My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 195 - Live at My Favorite Weekend in Santa Barbara

Episode Date: November 7, 2019

Karen and Georgia cover the disappearance of the Salomon Family and Thor Nis Christiansen at the Arlington Theatre. With special guest Carol Daly.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. What's up my favorite weekend? Yes, Hong Kong. You guys, we did it. You guys, we're here. Everyone having fun at camp? Yeah. Oh yes, absolutely. I love it. We're your counselors. We're the girls from the last show. There's different outfits. I have new shoes on. That's about it though. How about you to give us a little walk? Oh, let me show it without showing my underwear. Nice, nice. This is, I keep, I get brand loyal to murderinos who make me close. Yeah, I bet you do. So this is Sarah Duke.

She made this and look. Yes. Sarah Duke knows her stuff. Yeah. Out of Canada, right? Yeah. What about you? Oh, this is a unique vintage piece. Commercials for it on the show. There's no pockets. They haven't learned yet. They will. Don't worry. There's a big pocket in the front. Right in there. Right there. I can't help it. I can't help it. If I do the foundation garment, everything goes way upstairs. It's just how it is. But you know what? That was our promise to you for my favorite weekend. That's right. Yeah. I can't bring the noise. I can't do that. But no, you do other things. I'm really happy for you. You have a great personality. Thank you. Stop it. Listen, I'm not on wiki feet for nothing. Okay. We all have our strengths. Georgia's feet. Mine are my

high arches. Incredibly high arches. All perverts give her feet five stars. Thank you. Oh, guys, remember last night with the whole arborist thing that happened in the front row? When everyone was woohooing, we were like, how do we have so many arborists here? They were lying. They weren't. We talked to them today. They weren't. Yes, they're not. They were just they were fireball enthusiasts is what they were. They were love the red juice as they called it. And my favorite moment was in it. We got to meet the woman who yelled what I thought she yelled fuck you, which made me laugh really hard. And I enjoyed it. Then other people started doing I was like, I actually don't like that. Just the one moment was good. But then in the meet and greet one,

we met the woman who did it juice. I need you to know, you thought I said fuck you. But I said good for you. I have an accent. It was so terrible version of your accent. I'm so sorry. Oh, she's not here to hear it. Oh, my God. Well, repeat it. Of course, she's getting a drink. Oh, my God, she is dead meat when she gets back here. That was a dedicated moment. Yeah. The one person not in the fucking room. You know what? When she comes back, just fucking ignore her. I'm gonna do it. Can we can we take a moment to thank all the fucking awesome guests we've had tonight? Oh, my God. Last night, the Perkass, Jensen and Hall's murder squad last night. Yes. I tell it right. Oh, and then our incredible DJs, Fifi LaRue and Dante Fontana. They're good friends of ours,

good friends of the podcast. Also, we so many people that we got to talk to today and this evening talked about how amazingly run and organized this weekend has been. And that is because of all the people who worked so hard at the company CID to put this entire event on. So we have a lot. We thank them so much. They have shepherded this entire thing, made everything so lovely and gorgeous. And the gorgeous Arlington Theater. Yes. This beautiful place. They fed you hot dogs. They fed you popcorn. They fed you canned wine. They saw how drunk you got last night. They were like, they need some stuff in their stomach. This is crazy. And they're like, can I have the night off? I'm kind of afraid of these people. Give them popcorn. It'll help. Yeah. So thank

and thank, of course, all of you for getting it together, making this trip from what we've met and talked to everybody about. You're from all over the goddamn planet. And it is crazy. Yeah. It's crazy. Thank you so much. Thank you. Really. We're really lucky. Yeah. Crazy. Should we sit down? Let's do it. All right, we got a wait a second. I think we should bring out Stephen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Stephen. Stephen Ray Morris, ladies and gentlemen. Yes. And his mustard shirt. I just want to thank you both for letting me talk about my cat on stage at the Arlington for a half an hour. Thank you. Well, live in the dream. I know, really. And being back in Santa Barbara because I'm from UC, I went to UCSB. So shout out to Santa Barbara. Yeah. Love it.

Amazing. Fighting Chipotle. Original. I love it. Thanks for being here. It's just fun to finally instead of say he's not here. Yeah, he's here. He's here. Yeah. You'll be backstage pulling on your mustache while we record this. Whole time. All right. Okay, perfect. Love it. Thanks, Stephen. Stephen Ray Morris. Looks good and mustard, doesn't he? Stephen's an autumn for sure. I mean, love having him here. I'm sweating. Let's do it profusely, I would say. Stop pretending and sit down. Oh, thank God. Standing you guys. In the last 48 hours, I think I've had 29 cups of coffee. I've watched them all. Oh, can I say we got a mug today from someone and it said I've worn heels that are bigger than your dick. Yeah. And I love it. And I, yeah. And also, I just like to say two men gave

us that mug. That's right. Yeah. Thanks, guys. We're teaching them so well. That's right. Everybody's learning. Everybody's growing. Everybody's. Okay, thank you. Do it. No, that was it. That was it. They love it. Oh, shit. Hey, Vince, do you have that bag I gave you? Oh, no. Karen has a secret bag. I fucking knew it. What is this? This is around Stephen. Will you find Vince real quick? Because he has a bag. He says it'll be right back. What did you do? Just a little something. You did not. Well, it's actually, it's not going to be worth the whole that we're going to have to do. All right. Let me tell them about this show. Okay. We haven't done this in so long. No, we haven't done it in so long. This is actually our last live show in the US for 20. What's the 2019? Yeah. So, and thank you

because a lot of you, we know a lot of you came out for this last, they called it the winter spring tour. But what that meant was that we were on tour for six fucking months straight. Yeah. Coming to see you all in every city in this nation. Chicken strips have been eaten all over this great nation. I really had to have a come to Jesus about macaroni and cheese in my life. Yeah. It wasn't good. It's more of a joke. Thank you. And thanks to Vince for tour managing. Tour manager, husband, keeper of the flame. He keeps me sane. He keeps us sane. What did you do? I just got you a little something because, because I know you wanted it. And it's our first fan weekend together. So I thought I'd get you a little tiny gift. It's really, I didn't get you anything. Oh my God, I want to be a

wig person. And now I have a purple wig. Thank you. You're welcome. Well, you, you did this. Yeah, I did. Like, touch that you did this. Georgia, I think about you every day. You have to because we talk every fucking day. I have to talk to her all the time. I think I know that girl on the cover too. Oh, I think you parted with that girl in 1997. This is amazing. I'm going to put it on after the show. Yeah. Is that okay? I know you've expressed a couple times the love of the idea of just having a wig. Yeah. Yeah. So let's get you started. I support it. Thank you so much. You're welcome. It's very amazing. I'm touched. I forgot my tissue. Fuck. Okay. Oh, no. It was just too deep. It was too deep. Okay. Um, you're first. You're first. Tell them about the show. Oh, that's right. You guys don't know this. This is a true crime comedy podcast. That's right. In case you were walking up State Street and

you're just like, I wonder what this is. I'm going to go in. Hey, it sounds like a murder mystery show. Pretty hot dogs. Count me in. I'm there. This is a true crime comedy podcast where we combine and fuse two things that are radically different. Comedy and true crime. Rather unseemlessly, right? Kind of kind of jerkily is actually a good way to describe it. It's a murder and violence is the worst thing that can happen to a person. And we don't think that's funny. We just think we're funny. And we like to talk about true crime. We are passionate about true crime. We care about it. We empathize with it. We're obsessed with it. We're worried about it. And we're nervous about it. It gives us anxiety and it cures our anxiety. We can't explain it. We've tried to explain it. No one can explain it. We just like it. And so do you.

