the night at her grandma's, Judith, was raped, beaten and left for dead. Oh my God. And as Melinda is trying to take in this information, she looks over the cop's shoulder who's talking to her and sees her husband, Clarence Elkins, getting handcuffed and stuffed into the back of a cop car. Oh no. And this is when she learns that her niece, Brooke, her six year old niece, who was horribly attacked, identified her uncle, Clarence, who is Melinda's husband, as the murderer. Can I do a light tap? This sounds familiar? Okay. So what happened was Judy and Brooke were attacked, they think somewhere between 2.30 and 5.30 in the morning

at Judy's home. Judy was beaten so badly that initially the authorities thought that she'd been stabbed to death. But it just that it was just she was beaten with a blunt instrument so badly and the wounds were so deep that they thought they were knife wounds. Oh my God. She was also raped and sodomized and Brooke, the six year old, heard something going on. So she ran out to see and saw her grandmother lying dead. She ran back into the room. She was staying, got into bed to hide. The man came in to the room and began to beat her. She passed out. Then she was raped and then she was left for dead and beaten and left for dead. She woke up around seven in the morning and she called a family friend and she left a message on that person's answering

machine saying, I'm sorry to tell you this, but my grandma died and I need somebody to get my mom for me. I'm all alone. Somebody killed my grandma. Now please would you get ahold of me as soon as you can by can you imagine getting that answer? It's so haunting. And then she walks next door to the next door neighbors in her bloody nightgown and knocks on the next door neighbors door and asks for help. A woman named Tonya Brazel answers the door and she lived there with her common law husband or old man and their children and Tonya tells Brooke that she's making breakfast for her kids. But if she'll just wait on the porch, she'll help her 45 minutes later. Wait, what? She drives Brooke home. Yes. Just like just dog year that. So Brooke's mother, April,

is Melinda Elkin's sister. So Clarence is this is basically Clarence's sister-in-law, April, and his niece, Brooke. Got it. And it's Melinda's sister. So they have different last names now because they're both married, but Melinda and Brooke, Melinda, sorry, and April are sisters. Okay. So on the way home, Brooke tells this woman, Tonya, the neighbor, that the man who attacked her and killed her grandmother looked like her uncle Clarence. And so when they arrive at April's house, Tonya tells April that Brooke had said it was her uncle Clarence who attacked her. So when Melinda is told all this by the authorities, she knows that it's impossible. Yeah. Because on the evening of the attack, Clarence was at home, he went outside, he built a bonfire in the yard,

and then he decided he was going to go out with friends to some local bars. So he was out drinking with his friends till 2 30 in the morning. And she knows for sure that he came home at 2 30 in the morning because their son was sick and she was up with him. And so when he came in, she was up and they talked. And then Clarence went to bed at 3 in the morning. And and Melinda stayed up pretty much for the rest of the night with their sick child. And so she told the police, there's no way he could have left again without me knowing. And he certainly couldn't have driven the one hour trip to my mom's house, and then driven one hour back and been gone for over two hours without me noticing, because I was up all night. And I would have noticed that he was gone.

And when people build a bonfire on the night of a murder, it's just it has to be bad luck if you didn't do it. For real, it's straight at making a murder. I hear a bonfire, I'm like, you did it. Yeah, it's not. But the problem is out in the if you look out in the country, which I'm assuming I don't know the suburbs of Akron well enough. But building a bonfire is just like, Oh, yeah, go go burn that shit, or just something like because there's nothing else to do, just go stand around to fire and drink beer. Yeah, like it's kind of it's pretty common. Okay, we also used to do it at my friend Broadford's house. He got this he somehow fashioned a burn barrel, where we would bring like old like old checkbooks that you didn't need any more things that you shredder like a shredder,

but you could just burn it and someone once brought someone's once brought the box that there are huge new Mac like desk monitor came in. So it was like a four foot cardboard cardboard box. And it they put it in the barrel, and it went up and the flames went so high that the fire department ended up coming to his house. And being like, you guys, you're in Hollywood, like you can't this was in Hollywood. Yes, this was in the backyard of like a duplex, right off of Highland. Oh, my God, department's like, you what are you doing? Yeah, this isn't fucking the sticks. We're like, we're just trying to enjoy ourselves. Anyway, don't be a bummer, man, in defense of bonfires. Okay, so this is the other thing. Melinda has known her husband since she was

young, they got married when they were 18 years old. And she's just like, this is not he is not this person. It's he is not the person he's not going to snap. He's never been an abusive person. He's not like that in any way. So all of a sudden him and, and even though she says they did not have an ideal marriage, they did fight. And she would go over to her mom's house and spend the night that happened up, you know, often. She said it wasn't ideal, but that it was just like any other marriage where that does happen. And she said her mom, although sometimes being disappointed in Clarence, loved him. And Clarence loved her mom there. There was no ill feeling between them. And so she's like, there's she just knew in her heart this it wasn't him. Yeah.

