My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 172 - I’m Fine, Look Away

Episode Date: May 9, 2019

Karen and Georgia cover the death of Joan Robinson Hill and the murder at Devil’s Teeth.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. We just looked at each other as we do before we start, looked at each other and I have a moment of holy shit, this is what's happened, that's what I do at least. This is huge. This is real. This is the part where we have to podcast and be good at it, open our mouths to speak at the same time and the weirdest sound came out of my fucking mouth. You call it a sound, others might call it a burp. It wasn't a burp. It was like a little bubble that like came, it was like a brave little

bubble that came back up to say I'm getting out of here. Oh wow. That was hilarious. Excuse me. It looked like you were doing a bit of like talking but burping instead. Welcome to my favorite murder. It's a podcast. It's a podcast that's Karen, that's Georgia, Hardstar and we are your podcast hosts for the night. We're the hosts and we're going to lead you along the burpee way. The burpest, the burpiest. Do it. I made a deadly mistake before, directly before we started this. Is it the pickles or the Diet Coke? It's the combination of the two which that might be the new flavor. We need to talk about Karen's adorable snack that she's eating right now that just like makes me so happy. Like when people make a snack that's got like a little bit of this and that on

it, it's just the best. So thank you. What a great compliment. This is a stolen snack. So my friend Karen Anderson who if you want to listen to her podcast, it's dining with Doug and Karen that she has with Doug Benson. Nice. And she's a big food aficionado, foodie person herself and a great cook. But this was a snack she made up from when we worked together long ago and you can buy all of the ingredients of it at Trader Joe's and what it is. So when the next time you go to your Trader Joe's, get Ackmock crackers, A-K-M-A-K. They're the fucking hippy crackers that my mom's been buying. They got the sesame on it. I know you roll your eyes at them when you see them. They're impossible to close back up. Yes. They still have the old school cellophane only wrapper. So you're on your

own. But they're great. They're so good and sesame delicious. Then you get some of the pepper jack cheese that they have. Sliced. Not the block. No. Pre-sliced. Don't be a fucking sociopath and get a block of cheese. No. Don't be crazy. This is splurge on the pre-sliced because that actually is a major element because see when you get this, it's a square of pre-sliced. But when you fold it in half, it becomes exactly the size of an Ackmock cracker. Holy shit. It's perfectly onto the cracker. Then you have to go, oh, sorry, this is actually, we look today when Stephen and I were at Trader Joe's, but they didn't have the stackable pickles. Usually you can get those flat. There's sand. I don't think Trader Joe's fucks with that. Really? I feel like Trader Joe's is like,

look, we have spears. We have whole and we have sliced. Yeah. And that's all we do. That's right. If you want more, you know, go somewhere else. It's amazing they haven't figured out how to steal the sliced stackable pickles because they steal every other good food product that there is and make it their own. I respect it. Anyway. So you have a fucking pickle on the side. You actually, you should put it when it's a stackable, you can stack it on top. But now I have a spear and that creates insanity for Stephen and I were literally eating these over the sink because they were so damp. Can I suggest a fucking squirt of yellow mustard on that shit? Not to me. Okay, then I won't. I don't like mustard, but yes, to another person. They might love that.

How about a fucking smear and I'll hear me out of fucking, I hate the word dollop. So I'm not going to say that. Okay. Of apricot jam. Now I sound pregnant, but I'm not. I'm not pregnant. But that's how we'll know. Well, you know what? It would be interesting to see if people want to make this and try it out and then go ahead and. Oh yeah, put your own spin on it. Put your own spin. What's your favorite? I almost called you Virginia. I'm not kidding. What? It makes sense. It's the beginning and the end for me. We all know it. It makes sense. Try Georgia's dollop of mustard plan. Go ahead and give apricot jam a whirl. We want to know your favorite cracker snack. Yes, because all I want is mine originated from Triskets and Cheese,

which is what my mother's mainstay through the seventies. And then she went into a Wheatsworth area. But this is the Trader Joe's new fangled version from Karen Anderson. So give that a whirl. See if you like it and then see if you have anything to add. And it's all topped on a plate by our friend Scarlett River, who's a really great artist on Instagram, on a really cute Victorian looking plate that says. By your own shit. Get out of the forest. Stay out of the forest. Oh, actually, it has get a job, but it was covered by pickles. I didn't see that. So that's what's going on at the exactly right studios today. Steven, you might want to take a picture of that for later. That's right for the for the people Instagram. It'll be there.

Yeah, good stuff. Anyhow, that's there was this this show started out the 15 minutes before this we started recording. We it was as if we were preparing for a belching contest with the things that we've been doing. That's been snack corner. Yeah, that's the newest. Enjoy it. Enjoy it or else. What else kind of corner? Well, let's see. Can I let's do Marty corner real quick? Great. So excuse me. A couple weeks. Okay. A couple stories about my dad. One is that he so he's on the fan cult in the fan cult. He's active in the fan cult. Sure. He's on the chat message boards and everything like that. He's out there ready to communicate. He's ready. And so we have someone who's now handling our fan cult and doing a great job of it.

But he his name is Denton. He took the name the screen name Datarino on the fan cult and my dad fucking text me and said, Hey, who's Datarino? Like he was mad about it. So Denton changed his fucking name. Did Denton give him Datarino? I don't know if he gave it. I don't know if he could take it, but it's now his. That's hilarious. So recently my dad was we were having lunch and he said to me, you know, you know how because he comes to a lot of shows live shows, you know how when I'm in the audience and you're saying negative things about your mother and then you stop and you know, tell me you're sorry in the show, you know, I just want you to know, I don't mind when you talk about her on stage. He's basically like, I would love for

you to talk shit about your mother in front of all of these people. Don't worry about me. I've been trying to get the one up on Jen up for years and you're helping me. Okay. One more thing about my parents. I gave my mom, I got it special and exactly right, our fucking podcast network. I got her a mug that we have. It's like, I'm like, you know, I've saved it and I finally saw her and gave it to her. She left it in a gelsons. So if you live in fucking wherever the shit she lives LA and find a fucking exactly right mug with cold coffee in it, how shitty is that? It's your daughter's company. Yeah. Like I fuck, I'm an entrepreneur. You are. It doesn't change that whether Janet has that mug and on a little

podium in the middle of her, no, it wouldn't be a podium. If she has it on a little platform in her kitchen. Who brings them on to a fucking grocery store? Second question. Yeah. Why wouldn't you just have it? Let's have that be the travel mug. Let's do it. Janet. But she's actually just kind of rolling out of the house, still holding the coffee mug that she started with that morning. Maybe she was proud of me and was like doing it with the thing out and like walking around with it, but then she forgot it was there and walked away. Yeah, because maybe because gelsons now you have to talk about and if you don't live in Los Angeles, you might not know gelsons is a rich people grocery store. Hi, there's a wine bar in it. There's a wine bar.

There's La Baclava there. We'll give bucks, pucks have some kind of station. Yeah. There's all kinds of things to have right. She might have just got caught up in the lifestyle. I get it. Maybe hit that wine bar beforehand. She's like, goat cheese. I love the wine bar. Yeah. Throws down the mug, shatters in a million pieces. Goodbye. Okay. I feel better about it now. What do you have? Let's see. Oh, we were going to recommend some podcasts, right? Oh, yeah. Let's things we've been listening to. Let's do podcast corner. Okay. So my podcast corner will switch it on over. And I don't tell me if I've kind of don't want to know if I've mentioned this already because it's horrifying. But so let's see. The podcast I listened to

the last time I drove home because I've plugged John Ronson's stuff before. He's one of my favorite writers. He's a British journalist and he's an amazing investigative journalist. He has a new podcast out called The Last Days of August. So his podcast before that was called The Butterfly Effect. And it was all about the porn industry and how it changed after the digital takeover. Cool. And he got to know some people and he learned about this story about the death of a porn star named August Ames. I believe her name is. And so this podcast is about that death, essentially. And you have to listen to the first one to like really get into the second one? No. He makes it super. He introduces it perfectly, basically explains how he came up with like

stumbled upon the story. And it is really, it's not true crime in that way. But it's an in-depth investigative story. Yes. About the kind of about the lifestyle. Because that's like a deep dive you don't get. No. At all. Unless you're talking about like real sex on HBO or some shit. And I feel like for a long time it was very important for people to kind of push that idea that like there are people in the sex industry who are really into it and they wanted to be there. And this wasn't this this victimized state that a lot of people were in, which is important for people to feel empowered and to be like, no, fuck you, this is my decision, which is a real thing. Yeah. This is a different story. Yeah. So this is almost kind of like, but there are,

well, just listen to it because I better, better to listen to it than have me describe it. It's just dark and deep and I'm fucking it. I'm there. He's just a very good journalist and what he makes is important to hear. What's it called again? It's called The Last Days of August and it's John Ronson's new podcast. I'm listening to it. Sweet. I'm listening to a couple true crime ones as I always do. And then I'm also when I need to not do that because it gets fucking dark sometimes. Sure. I'm listening to this. I listened to this podcast and have for so long called Be Wealthy and Smart. And it's okay. It's financial guru, Linda P Jones, who's like, she's there for it's like, it's catered towards women and women understanding, you know, everything about finances

