My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 149 - Lifestyle & Feelings

Episode Date: November 29, 2018

Karen and Georgia cover the Missoula Mauler and the Forest Park Killer.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-m...y-info.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 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. Hi. Hi. Hi. Welcome to my favorite murder. It's a podcast. You know it. That's Karen Kilgaro. And that's Georgia Hardstark. And of course, there's Stephen sitting over there on the ground. That's right. Just maintaining. That's exactly right. Oh, fucking today. Oh, Wednesday is the fucking day that our fucking podcast network launched. We launched that mother today is the day. Congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations
Starting point is 00:01:08 to you. Thank you. It feels great. We've been working on it. We've been multitasking for quite some time. We're not complaining. No, we're just letting you know that it's a yeah, it was very exciting. It was so exciting. It was surreal. I couldn't sleep last night. It feels it feels good and I'm very, I'm very happy about it. Big thanks to Danielle Kramer. She is our producer and she has basically been making it happen in the real, I was going to say, meat and bones way. Is that a saying? No, it is not. In America? No, it is. Danielle Kramer is a is a business wonder and she has been guiding us and helping us navigate and making it happen and who wouldn't have been able to do without her. So yeah, we couldn't be more excited to be working with her
Starting point is 00:01:56 and to be having this, this podcast network that we've been planning and dreaming about and doing things for. And the cool thing is for shows premiered, I guess the fall line, the per cast, of course, do you need a ride? And this podcast will kill you. Yes. And my favorite murder, of course. And of course, the old, my favorite murder, you know, and this podcast will kill you is like number three on the overall charts. It's that shot up. Those girls did great. The following is number five. The following went right up there. Top iTunes charts overall. And on the lifestyle and feelings charts. What is it called, Steven? Society and culture. Society and culture and feelings. The podcast came in hot, hot, heavy, right? Yeah. I think I think that's appropriate
Starting point is 00:02:43 to lifestyle and feelings, cat people. Yeah. Feelings feeling strong about your pet. Yeah. Felines. Yeah. Feline. Yeah. Number, I think right now it's number 10 or 11. That's amazing. It's very exciting. Yeah. And then of course, there's even more to come. Oh yeah, we've got more podcasts coming you guys. Shit. And we're very excited about the talent that we have. We wish we could scrim it at you, but we can't yet. You'll be very excited, but we, this is our foundational block of four. Yeah. I feel, I feel very proud of us. Yeah. As women start, you know, business women and this is all we're making it happen. My mom texted you today. Janet, Janet sent me a private text. Janet said, I want to wish Karen congratulations to,
Starting point is 00:03:29 what's her phone number? And I was like, Oh, no. And I asked you first, like, can I give my mom your phone number? This might go very poorly. And normally I don't want to text with people's parents. I'm not a parents person. I've always been a real rebel. I want to, I want to peel out away from your parents. You want them to be like, you shouldn't hang out with her. Yeah. There are people who always be like, my parents are in town. Do you want to go out to dinner? I was like, no, I'd really, really don't. I went out to dinner with your dad. Now that's an exception. Yeah. I'm holding everybody else's parents to the standard of my dad. That's great. Do your parents party? No, goodbye. Do your parents tell a good story? No, sorry,
Starting point is 00:04:06 I can't do all the work. Sure. But no, Janet sent me a very touching and actually it was a kind of message that reminded me of what my mom would do where it's like, this is a big deal and I'm so proud and I can't believe it. And it was just like, in the future holds this, it does. And I, she said, I love you in it, which is, you, Janet, she, she killed it. She killed it. Yes. She really meant a lot to me. I'm proud that to be her daughter that when she does stuff like that. Yeah. It's other times. Sunshine and rain, you know, joy and pain. That's right. Yeah. So that's, it's all happening. I spent on my drive over here, spent about 15 minutes still, and I've already done this before trying to explain to my dad what a podcast network is, what it means. He just keeps trying
Starting point is 00:04:53 to bring it back to like radio. My mom doesn't understand either one. I'm like, it's basically like a TV network that has shows. How hard is that to understand? Right. Because my dad goes, so on the shows that you premiered today, did they make them all at your offices? And I was just like, dad, it's like, if we were Netflix, and then all the movies were just presenting the movies, he's like, oh, okay. Why don't you say that? Yeah. Why didn't you say that in that exact way to make me understand and now forget by the next time we talk? Promise you. Yes. We're going to have to have the conversation a couple of times. Look, look, it's the Wild West is podcasting. It's Brave New World. We're proud to be a part of it. That's right. We really are. We should also thank our agent,
Starting point is 00:05:36 Orrin Rosenbaum, who's also helped us, but guided us through this. It's been very business-y. So there's been a lot of business. A lot of business. A lot of texts and a lot of calls. Yeah. I'm tired. Oh, we, what? We have, I mean, this is a brag. Yeah. But we've done over 21 conference calls, I would say. We've done like 10 hours of work on this. So a week. So we've done some serious picking. Yeah. We had to take it really hard. Can I do a merch corner? Would you? A fucking holiday merch. Holiday merch, girl. As of today, Thursday, whatever it is, November 29th. Your Thursday. Your Thursday or Wednesday. Is there a November 29th? Yes. It's here? Okay. November 29th is the holiday merch is out. We have the Le Chaim
Starting point is 00:06:25 Bitches t-shirt that I'm so excited for. We have some new ugly holiday sweaters with new fucking quotes on them. We fucking have my favorite murder wrapping paper. Yes. We have my favorite murder motherfucking candles. Scented candles and four delicious flavors. Can I tell everyone what flavors they are? Would you please? I would love to. Hold on. Let me find them. And then we can talk about that. Wow. Those beaver nuggets that they gave us at the Texas gas station. Okay. One candle sent is canned wine. Canned wine. Another is stay out of the forest. It's a piney. It smells like pine trees. There's Karen's big ol' cup of coffee. Hi. And then there's an Elvis wanna cookie that smells like a fucking cookie. Actual cookies. Not a cat tuna cookie,
Starting point is 00:07:14 but an actual nice cookie. That's right. There's a here's the thing. Fuck everyone's wet pants. There's a cross stitch pattern. Yeah. And there's a bunch of different wrapping papers and t-shirts and so many things. And you get a free gift for 75 orders over $50. Get a free gift with purchase. Well, oh, we also have Christmas tree decor, Christmas ornaments. Ornaments we call them. Really? Ornaments? They're called ornaments. Yeah. It's really exciting. So go to my favorite murder.com. There's a shop there. You can shop. Go have fun. It's very exciting. Also, there's a merch store for exactly right network. Right. And that has, there's a really cool coffee mug with the logo on it. The logo is so fucking cute. I love it so much. Yeah, they did a great,
Starting point is 00:07:56 the mid-roll designers, they have a design team that killed it with the merch. I love it. And there's a little, there's a little makeup pouch. There's an enamel pin that's so popular these days. So you can go to exactly right media. And that's our website. So if you want to follow the living news and shit on that, there's a fucking newsletter. Yeah. You can get a newsletter. You can just check and follow along from when we post those, you know, every new podcast that we post. Right. It's going to be your, change it to your homepage. Just get in there. Get in, I don't know how to tell you how to do it. Go around your office and change everyone's at night. Change everyone's homepage to exactlyrightmedia.com. Stop landing on that Yahoo homepage
Starting point is 00:08:36 and guess on over. It's all bad news anyways. Hey, do you want to hear some good news? I do. This is an email that Steven pulled for us. And the subject line is, I'll free what it is my aunt. Oh my God. Dear all, long time listener, first time emailer. I've been a fan since day one. I love this podcast so much. So you can imagine my joy when I was listening to episode 146 and Karen started talking about Elfrey Woodard. She is my aunt by marriage, married my uncle. They met while she was teaching an acting class at his college scandal. And she is, she's given away the family secret. And she's absolutely amazing. Unlike a lot of other Hollywood royalty, she's a big part of our family and is always at family functions. She's an amazing cook, a sparkling