And so if at any point in this evening, anybody was dragged along here against their will and doesn't get it, that would be so fucking weird this weekend. I had to pay $19,000 to watch something I don't like. Well, that's your problem, sir. But if you find you don't like that combination, you can go ahead and get the fuck out. Now do it in drunk Karen. All right. Listen. Do you have a lip balm? Do you have a lip balm? What? That's fun when you wake up at a bar, sitting up talking. But that happened to me once at the three of clubs. Yeah, yeah, I woke up making out with this guy.

It's like shit. Oh, he's cute. Okay, I'll keep doing it. I must have been a soothing kiss. It was really nice. Good night. Nice. It's pretty great. Okay, I'm first. Looking for a better cooking routine with meal planning, shopping and prepping handled Hello Fresh has you covered. Hello Fresh makes home cooking easy and affordable so you can stay on track and on budget in the new year. Hello Fresh meals are convenient, seasonal and delicious. Stay cozy all winter long with classic comfort foods available weekly. Why stop with just dinner? Now you can enjoy Hello Fresh's expanded menu of quick lunch solutions, weekend brunch, simple side dishes and amazing desserts. Karen, January is going to be my month

for Hello Fresh. I am so sick of takeout. I miss cooking so much I haven't lifted a knife or a pan since like early fall. So I can't wait to get back in the kitchen and Hello Fresh makes it so easy and also makes it so that my food tastes good, which is hard to do on my own. It gives you everything, everything you need. So get up to 20 free meals with purchase plus free shipping on your first box at hellofresh.ca slash murder 20 with code murder 20. That's up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hellofresh.ca slash murder 20 and use code murder 20. Goodbye. Hey, I'm Arisha. And I'm Brooke. And we're the hosts of Wondery's podcast, Even The Rich, where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most

famous families and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about the incomparable diva Whitney Houston. Whitney's voice defined a generation and even after her death, her talent remains unmatched. But her incredible success hit a deeply private pain. In our series, Whitney Houston, Destiny of a Diva, we'll tell you how she hid her true self to make everyone around her happy and how the pressure to be all things to all people led her down a dark path. Follow Even The Rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon music or Wondery app. Okay, I'm doing the disappearance of the Solomon family. Okay, so this one reminds me a lot of the mixed day family disappearance, but there's differences

and there's similarities. Let's talk about so many things in life. It's true. So the majority of this information, though, I got from a 2018 Los Angeles magazine article by the author and journalist, Stacy Perman, who actually was personally involved in this case. And I'll tell you why once I'm talking about it. Okay. And also, there's an episode of the trail went cold podcast that I listened to about it, which is a fun podcast. Okay. So Elaine and soul Solomon, they saw Solomon saw Solomon. They first met in a bar in Hollywood in 1971. Oh, shit. So many ferns. Oh my God. Ferns and Coke was the name of the bar. Do you want to meet at Ferns and Coke at 630 or 730 in the morning? Let's do it.

We'll stay up all night and meet there. She was a picture her big blonde, beautiful hair in the 70s. She was a 28 year old divorcee with a four year old daughter named Michelle. So I was a 24 year old Israeli immigrant who had come to Los Angeles a year earlier. He drove a taxi and was selling encyclopedias to make ends meet. He I'll show you a picture of them because that's fucking cool looking. Let me point this there. There we go. Oh, party people. Oh my God. How fun are they? They're the most fun. And look, not to brag, but they're Jewish. My people. He has two rings. He doesn't just have a pinky ring on. He went ahead and were, I guess, is it a wedding ring? I don't know. And apparently they're a KFC party because of the hats. I don't

know. They're for the old people references, feral. Yes. Thank you. Okay. So he's this tall burly gruff guy. He wears a hat over his hairpiece. Does he really? They're just like fun. He would hang out shirtless, have a lit cigarette dangling from his lips. Hell yes. Elaine had these big brown eyes. She had dyed one hair. They were very social fun couple. They were always surrounded by friends and family that they all lived in the area. After they married, they had a Sunday Mitchell. I'm just turning it off. You have to look at it. Sorry. That's okay. That was selfish of you. Anyway. So they had, so she had Michelle. Then they had, they got married at a Sunday Mitchell and they moved out of their recede a condo to a nice house in a cul-de-sac in Northridge.

They're on a quiet little street called Lassen. And so, really? Sol started a business refilling fire extinguishers, which I guess you wouldn't think is a thing that needs to be done, but it needs to be done. It needs to be done and Sol would do it for you at a price. Everyone, refill your fire. Please refill your fire extinguishers. They had family like nice things. They had Greek statuaries surrounding their large swimming pool. It's the 70s. No, no, I know. They had a large screen TV. Again, the 70s. It's a big deal. That was, it was as wide as it was long. We brought it tonight. Here it is. It's here. It's all the way back out into the parking lot. They had a VCR, which was, we used to have to rent those from the video store. We wanted to watch it

to cassette, so whatever. They had one. They had nice clothes and they had nice cars and everything. So the fire extinguisher refilling business is kind of lucrative? Well, no. Okay. So let's get into this. Yeah. Okay. So everything changed, though. On Wednesday, October 13th, 1982, a neighbor next door, and this neighbor next door noticed that the Solomon's pool was overflowing. And so they called up a neighbor friend and we're like, we're friends with them. Like, can you go check on them and tell them to turn their pool off? I don't know how the pools work. Yeah, you turn them on and off like a sink. Right. That you swim in. Get that great statuary out of here and turn the pool off. They called the neighbors to go check on them. And

the neighbor, the best friend of Michelle, the little, the girl is Stacey Perman, the one who wrote this article. It's a great article. And so she and her mother come and knock on the door. They ring the doorbell. Nobody answers. One of the cars is still in the driveway and the family conquers Spaniel. I had to include named Mish Mish. Oh, yep. Is that Yiddish for something? Yes. Great. Is in the backyard. Tell me more. No, I can't. Okay. That's all I know. Stacey's mom called around to friends and family and found out that Elaine hadn't showed up to the clinic where she worked as a volunteer counselor and neither of the kids, 14-year-old Michelle and nine-year-old Mitchell had been at school that day. So, of course, everyone's like, oh, shit. The police are called