so that they can take a hold of their fucking lives and like be in charge. So important. So important. She has a book that I'm reading called You're Already a Wealth Heiress. Now think and act like one. It's like ridiculous, but I fucking love it so much. What am I the heiress of? Your wealth. You're the heiress of the Del Monte Pickle fortune. Congratulations. Oh my God. Yeah, I just, I like her message and it's, you know, and in the podcast is like anything you just read the titles of them and you'll find one that you should listen to. And it's just, it's like, it's smart. Very good. And like a listenable, because a lot of times I think, or at least speaking for myself, it's like a whole area that gives me like so much anxiety just thinking about it or it's like,

yeah, of like things I've fucked up or immediately it just puts my mind to where I've fucked things up. So it's really good to listen to people who know what they're talking about, basically telling you you can do this, you can figure this out, and you can be in charge. She's really knowledgeable and there's even stories about like financial abuse and relationships, which like I didn't even know was a thing until I listened to it. What, is that like keeping money from people? Yeah. Yeah. To keep you in the relationship. And weird ways to control. Control you. Yeah. So there's like kind of, and then there's also like, you know, six ways to pay off debt or whatever. It's just like, there's everything. That's great. And so, and she has,

he's like little bits of knowledge that she fucking imparts to you. And it's, it's just great. Here's one of my ways. I got a Kohl's card last Christmas. I was at Kohl's. I was buying Nora a whole bunch of stuff because the Kohl's is right, you know, like right in town in Petaluma. And when I got up to the register, I may have told this story, but the lady that worked there was every, everybody's mom from when I was eight years old. So that she already had a power over me. Yeah. And she added up my stuff and looked and goes, girl, if you get a Kohl's card, you'll get like $200 off. And I was like, are you serious? And she goes, oh yeah, we're doing this thing. And then she just basically made it, she made me do it and

made it happen and did it really quickly. It was like, she should be commended by the Kohl's corporation. That happened to me, but I was like 23. And it was a Victoria's Secret card, which I never shopped at. And I was, I just like, I didn't get what was happening. Yeah. And then suddenly I was, I had my first credit card. Did it go badly? No, no, no. I never shopped there again. Oh good. It's a terrible company. But I have such bad credit that any line of credit they give me, I can take that and use it to fix my credit. Totally. So even though, because I went to, so I went to my accountant and then she goes, I see you got a Kohl's card. Very good move. Cause I thought she would be like, what are you doing? Close that down.

No, if you get approved for it, fucking great. Get approved and then buy things and then pay it off in a timely manner. You can fix your own stuff. But guys, listen to Linda P. Jones before you do all this because it's strategic. You need to be strategic. And if you're scared of all this shit, I know nothing. If you're scared of it, if you're scared of it, knowledge is power. The more you know them, the smarter decisions you'll make. That's right. And remember, there's people that are in it every single day. It's scary to you when it's this foreign land that you know, you don't know how to navigate in any way. But there's people like Linda P. Jones who that's their life and they can really give you advice of like, Oh no, this is the real, this is how it

actually is separate from your fears and worries. I'm learning so much. I mean, I, yeah, that's great. I almost said, I know everything. Three podcasts and I'm done. That's it. I'm so smart. Um, also, okay. So let's do, um, fan cult corner. We just put up a Q and A video that's like, I really like it. It's super cute. Yeah. And we, um, the people who are now doing our website with us and our fan cult with us, who we love and our good friends, um, have these great ideas that they're like helping us produce this stuff. So now it's just like more, there's going to be more and more of that kind of stuff because we can think of an idea and be like, can we do this? And they're like, yeah. And then in a month and be like, here it is, which is so rare and crazy.

It's the best. It's like, yeah. And it's stuff that we like that's good for us. So Karen, I just thought of something. Our book comes out in three fucking weeks. Is that true? Yeah. Yeah. Why didn't you tell me? It'll be 18 days, I think, as of tomorrow. What happens? What if it's, what if everyone is mad at us? Everyone's going to be mad and laugh at us at the same time. What if that happens? We'll move to the beach. Okay. Venice? Yeah. We'll just, then we'll get some of those. That's what those, um, Southwest got to get away tickets are for. And you just, whoop, and you get out of town. Galapagos. We'll go back to Albuquerque. Remember how great it was there? Yeah. Loved it there. It was really beautiful. So nice. Okay. Our book's coming out, everyone.

We wrote a book and we didn't just write a book. It's our memoir. It's our memoir. We fucking spilled some shit. I told the story of getting my nipple pierced for the first time. Yeah. There's some really, if you're looking for the inside scoop, we basically scooped it all out and poured it into this thing. Yes or no. It's essentially a blog. Yes. It is, we should have asked for it to be black background with neon green writing and then like space stuff on the side. Yeah. Like weird words that are highlighted that you can look at. No, it's great. Search for your name. It's going to be great. Oh, and like, there's like fan art in it. Yes. It's just so cool. They laid it out and designed it with, you know, or we did too. I mean, we were part of it. We kind

of resisted on having fan art listeners are in the book. And they made it happen and it looks great. And there's also fun family photos. We have like personal photos of different points of our life. It's just like, it's kind of amazing. If nothing else, I mean, it's heavy enough to be a paperweight and you can also donate it to your local thrift store. That's right. You could also, if you, this summer, if you do, if you and your friends do bonfires at the beach, boom, light it up, get like four of those. Kindling. If you're against books or what we do, kindling, get in there, get a potbellied stove for your cabin. And we're just here to try to help you to whatever you want. If you like it and you read it, then there's going to be an audio book. I mean, there's just

like layer after layer. What is happening? Oh, turn the light off. That's why it's too bright in here. Okay. That's right. Oh, there we go. Okay. Now we're not much better. Now we're podcasting. Now we're not in school anymore. Now we're out of the fluorescence. So yeah, I get ready for the book thing. We're talking to each other when I say that. Stay sexy. You get ready for it. Get ready for it, Karen. Should we start? No, I have a corrections corner. Okay. Even though it's a while ago. My corrections. Oh, I said this on stage in Oklahoma City. But I feel like that's it needs to be brought to more people. Oh, by the way, we've, I mean, every weekend of this tour and there's been plenty has been amazing and remarkable. And

but this last weekend, Oklahoma City gave us an ovation when we walked on stage that is the loudest thing I've ever heard in my life. It was they brought the thunder in such a meaningful, powerful way. And also it went on for a while. Yeah, you guys are beautiful. Oklahoma City, thank you so much. And they were so grateful that we came to Oklahoma City. It was hilarious. They were the best. I mean, it's just, it's insane standing on stage and being clapped up. It just doesn't, I it's so hard to to absorb and take in. Right. It's insane and amazing. And I love it. I love it. And I'm just also so fucking humbled by it. Yeah. And yeah. Yeah. We had a weekend of humbling shows and the ones in Dallas and Houston were huge and beautiful. And we just

thank you guys so much again. And we know we say it all the time, but thank you so much for showing up and having the enthusiasm you do. And, and thank you to the person in Oklahoma City who threw up in the audience. Oh, two people threw up. One in the balcony, one in the, on the lower level. Right. Which we were hoping was off the balcony, but it wasn't, unfortunately. They kept it inside the balcony in the middle of our Oklahoma City show. It's quiet. I think Karen's doing her murder. And then we just hear out of the corner of our ears. I saw, I had the visual. I didn't say I just heard it. The very angry and rightfully so, very angry usher who had to clean up this person's puke, snapped, took out a garb, a plastic garbage bag and snapped it out

three times. Like your mom, when you haven't emptied the garbage and she just went to do it to prove a point to you three times in a silent fucking theater, because I was going to ignore it. And I was like, okay, something obviously happened. But because one snap out of like, I just need this thing to be bigger snapping at three times is like, fuck you all. It was like, you could practically hear it. It was hilarious. We loved it. It was really, so you guys, they brought it. I mean, they brought it in every way that everybody made it special in their own way. But on that stage, I was just, I brought up the fact that I went into that thing where I was trying to think of the word for an Elizabethan rough. But I was talking about the Renaissance

and the restoration. I went all over the map. But lots of people were like just tweeting me going, Elizabethan? Or I was like, yeah, that's what it was. I should have been there for that. How? I don't know. How? And the other one was there were some people who misunderstood me, I think, unless I misspoke. But when I did the story, I had, I tried to explain that we were in St. Louis, but I picked a story that happened in Kansas City. That was the leftover story that I did. That was the, the Hyatt walkway collapse. Right. You didn't think that it was in one city or another? I knew that I knew the collapse happened in Kansas City at that Hyatt. But it we, I was picking it

because we were in St. Louis and it was in the same state. But I got a couple of tweets from people who are fired up of like, excuse me, that happened in Kansas City. And I was like, yeah, I know. But there's definitely a chance that I said St. Louis at some point, but that's not guys, we can't keep track of your fucking college team rival reviews. Okay. I mean, I know you want us, you want to boo this place and gay this place, but we don't understand. It's meaningless to us. It's meaningless to us. Yeah. But my problem is that I think because I said, I was picking this story for St. Louis. People are like, how dare you? But it's like, but they're not thinking. And I was, I was being too inside my own brain.

I get it though. Essentially. I get it. And that's the only, all that matters. It's all that matters. Oh wait. And sorry, one more is fasty because we had another one of the ones like the woman who said my sister is dying in the meet and greet. Which one? Let's tell me. Okay. So the original was a woman who right as we were getting our picture taken at the meet and greet, the woman goes, my sister is dying. And both of us turn out of that, like during the picture, turn toward her and are like, what's going on?

Oh my God, are you okay? I'm so sorry. And then she goes, no, she's just so jealous that she's not here. And we were like, you can't do that. Like we screamed at her. It was hilarious. And of course we all laughed. Like, what the hell? So it happened again in Dallas, right? Where the woman said, I left my husband right as we're taking pictures. She said, I left my husband. So of course we think it must have been an issue. You got so strong, you're so brave or whatever. And we turn to get the story and she goes, at the bar across the street. And we're just like, please watch the phrasing.