Starting point is 00:09:23 personality and a fabulous mom to her two children. I was so thrilled to hear you two talk about her because she's an incredible actress. Yep. Who I think often doesn't get the recognition she deserves the fucking that's right. She started acting in the 80s and I can't imagine it was easy for an African American woman to get roles, but she worked her ass off to get where she is today with no favors from anyone. And not only is she a great actress, you know, I'm going to start crying during this email. Not only is she a great actress, but she and her husband, Roderick, are total criminal justice warriors. And they're both involved in fighting against the mass incarceration of minorities. And of course, against everything Trump, you can imagine
Starting point is 00:10:03 how thrilled they both were when I took the job after law school as a public defender. Whoa, that's rad. Oh my God. Well, a lot of members of my family joked about how I would be getting them out of their DUIs. And she wrote in parentheses, I roll. Alfre told me, girl, you are doing the Lord's work. Next time I visit LA, you two should come hang it out. Oh my God. No. Stop it. I'm officially inviting you. No, she'd love it. No, she would not. I'm telling you. Stop it. Love the podcast. Love you guys. Keep on fighting. Good fight. Sincerely, Marina. That. Thank you so much. Yeah, that was a, I mean, I won't go back into it, but amazing. And now we have a fucking lawyer when we get our DUIs because now we have to that we're business people. Marina, I start
Starting point is 00:10:52 to woke you up. I'm usually not like this. Remember when you let me over? Can you call everywhere to pick me up? Yeah, that's, I love things like that. That's so great. Because how fun is it to be able to step forward and be like, oh, you know, your favorite celebrity, they're not an asshole. They're actually as awesome as you think they are. Right. Yeah. Yay. So nice. Good feelings. Yay. Good feelings. It's the holiday season. Okay, I'm gonna, I'm going to do this as lightly as I can. Uh-oh. Are you gonna? I'm not going to yell at anybody. Me? Nope. Definitely not you. Okay. And probably not Stephen. This is just a general advice, piece of advice for interacting on Twitter. Let's see. Let's hear it. This is Twitter Corner
Starting point is 00:11:40 with Karen. This is Twitter Corner with Karen. Just advice. Do you want to have fun on Twitter? Do you want to interact? Do you want people to want to interact with you? Okay. Then if somebody makes a joke and they're talking about real people and possibly real people that you and I might know, don't act anybody in a response. Like, don't act anybody that's real ever. Who are we talking? Can you tell me what happened? No, I don't want people to feel bad. I really don't want people to feel bad because there's no fallout for this. Okay. But it's just more of a touch. It's like a it's like a mortifying moment. Yes. You have to remember that we know a lot of the people in comedy that we talk about. Yeah. And we don't want you don't need to be the person that goes
Starting point is 00:12:21 and goes, I bet this person needs to know this. Karen talked about you. Don't do it. If we didn't do it, you don't need to do it. Yeah. Don't do it. They don't like it. They might not like it. Yeah. Maybe they love it. We don't know. Stop assuming everybody likes it. Yeah. And don't do it. Okay. This has been Twitter Corner. Twitter. What's the word? Twitter? Twitter Corrections Corner. Yeah. That's perfect. I'm trying to think of one for Instagram, but it's fine. Nobody wants to see your food anymore. No, I want to see everyone's food. Oh, you do? Yeah. Yeah. That's just a preference thing. I love food photos. I don't know anything about Instagram. I shouldn't be talking at all. Is that it? Don't take pictures of your thighs.
Starting point is 00:13:03 No, and do the hashtag thighs or hot dogs. Legs or hot dogs. Excuse me. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. They look like legs or hot dogs. That's the best. That's the best. I love that. People being like red, like Hulk Hogan tan, taking pictures of their thighs. So good. Listen, celebrate. Good times. Come on. Oh my God, Stephen, who goes first? It's been so fucking long. It's been so long. I believe you go first. It was the Lodi Haystack murders in Sacramento. Shit. Wow. I feel like it's been so long since we've podcasted. And we're doing it in my living room, which is weird because the pod loft is so full of boxes and gifts and crazy things. Yeah. We can't even fit up there. And luckily we're moving to our offices this fucking weekend. I'm
Starting point is 00:13:48 so excited. Exactly right. Offices. We have exactly right offices where the people who are on the network are going to come and record their podcasts. That's right. It's all real and official. We're just like the Velveteen rabbit. We're real. We're real. Oh, and we're going to get pneumonia, was it? No, that's the secret garden. No, didn't the little boy in the Velveteen rabbit get pneumonia and died? Did he fucking die? I think he fucking died. I only focused on the rabbit part of that story. Don't care about the rest. I love the children's books used to be about dying children and children who die where it's like, can you imagine? Well, it's like Charlotte's web. It's like, get ready to cry your fucking eyes out. Yeah, that's right. Remember that thing you loved?
Starting point is 00:14:27 It died. It died. Oh, I remember my mom crying so hard when she read that to us. She couldn't speak. I think I was like four and I remember seeing your mom weep. Yes, because it's so touching. It's so touching. It's so beautiful and it also really is like, but it's not a children's book. If you're getting into mortality shit, then leave the kids out of it. The giving tree? The giving tree is like a story about a short asshole. Yeah, who gets old and dies. Yeah. Everyone. And it's like, you chop the fucking tree down. All that tree did was give you everything. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is and then it's like, guess what? The tree is your parents. You better love your parents. Sorry, but the tree is your mother. Yeah. The tree is your straight up mother.
Starting point is 00:15:10 That's right. You fucking chopped her down and chopped away. Tits look terrible. Took her branches, her hot branches, her hot perky branches. You always told her she embarrassed you. That's right. You always told her she wasn't cool. You made her look like a fucking stump of a person. You stole all her apples. And then you at the end, you sit on her and you sit right the fuck on her stump. Janet, I'm sorry. Janet, I'm sorry. I'm going to text her back right now. Georgia's sorry. Janet, listen, Georgia doesn't want to have to say that's herself. I'll do it. No, she's like, she'll be like, what have you done with my daughter? That's not my daughter.
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Starting point is 00:16:22 I miss cooking so much. I haven't lifted a knife or a pan since like early fall. So I can't wait to get back in the kitchen and HelloFresh makes it so easy and also makes it so that my food tastes good, which is hard to do on my own. It gives you everything, everything you need. So get up to 20 free meals with purchase plus free shipping on your first box at hellofresh.ca slash murder20 with code murder20. That's up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hellofresh.ca slash murder20 and use code murder20. Goodbye. Hey, I'm Arisha. And I'm Brooke. And we're the hosts of Wondery's podcast Even the Rich, where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families
Starting point is 00:17:09 and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about the incomparable Diva, Whitney Houston. Whitney's voice defined a generation and even after her death, her talent remains unmatched. But her incredible success hit a deeply private pain. In our series, Whitney Houston, Destiny of a Diva, we'll tell you how she hid her true self to make everyone around her happy and how the pressure to be all things to all people led her down a dark path. Follow Even the Rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Oh, I'm first. Okay. All right. Listen, this is a this is a this is a rough one. This is like a fucking murder case. Okay, but it has positive things in it, including an I survived story.
Starting point is 00:18:02 Amazing. And it has some, you know, it, it ends, it ends. So that's good. Okay. Mine is similar. If you're about to do mine, where's your place? I'm gonna pull that pedicure off your foot. Where does your mind takes place in Portland, Oregon? Nope. Okay, bye. We're good. Great. Because mine is called the Missoula Mahler. Missoula Montana. Okay, I've never heard of this. This one is bananas. And there's like, there's a book about it called it's by John Costin called To Kill and Kill Again. But aside from that, there's really the articles are really short. There's not a ton of stuff. There's not a ton of podcasts, like episodes about it, but it's fucking bananas. So let us do it. Do it. Missoula Montana, you've been there gets where Chris Fairbanks is from.