Yeah. And then also, all of his movements were accounted for that night, because he was either at home where she knew he was, or he was at bars around their town where all kinds of people swore that they saw him and knew he was there. And then he was back at home with her. So when police and then police, the police came and searched Melinda and Clarence's home hours after the attack. And they found no blood evidence anywhere in the house. And due to the extreme nature, like I was saying, of Judy's wounds and and of Brooks, there was no way that that perpetrator didn't have blood all over him and all over his clothes and probably in the car or every like there's everywhere. So they would have found at least something somewhere and there

was not a trace. In fact, the authorities said the amount of blood would have actually been staggering because of how bad it was at Judy Johnson's house. But that didn't matter because there was an eyewitness to the crime. And that was Brooke who said, someone who looked like her uncle Clarence. And that's, I think also it's, you know, we've heard about this in other similar types of cases. But I feel like if I was somebody who had to take a statement from a six year old who had been raped and beaten and left for dead. I mean, traumatized beyond belief. You if she tells you she saw the person you believe her. Yes. And you want to make give her justice and make this. But the phrase he looks like my uncle Clarence doesn't,

it means he was that tall. He was the same build. He had the same hair voice. It's what it reminded me. Yeah. Yes. Especially from a small child who like doesn't can explain a person. It's like, this is the closest I can explain. Exactly. Right. Right. But by the time it got to her taking a statement, her talking to the police, it had become it was my uncle Clarence. Right. And even though there was no physical evidence in any way linking Clarence Elkins to the scene of the crime, he was charged with aggravated murder, murder, aggravated attempted murder, rape and felonious assault. So five days after Judy and Brooks attack, Melinda and her sister April bury their mother, they hold hands during the funeral, then they leave and they don't speak

for three and a half years. Because you have to think about this is now your sister's husband and killed your mother and raped and attacked your daughter. Oh, my God. And then on the other side of that, from Melinda's side, so that's April's side and Melinda's side of it, your husband is accused of killing your mother, your mother's dad and child rapist. And yeah, to your own niece who you love as probably as much as your own kids. So everybody loses terribly in this scenario from the get go. I'm trying to like picture that but it's like these two women like need each other. Right. But I mean like how could and it's your yeah, it's your sister. Yeah. But this is like it's a circumstance that's just beyond anyone's anyone's dealing. So

at the trial, it began May 20, 1999, it was in Akron. And Brooke is now seven years old. She testifies that she saw her uncle Clarence killing her grandma. The defense attorney argues the phone message that Brooke left in the morning of the attack says somebody killed her grandma. Then this somebody had turned into somebody who looked like Uncle Clarence. And then that eventually became it was Uncle Clarence. Yeah. But because Brooke's eyewitness testimony is the only evidence presented because there it's the only evidence there is really at the time. Because all the blood events there's no they don't have. Yeah, they didn't DNA wasn't where where it eventually becomes. And so it's just that's the only evidence that the prosecution presents. And so that's the only

argument the defense can make. And so the jury. Oh, and and when Melinda it goes on the stand to say no, no, he was home with me and then he was out with his friends and they came back home. She tells her story. The prosecution basically makes her look like a stupid hick who's just lying and standing by her man. And they humiliate her on the stand and basically make it seem like well, you're just doing this for your husband. You're not incredible. Yeah. Yeah. So the jury deliberates for three days. And on June 3 1999, they find Clarence Elkins guilty of murder, two counts of rape and two counts of assault. And he's given two life sentences. Wow. So when the trial ends, the prosecutor turns and looks at Melinda Elkins and says, you're not going to see

her husband for 54 years. And she looks back at him and says, you want to bet because now because she knows now this is that he's been railroaded. What a dick. Can I say like that's unnecessary, dude? You just send him away. You don't need to fucking say something like that. But you have to think they think it's a child rapist and a murderer that they're sending away. They think they think that they're doing. She didn't do that. Yeah. But they're, you know, it's just that thing of like they've cast everybody and they need to see people in this way because it's what happened. And it's so awful. I mean, like a living child that's there to say this horrible thing happened to me is like that's going to turn everybody against going to get things extreme. But Melinda knows