Yeah, get out of here. We all laughed about that one. No, it was so funny. Pretty good. There's so many good moments in those fucking meet and greets. It's truly overwhelming. It's so fun. And there are people who are like, do you hate this? Is it Tua? And we're just like, we fucking love it. You must be tired. It's like, no, we have adrenaline to the fucking hill.

Yep. We just had a show in front of fucking clapping people who barf so much. We need to talk to somebody about it. Vince can't do it anymore. He doesn't care. Yeah. So thank you all, everybody. And yeah. Good night. No. Yes.

Yes. And so then Stephen. Stephen. Karen goes first tonight. All right then. Siling in. So as you've all probably caught on, this is a story that was left over. I had it for, I think it was a Houston show.

And then I switched my story at the last minute. Sorry, I have to log back into my laptop. They can hear your password. Dee-doo-doo-dee-boo-boo-boo. They can tell what it is. Can I tell what it is? Nope. It's like, no, not that. I can't talk and write it in at the same time.

Be silent. This is a podcast. Everyone shut up. Okay, I got it. Yeah. So basically this meant I had homework already done when I got home, which is just a miracle feeling. Beautiful thing. Truly the best. This is an oldie or older.

You know what it felt like when we were there? These are those kinds of stories that have already been covered on every 2020, every date line, every American justice and whatever. Because a lot of those stories are rich people murdering each other, which is I am in for 1,000%. Sure. Do it. I love that it's like the world you can't be in anyway. Yeah.

And then it does not mean you're happy just because you're rich and you have everything. It actually usually means bad things are going to happen. Definitely. Or at least it seems like it seems that case. Based on city confidential, that is 100% true. As well as Dominic Dunn's power of privilege and justice. You know what we forgot to talk about? What?

The Ted Bundy movie. Did you watch it? Yeah. I haven't watched it. Okay, let's wait till next week. Okay. I swear I'll watch it and I'll have all kinds of opinions ready. Okay, great.

Can you just give me one hint as to how my boy did? Zac Efron was great. Yes, he... Oh. Am I right? Oh, if there's a discussion about the negativity, it's not Zac Efron. Hello, thank you. Hi.

Okay, great. No, he was great. Great. I knew he would be. Did he get the dead eyes right? Oh, yeah. Okay, good. Yeah, no, he was good.

Awesome. I can't wait to watch it. You know what? I will watch it tonight. Okay. I fucking swear to you, George. I'll watch it tonight. I think he's wearing me right now, Karen.

I swear to you with everything I have. Okay. So, this is the murder of Joan Robinson Hill. Okay. Joan Robinson, who later on, Hill. She's born February 6, 1931, to an unmarried woman, so she's put up for adoption because it's the 30s. God forbid.

Yeah, those women had to be disappeared. Right. Oh, God, I listened to the most insane criminal episode about a woman who used to go around trying to get white babies to adopt. Have you ever heard that? White babies are adopting other babies? Oh, she was trying to get. Those are babies adopting babies.

I can't handle it. That's crazy. The paperwork alone. Do we have a TV reality show about that yet? They're dirt biking and swearing. Oh, getting people to adopt white babies. Yes, there was a lot. Suddenly, there was no more stigma on adoption

because for a long time, it was like, if it's not your real baby, it's all that. It was all that craziness about adoption. And suddenly, it became acceptable. And then it was like, you have to hear it. Is it like, hey, you kind of don't want your baby? Give it to me. And then like, adopting.

Well, that's how it started. This woman had it justified in her mind. That's how it started. And then she would go up and trick poor women into going, oh, your baby's sick. I'm a nurse and I work for the hospital. And she would just steal their babies. Just fucking steal your baby.

It's a recent one on criminal. Please listen to it. It's the best. Why am I even talking about that? Oh, because of this adoption thing. OK, so she's put up for adoption a month later. A very successful Houston oilman named Ash Robinson and his wife, Rhea, adopt her because they

can't have kids themselves. So she's the only child of an oil magnate. Girl, get it. What does she have? Horses, horses, horses. Horses everywhere. Horses for days. And not those dumb plastic ones that you had as a girl that-

I'd agree. And I shouldn't say dumb because the one I got and when I got it, I was just like, it was as if my parents gave me a real horse. Yeah. Those plastic horses, it was like, one foot was up, you put it up on the window sill, you're golden. You're trotting away to fucking childhood happiness.

And then you get your period and it all ends. Yes. OK. Anyhow, she loves horses when she's three years old. So, of course, her father immediately buys her one. She starts writing lessons at age three. Holy shit. So she's in it to win it. But she's a natural horsewoman. She begins competing when she's seven years old.

And between 1938 when she's seven and 1945 when she's 14, she places either first or second in every competition she enters. So there was some amazing quote about some like equestrian competition judge that had seen her ride and had this big quote about how unbelievably majestic and perfect she was as a writer. So after high school, she attends Stevens College in Columbia, Missouri, Stevens College, The Fighting.

Pinocchios. Stevens favorite Disney movie. That's right. The Fighting Pinocchios. Why do they keep fighting each other? Those Pinocchios. Because the swords, it's all that. OK. So she doesn't get great grades,

but she has a very active social life. She's the perfect social light. She's blonde. Like when in the pictures of her later on in the 50s, she has like little blonde bangs. Yeah. Women don't need good grades in the 50s. That's not what they're there for. No. If you've got a rich dad and horses and you're good at parties, you're set.

Yeah. Good grades were just gravy. Good grades were for like nerds. Good grades would probably work against you in the social light scene in the 50s. Don't be too smart. Don't upset the man. Yeah. OK. So her parents, while she's in college,

lease a suite of rooms in a hotel near the college, and then they come and visit her regularly. Wow. So she's clearly the apple of their eye. Sure. Um, when she's in college, she gets married and divorced a couple times. A couple times? Damn, girl.

Yeah. Because she's out socializing and it's the 50s. You know, when you're like, hey, do you want to go get coffee and get married real quick? Yeah. Well, it's probably like, hey, we should have sex, but we can't, so we better get married. Yeah. Um, so first it was a man named Spike Benton who was a Navy pilot,

and then she got married to a man named Cecil Burglas, who was a New Orleans lawyer and he was a childhood friend. OK. And Ash disapproved of both men and neither marriage last more than six months. Poor Spike and Cecil. Yeah. So I think she was probably like, I'll do it. I want daddy.

And she goes and gets married to whoever. And then she's like, this sucks. I want my horses and my dad back. OK. But then on September 28th, 1957, so this is obviously when she's out of college, I would think if anybody's doing the year's math, you know, 57, do 24.

Yes. Yeah. Unless year, her grades are really bad. She should be out of college right now. That's right. Um, she gets married to a man named Dr. John Hill, and he is one of Houston's top plastic surgeons. Oh, plastic surgery in the 50s.

In the late 50s. Fuck that shit. That's when they were like, here's the plastic surgery procedure we're going to do for your nose job. I'm going to hit you with this hammer. Stay still, ma'am. Ma'am. See, what we do is put chip clips on the side of your face

and pull it back as tight as we can. And then just staple it there. Stay still. Yeah. You got your face lift. Then we staple it. We'll give you a couple shots of nova came in that skin, and you're on your own.

Good night. So he was not just a plastic surgeon. He was an avid, very talented piano player. Sure. So the first six years of their marriage, 1957 and 1963, they lived on Jones' parents' property. They lived near Ash's house, basically. And they were a huge part of the Houston social scene.

But otherwise, they lived pretty separate lives. Joan is still all about her horseback riding, and John is focusing on obviously his medical practice and his piano playing and his music in general. And his chip clips. And his figure out smaller and better chip clips to clip onto the back of women's scalps. So on June 14, 1960, Joan gives birth to their son Robert Ashton,

nicknamed Boot Hill. Boot Hill. Named after the famous Western cemetery. You know, fun stuff for kids. Cute. Joan tells her father that she wants to breed horses and start a riding school. So she says that.

So he buys her a farm that they call Chatsworth Farm. It opens in 1963, and it becomes a site for an annual picnic that the Hills host. So you can feel this like oil money, horse people, social wealth, wealth, wealth. Generational wealth. That's right. Old money.

Yeah. 1965, John and Joan finally buy their own house at 1561 Kirby Drive, but it's just down the street from Joan's parents' house. So in law, city. John tells Joan that he wants to turn one of the rooms of this new house into a music room for himself. And so he asks Joan's father.

He asks Ash for $10,000 to build it. What? But Ash thinks that's a stupid idea, and it refuses to give him the money. I have to agree with Ash. Right? Like, but build it yourself. $10,000 back then is how much today.

Back then, I would say easily 70 grand. Yeah. If not more. More. Well. 700 grand. Well, yeah, I guess it. It would be up in maybe 200 grand.

Yeah, 200. Let's go 200 grand. Let's go two. Let's meet in the middle at two. A lot of money. But you have to imagine, though, Dr. John Hill, the one of the leading plastic surgeon, hammer wielders of the Houston area.

Yeah. He's watching her buy horses left, right, and center and open a farm. So he's like, how about me and my passions and my piano playing? Yeah, I want a thing too. And it doesn't really work that way. No. I feel like with rich people, you got to bring that wealth wish.