Starting point is 00:18:50 Oh, really? Co host of Do You Need a Ride the podcast that didn't fucking bother to put out a new episode. And still, I mean, I couldn't, I, sorry, but there's so much going on. I planned it so poorly. And Chris is like, you want to record a new episode? And I was just like, I can't. Please don't make me. And then we premiered anyway. And I was like, Oh, I didn't really think that through. I should have said yes. And like stayed up late. Oh, well, like anyway, but I will say this, you are enough Karen. Never. But new episodes are coming. Okay. And, and we're going to start booking like we're going to start getting back into our old booking routine. And Steven is our sound guy. Steven's in the car with us. In the car. I'm not. I get car sick. Yeah. And I'm not part
Starting point is 00:19:35 of the podcast. You were on it once. I was on it once. You can take Elvis with you if you want. He loves car rides. He loves car rides. You know, cats. Okay, Missoula Montana, where Chris Fairbanks is from. Well, in the 1970s, it's a place, it's the kind of fucking place we always hear about where people leave their doors unlocked, women feel comfortable walking home alone at night. It's, you know, this is, this is their story of when that fucking stops, which every town has either in the 70s or 80s, maybe the 90s, if they're lucky. And that they felt that way until the 1970s. So first in on February 5, 1974, a five year old girl named Siobhan McGinnis disappeared just a few blocks walk from her home. And it was one of those things where like, she left her at
Starting point is 00:20:16 night, she left her friend's house, she's five years old. Five. Her friend walks her halfway there and says, okay, go the rest of the way by yourself, which was totally fine. Five years old. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. It's so sad. But it's like how things were back then. It was absolutely how things were. It was how things were when I grew up too. I was fucking always alone. Yeah. And she disappears and is shortly later found stabbed and sexually assaulted nearby. And that kind of this, that isn't part of this, this Missoula, Mahler, he's later exonerated through DNA. But it's just kind of, it's, you know, it has to be mentioned as what happened in Missoula to change it. So her murder is still unsolved. And then what follows
Starting point is 00:20:57 her murder is 12 years of seemingly random murders and a series of home intrusions and attempted rapes that terrifies the residents of Missoula and changes the small town way of life forever. Wow. And that's where the Missoula Mahler comes in. Okay. So the first confirmed murder known to have been committed by the Missoula Mahler happened on April 11, 1974. It's just like a little after two months before little Siobhan had been murdered. So two months later, this town is still fucking reeling. They still don't know who did it. Donna Pounds, she's a homemaker. She gets home from an outing around 1.30 in the afternoon. And her husband was at work. Her teenage daughters at school, her teenage son had joined the army. So she expected to come home to an
Starting point is 00:21:42 empty fucking house. But once she's in the door, she's surprised by an intruder. The intruder had gone into the parents' bedroom and taken the gun, I don't know what kind of gun, her husband's gun from its hiding place in the parents' bedroom. He knew where it was. So I bet you it's like a hand gun, right? If there's a hiding place, it's hard to hide a rifle. Probably. Yeah. And the intruder walks Donna at gunpoint to her bedroom where he had been fucking hanging out in the house and had already fucking put the ligatures and ties on the bed. Gross. I know. This is really awful. Just a warning. Yeah. This is called my favorite murder. We do awful here. We do awful. He ties Donna up. He rapes her. He takes her down to the basement and shoots her in the back of the head
Starting point is 00:22:29 five times. It's awful. Her husband, Harvey, who's a fucking preacher who has a radio show where he's actually been fucking preaching about the evils that is taking over the town because of Siobhan's murder recently comes home to find that evening to find his fucking wife dead in the basement. It's so fucking awful. And there's this really creepy thing I heard, like a little fact that creeped me out on the podcast called Dark Topic that said that the dad got home in the evening after work, the daughter or teenage daughter was hanging out watching TV. He's like, where's your mom? She's like, I don't know where she is, but I don't know why all these ropes are around the house. Oh no. How creepy is that? That's horrifying. He was like, what the fuck's going on? Went in the
Starting point is 00:23:11 bedroom, realized something was going on, went down to the basement. Oh no. I know. So then the husband found her. Yeah. That's terrible. Yeah. Okay. Police find a suspect when a witness comes forward and says that they saw a local neighborhood boy or teen lurking in the backyard on the same afternoon of the murder. Oh, the teenager is 18 year old Wayne Nance. He's actually friends with the teenage kids of the pound, the pound kids and his son, this teenage son is in the army had like randomly casually told Wayne where the gun was hidden. No fucking shit. And then when investigators search Wayne's house, they find a pair of bloody underwear and a 22 cal and 22 caliber bullets. And they also uncover satanic books and a wire hanger shaped into a panic pentagram that Wayne
Starting point is 00:24:05 had used to fucking brand himself. Wayne, you need to get out in the sunlight and get some vitamin D because if you leave yourself in a room too long and read it enough crazy ass books, you're going to start doing things to yourself. You're going to start listening to the craziness in your head. That's right. None of that would be helpful to a person that's actually mentally ill. But it just makes me think of when I'm really bored at work and I take, I just have this very bad habit of I start to take paper clips and unfold them and fold them back. I found them in the pot loft all the time. There are just dozens and dozens of unfurled paper clips. And it's like, Karen's been here. And also I just was thinking the second you said I went, I wonder what shapes
Starting point is 00:24:52 those paper clips end up in because I'm not trying to do a shape. How did I just kept finding like kill? Like it just says kill. You're actually really skilled. It's a perfectly sculpted knife. Yeah. Whoa. How did she do that? She welded the two ends together. I'm not going to tell her she does that because I don't want, it's like waking a sleepwalker. I don't want to scare Karen of herself. I'm scared. So yeah, so he's fucking bananas. He's known around town as a teenager, being a weirdo. And there's also indications of animal sacrifices on the banks of the nearby Clark Ford River. So it seems like there's a satanic panic bullshit. This is way before it happened in 74, but I think that there are kids who are like teens who are crazy and want to
Starting point is 00:25:43 pretend that Satan is somehow stirring them or they're fucking mentally ill and that's what they do. Well, yeah, usually that's like, you know, the old psychopath trifecta or whatever, where it's harming animals. It dovetails very nicely into that, the satanic ritual shit because then it's like, oh, I already had the compulsion to kill this living thing. Right. And it's someone, and someone approves of it. You know, if I read about this, it's like I'm doing something good. What makes me feel like strong or safer or, you know, that was pure speculation corner with Karen and George. I mean, I am not a doctor and I'm not a Satanist. So don't listen to anything I say. Dr. Satanist, is that you? Well, hello and welcome to hell. Okay. Okay. The Missoula County