and they found that the doors are all locked, but the security, you know, alarm hadn't been activated. Eventually, they enter through a bathroom window and they're like, the house is totally normal. They don't notice anything weird. And in fact, they say to Elaine's close cousin, Doreen, the beds are even made. And she was like, that's a fucking red flag because Elaine never makes the bed. Oh, no. That's what's going to happen at my house. Karen, what do you mean there's no socks on the ground? I don't know. What's your thing? There's no drifting piles of dog hair that are just going. They get away from me sometimes. So, they're like, that's not normal. Amen. When they look closer, the detectives found that Michelle's bed frame, so the bed's made and they

noticed that her bed frame is broken and that her pillowcases, sheets, and bedspread were all gone. So, it's just the comforter pulled up over naked pillows and a broken bed frame, 1000 red flags. And they also discovered drops of blood on her bedroom wall in mattress. So, and a small patch of carpet had been cut out as well. So, always bad. I know. So, the police classified as a missing person's case. I know. That is until about a week later when a Caltrans worker happens upon a wallet belonging to one of the salamans alongside the Antelope Valley freeway, which is about 15 miles away, and then the family passports, wallets, and photos are found nearby as well. So, then the case is turned over to major crimes and reclassified as an active homicide

investigation. So, this story makes global headlines. Everyone's like, what happened to this nice suburban family that just fucking vanished? And a press conference where Darryl Gates, who at the time is LA's police chief, called the investigation difficult and perplexing, which is not what you want the police chief to fucking call your investigation. No, yeah. Keep that shit to yourself, sir. That's right. Pre-write something before you go make your statement. Then he says, when someone asks how much blood was in the house or how much blood was lost in Michelle's bedroom, and he says, quote, more blood than I would want to lose. It's a different time. It was a different time. A shittier time. It was a much, it was harder. Okay. He said that, he said that LAPD

detectives had been already, quote, aware of Saul, but he refused to go into detail. But so, this is the problem with this story is because we can't talk to him and there's no, there's a lot of his name being dragged through the mud, which we don't have collaboration for any of it. So people are saying he's an Israeli mafia, that he's an arms dealer, but there's, that's people who are trying to hide something saying that. Not the police, but the, you know, people behind where they went. So, well, it turns out so that they look into the case and it happens that on the night before they were discovered missing on October 12th, Elaine's parents had been visiting the house and around six o'clock Saul had left telling everyone he was going to a car auction with a business

associate and that was normal. He was like, oh, this business associate would buy luxury cars used, fix them up and sell them and Saul had invested in the business. So he leaves at six. Elaine's parents go home around 1030 and Elaine's on the phone at around 11 and she says the door bell rings and her friend says, when she heard the doorbell ring and Elaine goes, I have to go, Harvey's at the door and hangs up. So Harvey was the person that Saul had left with. So that was the last time anyone heard from the family. So of course they focus on this guy, Harvey, who fixes up cars and was the last person either of them were associated with. He is a British citizen who had an extensive criminal history back home and had been convicted

of more than a dozen crimes in England, including armed robbery and had gone to prison nine times. Oh, in 2000, nope, in 1980, in 2030, he finally got his shit together and stopped going to prison. In 1980, two years after moving to the U.S., so he had been involved in an arson on New Year's Eve in which the Sunset Boulevard mansion belonging to the Saudi sheik, Muhammad al-Fassi, that they littered on fire, the house got totaled, but it was just a fucking ruse, elaborate cover to steal all the art from his house. And then they were like, oh, it all went up in flames. And it's like, no, it didn't. Yeah. I like that you said the house got totaled. It tumbled three or four times, end over end. That axles just spread. It's not, it's totaled. You can't.

Yeah. Raider had turned and received immunity in exchange for testifying against his partners in crime. So what's the connection between this guy, Raider and Saul? Well, as I already said, Georgia. Please don't yell at yourself during this. He's the owner of a European car repair shop in Recita called Mr. Motor. And Saul had invested $20,000 in the business when police questioned him on October 14th, noting that he had scratches on his hands, always a fucking red flag. Oh no, I'm just super itchy. To the point where I draw blood from myself. He said he got it by working on cars, you know, those scratchy fucking cars. Yeah, there's a lot of cars that have rakes in them, just sitting in there. That axles broken and the rake is total. The rake,

you're not going to get that rake back. No. He said that the night he and Saul had gone to this auction that he had left the house for, afterward he dropped Saul off at an Israeli restaurant on Ventura Boulevard. And then Raider said he then drove over to Saul's house and his van, parked the van at the house, rang the doorbell, got the keys to the Rolls Royce from Elaine and was like, goodbye. Good luck with everything. And took the car back to his Mr. Motor to get fixed. Okay. Is this all making sense? Yes. Okay. Now I'm just thinking about that he has a Rolls Royce. Yeah. Yeah. Why would you buy a car that expensive? Because the only thing that's going to happen is some 19-year-old is going to just ding the side of it. I mean, listen, when I parallel park,

all bets are off. I'm going to clunk. You go forward till you hear something hit. Then you go backward till you hear something hit. That's right. That's why I didn't buy a Rolls Royce. That's the only reason I didn't buy one. No, you know, we've got to get one. Let's be those assholes. Okay. So, and everything was fine. I was the last person to see both of them. Bye. Yeah. The Solomon's Mercedes was found at Raiders garage, but he denied any involvement and he told police that he believes Saul was involved in transporting guns with the Israeli mafia. So he's the one who gets to, you know, start that rumor. Right. So, but when police look into Raiders story, they found that the car auction that he supposedly went to with Saul

actually ended an hour before they even went to it. And the restaurant was closed the night of. Check the basic facts of your life, people. Yeah. You've got to do light research on your life. Now, it was harder back then because you would have had to go to the library, get some micro fish out. Right. You'd have to go to the Yelp book, pull out Yelp book. The Yelp pages. What time, what time do this place that I'm lying about closed? Hold on, let me call on the rotary phone. Oh, I missed the number. I have to start over again. Why isn't it ringing up? Why is it? Okay. There's so many 22 year olds that don't know what we're talking about right now. Okay. God bless. Good bless. So then in November 1983, there's this dude,

his name's Ashley. Ashley Paul, he comes forward. Does he has amazing hair? You'd hope. Ashley. Let's say he does. Okay. He's Raiders, this guy Raiders cousin and the private investigator that Elaine's family had hired were like, they went over to him in England and they were like, stop being a dick and tell us what happened. And he like finally broke down. I was like, okay, fine. They went like just like that. That's all it takes. Yeah. So Paul, this guy, Ashley had worked for his cousin Raiders dealership, but returned to England after the Solomon's went missing in exchange for immunity from prosecution. He comes back to the US and tells investigators that he witnessed Raiders shoot Saul in the head in the office of his dealership after Saul demanded