Sure. A borrowing doesn't sit well with a lot of those self-made men. Well, her horse farm or whatever the fuck it is, who's about to make a lot of money, right, because they like have, it's like a business. Yes. But like fucking putting a drum kit and a piano in your fucking basement, it's not going to bring in the box.

No, that's mostly for like, I just want you to have great weekends. Yeah. I just want you to feel fulfilled. That's a vintage man cave. Yes, it is. I am so angry at the story for making me say man cave. So.

Never forgive it. Never. Okay, but, you know, he gets the big no. So John goes and gets alone from a bank. Oh, wait, sorry. One of the other reasons that Ash didn't said no is because he lent them part of the money to buy this house in the first place.

Yeah. So, you know, you're already not that into borrowing and this guy's coming back for more. So I'm sure Ash Robinson was just like, get out of here. Yeah. Make your own money, plastic surgeon. So John gets alone from the bank

and then commissions someone to build the music room for him. And he quickly exceeds that $10,000 budget and he spends around $75,000. Holy shit. In that day's, I mean, in today's money, $10,000 is too much for a music room. Yes. And then the, and then if you do math, well.

Well, you're going half a million dollars. That's right. For it to add a music room onto your house. Don't do that. When they finally finished the room in 1969, he had spent roughly, oh, here we go, $100,000 on that music room, which is the equivalent of $700,000 today.

You're right. He was closer to a million dollars. Holy shit. Linda P. Jones would be very against that. She would not like, that's not what wealth heiresses do. No, it's not. Hail no. Okay.

So around the same time in 1968, John and Jones marriage is on the rocks. Partly because of the music room. You think? That'd be funny if Jones like, I hate music of all kinds. But also because it seems, Jones feels like that the music room and the project

and that whole thing is all he cares about. Which isn't entirely true, because what John also cared about was the woman he had started to have an affair with, named Anne Curth, who he had met picking up his kids at summer camp and she was picking up her kids at summer camp. Guys.

And they had a cheaters meet cute at summer camp, parking lot in August of 1968. Control your fucking urges, people. I mean, if he can't control his music man cave urge, then he's like out, he's just doing it. That's true. That fall, Jones goes away for a horse riding competition

and when she comes back, she finds a note from John saying he's left because things are quote not good between us. Oh, you get to decide that, mother fucker? Yeah, that's all on him. Oh, also it was, it was on a note pad with music notes at the time. Sorry. I just saw it in my mind's eye.

And that's like, here's a note in quotes from John. Oh my God. Or the O is a fucking, what's a note? Some kind of a quarter note maybe? Quarter half. Those are the only two kind of notes I know. Great.

At least you knew one. I played shallow and I didn't even know one. Did you get an actual song out on that cello? Yeah. Could you play a song? Yeah. It was like that, but it sounded kind of sounded like a song. That's a hard instrument for, how were you, you were eight?

I was like eight and probably like severely underweight. So like a teeny tiny person. Okay, sorry. It's not about me. It is though. So basically, Joan calls John's office to say, where is he? Like I'm trying to figure out, like we at least have to talk about it. He's not there.

So her father, Ash suggests hiring a detective to track him down, but Joan doesn't do that. Yeah, fuck him. Two weeks later, John contacts Joan again, again after the music note. He has to meet up with her and then he tells her about the affair that he has saying that he's been staying with Anne. So this woman, his mistress, he's basically been at her house the whole time. What a dick.

Yeah. So in November of 1968, John serves Joan with divorce papers, but both, and I had to read this sentence like three times, both Joan and Ash still want the marriage to work. Okay. The wife and her father really want the marriage to work. Because it'll tarnish your reputation probably, right? But also, no, it doesn't work.

If your dad has that much of an opinion, then you're part of the problem. Like you have to admit, there's a reason this guy wants to get away. And also just, it has to be the two people in the marriage that want it to work the most. That's the best case scenario. Yeah, that's what you should be aiming for. I mean, dad, thanks for the support, but please get out of the marriage. Okay. So in early December, 1968, Ash asks to meet with John Hill.

And at the meeting, he says that if John doesn't make the marriage work, that it'll come after him and force him to repay all the money that John still owes him. Damn. So John withdraws the divorce petition, returns to Joan, and the two make up just before Christmas that year. How awkward would that be? Hey, your dad told me that I would owe him money if I didn't love you anymore. Yeah, your dad said I can't leave, so I'm back.

Great. Merry Christmas. Let's put your sweater on. Put your matching sweater on. Let's do this. Horrifying. Horrifying. Okay, so, and the height of romance.

Yeah. Of course, Ann Curth comes back into the picture and she basically tells John it's her or me. But despite that, John, what John does is he stays with Joan, but he keeps a separate apartment. Of course. And like, and him and Ann, he basically just keeps the place that they were staying at. Shocking. Absolutely no one. Yeah, right.

Right. So then Joan, I wish their names weren't Joan. And John, it's making it harder than it needs to be. They're really fucking with you. So, Joan notices John's been spending a lot of evenings away and she finally calls him out on it. So, it starts a fight. And the next day, as John's taking their son to get a haircut, he stops by the apartment to pick up a couple things and brings the son with him.

Come on. Right. So then, of course, their son tells his mother. Yeah. Yeah, dad still has a secret apartment or whatever he knew. Hey, I'm five. And dad's got this mistress. I know you're going to be upset.

So, I'm going to be the one that stays calm. Dad's still got that apartment. No, no, no. Daddy's still got that apartment. Daddy. Daddy. Of course, Joan's livid and sadly surprised. So, in early March of 1969, the Hills have house guests over.

They're friends of Joan's named Diane Setagast and then a second woman named Eunice Woollen, who is not listed as Joan's friend. So, who knows why Eunice is there? What are you doing there, Eunice? Eunice, it feels like you're there to judge people, but maybe that's just because of your name. Eunice Woollen. So, Diane and Eunice notice that John keeps getting called away by a pager.

Wait, in the 60s? It's 1969. What kind of a pager? Or is it huge, the size of the room? It's basically what the pants he's wearing are the pager. It's full body pager. Got it. I don't know.

I guess doctors have always had them. Paging is probably a phone call. Yeah. That's probably what it means. You're being paged on the phone. You're being paged on a paging service. That's what it is. That would make way more sense.

Though, if you have pictures of old-fashioned pagers that are really big, we'd love to see them. Absolutely. So, he keeps getting called away, being paged away, and then when he comes back, he comes back in the evening and he always brings pastries. But he's very specific about how he hands these pastries out. What the fuck? So, he gives them out.

I brought these amazing. Does anybody want them? You should have them. You should have this. And you should have this. No, no, no. Don't switch. Don't switch.

You eat that one. I want the cheese danish. Nope. Nope. Sorry, Eunice, but you weren't even really invited here. We don't know whose friend you are. You don't get the cheese danish. Damn it.

So, he's very controlling and specific about these pastries. Okay. On March 14th, 1969, during the stay with Diane and Eunice, Joan invites a fourth woman over. Her name is Van Maxwell, and they all want to play bridge. So, she invites Van over to the house. And the four get play a game of bridge on one end of the music room, while John sits listening to music on the other end.

And it's super awkward and it weirds all the women out. Isn't it weird like when you're having like girlfriend's over and then the husband comes home or you're at your friend's house and then it's like, no, it's fine. He's cool with it. Yeah. And like, I don't want to be here anymore. Right.

I know he's in the bedroom, but like, this is creepy. Well, yeah, because it doesn't, then it just feels like there's someone waiting for you to leave. Totally. And which is, we've all done that where just like the countdown begins. Absolutely. I'm like, I can't wait to have my house back. Yeah.

Yeah. So, and maybe they were just trying to make the most of this insanely expensive music room. I don't know. Okay. But the, but all those women had felt and sensed the super weirdness. Okay. Joan dishes to Van about the fights that she's been having with John.

And she tells Van that she's going to get a lawyer and cut him out of her will. And towards the end of the evening, John puts on a romantic record and then walks over and stands behind his wife's chair. And so then Diane suggests that they dance together, which they do. And then before everyone goes to bed at the end of the evening. They'll watch this weird couple of dance. Apparently. Very presentationally.

So then the next morning, March 15th, 1969, Joan, or not morning, it's the afternoon. Joan wakes up really late in the afternoon and she tells her friends. So like she has friends there and she doesn't wake up until later. Not good. And she says, John gave her some pill that must have knocked her out. Because she like couldn't come, she couldn't wake up. But she says that the night before, John had made her quote very happy and that things, he had said things to her he, she'd never heard him say before.

And she said, she feels like they're going to be fine. Fuck you. Yeah. Feel, I'm getting that presentation feeling that some people like to do. I'm getting that poison feeling. Yes. So the next day, Joan gets sick. She vomits like after breakfast, can't stop vomiting.

So she spends all the day in bed and John tends to her, brings her medicine. She stays upstairs while John like basically entertains the guests. On Monday, March 17th, Diane and Eunice end their visit. Did I say Eunice before? It's Eunice or Eunice? Eunice. Okay. Eunice Woolen.

So they leave because it's like Monday, like the trip's over. Yeah. But Joan's still up in bed and sick when they leave. So John tells their housemaid, Effie Green, that Joan is not to be disturbed while she's recovering from her illness. Now, are you familiar with the film, Reversal of Fortune? No. Okay.