Starting point is 00:26:28 attorney at the time, his name is Robert. Do you do champs? Do you champs? Is that how you say it? I'm pretty sure it's do champs. He goes by Dusty. Cool. He issues a subpoena. He's like, this guy's fucking Nazis 18. Let's get him in prison immediately. Issues a subpoena puts Wayne in front of a grand jury wanting to indict him. It's the first grand jury since World War Two in Missoula. Wow. But the grand jury, after all this fucking evidence, they rule there's insufficient evidence to charge Wayne as a suspect. Plus he had passed a fucking polygraph, which we know now means he was fucking diabolical. Or it was an inaccurate. Right. Right. Or the person giving it was bad at it. I mean, any number of things. One of those little heart monitor things could
Starting point is 00:27:16 have just fallen off and down his shirt. Right. The first thing that passes through my head, though, is he could have that that it is circumstantial evidence. Yeah. All those things don't necessarily add up to murdering this totally and raping. It doesn't say anything about the underwear being the bloody underwear belonging to Donna. It doesn't say like that. So I bet you that if that was a provable thing. Right. There was DNA, obviously. They let him go and Dusty said, I did everything I could think of. He was cool and collected as a tombstone and he like questioned him for hours and he was just chill. Is chill the word? No. He was cool. So cool, dude. Yeah. No. In the decade that follows, Wayne straightens out, stops his satanic bullshit and joins the Navy. He's then
Starting point is 00:28:09 becomes, you know, stops being the weird around town, becomes known as a normal dude in Missoula. He becomes a truck driver and a part time either bouncer or bartender at a local bar. It says different things in different places. I mean, at a bar in Missoula, you probably do both, right? Double duty. You let people in and as you're like, you look at their ID, you hand it back to them, then you're like, what would you like to have tonight? And you walk along with them up to the bar. Right. Wash your hands real quick. Right. Right. Right. Hopefully. No. Yeah. Maybe. Draw him off on your jeans. That's right. Make that gin and tonic. But meanwhile, between 1975 and 1984, three unidentified bodies of teenage girls who are all decomposed beyond recognition are found
Starting point is 00:28:53 around the Missoula area all murdered. Oh, okay. Keep that in your brain. Okay. Oh, no, they're all Jane Doe's and they're given names based on the location of their discovery. So there's Betty Beavertail, Debbie Deer Creek and Christie Crystal Creek. But it's not until Wayne Nance's final attack that he's finally tied to these Jane Doe's. Okay. We're going to skip around a little. Okay. All right. So keep those in mind. Okay. And then let's fast forward to 1986. So we were in 1974 when, when Debbie Pound died or was murdered. Now we're in 1986, almost 12 years later. Wayne is now 30. He works driving a truck as a mover at a furniture company owned by a couple Doug and Chris Wells. They're like, I can't tell that doesn't say how old they are. They look like
Starting point is 00:29:44 they're in their 40s or attractive couple Chris, female Chris. She kind of looks like an American princess Diana kind of a thing like pretty. They look all American normal fucking people. Can I sidebar one thing? Always. My sister forces me to watch the TV she likes when I go visit her. So I was home for Thanksgiving. And I find myself watching Meghan Markle and American princess. Oh my God. And crying. You were crying because there's all, you know, they talk so much about the way princess Diana raised those boys and how hands-on she was with them and how different she wanted their lives to be from most royalty and then just like, and then being like, and it and marrying her is all of those things that she wants. Harry is now this embodiment of the beauty
Starting point is 00:30:37 of his mother and her humanitarian efforts and that they talk about when he dressed up as a Nazi for Halloween one year. But no, it was just, it was all about, because you know what's funny is when I watch that, I watch them get married. Please don't tell any of my Irish relatives, because they're very against British culture, especially the royalty. They've colonized Ireland and killed many of us. But look, listen, Meghan, that when I watched that wedding, it was so beautiful and the fact that there was this very strong African American cultural aspect to it was so fucking cool and so modern. And it just felt like this special was all about, there was all these talking head people, American and British who were just kind of like, this is the way of the future.
Starting point is 00:31:27 And this is the royal family updating themselves and being like, we're not like this dusty group of inbred weirdos. We're like, we're of the world and these boys are bringing us to the future. Love it. Anyhow, now I love Bravo television. I gotta try that sometime. I'm really sorry, that was an inappropriate sidebar on top of everything else. It's okay. Okay. That's what this podcast is called. So it turns out it's called, I challenge you to get back into this terrible subject. Well, let me get back into it. So Wayne, he's working as a mover at this furniture company where Chris with a K, she works, he works, whatever. It turns out he'd been secretly stalking her for several months. Okay. On the night of September 4th, 1986,
Starting point is 00:32:18 Wayne shows up at the Wells house, what's up? Chit chatty on the fucking lawn and asked Doug if he could borrow a flashlight. Doug's like, great, come on into the fucking garage. They get in the garage and Wayne hits Doug over the head with a block of wood. Doug begins bleeding from a deep scalp wound, but he still tries to fight Wayne off. Wayne picks up a lead pipe and beats Doug until he's unconscious. This ends well, don't worry. Just a morning. I shouldn't have told you that. Okay. He pulls out, okay, wait, okay. Then Wayne pulls out a revolver and grabs Chris, the wife, and forces her to the second floor bedroom where he ties her to the bed. Once she's secure, he goes, Wayne goes back downstairs and drags the unconscious Doug into the fucking
Starting point is 00:33:03 basement. He takes, he, and he ties him up to a post with clothesline. And then meanwhile, Doug begins to fucking wake up and Wayne beats him more. Then he takes out a fucking oak handle kitchen knife and stabs Doug in the fucking chest, puncturing one of his fucking lungs. Oh God. Wayne then leaves him down there in the basement, goes back upstairs where Chris is tied up. Okay. Despite his injuries, Doug fucking breaks free at his bindings. No. Then even with a fucking head wound and a pierced lung, he fucking pulls himself over to his workbench where earlier that fucking day, he had placed an antique lever action savage rifle. Good job. Earlier that day, grabs a rifle, puts a single bullet into it. He's in a hurry. He, he in his mind is like,
Starting point is 00:33:55 okay, if I just run into the bedroom and confront Wayne, he's going to use Chris as a shield. So instead he knocks on the fucking wall with the rifle. Wayne comes to go downstairs and see what the hell's going on. Wayne is crouched on the, like by the stairs on the first floor landing, takes aim and fires his single bullet at Wayne. The bullet hits Wayne on the side and knocks him over. But Wayne gets back up, even though his abdomen had a freaking bullet in it, starts to crawl back to the bedroom. Jesus. I know. Everyone is like on fucking Angel Destin. For real. Doug is now out of bullets because he only put one bullet in the gun. He starts hitting Wayne with the wooden butt of his rifle until the butt of the gun splinters.
Starting point is 00:34:41 Wow. He's fucking hitting him with it. Wayne is still trying to get to the bedroom, makes it to the bedroom where, but an equally badass Chris had, after hearing the rifle go off was like, did my husband just get shot? She fucking broke free of her bindings, except for one arm is still attached. So when Wayne crawls in while, while he's, while her husband is hitting him with the butt of the rifle, fucking Chris starts beating him up with her fists and kicking him. Whoa. Fuck. Yeah. Okay. Then Wayne pulls a gun from its pouch on his belt. I wonder if maybe his pants were off and the belt was in the bedroom and then he got to the, you know what I mean? Oh, right. He knew he had a gun there. Right. He fires at Doug, misses him. Oh, thank God.