and Melinda with with the weight of the world on her shoulders. And this is I'm, you know, all of this part of the story is because Melinda tells her story on criminal with Phoebe Judge, which by the way, I thought of this joke where I can't wait to somehow someday and maybe you'll be there for it. Get like a bill at a restaurant that's really expensive. And I'm going to go, I'm Phoebe Judge and this is criminal. And I might stand up when I do it. Oh my God. Just saying. I love it. That hit me as I was driving. I'm like, that's going to be so funny. I didn't do the voice well enough about them. But what do you think I am Phoebe Judge? Because this is criminal. Because this because you think I'm Phoebe fucking judge? Because this is, you

know, like Phoebe Judge suddenly starts talking like that. Instead of just like this, what do you think I am Phoebe Judge? Because this is criminal. Yeah. Okay. Shout out to Phoebe Judge. Oh my God. Yes. So, but, but that episode of criminal Melinda gets to tell her own story. And Melinda basically is one of those women that I really love and adore who the shit is on her. The weight of the world is on her shoulders. And she's like, now I got to get busy. I got to start doing something. And so what she does is she starts looking up who all the sex offenders in the area were at the time of this attack. That seems like something the cops should have done. Right. But the cops had their guy and they did their job and they went, that's it. And she was like, well, I got to be

the cop now because no one's going to work on this. I'm the daddy in this situation. I think as a baby, I'm the daddy in this situation. That's fucking right. So yes, Melinda stepped up and was the daddy in the situation. Because she not only wants to exonerate her husband who she knows is not guilty is going to jail for 54 years. But she also wants real justice for her mother, her murdered mother and for her niece. Knowing that there is a fucking psychopath like that out there, like you got it. Fuck, like your husband's in jail, whatever, like fucking go put this person away. And that feeling, which is also why this would be such a great movie. She's the only one who knows that there's a fucking child rapist murder out there still. And if she doesn't do anything,

it's, you know, he'll do it again. So what she does is she gets this list of the sex sex offenders in the area and she starts to track them down and find out where they hang out. She's dog the fucking bounty hunter. Yeah. And then she dresses up in sexy clothes and goes to their bars that they like to hang out in and flirts with them and gets in their proximity so that she can take their beer bottles, put them in plastic bags and run out what like she basically the story she tells on criminal with you be judge is that she would flirt with them, they get a beer. At some point, the guy would get up to go to the bathroom or go somewhere else. And she'd grab the fucking evidence, put it in a plastic bag and run to her car and like peel out and drive away.

She is and she puts the shit in her freezer. She said she had to tell her sons what she was doing because her freezer slowly became filled with these pieces of evidence that she knew if she saved them, she would have them to eventually test against the DNA they collected at the crime scene. And she knew that she had to do something and that's what she figured out to do, which is fucking genius. So she does this multiple times, puts herself in incredible danger. And all police and authorities say, do not do fieldwork. Do not do fieldwork if you're this person. But Melinda's case was special because she really was feeling on doing it. Yeah. What she then she she gets a new defense team for clearance. And because it's and it I'm sure wasn't that hard

to do because there's no physical evidence against him. And so she hires someone named Martin Yatt. And the two of them start working on the on this list of potential suspects. And while they do that, they find a video and it's a video of I think from what I remember, I think it was like a family wedding. But Melinda sees her mother in the video and she sees a young man that's kind of around her mother. He's like standing near her a lot looking at her trying to talk to her and just kind of like around and she yeah, she gets serious creeps because his behavior is so odd because this guy's 27 and her mother is in her late 50s. Not only that, but he looks a lot like Clarence. Uh huh. So she they base they find that he they track him down. He's living in

the area. Um, and Melinda starts to she knows that her mother told him to leave her alone that basically said, I'm old enough to be your mother. What are you doing? So Melinda is like, that's motive right there. So, uh, basically, he gets questioned, but he's cooperative. He answers all the questions and he volunteers to give DNA. Um, so while all this is happening, Martinian tells Melinda, you should really try to you should really get your sister, like try to communicate with your sister again, because if she can just see how clear it is that Clarence didn't do this and that they're the evidence really is in his favor, maybe she can like it'll heal some really, really deep awful wounds and you guys can like you need each other.