That's the story of Sonny and Klaus von Bulow and the very mysterious way that Sonny von Bulow died. And it is, it's like exact replica of this story in this part, which I'm blown away by. Okay. Which is what? It's the fact that there's somebody that's sick in bed and the husband says, leave her alone, leave her by herself. It kind of, I mean, it seems like a understandable, if it's not out of the question, if the person's

not murdering that, like, don't, she wants to be left alone. Sure. Yeah. She's sick and wants to be left alone. Yeah. But this is day two of this sick mess where it's like, almost like food poisoning where there's a ton of vomiting. Yeah.

Well, and the other thing, in Reversal of Fortune, which if you haven't seen that movie, it's great. I like it. Glenn Close, Jeremy Irons, it's nuts. And it's a true story, it's true crime. It's one of my favorite movies. Doing it. Okay.

So the next day, March 18th, Effie disobeys John's orders and when he leaves for work for that day, she goes upstairs to check on Joan. And she finds Joan lying in a feces soaked nightgown. So yeah, and she's been sitting in her own filth for a while. Oh my God. So Effie helps her to the bathroom to clean herself up to get some fresh clothes. But while they're in there and while Effie's changing her, she notices that Joan's face starts to turn blue.

So she calls Joan's parents and John, but nobody answers, no one's home. So then the mother, Rhea, just drops by. She doesn't even know that Joan is sick. She's just dropping by to say hi from up the street. She sees Joan in the condition that she's in. And while Rhea's freaking out about her daughter, John comes home from work. So they decide that they need to take Joan to the hospital, that it's gotten that bad.

So instead of calling an ambulance, John insists upon driving her himself. And instead of going to the one of the bigger, more well-respected hospitals in the area, he takes her on a 45-minute drive to Sharps Town General. What? Which is a new hospital that they built, obviously, 45 minutes away with no ER and no ICU. What the fuck, John? Yeah. Cool.

Well, and he would know, right? Because he's the doctor and the plastic surgeon. So he knows exactly what hospitals are set up for what. Totally. And how insane would that be where he's like, I insist upon taking her and then later on, you find out that she just drove away and drove far away. So crazy. So at the hospital, when she finally gets there, her condition quickly worsens.

The doctor switches from thinking that she has the flu to thinking she's in septic shock. Six hours after checking into the hospital, her kidneys fail. They don't have a dialysis machine. What? Because it's the shittier hospital. Joan's too sick to transport to a different hospital. They decide to begin peritoneal dialysis. They need John's permission to perform it because she's not conscious.

He had gone back home and so the doctor calls the house at 9.15 p.m. and tells them to come back to the hospital. John leaves right away, quote, unquote, but doesn't arrive to the hospital until 11 p.m. What the fuck? What a dick. So by 12.30 that March 19th, 1969, they have Joan stabilized, but she isn't improving. And then her heart fails. And at 2.30 in the morning, she dies of the sickness.

Awful. So Texas state law at the time says that anyone who dies within 24 hours of being admitted to a hospital has to undergo an autopsy before being involved or buried. That's a good rule. It is a good rule. But John has Joan taken to a funeral home before anyone has a chance to perform an autopsy within four hours of her death. No, I didn't.

He rushes that body over to the funeral home. Then she's embalmed within an hour of arriving at the funeral home. Fuck. He fast-tracked it. So then a doctor shows up at the funeral home to do the autopsy anyway. And he notices there's a maroon discoloration on her pancreas, and he determines she died from pancreatitis. Ash gets other doctors' opinions.

They all say it's an unlikely cause of death, especially for what she had gone through. On the morning of her funeral, March 21st, 1969, Ash goes to the assistant DA in his name's ID McMaster, and he accuses John Hill of killing his daughter. So another doctor comes to perform a second autopsy right before Joan's burial, and he determines the cause of death to be acute local hepatitis, which was probably viral. But when McMaster reads this report, he tells Ash there's no cause that Ash doesn't give up. He goes to yet another DA and petitions John to exhume Joan's body for a third autopsy,

but of course, John refuses. So Ash calls on a doctor from New York to help, and because Harris County grand jury is also investigating Joan's death, because it's all so suspicious, and because Ash Robinson has juice. I mean, these are all the people that like, it's rich people, and that's all those connections where he's like, I'm not letting it go, and that means you're not letting it go. So a third autopsy is granted, and this time a far more thorough examination is done of the body, and they determined there was a massive infection, but they can't determine the source.

They do, however, conclude that if John had gotten Joan to the doctor quicker, she would have lived. So three months after Joan's death, John Hill marries Ann Curth in June of 1969, three months. So now Ash Robinson is convinced that John Hill murdered his daughter, and the marriage between John and Ann Curth lasts less than a year. What? Yeah. So then in April of 1970, a grand jury votes to indict John Hill on murder by omission,

which means his lack of action led to Joan's death. Right. That's the only one they can prove, but they know that happened. Cool. So his trial begins on February 15, 1971. Ann Curth, they call her to testify against John, but she goes totally rogue on the stand, and instead of just answering the questions that the prosecutors asking her, on the stand, she claims John had tried to kill her on June 30, 1969, by crashing the car into a

bridge and then injecting her with a hypodermic syringe. She also says that John confessed to her that he killed Joan by lacing her pastries with infectious bacteria and injecting her with the bacteria as well. Holy shit. But this, they're like, boom, it's like the judge is going, no, order in the court. Exactly. People go fucking berserk, and they declare a mistrial because she says all this stuff on the stand.

Why? Did he really do that? Because it's hearsay. That's fucking diabolical. It is so disgusting. And it's like, I'm not using this word right. It's smart because you're not poisoning them. Exactly.

So it's not traceable. It clearly reflects that a doctor was doing the murdering because a doctor knows what it looks like when someone dies in non-suspicious circumstances. Totally. And that was, but that's the funny thing about the psychopath or the sociopath when they think they're smarter than everybody and they don't think it's weird that they go, no, you eat the cheese danish. Yeah.

Of course. Like, no, I don't want an autopsy. Eunice Woolen is like, I'm going to write that in at the top of my diary entry tonight. Totally. You lunatic because you don't get subtleties. Yeah. Um, okay. So they schedule a second trial for November of 1972 because it's like order in the court.

Let's start over. Clear the court. Everybody erase your memory. But a few weeks before the second trial is set to start on September 24th, 1972, a masked intruder breaks into John Hill's home and shoots him dead. Wait. Okay. Hold up now.

So he got sent home in between trials. Yes. And so someone came in and fucking killed him and his name is Ash. A masked robber, a masked robber. I'm doing air quotes at Georgia right now. A masked robber came in and shot him to death. In April of 1973, that gunman is finally identified as Bobby Wayne Vandiver and he's arrested. Okay.

So eventually Vandiver tells police that he was paid $5,000 to kill John Hill and he implicates two people. Their names are Marcia McKittrick and Lily Apollis and he says they're the accomplices. Okay. Vandiver's indicted for murder and his trial is set for September of 1973 and then it's rescheduled to April of 1974, but he doesn't show up for it. Instead, he just up and moves to Longview, Texas. Why aren't these people in fucking jail while they're awaiting trial? I don't know.

They must have posted bail. I think it's because they're rich. And so that's the rich people do not wait in jail during trial. They get to go home. They are their fancy lawyers, argue for them and get them out on bail. Bullshit. Well, this guy jumps bail, moves out of town. He's living in an alias, under an alias in Longview, Texas.

And when police officer, Longview police officer John Raymer finds him, Vandiver pulls his gun on the police officer and Raymer shoots first and kills Vandiver. So the police officer killed the guy. The murderer basically. The gunman, the hired gunman, is now murdered by a police officer. Marcia McKittrick, the getaway driver, Vandiver's getaway driver, is convicted in 1974. She's sentenced to 10 years. She's paroled after five.

And then Paulus, Lillia Paulus, the other accomplice, is convicted and given 35 years and she dies in prison of breast cancer in 1986. Wow. And everybody basically in Texas knows for a fact that Ash Robinson is the man who hired Vandiver to kill Dr. John Hill, but they cannot prove it and everybody around it is dead. Wow, they could never prove it? No. Oh, because the one guy's dead.

He can't testify against him. Exactly. He can't spill the beans. There aren't basically the surrounding people like. Yeah, there's no trail. No, there's no one else. No one writes forward, write a check, memo, one dead ex son-in-law. No, there's no more pastries to be handed out.

So that basically it's just kind of like this got taken care of. And I'm sure a lot of people, even if they knew the details, Dr. John Hill is absolutely a creep villain in this story. And there's lots, there's so many good articles about how creepy he was. There's all these stories about how creepy he was. I can't wait to see a photo of these people. Yes, they look like classic 50s people. He looks almost like Rod Serling, plain, good-looking, standard doctor in the 50s.

And she looks like, she looks like Sandra Day O'Connor. She looks like, what are you trying to say? Doris Day. Doris Day. She looks like Doris Day, but younger and a little more plot and bond. Photos up on our Instagram. There have been several books written about this story. Thomas Thompson wrote a book in 1976 called Blood and Money.

But there was also a 1981 made-for-TV movie. And these are the pictures you have to see. Oh, please tell me. 81. 81, prime time. Fair faucet. Plays Joan. And Sam Elliott with no mustache.

Oh my god, young Sam Elliott. Young Sam Elliott with no mustache plays Dr. Hill. I can't picture him. And Andy Griffith plays Ash Robinson. No. Yes. I love it. Who plays the mistress?

Eunice Woolen. Yeah. What if Eunice played the mistress in the made-for-TV movie? The real woman played the, no, those are the only three I know. But I did, when I was prepping this for, Jay was sending me all these pictures from that. Yes, look. Oh, yeah.