Starting point is 00:35:24 A second shot catches Doug just above the knee, but Doug keeps coming at him. Now the splintered butt's not working. So he starts hitting him with the barrel of the rifle, which ends up getting so bent out of shape. It turns into an L from the force of hitting. Yeah. They're, they're fighting, they're tussling, they're fucking fighting for guns and shit. Someone hits, it's at night. Someone hits the fucking lamp, it crashes to the ground, the lights go off, it's dark. Are you kidding? This is a movie. It's in the dark. Yes. Fuck. While, while it's in the dark, another shot rings out. What happened? What's going on? When they're finally able to get the light on, Wayne Nance is lying on the floor, dying. Oh, thank God. We don't know if it's accidental or on purpose,
Starting point is 00:36:08 but Wayne had shot himself in the head. What? There are, there's a bunch of different versions. People say he did it on purpose. Like he knew he was going to get killed, so he just shot himself and didn't want to get caught and taken to prison. There's a ready user that says that as Wayne was shooting at Doug in the dark, Doug's maybe smacked him in the arm and it sent the barrel up to his own head and shot himself in the skull. Sure. Maybe. But after the attack, which both of the fucking wells survive. Oh, thank God. Can you freaking believe that? Oh, my God. They survived. That's incredible. I know. And Wayne dies. Wow. Yeah. So now after the attack, the officers get a search warrant for Wayne's house and they turn up items there,
Starting point is 00:36:55 which link him to at least three murders and other cold cases and breakings in the fucking area. Shit. All right. So remember those Jane does. So the body of Debbie Deer Creek, she was a teenager and she had been found in advanced state of decomposition on December 24th, Christmas Eve, in case she didn't know, 1984. She had been found by a hiker in a frozen grave alongside Deer Creek Road almost two years before Wayne's death. So when Wayne's house was searched after his death, there was hair belonging to her found there. Like they could tell by the dye patterns and stuff that it was hers. And investigators were able to connect her to a photo she was in with Wayne. They're like, this is our Jane Doe that they found a photo of him. And you can see
Starting point is 00:37:40 it online. Amazing. But they didn't have a name for her. She had been a drifter that patrons of the bar were Wayne worked. They knew her as just Robin. They said that like they were together and but she disappeared just a few weeks after moving in with Wayne. And it wasn't until so she was found in 84. It wasn't until 2006 that her real identity was finally found. Wow. After over three decades of her brother, Derek Bachman, searching for her since she had left home when he was 14. Oh, no. I know. And so they were from Vancouver, Washington. So this whole time he was convinced that it was a green river killer that had killed her. Right. But they finally put this together when he saw like a drawing of her of the, you know, unidentified bodies, like I think that's my sister
Starting point is 00:38:28 and kept hounding them to do DNA tests. So finally they did it. And through new advanced DNA techniques, she was identified as Marcella nicknamed Marcy Bachman. And she had run away from Vancouver, Washington when she was 15. And she had after she had confided in her brother that their stepfather had been molesting her. And so her poor, poor fucking brother who was 14, like helped her pack her bags to get the fuck out of the house. Yes. And he always felt guilty about that and just spent his life trying to track her down. Oh, God, I know. What a hideous situation. What else is he supposed to do? Like make her stay? He has to help her leave. Yeah. And he's 14. He doesn't get to make, he can't make decisions like that. Those are huge decisions. It's so unfair.
Starting point is 00:39:11 It is. And then so Wayne Nance had taken her in quote after she was left by a truck driver in the area. Wayne claimed that she had left the area in September 1984. But when her body was found and identified, she'd actually been killed with three gunshots to the head. So it wasn't like moving in quote unquote with him. It wasn't that it was like, he was like, I have a safe place for you to stay. Yeah. And she believed him. Or yeah, or they were together, maybe who the fuck knows. And he's dead. So we can't answer these fucking questions. Right. They just have, well, they, I guess they were together long enough to get a picture taken and developed. And it's like a couple's like, no, it's like a couple's like, you know, photo booth photo. Oh, oh, got it.
Starting point is 00:39:53 One of those fucking 1980s, like photo booth, like they look like your mom and dad couple. Oh, so another link came when investigators turned at the house of Wayne turned up a Kelligan hunting knife, which is just like a cool looking little hunting knife, and a small ceramic statue of an elk, they found that when they searched his residence. So here's where those come in. In December 1985, someone had broken into the home of Michael and Teresa Shook, where they live with their four children in Robily, which is about an hour from Missoula. I'm sure I'm saying that wrong. Spell it like you say it. So Michael and Teresa had been tied up and shot in their home. And afterwards, their house had been set on fire with the four
Starting point is 00:40:40 kids in it. Okay, this sounds familiar. Michael shook. Yeah. But did he die in that fire? Yes. Okay. So the parents died, but luckily, one of the neighbors noticed a fire and were able to get all the kids out of the fucking house. Thank God. I know. Thank God. So following their investigation of the burned down house, the of the Shook house, the police determined that only two that two items had been taken from the home, a hunting knife and a ceramic elk. Whoa. And they found them in fucking Wayne's house. And this is so creepy. There was a photo of Wayne's dad, George, at Christmas, receiving a fucking ceramic elk as a Christmas present right at the time of the murders. This is textbook weirdo serial killer behavior. Seriously. Like how like the feeling
Starting point is 00:41:27 he must have gotten when his dad unwrapped it was like, Oh, I love it. Thank you. And he fucking knew. And he's standing there with like weird red pupils, like you're welcome. Yeah. Yeah. That's that trophy shit those serial killers love creeped fucking assholes. Okay. Due to the similar location and ammo police believe that he's also responsible for the death of a teenager whose body was discovered on a road. One of the other Jane Doe's in Missoula on January in January 1980, who was dubbed Betty beaver tail. She wasn't identified until 2009 with DNA testing as Devana Nelson. She was a 15 year old runaway from Seattle. There's like, I can't find any more information on her. It's kind of sad. She had been stabbed to death. And the other Jane Doe is
Starting point is 00:42:15 still unidentified. Wow. She was Christy Crystal Creek. And she was found on September 9 1985. Her skeletal remains of an Asian woman who had who's between 18 and 35 years old. She was found by a hunter in Missoula and she had been killed by two 32 caliber bullets to her head. And I feel like they need to do a re like a redrawing of her because the creepy ask like, you know, paper mache thing that they have of her is like, he doesn't look like anyone. It's so creepy. Yeah, like they need to redo it updated and update. Listen, Missoula, let me tell you how to do shit. Well, but these things that happen in the 80s, you it's that thing of like, well, I just, you know, I guess it didn't work out or whatever where it's like, you they need that fresh cold
Starting point is 00:43:03 case team to come in with like the young bloods that are like, no, we need to do all the updates and all the DNA, even though you think the murderer is dead, you still need to give, you know, her identity back to her family, right? Because she could have that a young brother that's been looking for her like, totally. There's yeah, you have to do it for the family. Exactly. So Chris and Doug Wells had survived their attack by Wayne Nance. Chris, they may now own a gun shop in Missoula. Of course, they fucking do. Great. And a Reddit user claims that Doug teaches classes at Quantico on tactical survival training. Whoa. I don't know if that's true, but I want to take that fucking class if so. But he would have a long commute. Quantico is Virginia. They fucking
Starting point is 00:43:51 helicopter him in. They're like, whatever you need, Mr. Wells. They black ops that guy and they repel up his gunshot. They're so polite to him because they just don't know he is capable of anything. They're like, we heard what you did in that house. Yeah. We heard the 17 levels of totally survival and your James Bond. It's yeah, that's amazing. And Wayne Nance is one of the only serial killers who was murdered by his own victims. That's amazing. Yeah. Back in Chris and Doug Wells. And that's the story of the fucking Missoula Mahler. The Missoula Mahler. Who knew? Never heard a word of it. Chris Fairbanks hasn't mentioned a word that probably doesn't know anything about it. That's so crazy. I was just like a layer. I didn't know how to like write that