You can't do this by yourself. And so Melinda called her sister and basically that's all it took. And she basically said she basically said that, you know, like if you would just look at these facts. But also by this point, Brooke was 10 years old and Brooke was starting to say, you know, they they, I was saying what they wanted me to say. And as they were, as they were one day looking through, I think it was a photo album. I can't remember what happened, but Brooke looked down and said, or maybe it was a picture of this suspect. And Brooke said, well, it couldn't have been him because his eyes are blue and it couldn't have been Uncle Clarence because his eyes are blue and the man who attacked us, his eyes were brown. And like that's when she's starting as a child who

you know is now a little has a little breathing room and is a little far away from it is going. Yeah. Now that I remember that that wasn't like that's not accurate. Yeah. So when they show Brooke a picture of this 27 year old man, her face drops and like she looks terrified and both April and Melinda are convinced that they found their guy. But when the DNA test comes back in 2001, it's not a match and they can't believe it. They thought it was like the perfect thing. But the good news is that they also tested Clarence Elkin's DNA against this DNA that they were testing, which was the samples that were found in both Judy and Brooke's underwear. And those samples matched. It was one DNA. What do they call that when the person gives it to one

DNA? Well, sample, but yeah, yeah, but a profile. It's a single profile in both. So they know it's that that's the guy. But it's not this young guy that was flirting with the mother. But it's also not Clarence Elkin. Yes. And so they Brooke officially recants her testimony in a recorded deposition. And in January 2002, they put in a request for a new trial and they're denied. But Melinda is not deterred in 2004 with the help of the Innocence Project. A judge agrees to further DNA tests with biological matter from vaginal swabs that were taken from both victims or from Judy Johnson and fingernail swabs or fingernail residue from Brooke. And because before only the hair was tested. And so the only caveat in that the judge said that the family has to pay for it and it cost

$40,000. Holy shit. So Melinda is like, we have to do this and we have to get it done. They don't have money like that in any way. But her and her sons decide they're going to start a website, a fundraising website called Free Clarence Elkins. And they just put all the information about Oh, my God, everything that we've talked about so far on the website. And they start raising money. They end up raising the money over $40,000. They get the evidence tested. The test reveal, it's all that same DNA profile again. It's not Clarence. They request again, they request another retrial. They're denied again. I know. Yeah. Because he was convicted on the eyewitness testimony, not on DNA evidence. But the DNA is proving that eyewitness testimony is wrong.

Right. So now it's 2005. Melinda is at home reading the newspaper. And on the front page, she reads a story about a couple in her mom's town who are arrested for raping their own children. And as she reads it, she sees the name Tonya Brazel and Earl Mann. And that was Judy Johnson's neighbors that Brooke walked over to their house the morning after she woke up from the attack and asked for help. And Tonya said, you wait on the porch while I make my kids breakfast. What a fucking cunt. And of course, electric charges run up and down Melinda's spine because she knows this is it. So it turns out that, and again, if anyone forgot, Tonya is the one who told April when they got to the house. She said it was her uncle. Not that it looked like

her uncle, but that it was her uncle. So it turns out Earl Mann, who is Tonya's common law husband, was a convicted sex offender who'd gone missing from his halfway house five days before the rapes and the murder of Judy Johnson. So now Melinda is on fire with the Lord. She's like, we know it's this guy. She looks it up. She finds out Earl Mann is serving time in jail in the same jail that Clarence Elkins is serving time in. She goes to the prison to visit Clarence and she says you. Oh, first she starts. She tries to write letters to Earl Mann so that she can get a letter back. Yeah, like a flirty letter in a different name thinking she'll send a letter back and she'll she'll have the DNA on the envelope. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He never

responds. Okay. So she goes and visits Clarence in jail and says you have to get a DNA sample. She says, do you know a guy named Earl Mann and Clarence Clarence says, yeah, he's sitting right over there and Melinda looks over it's in he's in the the what are you meeting room? Visitor's room. Yeah. Yeah. And so she he's blocked. So she gets up and walks over to the vending machine so she can see his face and she knows she's looking at the murder her her mother's murderer and her niece is rapist. And as she's walking and she makes eye contact with him, she realizes that she can't betray anything on her face because he may have seen her on the news right as the wife and he must know that Clarence Elkins who Clarence Elkins is and why he's in

that jail. So she smiles at him like just oh, I'm just making a contact with somebody. Her telling that story on criminals pretty amazing because she just realized it's just a woman who is coping coping coping and making shit work so that she can get like get to this end goal. It's incredible the strength she must fucking have. So basically, she says the best thing you could do is get a cigarette butt from him and leave the most on there. You have to pick it up with a Kleenex make sure you don't contaminate it. And you're the only person that can do this. So basically Clarence Elkins goes to he sees our old man smoke a cigarette and put it out in a clean ashtray out in the yard. And he goes over with peace Kleenex in his hand and picks up the