Doesn't fair faucet look like Sharon Stone in that picture? Oh my god. Gorgeous. Oh, look at Sam Shepard. He's so cute. No, Sam Elliott. That's what I meant. Sam Shepard is the doctor who murdered his family.

Yes. Great. There's also Sam Shepard, the playwright, who's a great actor. That's totally what I meant. Yes. Well, we'll put it up on my favorite murder Instagram. Also, I just want to watch it. I couldn't find it anywhere to watch it,

but I want to watch that 1981 retelling of the story. Someone listening, this always happens, they're like, their moms save their VHS fucking recorded coffee, and they send it to us. And it's the best thing that's ever happened. So if you have murder in Texas from 1981 starring Farrah Fawcett and Sam Elliott with no mustache, can you please send it to us?

And a VCR player, please. Send us the VCR. Like how me and my sister used to have to rent a VCR if we rented videotape. That's right. And that is the mysterious yet very obvious solved murder of Joan Robinson Hill. Amazing.

Yeah. All right. So this one I heard about a while ago. Our friend Kat Solin told me about it, and I have ever since been fascinated with it. This is the murder at Devil's Teeth. What? Do you know that one?

No, I don't think so. All right. Got a bunch of info from, there's a website called YourTango, and someone named Amy Lamar just posted an article about this. Murderpedia, Web's Loose, but Weird NJ, Weird New Jersey, is like the people who know the most about this. Yes. And in 1998, they got a letter from a guy named Billy Martin

asking about an urban legend, because that's kind of what they do. They talk about the weird crazy cool shit happening in New Jersey. Awesome. Those guys like what? I bet there's a lot. Yeah. Yeah.

Those guys like, hey, I remember this urban legend from when I was a kid involving a dog bringing a body part home to his master in Springfield in the 70s. What is this fucking true? So they started looking into it and it leads them. It's Jesse Pollack and Mark Moran writing death on the Devil's Teeth. Okay. And it's the story about this murder.

Okay. Okay. Here we go. This murder in dirty jurors. That's right. Okay. All right. August 7th, 1972.

Here we are. 16-year-old Jeanette de Palma was about to enter her junior year of high school in Springfield, New Jersey. On that day, August 7th, she tells her mother she was planning to take the train to a friend's house. She never arrives. Classic fucking story. We've heard it million times.

It sucks. When she fails to return home that evening, her parents file a missing persons report. And oh, by the way, this takes place 10 months and one town over from the list family, familiar side case. 10 months after? 10 months after, like same area. And a town over.

Yeah. So it's like time and place. Here we are. Should we talk about the Cherry Hill Mall? Just real quick. Should we talk about it? We don't know. Now it's not in Philadelphia.

We don't talk about the Cherry Hill Mall. Do not talk about the Cherry Hill Mall anymore. You know that, Karen. Wow. Okay. So there's a real devil power center happening already. That's right. So she goes missing and six weeks later on September 19th, 1972,

a dog brings its owner a fucking human forearm with a hand attached. So that it was not an urban legend? No. Oh, fuck. Bad boy. You traumatized me for years. I will never, whatever song is playing right now, I'll never be able to hear it.

Yeah, that's right. Just yelling at this dog. Down on the corner. Oh. Down on the street. Did I, sorry, sidebar. Did I ever tell you about that? My dad had to get a job at my uncle Steve's pizza place

when he, no. No. When he first was married and my sister, I think I was just born and my sister was two or whatever. And he was first, I think in the fire department, maybe hadn't gotten in yet. And my uncle Steve, I just bought a shaky's pizza. Fuck yeah.

And so my dad just worked there and like, sure, I'll do it. And he said he worked there and it was really hard. Like it was just a really standard job and he was worried about money all the time. And it was just kind of like making pizzas. And he worked with this like young stoner kid who played Creedence Clearwater Revival nonstop. And my dad literally can't have it on the radio.

Like if you're in the car and it comes on, he has to turn it immediately. Any Creedence has destroyed my dad. It like, it puts him back to the time where he thought there was no hope, no future. Oh God, that's so sad. I know, it's not funny. I had the same thing, but I was, I had a roommate

who would just play moon dance on the guitar. It was a bad or was something else? Moon Shadow? Yes. I'm being followed by the moon. It makes me think of the sad time in my life when I was 27 and was like, what am I going to do? It's $600 is too much for rent a month.

I don't know how I'm going to pay this. I hate my roommate. She's a co-kid. Okay. What? What? Here's the thing. If you like a song and something bad starts happening,

turn that, turn it off really quick. Make sure to protect your assets. Okay. So where were we? Human forearm in hand. Horrifying. It's brought. Yes.

This of course leads to the discovery of Jeanette's remains. I know. Poor sweet. She's like so beautiful to a poster photo. She's just like, not that it fucking makes a difference, but you know, she's this beautiful, lovely, normal 16 year old. And sorry, who did the dog bring it the arm to?

His owner. What was it? It wasn't a child. No, there was like an apartment building right behind where she was found in the woods. Okay, good. And the dog was like doing dog, 1972 dog stuff, which is like, go in the woods.

Comes back to his owner's apartment. Oh, just everybody. Everything. Oh, okay. So they lead, the least discovery of Jeanette's remains, it's high on a cliff inside of Springfield's abandoned. It's a hodail quarry.

So it's a quarry. It's like, what is that? Like a forest sea ravine type of situation. Yeah. And the quarry usually is like a big dugout thing that sometimes has water in it. If like, if they've, if they're not using it anymore, but like, you know, or, or just a big gravel pit. They say they've dug out for rocks.

Great. It's abandoned. It's, there's cliffs. It's outdoorsy. Okay. The cliff, there's very few indoor quarries that I know of. But again, you remember what I did about the Cherry Hill Mall. So it's wild.

It's wild. It's wild in Jersey and run and wild. And the cliff is named Devil's Teeth because the jagged rocks surround it. So it's like way up high and there's these jagged rocks. From what it sounds like teenagers would hang out there Hell yeah. and drink and shit.

But I'm not totally sure. There's not like a, there's not a ton of confirmed information about this one. Okay. So I'm going to just speculate. We'll speculate the way we do. You know. So the spot where Jeanette is found,

it's so hard to reach that, to retrieve her body, the police had a call on a fire truck with a ladder to get her down. Her autopsy doesn't reveal a cause of death because of decomposition, but there's no signs of trauma. The corner didn't find any trace of alcohol or drugs in her body. But the toxicology report did show an unusually high level of lead, which is never fucking explained and super weird.

And I'll tell you later about how I looked into that. Okay. Her body's fully clothed and when it was found in the corner, wrote her cause of death as unknown, but suggested strangulation as a possibility. I think that's what he suspected. Early in the investigation, the Springfield Police Department, there's like a tip regarding a homeless man living in the woods nearby,

a man known as Red, but he's quickly eliminated as a suspect. And basically it sounds like he was the only person who really seemed like a suspect. So this is when rumors began to spread in town. And you know how fucking towns like just read rumors and talk. It's like what they do. It's what they're for. And it's 1972.

So guess what those rumors were about? The occult. Fleetwood Mac. Oh, fuck. Sorry. You're right. The occult. That's just a small subset of the occult.

So rumors begin to spread that Jeanette's body is laid out in a way that suggests Satan-y shit, which is like, dude, in the 70s and then especially the 80s, it's ramping up to fucking satanic panic. Yes. And these, you know, it's these towns where people are super religious. That's like what their fucking lives revolve around is church and the community. And the idea of Satan and the occult and like satanic rituals are fucking a real threat to them. A constant threat.

In their mind, it's a real fucking threat, which we all know isn't really a thing. Right. And oftentimes, if there is anything satanic, actual Satanists are very peace-loving and not really about that. And the people that are doing that are usually drug-addled teens that are just using that symbolically to like scare each other and themselves. Exactly. Yeah.

So they think that this is real. They say the rumor spreads that there's a bunch of different accounts, but including that she was found on a makeshift altar with a halo of stones around her head, an anonymous person wrote into weirdnj.com or the website claiming that there was arrows carved into trees leading to her body and she was surrounded by dead sacrificed animals and other ritualistic bullshit. And the most common argument is that she was found surrounded by logs like place to be like, to look like a coffin around her.

And then like someone put sticks in crosses like all around her, almost like setting it up to make it look like it was Satanists, which is exactly what someone who isn't a Satanist would do. Yes. It's basically freak out about this thing and get really scared around it. Look over here, look over here, look over here. And then I'll just go back over to this store that I work in and act normal and then you won't be looking for a normal person because you're looking for a satanic cult.

And hey, who started those rumors? Like, was it you? It might have been you. Right. All right. Well, we'll get to that. Gossip, the real devil. After School Special, like Karen Kilgira.

Okay, because it was the 70s and people back then left nothing more than to believe in Satan. These occult rumors spread like fucking wildfire and soon the media fucking picks up on it. And of course, they're like acknowledging it and saying, this is what people think this is what happened and saying it's true. And the De Palmas, so her family were born again, evangelical, Pentecostal Christians. I don't know if all those three things are the same or different. It's again, subsets where the Pentecostals are some of the most intense versions of Christianity.

Great. So they're Pentecostals, which is weird in this like suburban, mostly Italian Catholic people. And they're born again. So they're like, yes, let's do that. They're like, I believe that they're extreme sex of Pentecostal, sex, CC, SC, CTS. That those are the snake handlers. Well, yeah. And they're speaking in tongues and shit.

That's right. So they were, okay. So there was a pastor there named the pastor of that congregation named James Tate. And he was totally Fire Embrimstone dude. And like, you know, he put on these like sermons that were like fucking exciting. And you're going to go to hell with the devil. Or whatever the fuck. And talking.