the repayment of 20, the 20 grand he had invested. Paul, then Ashley, I'm going to call him Ashley, then claimed that he and Raider then went to the Solomon home where they murdered Elaine, Michelle and Mitchell. He just fucking is like, this is straight up what happened and my cousin's crazy. And then he's like, um, then I helped bury the family's bodies in the desert and Antelope Valley. Um, but then he was like, that's not all. Remember in March of 1982, he told them there's this other couple named Peter and Joan Davis that had gone missing. They were a British couple and, uh, they had lived only two miles away from the Solomon's and also did business with Raiders dealership and he said that Raider murdered them as well. So I don't think they'd

even connected at that point that there's this other couple that went missing. Right. And then okay. He said that Raider murdered the couple again in order to steal their artwork from their home and that he helped him bury the bodies in the desert near Bakersfield. Um, and he claimed that he was also responsible. Another one for the January 1982 disappearance of a Burbank businessman named Ronald Adeeb, who also invested money in Raiders dealership, but he didn't know where his body was. So he goes to tell, he's like, yeah, I'll take you to those bodies. Of course, they're not there. They don't find them. Maybe he's lying. Who knows. And, uh, they, he, they arrest Harvey Raider, but he is released due to insufficient evidence. Um, and then blah, blah,

blah, blah, all this crazy shit happens about like they tried to arrest people. It doesn't work. Everyone goes home to England. Um, the judge dismisses the charges. He goes back to England and he's like, I'm not coming back. Fuck this shit. So he basically confessed and tried to his best to like show where the victim's bodies were buried. And I just like didn't work out. Yeah. And he left. Yeah. So, um, then in September 1988, so this guy Harvey Raider still in town, but they, um, they serve, he serves a term in prison for passport fraud and is facing deportation. So the authorities are like, we got to get him before he laders out of town. Um, he, uh, so they, they, the case against him is very circumstantial though. So like they don't have

anything. His cousin won't come back and testify against him at his trial. The defense pushed the theory that the family was murdered because Saul was involved in illegal activities with the Israeli mafia. After several weeks of deliberations, the jury vote 11 to one in favor of convicting him, but couldn't reach an anonymous verdict. So that's a mistrial is declared. Then at the second trial, uh, he goes, let's see, second mistrial, there's a second mistrial. And then, um, he's back on child trial for the third time in May 1992. And there's no concrete evidence. There's no bodies, no witness, no weapons linking him at all. It's all circumstantial. And then they find out that the 11 to one, that one person was like, well,

I don't even know if they're dead. So I, that's why I didn't convict. Like if the family's even dead, he's like, maybe they just took off. Yeah. And threw all their ID on the road. Yeah. Like as in celebration. And I'm sorry, left mish-mish behind. No, not happening. Not happening. That's odd. Um, so then they're like, Oh, great. Well, that's our defense now is they're not dead or Saul, uh, committed familiar side and killed the whole family and he took off. That was like, based on no evidence, that was their argument. Um, so this time around, the jury voted to acquit the now 49 year old Harvey Raider of the murders. So he got acquitted. He collapsed and stopped quietly in his chair as the not guilty verdict was read. Wow. Yeah. Since the case,

since then the case has gone cold. Uh, it's been almost 40 years in the bodies of the Solomon family. 35 year old, uh, Saul, 39 year old Elaine and 15 year old Michelle and nine year old Mitchell have never been found. Really? And that is the disappearance of the Solomon family. Wow. Awful. Yeah. Sorry. Nope. Hey. Hey. What do you say? It's just fucked all around. I know. There's that thing of like, there being no evidence. So then like when it goes to trial, lawyers are basically paid to make up stuff and it's the only chance you'll get it. It's a, it's a acquittal. You can't retry them for the same. That's right. I know you hate that. You hate that double Jeffrey law.

I do until it happens to me, but whatever. Yeah. I just feel like it's a matter of time until they find them and we can put this to bed. That would be amazing. It's really sad. And so, yeah, it was, um, Stacey Perman's best friend was Michelle. And so she wrote this beautiful article about it trying to figure out what happened to her best friend and she was there. She and her mom went to the house. Yeah. Yeah. It's so sad. Um, okay. Well, I'm going to do, um, the local story. It's the hitchhiker slayer thornness Christianson. Oh, this dick. Yeah. We're going from bad to worse or worse to worse actually. Um, so I got the information for this Wikipedia murder, Pedia and LA times article from 1979 that was on

golden state killer.com. Hey, um, a book called the encyclopedia of kidnappings by Michael Newton and an episode of, um, a very great TV series on YouTube called born to kill question mark, which is really good, but I born to kill make the decision. Um, yeah. Okay. This starts on April 18th, 1979, a 24 year old sex worker named Lydia Preston is working Hollywood Boulevard. Uh, when a man stops his car and asks her for, or picks her up for a date, asks her for a date, it was not romantic. Um, they have a conversation. They agree on a price. She gets into the car and they start driving away. Um, Lydia, he tells Lydia that he's from Santa Barbara and that he works construction. He's in town on vacation. Now let's, you know, let's hear it for Santa Barbara.

It's done a great job this weekend. Yes. Um, so, uh, so Lydia, uh, as they're, as he's talking, Lydia's like, Oh, there's a motel right there. We should go to that one and he just keeps on driving and talking. So then she's like, okay, um, there's one right there and points out another one. He keeps driving and he basically drives up into the Hollywood Hills, um, where it's windy, secluded roads and it's very dark. There's not, you know, it's away from the city lights. Um, and as they're driving along a windy road up in the Hollywood Hills, he pulls out a gun and shoots Lydia in the head. Oh my God. She doesn't die. She survives. Not only does she not die, but she fucking grabs the wheel and crashes the car into the side of the road. Holy shit. And then gets out

and fucking runs to the nearest house. Lydia knocks on the door. The neighbor opens it. She's like, please fucking help me right this second. He calls an ambulance. She goes to Cedar Sinai, has emergency surgery and fucking survives this attack. Oh my God. Yes. It's a really nice start to a fucking terrible story. Okay. Oh, it goes downhill from here. Yeah. Um, okay. So, uh, but aside from her statement, the LAPD has no solid leads on who this attacker could be or what his motives were. Um, if they'd contacted authorities in Santa Barbara, they might have learned that murders with the exact same MO of Lydia Preston's attack had been taking place in that area for almost three years. So we'll go back to November 20th, 1976. 21 year old UCSB student,