Starting point is 00:44:38 story because it's like, do I open with him dying? But then how do I tell these other? Like, it was just like a really hard. I think you did great. Okay. Thank you. Well, and also because Montana is so country. Yeah. It's so like, you know, it's frontier people. Most people who have guns, have trucks, like they're out in the country. That's their lifestyle. Yeah. They're all kind of, they have a level of bad assness that we don't, we city folks don't fucking have. That's right. They're, they're used to dealing with the elements and dealing with nature and wildlife and stuff like that. So it's, wow, that's kind of amazing. Yeah. That's great. Okay. So mine also has an exciting survival aspect to it. Fun. And I got this, this story I watched a show called Shattered,
Starting point is 00:45:28 which is on the ID channel. And if you haven't seen it, this is like my new favorite crime show, because it's a very, it's about the impact of people who get it are involved with you crime, whether it's the detective solving the case, or a survivor from, from like a serial killer attack, or whatever it is. And the way it's, it reminds me a lot of I survived in that way where they construct the story around those people's stories. Right. And the, and that kind of first person. And it's so effective. And this episode I called, I watched was called The Wood. And so this is the story of Portland's forest park killer and survivor Shelly Harding. So I'm basically retelling Shattered's story of the forest park killer. It's such a good satisfying way to hear,
Starting point is 00:46:19 hear a true crime story. And so I'm essentially just retelling their, the way they presented it. So it's November 3rd, 1992. And 26 year old Shelly Harding is seven months pregnant. She is done working for the night. There's no buses running. And it's a cold winter night. And so she has to start walking home. She's pregnant. Seven months pregnant. No, too many months to be walking. I know. So she starts walking through a parking lot. And this car pulls over and the driver asks her if she needs a ride home. And she sees there's two car seats in the backseat. And the guy seems like this nerdy, harmless dude. And her feet hurt really bad. And it's been a long day. And she's seven months pregnant. After five blocks, his demeanor suddenly changes. He's no longer the
Starting point is 00:47:07 person that offered her the ride. He locks the doors and pulls out a knife. And in this, in on the show Shattered, Shelly says, you could feel his rage. And she, she starts to panic. But then she sees he's also panicking. So there's, she's, it's like really scary because he was not in control. It was just like, here's a person freaking out. And then as he's pulling this knife and starting to, you know, attack her, he rear ends another car. So two guys get out of the car, he hits and Shelly's like, Oh my God, thank God, I'm going to be rescued. And then the guy who pulled the knife on her, the driver speeds away and leaves the scene of the crime and ends up driving her into the woods. Oh my God, no. Yeah. So she realizes he's going to kill her. Her baby
Starting point is 00:48:02 is never going to get born. So she starts touching everything she can in the car. And then she's acting like she likes him. And she's trying to just basically keep him from killing her. He puts a seatbelt around her neck. He strangles her and he rapes her multiple times. Oh my God. When the assaults are all over, he begins to cry. Which how fucking unnerving is that? So she comforts him. She says it's okay. And that if he just lets her go, she's not going to tell anybody just take her back to that parking lot. And he does it. And she gets out of the car and she fucking gets away. Oh my God. So she gets taken to the hospital and calls the police and Detective Dave Schlegel meets her at the hospital. And he is so impressed that she survived
Starting point is 00:48:54 this fucking attack. And he knows she's really strong. And you know, there's something like in her. So together, they decide they're going to try to catch this guy. And yeah. And of course, that Dave Schlegel is on the show and he's now retired. And he's got like the handlebar mustache and the transition lenses. And he's so soft spoken. And he's one of the good guys. Yeah, you can just tell. So luckily, those two guys that got rear-ended wrote down the license plate as the rapist drove away. Oh my God. So they called it into the cops. So the police investigate the car and they find all of Shelly's fingerprints inside it. Yeah. And so they arrest Todd Allen Reed for the rape and kidnapping of Shelley Harding. Holy shit. Okay. So Todd Allen Reed was born
Starting point is 00:49:44 in Portland on May 22, 1967, nine days after his parents, Ronnie and Alfred were married. When he's four, his parents get divorced. His mom remarries a man named Robert Reed. Todd and his little brother are adopted by Robert Reed, who later says that Todd was a little standoffish and maybe uncomfortable having a father figure out around after not having one for a while. Although he is a fully grown adult talking about a four year old being standoffish. So maybe he's the fucking creep. Maybe there's a reason a four year old would want to be standoffish. We don't know who's to say. Yeah. 1979 Todd's mom and Reed get a divorce two years later in 1981 at the age of 14. Todd has his first run in with the authorities. He's arrested for threat for theft. And he's sent to
Starting point is 00:50:35 a residential program for at risk youth. And while he's there, he takes his GED begins college level courses in accounting and horticulture at 14. Yes, holy shit. So people, let's see, it's 81, 84, 19. So yeah, yeah, basically he did all that. People say he's like a sensitive guy. And he like going through that at that program, he becomes gainfully employed and he begins writing poetry. Oh, great. So sure it was beautiful. Yeah, he truly contains multitudes. So in 1986, Reed is 19. He meets a girl, a 15 year old girl named Gail Bennett. Neither of them have any money or an apartment, but they decide they're going to live together. So they stay at other people's homes or they just sent set up tents in people's fields. To eat, they burglarize homes and steal
Starting point is 00:51:35 food and wine. So they sound irritating, at the very least. Hey, do you mind if I just like throw up this tent in your backyard? No, we love this life, man. When you're gone, I'm going to probably eat all your crackers. I'll leave you a poem in pain. That's art. It's working. It's worth. It's priceless. In 1987, Todd gets caught breaking and entering. He's arrested. He serves a short stint in the big house, not long enough though. So I have a speech impediment this episode. This is like a Easter egg that I'm planting. In 1988, the same judge who sentenced him for breaking and entering performs the wedding ceremony between he and Gail. They wanted to prove to him that they were going to make it. That's unnecessary. Not a reason to get married,
Starting point is 00:52:29 yes. Unnecessary, not a reason to get married. Wait until you meet the person that you can't, you just love with all your heart and not somebody who will prove an argument, prove you right in an argument with a judge. You're right. Let's use marriage for its actual use. Which is? Which is? For the Lord. To prove to the girls from your high school that you can get that good deed. Todd and Gail have two children. That's right, Kelly. I fucking showed you. You said I was fat. Look at me now. Todd and Gail have two children and Todd gets two night jobs, one at the Sizzler and one at Safeway. Safeway is an infamous grocery store chain here on the West Coast and I think a bit in the central. I think it started there. Maybe the Mid-Atlantic
Starting point is 00:53:21 region of the 1960s. We're not here for fucking big grocery to promote big grocery stores. But if you're going to promote big grocery, please shop at Safeway. In his spare time, it doesn't sound like a grocery store at all. No. It's a good emergency clinic. In his spare time, Todd reads the poems he's written at the local cafe. Gail says of these poems that they were full of longing and not pretty flowers and butterflies. Gail stopped defending his shit poetry. This is the 90s now, so it's like fucking art house, like coffee house. We're late 80s. Okay, so he's like on the forefront of the fucking boring ass open mic cafe bullshit. He's slamming poems. Oh, that's right. He's slamming these poems, which basically means you say it like this. Gesture, gesture,
Starting point is 00:54:10 gesture, long leather coat. It seems on the outside he's getting his life together. But in truth, Todd spent his days calling phone sex lines because it's the late 80s and he's a hack and watching porn and hiding it and his phone bills from his young wife, Gail. Great. He showed that judge. I can watch more porn than you can judge while I'm sleeping in a field. In 1989, about a year after their wedding, Todd is arrested for rape and the rape and kidnapping of Shelley Harding. He pleads no contest. He fucking serves three years. Wait, this is our pregnant friend? We've now caught up to the attack of Shelley Harding. He gets caught, yay, awesome. He gets arrested. He gets thrown in jail. He serves three years, three fucking years.