And then a handful of glitter. Confetti. He just emptied out the pre-hole punch. It's not going to be this fun. It's not going to be this cool. You'll get a piece of glitter in your eye and it'll stick there. Have you ever had like a card full of glitter and then just you have glitter on your stuff? Yeah.

You're like, I get what you were thinking, but this is obnoxious. Yeah. That's a living hell. And that's what you're entering into. That's Satan. Satan is a fucking envelope full of glitter. I tell you about the time my sister sneezed. She sneezed and she sneezed glitter because she's a grammar school teacher.

That's amazing. As an X raver, I appreciate that. And respected. Respect to your sister. Okay. So there were evangelical Pentecostal people and Jeanette's parents were super into it. Jeanette attended services with her parents regularly and was involved in the youth group. So there's this thing about her that it's like half the people are like she was a wild child.

She was like rebellious and crazy. And the other half are like she was really religious and going to church. And what it sounds like is she had been kind of a partier and smoked pot and all this shit. And then right before her murder had started to go to church and kind of get over that phase of her life. But it doesn't sound like she was ever really like a bad girl in any way. She was just hanging out, listening to Led Zeppelin and smoking pot. Everyone in the fucking 70s did.

Yes. And Ann, I think the, because it could have been simultaneous where she was, because her family was very religious, that's usually how it happens. And that's what you're rebelling against. It's like if you're in like a born again Christian type of family or whatever, it gets real strict and narrow. And so there could have been, however it happened timeline wise, those things go together. Rebellion and the hardcore, you know, button down religion.

It just sounded like she was a normal teenage girl at that age and area. So the pastor and the parents helped fuel the satanic fucking panic in town. Yes. Pastor James Tate is quoted in papers from back then describing Jeanette as quote, extremely religious and a very devout parishioner. He goes on to say that he believes a group worshiped the devil in the woods where Jeanette was found and Jeanette may have tried to quote lecture them about Jesus. He says quote, I'm sure Jeanette herself was not involved in anything like that, but I know that many of the other young people in the area are involved.

Like how do you, no one's telling you about their fucking Satanism, dude. It's this kind of thing that's just like, it's just others. And I, and no tolerance for other people, no tolerance for the struggles that other people are going through. And also no tolerance for kids and teenagers of your own community. So it's basically saying, let's source out the, anybody weird from right here. And if they're young and they can't defend themselves or they, you know, if they do go out in the woods because their parents aren't around or whatever.

They're Satanists. Like let's get the weakest of our community and just load all this on that. But it's also a warning to all the fucking parish, the kids, what are the people in the congregation saying, if you walk out of this fucking church, if you don't stay in here, if you don't give us the money we're asking for, if you don't pray as much as we're telling you to, you're going to become like these other people. So you better fucking stay here.

Right. And meanwhile we all know, and we've heard so many of these stories that it's like, it's never, it's never that. No. And you're basically misdirecting like the entire community's mindset about something that is a murder that needs to get solved factually. Exactly. And you know, there's probably law enforcement in this, who are in that church too.

You know what I mean? Absolutely. So they believe all that. Okay. So he says, these kids tell us that, that when they are on drugs, they are in the control of Satan. They did things they didn't want to do because of the power of the evil, which I'm sorry.

I just fucking saw my popcorn ceiling moving around when I was on drugs. I didn't see Satan. I mean, I've been filled with the devil since day one, but that's on me. I mean, I realized that. It's kind of fun. It's, it's always felt like a little bit of a tickle. That's right. The article went on to say that both Jeanette and her older sister had drug problems,

which were quote, solved a few years before when the entire family converted to the church of God. So they were like, these rebellious kids and they were like, we're going to help you. So this pastor ran an evangelical outreach program that ministered to an adolescent substance abusers. He did it. I know, right? For real. I think so.

Get out of there. Okay. How does he know how to help substance abusers? That's right. That's not his area of expertise. And it's possible that Jeanette worked on that with him. So like she might have been involved in that. So he claimed that quote, Jeanette had, Jeanette may have been a symbol of Christ to these

devil worshipers and that's why they killed her. Meaning she fucking happened upon them and they were like smoking pot and she was like, Jesus loves you. And then they killed her because of that. That's not a thing that doesn't happen when no one needs conjecture at this point. Sorry, New Jersey. It's not that fucking, it's not that careful. Let's not mess with the state of New Jersey.

I'm talking about New Jersey in 1970. I'm not talking about it now. It's a great place to live. Those people can't fight us. Great. Later when he's interviewed for this book that I told you about, Death on the Devil's Teeth, he changes his whole fucking story and says that she was definitely involved with some occult things.

It's so strange that she wanted to be involved with that, especially when her family was getting so involved with the Lord, which her sister say isn't true. She wasn't, her sister was like, she had no fucking occult books. She didn't have devil worship bullshit. It wasn't a thing. No. So the Tate's son, who's now a pastor as well, goes on to say that they dated as teens right before she disappeared.

He said, we dated for several months. I cared deeply for her. She was an awesome young lady. She broke up with me because we could not see each other enough. I was sad about breaking up and holding out hope that she would return and maybe we could get the relationship going again, but it was not to be. She was missing for six weeks and then her remains were discovered. Oh, so meaning he's saying like they were breaking up while she disappeared.

Like, come on, cops. Can we look into that a little bit? They're all still alive. So I'm not going to say their names. That's a good idea. So Jeanette's parents were insanely religious and believed the Satan angle. Mrs. De Palma told a reporter that Jeanette may have met her death by persons possessed by the devil.

So of course the fucking town goes ape shit, right? And everyone's losing their mind over it. Some have accused her church of having something to do with this whole thing, like we've been talking about, and they're saying that the pastors like fervor around the Satan thing is just a distraction. The weird thing that's not mentioned in some of these articles about the story is that nine days after Jeanette disappeared, another young woman went missing nearby. 24-year-old Joan Kramer, she was a graduate student at Columbia.

When she was last seen August 15, 1972, hitchhiking home after she had stormed off after a fight with her fiance, which just is fucking heartbreaking. She walked about a mile and then called a girlfriend about midnight to say she was going to get a taxi to take her home. But witnesses say they saw a man drive up in a car and ask her if she needed a ride. I mean, it was the 70s. Like, everyone fucking did that. She was missing for 13 days, went to teens.

Found her body lying face down in a secluded wooded area along the Elizabeth River, five miles from her home, and six miles from where Jeanette's body was found. Wow. And that was nine days later. Okay. They didn't connect the two. An autopsy indicated that she had been strangled, which is what they thought had happened to Jeanette.

And there are other similarities. They were both beautiful brunette, parted on the middle hair, which is like 70s normal and both thought to be strangled and both ladies had been missing their necklaces. Oh. Yeah. Trophy. Uh-huh. So, for the murder of Joan, the second Joan Kramer, a disgraced and drunken is how he's

described. A disgraced and drunken accountant is how he's described. The only people I want to party with. That's right. His name was Otto Nielsen. He had a long history of mental instability and domestic violence. He's identified as the person who picked up Joan Kramer that night only because detectives are like, hey, he looks like the composite sketch.

Oh. Let's follow him. Let's arrest him. Let's bring him to trial. Yes. No. Oh, no. Shit.

I didn't. No. It's not helpful. No, it's not good. Because he didn't pick her up that night? Well, you can't just base it on the composite sketch and he looks like it. Oh, okay. But oh, they're saying he's the one that picked her up purely because he looks like, okay,

I'm sorry. Yes. No, I must have not. I probably didn't say that. Well, basically, you look like this picture. You are the person that did this. Right. And you have some, you know, you have a history of mental instability.

You know. Domestic violence. Domestic violence. Great. This is our guy. Let's get him. And let's make the town stop worrying about this murder on the loose and pin it on this guy.

Exactly. So he's... It's like great. No. Right. Right. I need this thing solved. No, I'm sorry.

I can't help you with that. Okay. He's arrested and tried for her murder. The jury's like, oh, sorry, we're going to need more information than that. And he gets acquitted. Oh, good. He's released. I changed my mind now.

Now that I understand what we're doing. Good. What kind of people? Now that you realize that we're in, what is it, 2019 and not 1972. It's not 1972. He is committed to a state psychiatric hospital in Trenton. He stays there and dies in 1992. Wow.

It was so like something was going on with him. And despite this crazy fervor and insanity surrounding the murder of Jeanette de Palma, it quickly goes cold. The case isn't closed, of course, but the case files for her murder are destroyed by flooding during Hurricane Floyd in 1999. So there's no... The files are gone. Oh, no.

I know. And to this day, people in that area won't fucking talk about it because they are convinced that it's a satanic ritual, it's Satanist, it's witches, it's an occult murder. So they won't even talk about it because they're scared of that, which I think is the perfect fucking cover for someone who has nothing to do with the fucking occult and is just a murderer. Or perhaps the opposite of the occult, someone involved in a church. That's right.

That's why I said that they found high traces of lead in her body. So I went down this fucking rabbit hole of exorcisms. Is there ever lead? Anything lead used in it? I'm like, I couldn't find anything. Sadly. But how great would that be if I solved it? Yes, exactly.

You're like, well, I'm the one that made the connection where holy water is filled with lead. It's filled with lead. It's just... It's like confetti and lead. It's holy water. I mean, that would be so satisfying, but that's like... You're right.