cigarette butt and has to hide it in a Bible for two weeks before he can send it to his lawyer. So he finally is able to send that evidence to the lawyer and they test the cigarette but they send it off for testing. It's a match to the DNA that's found on Judy and Brooks underwear. So on December 15, 2005, the lawyer's petition again, only this time, the district attorney calls for the immediate release and acquittal of Clarence Elkins. He has been in jail for six and a half years. And he on the same day that they call for it, Clarence Elkins walks out of prison. Now, this is the heartbreaker to me, even though it's of all this story is so awful. Less than a year later, Clarence and Melinda filed for divorce. And when I heard that part,

I was just like, this fucking woman bent over backwards for you. I feel like, look, you don't think it could have been her that it could have been anything. It could have been anything. All I'm saying is someone gets you the fuck out of jail. You do anything for them. Maybe you give up some of your bullshit. Maybe you, maybe, but you know. But I think like maybe she was still over it, you know, like maybe she didn't do it because it was her husband that she was in love with. Maybe she just did it because this person she's known since 18 years old and like, and she knew it was wrong. It knew it was wrong. And it was her mother. It wasn't like she was like, I gotta get my husband back so he can

fucking cook me breakfast all the time because I got him out of prison. Like, no, I know. I just feel like the effort she put in and she just didn't give up. And there was, you know, in this again, why this would be an amazing movie, there were reasons for her to give up about five different times and she just didn't do it. Totally. It's amazing. But yeah, I don't want anybody to be in an unhappy marriage. Yes, you do. It sounds like you do. If I can't be happy, no one should. Here's what's cool. Melinda Elkins Dawson is her new name was instrumental in getting Ohio to pass Senate Bill 262, which is also known as the post conviction DNA law. And that means that there need to be provisions for DNA testing post conviction, which if the outcome could change,

could change the deter it says determinative outlines. I'm not I'm trying to short. I'm trying to shorten something that I can't even explain your lawyer. But but then also Clarence Elkins was instrumental in getting Ohio to pass Senate Bill 77, which is also known as Ohio's Innocence Protection Act, which requires police to follow best practices for eyewitness identifications and provide incentives for the videotaping of interrogation. Yeah, dude. Right. And requires DNA be preserved in homicide and sexual assault cases. Because you know, sometimes they go, Oh, we don't have any of the DNA. Right. It's solved. We can throw the like he got convicted. We can throw this out. Yeah. So both of them Melinda and Clarence kicked ass and actually got

the law changed so that this to prevent this from happening to people in the future and to basically adapt. It's like our legal system in especially in that time really needed to update itself because it's like if you have this science, you that you can't say we never go back and test anything because there's innocent people in jail. Yeah. And the science is always, you know, getting better and better. Yeah. Yeah. And we know that now know that witness testimony, eyewitness testimony is just not reliable at all. Right. And that they're the police procedure. Right. There are times where there is no the coercion was just the beginning of it. I mean, it's not even like purposeful coercion. It's just wanting to understand and, you know,

it just becomes something else, especially when you're interrogating a young child. Right. Well, right. There's the two parts where there are there are the people who are like, we'll just beat it out of you. We'll keep you here for 14 hours. And then you'll say whatever we want. There's that part that that has to end. But then there is that thing of whose job it is to talk to a six year old who has to tell you a story like that and the the human impact of that and what you would then want done to the person you think did that to her. How do you not, you know, go a little bit blind and just try to get the job done. Totally. Another, you know, positive is that Clarence Elkins ended up getting millions of dollars pursuing.

He settled with the state of Ohio for $1.75 million. $1.075. Over a million dollars. Just just million, several million dollars. And he also also settled with the city of Barberton with the police department for $5 million. Jesus. I hope he gave a couple of those to Melinda. I know. I mean, for real. And he also, you know, had bad PTSD for a long time. I mean, I'm sure that money is it's no it's no victory at the end of something like that. But that's the story of Clarence and Melinda Elkins. Fucking shit. God damn it. That's crazy. Yeah. Crazy story. Amazing. Good job. Yeah. What's your fucking hooray for this week? Oh, wait, let's just do a yoga corner check in. Oh, okay. Because I want to do it because