Starting point is 00:55:00 Fuck, man. I mean, the attempted murder and rape of this one. I mean, the laws should go, I feel like back then they're guilty for all the murders and rapes that happened after because there was such shitty sentencing. Yeah. You know? Yes. Well, like when they get out after their time reduced and then they go on to do multiple murders and attacks and rapes. Yeah, exactly. Good disgrace. Okay. So this is when, this is right when taking DNA becomes the standard. It's like at the very beginning. So when he gets out, they take his DNA. So in 1997, Gail divorces Todd, rightfully so. He has to pay child support. He's granted visits every other weekend. Oh, you're a, you're actually a convicted rapist and attempted murderer. Right. Okay. Then you only get
Starting point is 00:55:52 every other weekend. Yeah. My dad, who's a good guy, got that. Can you not? Shit. Could you please? Okay. So now Shelly Harding, on the other hand, is not doing well at all because, of course, she has suffered severe trauma. Yeah. That lasts longer than three fucking years. Yeah. She drinks, she's really into using drugs. Her baby gets taken away from her because she's unable to care for the baby properly. And on the show, it's heartbreaking. Shelly says, and she, on the show, looks like any mom. Yeah. She's got like a cute blast on and a little brown bob and she looks completely like anyone you'd see at a safeway. This show is not brought to you by Safeway. I did my, oh, so on the show, she says, I did my best to become that piece of dirt that everyone thought I was
Starting point is 00:56:42 and my what life went downhill very fast. Oh, so awful. I would like to say this here. This is a great example of when you start telling yourself stuff because you are in trauma, you're in a bad place when you're like, everybody thinks I'm a piece of shit. Yeah. If you're hearing messages like that from within your own head, you have to pause it and you have to step out and go, that could also not be true at all. Everyone could love me. Right. Because when you get into that mindset, you start making bad decisions for yourself as punishment and you don't deserve that punishment. That's beautiful, Karen. Well, it's fucking true. You watch this woman say this and you're just like, fuck, no. No one thinks you're bad. Yeah, like, I'm like, no one thinks you're
Starting point is 00:57:21 bad because this horrible fucking thing happened to you. No. But in your mind, I mean, I say shit to myself, it's horrible all the time. Right. You have to remember horrible shit happens to a lot of people and probably if they heard your interior monologue knowing what happened to you, they would want to hug you. Right. It's not like that. So anyway, but of course, also when you're an addict and when you're in drugs, you don't have that kind of space and reason and you can't make good decisions. So she describes herself. She's like, you know, that girl that you see sometimes in the bad part of town walking around mumbling to herself with no shoes on. She's like, that was me. Holy shit. I was in that life. It was really, really bad. She finally, she's strong
Starting point is 00:58:04 out, you know, whatever. She finally gets into rehab and when she's in rehab, she makes friends with another addict that's there named Lila Molar. They become close friends actually in rehab and get sober together. And then one day Lila leaves and she doesn't come back. And after two weeks pass, Shelly knows something bad has happened to her because usually like if you're in rehab and you go out and get strung out, you come back and you start over and you should do that. But Shelly knows like this isn't this is way too long. And then literally Shelly goes into the day room one day and she sees a news report that two bodies have been found in Forest Park. So on May 7th, the nude strangled body of a woman is found in a heavily wooded area
Starting point is 00:58:53 of Forest Park that's that it's that big park in Portland. And the bodies eventually identified as 28 year old Lila Molar. So the next day, the body of 26 year old Stephanie Russell is found close to where Lila's body is found. And in that same, it's in the same level of state of decomposition. And then on June 2nd, the body of Alexandria Nicole Eisen is found in the same area also nude also strangled. So all three of them same MO and Alexandria was only 17. All three of these women had been sex workers on West Burnside Street and they all looked relatively similar to each other. So the Portland police set up a task force and Detective Schlegel reaches out to Shelly Harding and asks for her help in accessing the sex worker community so that they will not be
Starting point is 00:59:50 paranoid of him that they will actually help him and give him information he can use. Because he knows that that's where it's happening. And that's, you know, where they would probably have lots of information, right, people that they've seen creeps or whatever. And he wants them to be honest with him and not be afraid. So he tells Shelly if he if she can vouch for him that he's not there to arrest anybody just to get information so they can find this predator that's killing sex workers. So Shelly does that she vouches for him. And she says because he treated her with respect and empathy and that quote he was the first person in a long time that I could trust. So he is like truly doing amazing police work and the kind the good kind that actually fucking gets crime
Starting point is 01:00:36 solved when you care about the people that you're, you know, you don't see them as just sex workers or drug addicts. Exactly. And it's just like maybe there's a reason people need to take drugs, maybe really shitty things happen to them. And that all there's I remember watching this thing one time and there was a guy that was like, he was a rehab like counselor. And he said, it's like you don't, it's like, when you see a fox with his leg in a trap, you know, you don't, you don't think he's stupid for staying in that one spot. But if there's snow over the trap, you just see a fox standing there crying, you know, you don't have any empathy, but it's like you have to see past what the exterior, you know, context is and see that that how drugs
Starting point is 01:01:25 just debilitate people. But they are sometimes like this necessary escape, if you've really been through some shit. Anyway, so that's what this detective was doing, which is I love it. And it's amazing. And to see them talking about it together on the show is so cool. So they decide this task force sets up a sting operation. So they have a female detective or undercover cop who looks like the three women whose bodies have been found. And they dress her up as the decoy on Burnside Street. So on July 7, 1999, they see a man in a Mitsubishi eclipse stalking this decoy and he's parked behind her so he can watch her without being seen. And when Detective Dave Schlegel drives by and he looks at the stalker, the hair on the back of his neck, no, because
Starting point is 01:02:13 it's fucking Todd Allen Reed, no, the sex offender who'd gone to jail for raping and attempting to kill Shelly Harding. And he is sitting there in his car watching their decoy because he got released from prison. And he's back fucking doing exactly the same thing. Holy shit. He was sentenced to 12 years. But no, he got out in three. That truth and sentencing laws people. Right. Now, here's how Shelly Harding found out that Todd Allen Reed got out of jail. Right. Because they don't fucking tell the victim. No, or they didn't then. Yeah. I don't know. They might they might have updated that system. She's in a restaurant and he walked by her. Holy shit. So she says in the show, she tells the story and she said she thought she was hallucinating. That's that is
Starting point is 01:02:58 unacceptable. It's it's inhumane. It's the worst fucking thing. So he walks by her and she's going he's really there. She jumps up from her table and follows him out of the restaurant yelling, he Hey, you tried to kill me. Hey, and she's screaming. He won't. He didn't turn his head. He never acknowledged that she was behind him. He just got into his car as if nothing was happening. And she said by the time they get outside to he she was screaming. Yeah. And he just got into his car and drove away as if nothing ever happened badass. She's she's fucking cool. So Dave Schlegel realizes this is as he drives by. It's the fucking convicted sex offender that he that he put in jail who's now stalking the decoy. They pull Reed over to question him. They in his car, they find a
Starting point is 01:03:48 novel called the killing gift, which is about a woman who kills 16 men without touching them. They also find yellow strapping material in the car, which is like that. It's basically seatbelt material. And but of course, this is all it's not enough to arrest him. So instead, they they question him, they let him go. And then he becomes the prime suspect in the Forest Park killings. And the police begin surveilling him 24 hours a day for the next 11 days waiting for the DNA tests to come back. Oh, shit. And then on July 18 1999, the crime lab finds that the DNA taken from the condom that was found next to Lila Mueller's body and the swabs taken from Russell's body match Todd Reed's DNA that was taken when he was in jail. So it matches everything. Amazing.