That's the perfect setup where you like the fuse of devil worship. Yeah. Little crosses with sticks. That's all you have to do. Right. And everyone... That bomb goes off and then that's all anyone will look at. And meanwhile, there's just somebody probably sitting in that town or two towns away that's

a serial killer or could have kept on going. Well, yeah. There's so many... I looked up like... Because there were some other... A couple other murders of young girls in the area on the time and I went to a website that's just scrolling and scrolling and scrolling of fucking young women in New Jersey who were murdered around that time.

And it's like pick any of them. And there are so many... So many cold cases. So many cold cases. And there's two serial killers that are like the torso killer. It's just... Bucked up. Yeah.

Yeah, there's so much of it. Which is why I'm drinking canned wine. Yes. It makes life easier. It really does. And that's the devil's teeth murder, aka the murder of Jeanette de Palma. Wow. That's been great.

So Kat Solin, who was our friend, wanted to make a whole true crime puppet show and have that be like a serious one and have that be the first case. And she told me about it and I was like, oh my God, this is insane. I remember that she was talking about that because she does these amazing stop motion and puppet shows. She's such an incredible artist. That would be so cool. Wouldn't that be cool?

Yeah. Yeah, her show is The Shivering Truth on Adult Swim. If you want to check it out, it's fucking awesome. Amazing. I can't believe what she made with Vernon Chapman, who is one of the creators of Wondershowsen. If you ever loved Wondershowsen, which you better have. I fucking love it. And you know Vernon, he's one of the first stand-up comics I ever met.

Really? Yeah. I did a competition with him in Citrus Heights like three months after I started stand-up comedy in 1990. Is it weird that I know Citrus Heights only because of Michelle McNamara's book? Yeah. No, it's not. Golden State Killer.

Because I hate Sacramento so much. Because of the Golden State Killer? Yes, I resent his crimes. That's fair. I took it personally. Okay, so we do some fucking hooray. Let's do it. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to put this in words correctly.

Okay. Because this is a different thing than the thing we talked about of saying thank you to our live show audiences and this massive five-month tour that we've been on that's just wrapping up where our next, our final weekend is next weekend, which is amazing. But there was a moment when we were at those Dallas shows, when we were in the meet-and-greet and I had this weird moment where and the way I tried to explain it to Georgia real time was it suddenly felt like I caught up to what was happening real time. And it almost made me cry because these girls walked up, women, and they started talking

and it's just a, it's a thing that's to us now normal and natural, but you stand back from it a little bit. For us it's insane that we're just, that we even do that and that people want to meet us. Right. And that, and that they get excited and then they have stuff to tell us and there's a lot of really big positive energy, but I think my way of dealing with either negative or positive energy is accepting none of it and just being like, no, all these, all these

doors are shut and I'm just going to get through this and I'll process it later on by myself. I really talked to my new therapist about that today. Yeah. Because it's a lot. Dissociating right now. You have to dissociate when you don't understand like what this new reality is and this has been, you know, we talk about this all the time, but in this moment, it almost felt like

I no longer had this fear of how overwhelming and huge these feelings are and it was like, ooh, it felt so good and I think it was a couple very young women have lately told us that they're proud of us in those and it's very genuine and it's very sweet. And it is that feeling of like, and because people always walk up and go like, you don't know us, but I know you and we always say, and it's hokey, but we're always like, no, we kind of know you too. Yeah, we know you and yeah, you know us. We know each other and that's, we're all this kind of, we're all, we're all a type

of person. Yeah. Like we're a sensitive pay attention to, to grew some things. We know each other. We're a type of person. And so I just had this moment that, that it felt like almost like really concentrated gratitude and appreciation and kind of like wonderment all at once where I was standing like a couple of feet back and then I was like, well, I, you're, I was going to start

crying and then I'm like, you will make this so weird if you're the run crying and the meet and greet. So I had to pull down those, those metal, you know, the window coverings that the businesses have on Hollywood bull bike. I had to pull those down internally and just go, don't cry right now because that's for them. They get to do that. And the graffiti on that.

Yeah. It says, I'm fine. Yes. Don't look away. Um, but it really was a very cool moment because it was just like the reality of this life that we have now, which is awesome and cool, but it's hard. It's hard to feel the reality of it from the inside. Yeah.

Um, we've just been on go, go, go mode for three years. Yeah. Like we haven't had a chance yet to like, to contemplate it. Right. Like I haven't had a chance to go to yoga and meditate on it. No. It's been so crazy. Yeah.

And that's our excuse why we haven't been doing yoga. That's why I haven't been to yoga. It's the thing. I love yoga. I love yoga. I'm going to be doing it any moment. You guys need me. Again.

I love it. And there's lots of people that come up and they're like, I started yoga because you guys. And I'm like, I'm the worst. But, um, whatever, uh, I guess like overall it's just, it's like another one of those gratitude moments, but it was very powerful because it was like, it was just that feeling of like, what a great fucking thing to fall into and how, how ideal it is, is an experience because it really, I just love every goddamn aspect of it.

Yeah. Yeah. That's beautiful. Thanks. I almost don't want to do, I almost want to write on yours. No, get off mine. You do your own. No, it's like we have one horse because we had a kind of rich dad and he bought us that

and I'm like, well, I share it with you. We had a dad that went broke, but he first bought us this Palomino. And all red side saddle. We had to go get on it. Let your sister get on the horse with you. Karen, Karen, let your sister get on the horse. Let's do that. No say something.

Okay. All right. My- What's your real one? Okay. Well, my therapist died six months ago and it's been weird and hard and part of the wall that I'm putting up around everything. You just said is included in that because it's like, I can't deal with this right now,

but it hits me sometimes and it's big. And so two things happen. One is at the Grand Old Opry show, her mom came because her niece heard me do a little dedication to her and realized it was her, Kim, that I was talking about and played it for her mom. And so they drove all the way to come to the show in Nashville. And I got to meet her and hug her and it just meant so much to me. And the other thing is that I was given a token of hers that actually had always meant

a lot to me. It's this beautiful necklace with this nice, gorgeous stone. It's a black amethyst, I think. It's beautiful. Yeah. And I- It's a really lovely necklace. And it was gifted to me last week and it just meant, it means so much to me and I'm,

I can't wait till I could process the feelings around that, but I know they're going to be heavy and hard when I do and it's just, it feels meaningful that I think that I can carry on what she gave me, which is an understanding of my place in the world and what gratitude means and how to deal with the hugeness of life and the heaviness of being vulnerable. And so I really appreciate that of her and yeah, that's it. That's beautiful. Well, it's true. It's like the, you know, we were talking about just before we started taping, where it's

just like, it just never stops coming. So we think, we keep thinking, or I should say, I keep imagining that you work really hard and then you get into a safe space. And it's like, and that you, I imagine that that is all my work in therapy or in business or whatever is, it's buying me safety from vulnerability, safety from bad things happening, safety from, but that is never gets to happen. And there's no, you can't guard against it and you can't pulling down the metal walls of your emotional store.

If you do that too much, they will rust shut. And as a person who felt like when I went into therapy that those walls could never come back up again for many great reasons. Um, yeah, it's, it's what you're doing in my opinion, watching you having to walk through this horrible thing. But it feels to me like you're taking the things she wanted you to know the most and really keeping those in the forefront as you kind of process or, or, you know, not process. Right.

Well, it's the thing of like, when you put those metal gates down, it doesn't keep you from bad things happening. It just is that when they happen and it's say it's the end, you didn't enjoy any of it. Right. And you didn't get to experience it fully. And you, and you, for my, the way mine work, I cut myself off from relationships because I decide that's what's not safe, that this is what's going to happen.

I'll control this, this amount of pain because that's where all the pain comes from is like other people fucking dying or disappointing you or, or rejecting you or whatever. And actually you're cutting yourself off from the only thing that can make you feel better. Yeah. And those things of them dying and rejecting and disappointing is like, well, if you had felt them with your whole heart, you know, would the outcome be the same? Or would you just, you know, be more grateful for the experience rather than seeing how fucking shitty it was.

Right. Right. And we said that before, but it's like, it is the going through life if you can and it takes a lot with the idea that this could happen at any minute. You should live like it could happen at any minute. And I do. But not in an anxiety way. Right.

In a positive way. It's a new way. Yeah. It's a new way, but you had to learn that lesson the worst possible way. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. Dude.

Dude. Big stuff. Heavy shit. This is not just a podcast. We're more than a podcast. We're a book. We're a book now too. We're a book and a website.

And a website. Exactly right podcast network, please go listen to the murder squad and the per cast and the fall line and do you need a ride and this podcast will kill you. And then there's, of course, our new venture for the brand, which is our metal rolling door company that we're going to open up and they cost $5,000 a set. That's right. Give one special graffiti on it. It's extra.

We just catered. We custom build them to your personal emotional specifications. Roll them up. Guys, let's all roll our emotional metal doors up together. Yes. And flash each other our, uh, our soul tits. Our soul tits. That's right.

Uh, great. We've done it. Right? We did it. We're done. Thank you so much. We love you. Yes.

Thank you for listening and stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, you want a cookie? Good boy. Hey, I'm Mike Corey, the host of Wondery's podcast. Against the odds in our next season, three mask men hijack a school bus full of children in the sleepy farm town of Chowchilla, California.

They bury the children and their bus driver deep underground, planning to hold them for ransom. Local police and the FBI marshal a search effort, but the trail quickly runs dry. As the air supply for the trapped children dwindles, a pair of unlikely heroes emerges. All against the odds wherever you get your podcasts, you can listen ad free on the Amazon music or Wondery app.