Jacqueline Rook, tells a friend of hers that she's going to go shopping and she's last seen hitchhiking along a busy intersection in Isla Vista. Um, so hitchhiking, it's 70, so hitchhiking is very common at this time. Um, also, there's not a lot of nighttime bus service or public transportation. Um, so it's, so all the, basically all the students did it is very popular because most of them didn't have cars. So Jacqueline disappears and when it, her disappearance passes the 24 hour mark, um, the concern turns to fear, of course. Um, some people fear that a dangerous criminal who's passing through the area has kidnapped her because no one believes that anyone in this small close knit community could be responsible for, for kidnapping young

woman. Um, and the investigators open the investigation. Uh, but there's no solid leads. Two weeks later on December 6th, 1976, a 19 year old waitress from Galita named Mary Ann Saris goes to a doctor's appointment around 4 30 PM. And afterwards she walks outside to the intersection of Hollister Avenue and Patterson Avenue to hitchhike home. And, uh, eventually she gets picked up. She, uh, by a stranger and that's the last time anyone sees her alive. So the kidnappings of these two, uh, women who were hitchhiking, of course, strikes here in the community. Um, people in Isla Vista and Sarina Barbara, but mostly in the, the Isla Vista area, they take to the streets and they protest, um, against basically that they

need more public transportation. They need, you know, safety and for the safety of women. Um, and, uh, yeah, basically it's like a first take back the night kind of thing of like, you can't just fucking leave us out here, you assholes. I'm putting words into those students' mouths, but I bet I'm pretty accurate. Um, one of those protesters, um, is 21 year old UCSB student, Patricia Laney. So Patricia, um, is a talented actress. She's a juggler. She loves juggling. That's right. And she's also an activist, especially for women's issues. So on January 18th, 1977, Patty decides to go out and distribute missing person flyers for Jacqueline Rook and Mary Ann Saris. And she walks all the way across town, passing out these

flyers. And when she's done, she waits for her friend to pick her up at the intersection of Hollister and Patterson. I don't like it. But her friend runs late. And by the time they get to that intersection, Patty is gone. And it's the exact same intersection where Mary Ann Saris went missing. Oh my God. Less than 24 hours later, a police officer patrolling a secluded road in a Refuvio Canyon, um, comes upon the nude body of a woman who's been shot in the head with a small caliber gun. Her clothing and backpack are found less than a mile away. And the identification confirms that it is the body of Patty Laney. And the discovery of this body, of course, is devastating to the entire community. But it also gives investigators their first clues.

The road is not well known, and it's pretty remote area. So that indicates that this killer must be familiar with the area and might be a local. They also find paper towels near Patty's body that are later identified to be restaurant quality, like to restaurant suppliers. And Patty's blood as well as some latent fingerprints are found on those paper towels. Those latent fingerprints don't match any in the system that they have, but they file all the evidence for future testing. And then they go back to that canyon and they scour the area for more clues, because now they have something to go on. So they're just going for anything. And this is one further up the same road that Patty was found on. The police discovered the body of Jacqueline Brooke on the same road.

She's been shot twice in the head, and her clothing was also missing. Four months later, on May 22nd, 1977, Marianne Saris's body is finally found in Drum Canyon, which is north of Santa Barbara. And she's also been shot in the head and found nude. So one night in February in 1977, which is about a month after the discovery of Patty and Mary's bodies, 20-year-old Clore Christensen picks up his buddy Guy Mailer to hang out. And the two grab some booze at a liquor store in Galita, and then they go off to the side of a freeway on a cliff that overlooks the ocean, which was like the cool spot to get high. You all know it. We've been there this weekend, right? Yeah. No. Let's go to the cliff. So they're sitting in Thor's car and Guy's rolling a joint,

and Thor doesn't realize he has his foot on the brake. So the brake lights attract the attention of a patrolling cop that's nearby. So the cop sees the booze, sees the weed, he confiscates them, you know, for official use. And then he tells them he has to write them a ticket. He asks Thor to open his trunk, and Thor refuses. And Thor's friend Guy is like, what the fuck are you doing? Just open your trunk, you asshole. Yeah. So Thor complies. And in the trunk, the officer discovers a.22 caliber pistol wrapped in a paper bag. But when he questions Thor about it, he states that he brought the gun in case him and Guy decided to go to the creek to shoot rabbits. That funny thing you do when you're high? Kill animals? Guy who has never known Thor to be outdoorsy or

hunter type. Right. Or hate rabbits. Or hate rabbits. None of that's ever come up. He is looking at his friend like, what the fuck's he talking about? But it was a rural area, and it wasn't uncommon for people to have handguns in their car for hunting. So the cop buys the story, cites them for possession, and goes on his way. Thor has no record, and this near miss keeps his fingerprints out of the system for a couple more years. So let's talk about good old Thor. Thor Ness Christensen is born in Denmark on December 28, 1957. In 1962, his parents emigrate to the U.S. Thor's five years old, and they end up moving to Solvang. They're from Denmark, so they're like, oh, we have to go to that fake tourist town. We better live there. This is where

we're wanted. This is where our people are. Well, and the father opens a restaurant there that actually became very popular. So it was the right move. Thor is a bright kid, but he has random outbursts of meanness and strange behavior towards his friends. When he's in sixth or seventh grade, his friend Ron Bender notices that Thor is developing a tendency to step on and kill small animals for fun. Eventually, it escalates. He starts capturing birds and frogs and tying firecrackers to them and letting them go just to watch them explode. But no one, back then, people are like, oh, that's so cute because you're a boy. No one's worried about it in the least. Also, Thor's father is a terrible alcoholic who abuses him. So Thor starts drinking when he's

about 12 years old. What the fuck? Well, you get super fucked up when you're 12. That's true. And of course, that almost immediately leads to drug use and really a large weight gain for Thor. He ends up gaining like almost 100 pounds. And he also doesn't do well with girls, which it's, you know, obviously he's very troubled and there's a lot of anger and there's a lot of issues. And despite the abuse from his father's also kind of this conflicting thing in our family, his parents are rich because of their successful restaurant. So what they do is they buy him an Audi when he turns 16. They leave him home alone constantly, but they just leave like piles of cash there for him while they're at the restaurant. So he takes the cash and he buys

coals, the great menthol cigarette coals, and fifths of Scotch that he drinks and sips like before school. Holy shit. So he's going for it. Oh my God. Okay. And then he and up into like into early high school, he gets good grades. He's a smart kid, but then his grades plummet and he eventually drops out and gets a job as a gas station attendant. So after this encounter that he and his friend guy have with that cop that night, Thor moves to Oregon, you know, just for fun. Okay. So during this time, the hitchhiker kidnapings and murders stop entirely. And then when Thor returns, he gets himself an apartment in Goleta. And he's lost a bunch of weight. You know, he got himself together in Oregon. And, uh, and he even gets a girlfriend

who he met while she was hitchhiking. Oh, but his close friends noticed that he now has a keen interest in keeping his car clean, particularly his trunk, which they all notice and think is super weird. And they also noticed that he starts making regular trips down to Los Angeles, and then coming back and bragging about all the awesome sex he had with sex workers while he was there. And they're all just like, cool, dude. So that is his new, that's apparently his new thing. Okay. So on May 26, 1979, the body of 22 year old Laura Sue Benjamin, who's a sex worker from Los Angeles is found in the San Gabriel mountains just north of LA. And she, like the other woman in the Isla Vista and Los Angeles attacks has been shot in the head on July 11th, 1979. Lydia