Starting point is 01:04:40 They go to Todd Allen Reed's job at Ronella's produce in southeast Portland, and they arrest him. And of course, everyone he works with cannot believe it's him. Right. Right. So when Detective Schlegel goes to tell Shelly that her attacker is in fact the forest park killer and that he's been arrested and killed her friend and killed her friend. She's in jail herself. And when she sees him come into the dayroom, she says, you got him, didn't you? And he says, we arrested him, but we need you to testify against him and his trial. And because we need to give him the maximum sentence, you have to be there. You have to tell them what happened and you cannot be on drugs. Which is so crazy because it's like, I hear a lot of times like when they have to testify,
Starting point is 01:05:31 it's like retraumatizing the victim. Yes. So to not be able to have the thing you've been falling back on for your trauma drugs for so fucking long has to be a terrifying thought, but you want to do it probably. And she wants to do it obviously for herself, but she wants to do it for her friend. This person that she like, when she first got sober meant so much to her that is killed by the person that she was raped by. Like it's, yeah. So she was like, I'm fucking doing this. And she, so Detective Schlegel had given her a business card. She tried to get clean so many times. She didn't think she could do it, but she wanted so badly to fight for her friend. And because she knew what her friend went through before she died. Yeah. And that's what she kept
Starting point is 01:06:15 in mind. So she does it. And she gets sober. And in February 2001, Todd Reed pleads guilty to all three slayings. He sentenced to life in prison without parole. And that the sentencing, Shelly goes and reads a statement tells her whole horrible ordeal. And then she puts the letter down. She looks Todd Allen Reed in the eye and she says, but through it all, I take great satisfaction knowing that you're going to burn in hell. And because I wrote here, because Shelly Harding is a fucking badass. And Detective Schlegel and Shelly are still friends after all these years. And he was at her wedding. And then they show pictures. No. Todd Allen Reed is also a suspect in the murder of two girls who were last seen in 1987,
Starting point is 01:07:09 12 year old Mindy Thomas and 15 year old Jennifer Chur. And they were both found strangled in a wooded area. And they were both last seen with Todd Reed ex-wife Gail Bennett. And that's the insane story of Portland's Forest Park killer. How the fuck have we never heard of that? Right. And the amazing survival story of Shelly Harding. That's right. Yeah. Oh my God. Isn't that crazy? Shattered. Heavy. Shattered. It's produced so beautifully. Yeah, but you did a good job telling it. They do it so good. Wow. Yeah. Oh my God. I know. It's like, there's nothing better than when a victim gets to fight back. Yeah. In both of our stories. I feel like hit with a ton of bricks from those stories. Yeah. Fuck, dude. Dude. Dude. Deep shit, dude. Yeah. Fuckin' hooray.
Starting point is 01:08:07 Well, I got to go home for Thanksgiving. And we had the best Thanksgiving at Adrian's with her family and our family. And, you know, it's now it's a bunch of families. It was actually really big party. It was so fun to see everybody. But then Nora has started, she's been ice skating for most of her life, but she started, she went back to ice skating lessons. And we went and watched her skate and she can now do the skate, the turn where you just turn a bunch of times in a row. No way. She's like, it's real ice skating. She's going to be an Olympian. It's, that's what everyone says. But she, it's just so cute because she loves it so much. Like, she has the best time. And it was just really beautiful to see because like when she was little,
Starting point is 01:08:53 it was all very cute and like she left one leg or whatever. And now she's like getting into ice skating. It's so cute. I'm so proud of her. I know. It's very lovely to watch. It's just lovely to watch her grow up. It's really being down here and being by myself sometimes and just so much work. Yeah. Like we just, there is just so much work constant to go home and just get that like a nice shot every once in a while of like, Oh, things that matter. Yeah. Family shit. It's like very, it makes me feel like I got a B12 shot or something. Yeah. Or you went out in the sun and got some vitamin D. She's got all that basement. She stopped reading Satanic. Put the St. Tannock Bible down and go watch a child ice skate. I highly recommend it.
Starting point is 01:09:34 My Thanksgiving, my nephew who's like eight told me that his Hebrew school teacher was like, are you is asked my brother if like, she listens to the podcast, his Hebrew school teacher. Hell yes. Listen, so my fucking hooray. I just want to give a shout out to, so there was an end the backlog fundraiser. I'll just read this. Hey, y'all proud fighting ghost baby here. Yes. The day after the Austin show, some wonderful Austin murderinos hosted a stab him in the backlog fundraiser with MFM trivia and hometown open mic. We had some amazing raffle prizes, like a $200 tattoo, an arrow, our tarot card reading, gift cards for places all around Austin and MFM merch from Austin murderinas on Etsy. Overall, we raised $1,000 for end the
Starting point is 01:10:22 backlog. I'm so happy that Austin murderinas came together to raise so much money for such an amazing organization. And I really want to thank you both for creating a community for making this possible. But yeah, you guys, you did it. Amazing. The three masterminds were Sarah, Shelley, and Monica. And they're already talking about having one again next year. So SSTGM, Katie. So thanks for sending that good job, Austin. That's very cool. I want to end on a note. So a couple weeks back, we threw up a live episode out of the blue because I just couldn't, I found out two weeks ago out of nowhere that my longtime beloved therapist died. Yeah. Suddenly. And it's hit me really hard. I'm really sad, obviously. I'm really, I'm sad that the world doesn't have
Starting point is 01:11:11 her in it anymore because she was this beautiful, wonderful person who taught me so much. She was like a big sister to me. And she taught me so much about being kind to myself and talking to myself as if I were talking to myself as a kid. And would I say these awful things to my like the little Georgia, you know? Yeah. And so she taught me about little Georgia and treating her well and to treat myself all that way. And she said that even if you can't use your own voice to do that, if it's hard, you can use someone else's. And so I started using hers because she was just such this beautiful ray of sunshine. And I never, I feel guilty that I never told her how I felt and how much she helped me. She's in the book, our book. And we had just been talking
Starting point is 01:11:58 about how I could say what I could say in our acknowledgements if I could use her last name, we were joking about it. So you did tell her? I guess, yeah, I guess I did. Yeah. I mean, that's a big compliment. And that I think that discussion probably conveyed a lot of your feeling. It may not have felt that way at the time, but definitely count that as something. Yeah. So I guess, yeah, I don't know, maybe tell people how much they mean to you or be kind to yourself this week as just a little memorial for Kim and go to therapy because even though this is really fucking hard, and you know, I've never had a therapist like her in two decades of therapy. She taught me that it's just so, it's so important and it's life changing when you find a good one.
Starting point is 01:12:53 So I'll keep doing it. Yeah, good. And yeah, there might not be some final button because it's not really a finished thing. It's a new thing that happened to you. So you're still processing it and and you're processing it without the person that helps you process. Who has all my has all my like, she knows all my shit. Yeah. And it's yeah. Yeah. So give yourself a break. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's that's uncharted territory. Yeah. So I'm really sorry that happened. Thank you. It is really sad. I know it's not I don't want to make it about me. Obviously, it's her friends and family as well. But you know, she was an incredible woman. And I just the world has a big all the people she would have helped in the future. And that she was helping now and has helped
Starting point is 01:13:41 in the past. I think it's a big, big loss. Yeah, I just wanted to acknowledge that. Yeah. She reminded me of what's her name from Scrooge. Is it Margot Kidder? Is that who it is? I don't I don't think I've ever seen that move. You've never watched Scrooge. You have to watch Scrooge. Yeah, I don't think I have. Steven, is it Margot Kidder? Karen Allen. She's placed she's the one player Phillips Raiders of the Lost Ark. Karen Allen. Yeah. She she looked just like her. Wow. Same kind of age and that you know that. So yeah, I watched Scrooge the other night and got real sad about it. Yeah. But yeah, be kind to your little self. It's and if you need someone else's voice, use Minor Karen's. Yeah. And yeah, think about it from another perspective. Right.
Starting point is 01:14:34 Aside from your own if you can. Yeah. Practice. Just practice it. Everyone, you know, I started doing it once a day and then it just became natural. Okay. But yeah, thanks for letting me say that. Of course. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Thank you. And thanks everyone for listening and making this community huge and what it is and letting us do these incredible things like start a podcast network and further our lives in this way. I just I feel so honored and blessed to have this this podcast and so much more than that and this life. Yeah, it's it's pretty awesome. Also, I think if a good thing, a good piece of advice that I've gotten is when you are feeling lost or like you don't know what to do or how, you know, when you lose somebody or whatever, it's a really great
Starting point is 01:15:21 thing to help other people. Yeah. So like if you are in if you're relating to what George is saying or something's going on like that, just try to try to figure out if there's another person that might be feeling like you feel and help them figure out a way to help them. That's like the immediate lifting of a burden. Yeah. You think you're gonna wait around for someone else to come and lift it for you. Yeah. But actually, if you can kind of get into a proactive like, who can I help lift that's worse off than me? Yeah. That actually is a very strengthening exercise that someone taught me a while ago. I love it. Yeah. And other than that, you know, stay sexy and don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis. Want a cookie? Good boy.

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