I did it again. And I'm very proud of myself. But partly only because I've developed something called plantar fasciitis, which is the most painful foot issue that is such a bummer. And I was like, I have to go to yoga because I have to start stretching. And it's all it's all basically muscular, whatever. So I went back to the general yoga. And I swear to God, things like this happen. When I got to the yoga class, the first stretch we did was the stretch I had been doing that helps plantar fasciitis. And she's like, we're just going to do this calf stretch against the wall. And I was just like, God, that's weird and fateful. It is. It's like everything happens for a reason. So I'm kind of excited because I now I feel like the that whatever the

beginner's ice has been broken. The momentum. Yeah, I started well, it didn't do it for me. But I do have an email that I can read. Oh, okay. Just as good. Not better. Great. Right. Karen, Georgia, Stephen, fuzzy friends, I heard on today's episode, you suggest that people organize murdering yoga classes to raise money for good causes. Oh, funny thing, the Richmond, Virginia murdering is just organized one. Whoa, I set up a meet up yesterday evening and it was full. I set up that set it up. It was full by this morning. I'm setting up a second one for the waitlist one get everyone a chance to participate. I've chosen and the backlog as our good cause. Not only do I want to offer some sort of justice for the victims, but let's

face it, rape is a gateway drug to murder. Instead of a murder themed flow, we're going to practice a warrior themed flow to offer up strength for victims. Good. And so this was sent in by Katie, who's the owner and instructor at Lunge Yoga in Richmond, Virginia. So awesome. So fucking cool. I love that. So I'll go great. I'll go this week to participate. We'll keep we'll keep it going. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have to or I'm because I'm becoming the ossified man. It's really frightening. It's like all my all my muscles are like, well, if you're not going to use us, we're just going to freeze up permanently. Horrifying. Love it or leave it. Yeah. My fucking hooray. I just I've had a lot of anxiety lately and stress and unhappiness and just over social

media. So I took Twitter and Facebook off my phone. Yep. And I'm just not using them at all right now. And it doesn't feel great yet. It's not like I'm like, I feel amazing. No, it doesn't feel great. It's hard. It is hard. And I and I'm bored. But, you know, I'm glad I took a stand. I called my psychiatrist to my anxiety medications. So good. Took some steps to alleviate my anxiety a little bit instead of just, you know, sitting in it. And it's just a it's a comfortable, familiar feeling. But I know it's not where I want to be. Oh, that's good. Yeah. That's very good self care. Oh, I also want to say real quick, I just I thought of this about my story that we're not making fun of or making drug addiction or heroin use, you know, a hilarious thing. Drugs. If you

have a drug issue, please go get help. Yeah, I think we made that super clear. Okay, great. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I I'll tell you 95 more sad stories about how uncool drugs are. Yeah. Well, my my fucking hurry this week is a little weird. Because I got very bad news on Tuesday morning. And I haven't processed it yet. But I do want to talk about it. Because it's my auntie Ping died. And she was I've known her since I was like in third grade, she was my one of my mom's very best friends. And she was one of the very few people that stayed with my mom all the way through her illness. The entire time she was there for me and my sister, she always had been she was just one of those like a real matriarch and a real badass. She had a heart attack

and died very suddenly. She was relatively young. Yeah, I have not processed it yet. It's not like hasn't really impacted me. It was so shocking that and there's been so many other things going on that I've kind of like gone, okay, I'm going to give myself four days and then I'm going to deal with that later. But it's because like, she is just one of those people that you never thought was going to be gone. And so I would I guess my I would like to say this, we are only here for like fucking 15 minutes. I'm not kidding. The older you get. And when you're younger, you feel like nothing's ever going to happen to you. You feel you feel like you feel like you have all this time and that you can waste your time on stupid bullshit. You can waste your time on hating yourself. You

can waste your waste your time on hating other people. I don't recommend it. We're on a clock. And if you can right now, the younger you are or wherever you are, if you can just understand that accept that a little bit and start living your life like you could lose the people you love the most tomorrow, or you could die tomorrow. I think it's a smarter way to live instead of getting it makes you extend yourself to people. It makes you a little less self obsessed and a little more outward outwardly oriented. And I just think like I was home for my sister's birthday. I could have called my anti ping and had lunch with her. I didn't do it. And now I'm never going to see her again. And I regret that so much. But that's kind of how it is like, and that's how it

is with anybody. So I love you anti ping. Thank you for everything. And love the people that you love and try to do better with loving the people that you don't love. It's just better for you. That's beautiful, Karen. I'm so sorry for your loss. No, thank you. Cheers to anti ping. Yeah, she was the greatest. She really was ping demo. We'll miss her. Yeah. Amazing. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for listening, everyone. Stay sexy and don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, you want a cookie?