Preston. So this is our survivor from the beginning of the story. She's in a bar called the bottom line in Hollywood. Have you heard of it? It became cactus and Coke. What was it? Ferns and Coke. So Lydia's in this bar. It's been three, it's been three months, sorry, since her attack. And she's, you know, obviously just trying to live a normal life. And then to her horror, she's standing there, she turns around, and she sees the man in the head walk into the bar. What in the fuck? It's her attacker for Christensen. Holy shit. So she's just like, not today, motherfucker. Not then and not now. She fucking walked straight to a pay phone, calls the police, the police show up, they immediately arrest him. Yeah. Because they know, they have her whole

story. They know her. They went through that whole fucking thing with her. Like they know it all. And, and they get there immediately get him. And now they're the, the cops in LA and the cops in Santa Barbara, I live this area are able to connect all of these murders throughout both cities to one man for Christensen. I feel like it never happens like that. Like what a, I know satisfying so fucking satisfying. And the woman herself who got fucking shot in the head is just like, uh, he's right there. Hi. I didn't die asshole. Wow. Yes. Oh my God. And, and when they do connect all of these murders, they realize that all of these women look eerily similar. Creepy. Yeah. So in early 1980, Thor is tried in Santa Monica for the murder of Laura Benjamin and the attempted

murder of Lydia Preston. And Thor first enter tries to enter a plea of insanity and then realizes he's not going to be able to like fake that out or prove it. And so he switches his pleaded guilty. He's then tried in Isla Vista for the murders he committed there and he again pleads guilty. So in court, they actually, when you plead guilty, he had to explain the murders. And that's when everyone finds out the reason that the bodies were nude is because he was a necrophiliac. And so he killed them first and then had sex with their boss. Oh my God. They didn't know that before he personally told everybody in court. Then he sentenced to life in prison without, with the possibility of parole in the year 2004. No, no, no, no, no, no. This is 1980. Okay. But

men, hold on. Okay. You're gonna like this. Okay. March 30th, 1981. Thor is stabbed to death with a 10 inch homemade knife in the exercise yard at Folsom Prison. The guys at Folsom Prison are just like, no motherfucker. Not at all. Not at all. This fucking story. Yes. Twist interns. I find jailhouse justice so goddamn satisfying. Because you know what it means? There's people in jail. It's like, not everybody, some people get arrested and go to jail. They're still fucking moral human beings that are like, fuck off. Yeah. I can make a shank out of anything and I don't like your behavior. Yes. And I'm already in here. So I might as well take care of some shit. Amen. Preach.

Slow songs. They're for skinny. I can't move all of this. Okay. So Jay found me a listener email. Yes. Listen to this shit. Hello Karen, Georgia, Steven and animals. My best friend showed off your podcast two weeks showed off. Check this shit. I listened to this. And I just have to say, I had no idea there was a name for people like me. Murderinos. What? Like that's an actual thing. Okay. Okay. Okay. So I've been debating sending this email because it's pretty intense. Also not talked about with super not talked about within our family. Very sore subject. My dad is an epic total Southern Cali blonde hair pool plasterer and partied hard in the late 70s. He's from Solvang. Seriously, the most random Dutch town ever. Born and raised and his best friend growing up,

Thornis Christensen. Holy shit. Also bender and guy. We're close friends with his with with this person's dad. We visit them when we are in town. My sister still lives there. So we visit often. So this documentary thing comes up and my dad gets super weird and unsettled. We were worried he wasn't sleeping. He seemed really stressed out. So us kids kids got ballsy and asked if he was part of it. My dad's response was not intentionally. What? No, I can't handle any of this at all. I am my mind is I'm glad I'm not wearing that wig because it would have flown right off my fucking head already. Flip that wig, baby. Yeah. Okay. So this is my favorite. No, my dad, my whole life. Amazing. He looks tough, but literally is like a big teddy bear who is

not capable of such things. Well, he didn't know what Thor was up to at all. But Thor had stolen my dad's 22 caliber without dad's knowledge. And then afterwards helped him look for it. Oh, yeah. When they confiscated the gun in 78, I'm not sure if that's when the interaction started or when Thor pled guilty against super rough topic for my dad. But oh my God, I have so many questions. Dad wouldn't give much detail. But because it was his gun, he was investigated and interrogated to the point of PTSD. He wouldn't tell us what the interrogation looked like or what happened just that it was bad. Hence why he was super not okay when the documentary guys called. I guess it was pretty horrid. And what was worse was that my dad loved Thor like a brother and

they were best friends. He was in his fucking goddamn wedding. When he talked about it, he had tears of sadness because he had no idea. Needless to say, my dad carries a lot of guilt regarding the gun, which holy fucking shitballs I would too. Well, one day I'll get pops to answer my questions. And when I do, I will email you guys leave your fucking father alone. Leave him alone. Talk about succession. There's so many other things in the world. Stop it. Jesus. Don't bring us into it. Oh, oh yeah, I just had this but oh yeah, another detail I found out while researching. Thor died stabbed to death in Folsom prison, March 30, March 30th, 1981. I was born March 30th, 1989. God. There's not a connection. Not at all. Maybe it was the same year. Eight years later on

the same day. Totally connected. Also now we have your birthday. Yeah, that's right. I do wonder how his death affected my dad. Like was he conflicted? Not sure I would have been. What he did to those women was beyond horrid. He didn't deserve a fast death. Sincerely, the chick that also shops at the headless market in Esquitada, Florida. No, sorry, Oregon. I didn't fucking sign it. She did. But anyway, that's basically someone who knew where that gun came from. Okay, I'll end this with something that I absolutely love and is so beautiful. And when we do these stories, it's, it's so, I love it so much because you can pull these rad things out of it. They're like little pieces of life. In honor of Patty Laney and her passion for juggling, I love Vista has

held an annual juggling festival for the past 43 years. They just had it in May. They just had it in May. And all the proceeds from the event go to the Santa Barbara rape crisis center. So if you want a t-shirt from the, from the juggling festival, you can go to sbjuggle.org. And that will also go toward the rape crisis center. If you want a juggling t-shirt, you can get it. And that is the rotten tale of serial killer Thor Christiansen. Karen, I'd say top three stories you've ever done. Yeah, that was amazing. That was amazing. Why? I almost cried. I don't ever almost cry. Georgia hates crying. We have an amazing surprise guest for you. That's right. We're so excited. Yeah.

Yeah. And we're so, so honored. Yeah. She's one of the first female detectives in Sacramento. The first female detective to run her own task force and was one of the original and primary investigators on the East Area Rapist case before, before retiring as Sacramento County Sheriff's Detective in 2001. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage right now, Ms. Carol Daly. I think you should walk. Yeah. Before you sit. Say hi. Hi. Oh, my goodness. Carol Daly. Thank you so much. I'm overwhelmed. I'm overwhelmed. It's pretty crazy, right? Yes. Oh, my God. We're so excited you're here. I didn't get you a wig, though. I'm sorry. Sorry. I'm wearing one. Nice. Okay. So we know you all from following

East Area Rapist and obviously that would then became Golden State Killer, the Iran's case. Do you just want to talk about that a little bit about what it was like at that time and to be in the position that you were in as one of the first female detectives? We had, when I joined the Sheriff's Department in 1968, there had been two ladies on the department for four years and women coming in, it was a special classification, female deputy sheriff, separate criteria to apply and everything. Early on in law enforcement, we didn't wear, we wore skirts and high heels and carried a gun in our purse. Sorry. Was that a requirement? Yes. We weren't allowed to wear pants and all of our shirts were tailored off from the men's uniforms. We didn't have women's uniforms.

So it was a very early time in law enforcement. We weren't allowed to work in patrol. We couldn't work in the jail. So there were only three positions that we could work at and one was detectives. One was long haul transportation and the other one was courthouse. So after we trained for about six months, we were given our assignments. So I went to detectives, had been in detectives about nine years and had just transferred into the homicide detail. She's talking. So I really specialized in crimes against children for several years and then I was working sexual assaults. Then when I transferred into the homicide detail, it was just shortly before the East Area rapist started working and I had responded to one of the first scenes and then

after we realized we had a series going, there was a task force formed. So I was the lead investigator just simply to work with all of the victims. We had a large task force, people that had different assignments. So I wasn't leading the task force, but I was there to interview the victims. I think it's so lucky though that you were there because it's that thing that as a woman, I think there's an empathy piece that maybe you brought that they didn't realize was so necessary, especially in that situation where it was such an extreme. Those crimes were so extreme, so brutal. The crimes were very extreme and very brutal. It was really very interesting in working with these victims. They came from great backgrounds. They were educated women.

They were queer and some of them were just young, 13, 15, and this was their first experience of anything being assaulted or anything like that. So just working with them and going into a crime scene and trying to put them at ease and I think the first thing that it was so important is to give them as much control back as they had because they had total loss control over it. So you give them as much control and just listen to them at first and then when you start asking more questions about please tell me a little bit more, tell me a little bit more. But letting them know that this isn't just one crime, that everything that happened to them became a different crime and we could compound the charges and thinking down the line when an arrest would be made. So very sensitive

investigations and if they needed to cry, they could cry. We had times during the investigation when we would maybe just have to laugh about some things and sometimes it was a nervous laugh and it was okay. Yeah, amazing. But at the time that the East Area rapists was working, rapes were just a misdemeanor. Are you serious? No, a lot of people don't realize that. They were not a serious crime and rape victims not only were assaulted at the time but as they went through the court process, they became the ones that were at fault. They were always the ones who were condemned for being the rape victim. So it was a big movement of women right after during this time that they pushed and pushed to get it reclassified to a felony and now of course

you look at the crime, at the punishment and things that are going on. So it was actually women who got together and pushed and said this isn't right. Yes, that's right. That's incredible. One of my favorite or I guess one of our favorite because of course we've watched so many of the erons and the like the specials that are on TV and all you know the things that we've seen and our favorite discovery was very early on George and I said a phrase that became that became almost a motto of the show which is fuck politeness like you don't have to be nice to people. Don't be nice to people. You don't owe anybody anything. You certainly don't owe strangers your time or anything and then we were watching one of those things and you are speaking to

the you know the group of people that came when everybody came to the... I want to say congregation but that's not right. No, so you know the community meaning is the one of the community meaning. And you basically in a much more polite way said fuck politeness. You don't have to you don't owe anybody anything. You have to open your door to anybody. Yeah, you told everyone to fight and we were so moved by that. And we had always encouraged victims you know try to take charge do whatever you can to get away. However with this particular rapist because he was so violent and we really knew that he wanted to kill that we said do whatever he tells you to do because you need to spare your life. Yes and that was a very hard thing to do.

The community was in a frenzy at the time and for some reason I was out front at all of the community meetings and with the media and mostly because I had interviewed all of the victims and so I was able to answer all of the questions but it was a very tough time in the community for a period of over two years. Yeah, because it just kept happening. Yes, it kept happening and we'd have one at least once a month and then months we had four in a month and sometimes we had two in a night and we were just running from crime scene to crime scene. How did you deal with that personally? I mean did you have a coping mechanism? Were you prepared in any way for that level of continual, I don't know, stress? From the very beginning when I was asked about

that, I didn't focus on me and I think that helped. I always had to focus on the victims and what was happening and what we could do to try to solve the crime so it wasn't anything that I ever took into myself but to try and help the victims and what they were doing. Yeah, amazing. Can you tell us a little bit about what the past I think year and a half has been like when they finally caught him and blocked him up and you got to tell the victims what happened? Actually it probably started about two or three years prior to that when the State White Task Force was put together to really concentrate on all the scientific information that was available to them to make the arrest and so I'd had a lot of contact with all of the

victims during that time and then I was in the car and Sheriff Scott Jones called me and said, Carol, guess what? We've identified who the Eastern Arabian is and I said, oh what? And he said, yeah, as a matter of fact, this is his name and he's in booking right now and so my first comment to him is you have to tell the victims right now before they hear it in the media and that has really been a big issue for me with all of the victims over the years is that they always heard everything from the media instead of being told first and his comment to me was start making the phone calls. Yeah, that's amazing. So incredible. Yeah, so incredible. We heard that you have a story about Paul Holes. Yeah, that's pretty funny. What's your background with Paul Holes?

Well, actually until I hadn't ever really talked to him until tonight. We had met at a couple of events but we were busy going in different directions and but my daughter or granddaughter is a huge, huge podcast fan and she listens to them all and so when she knew that Paul Holes was part of the arrest team and she called me one day and she said, grandma, I really, really love you but I'm hot for Holes. So anyway, and I didn't know Paul that well, but I knew that he had moved to Colorado, that he had retired and that he was starting a new career and so I just sent him an email and I said, you know, my granddaughter is a big fan of yours. She's a teacher and do you have a picture that you could send her and autograph it and I said, it really put me in, you know,

good side with her. Backstage you said it would make me the favorite grandma. So anyway, probably two or three weeks later, she sends me this picture by text and she said, grandma, did you do this for me? Paul Holes not only sent him a picture of himself, he did a collage, he did a picture of me and he did a picture of him, a couple of D'Angelo and some other things and then autographed it with a very nice comment about me and she said, I am just moved to tears. So he, you know, as busy as he was, so that's my experience with Paul, that he was very kind and when I talked to him tonight, he was very kind, he's busy, but with his career and everything, but I really appreciated him taking the time to do that. Yeah, he's the greatest. Speaking of photos,

I think you've seen this, but this is one of, one of our listeners sent this to us pretty soon after D'Angelo was arrested. Of course, we were out of our tree about it and talked about it and recorded an episode as we watched that. The case, the next day, the press conference, thank you. You know, I mean, it was like such a big deal to us. It was, this case was actually the first case I did on this podcast, episode one. Yeah. So it's been, and I think everybody has followed it for so long. It's a horrible thing. Right? I love it so much. I feel, I hope you understand how incredibly inspiring you are to all of us. I really am watching, looking at all this stuff. I think we all kind of feel that same way. We're like, we see pictures like this and we're just like,

fuck, yeah. It's just so cool. Yeah. I did not even know about this picture. It was, and until Joke Productions did their five part series and Todd Lindsey showed me this picture and I said, I don't even remember that. And I think I, I think I, I don't know if I had come back from the FBI Academy and there was a lot of media coverage and they wanted me down at the range and anyway. It's incredible. I forgot all about it. We haven't. Yeah, the pearls are a good touch. Pearls were required by the Sacramento Police Department. She was required to wear huge strand of pearls. Can we have, can we bring up the other one, which is the murdering art? Have you seen that? It's a hand drawn. Yes. Oh, good. I have several copies. Do you really?

I bought them for the granddad. Oh, there we go. We just, we want you to know you're a real hero to us. Your work is, is revered and intensely respected. We think you're amazing. And here's just one more reason to love Carol Daley. So we offered all the people that came and did this weekend with us. Everybody got a stipend and when Carol was informed that she was getting a stipend for this weekend, that's paid. Yeah. That's a little walking around money. She said she didn't want the money because this was a public service that she liked to do. And you believe that? To talk about this stuff. And we were so, we were so touched by that because having you here is like such a treat for us and we, we

are, you know, we've been so excited about this. Yeah. So we wanted to do something. Yes. So we basically matched the amount of your stipend and we're going to donate $10,000 to Rain in the name of Carol Daley. Thank you so much. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. It's a true honor to have you here. It's the best way we can think to cap off this show with this awesome weekend. And we just, we can't thank you enough. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Carol Daley, everyone. Come here. Thank you so much, Carol. Thank you. Look at her. She doesn't want any standing ovation bullshit. She's like, okay, peace. Public service. We're like, oh, yeah, this is a public service for us too. Yeah. Um,

should we? Yeah. Oh, yeah. So look, we're going to do hometowns our way tonight. Yeah. Here's Vince with the mic. Then say it related to gentlemen. Thank you. So that wig, right? Yes. You guys had been doing whatever you came to the door of the room and you were like, get rid of this. I was like, get rid of this. You go get rid of this. I went through it away in the other green room. So then I'm standing here and you're like, where's the bag? I run up. There's, there's fucking orange peels and shit on top of it. That was in the trash. I heard you go get rid of this and I was like, what did you fucking do? I love it. I realized I had it in my hand and a gift bag isn't gift wrap. So of course,

we're, we're never not two feet away from each other. So I'm like, oh yeah, I guess if I hold this in a gift bag, she's going to see it. So I handed to Vince, but then she's still there. So I can't go, oh, I got her a wig and I don't want her to see it because so you can get rid of it. So I just said the very last part that I was thinking. Get rid of it. And so I see that I'm like, okay, either she got me a present or they're dealing each other drugs. I'm not going to ask either way. Vince and I are so high right now. Okay. So we have, we are have some names of people who have hometowns that we would like to hear. Andrea from Calgary, will you please walk down over there? We talked to you already today. Andrea from Calgary, Lisa from Virginia, please walk over

there. Jenny from Cleveland, please walk over there. Jeannie from Indianapolis. And our contest winner for this weekend, the accountant, Jessica from Connecticut. Right over there, Vince. Yeah. Do you know we talked about you while you were getting dressed? Where the hell did you go? Oh, there was, we had a whole moment about you at the top of the show. She did your accent. It was amazing. I mean, they liked it. It was not accurate at all to your real accent. I do apologize. She just turned to her friend and goes, they're talking to me. We need you at all of our shows. Okay. We don't need to tell you the rules. House lights down. Should we tell them the rules? We told, I said, don't be, don't get too drunk.

And that's about it. Every person we kept going, okay, does it have a good ending? Or will you be drunk? Okay, then great. So if they did, it's, it's not our fault. And here they come in no particular order. Give them a hand. It's so terrifying, you guys. Yes. Yeah, we'll just do it one at a time. Yeah. Andrea from Calgary. Yes. The Canadians representing. Oh, say, let's hear your hometown. Okay. So first of all, this was about a little over 10 years ago now. At the time I was working at a social services agency called CNIB. Thank you. So I was like advocacy, public education for people with vision loss, right? And no two day that anybody who's worked for not for not for profit, no two days are the

same and you wear lots of different hats. And one day I got a call from an up and coming architect and he was really interested in accessible design for, for people with disabilities. And also I'm great. So I was telling him, giving him some information and I said, well, why don't you just come for a tour? Our whole building was designed for that purpose with, you know, high color contrast and tactile targets and everything like that. So he was all, he's like, yeah. So I give him the touring. He's a really cute guy. And sorry, but really quick, what if she's telling us like how she got married right now? She just doesn't even know what a hometown is at all. Sorry, sorry, sorry. It's a great story. He's really personable, kind. And it's all pertinent,

I swear. At the end of the tour, he opened his wallet to give me his cards. So it's going to give him some more information and he had this beautiful family. And I said, wow, you're a lucky guy. And he said, oh, yeah, you know, I was too lucky three times, blah, blah, blah. So anyways, we talked a few more times after that, he called for information, he would send me Christmas cards, he, you know, this and that, nothing, he wasn't a personal friend, but, you know, we knew each other. And then I guess fast forward, maybe, maybe about a year, I had moved on to another job. But I was listening to the morning news and there was a story of a murder, suicide. And I couldn't believe my ears when they said that this young man, Joshua Law, has killed

his downstairs tenant, his wife and two of his three children. Oh my God. I just, I couldn't believe it. It just, it just, I didn't know how to process it. And it's not like it was my tragedy, I didn't know this person like super well, but at the same time was really affecting. And then the twist to that or the odd coincidence, I guess, is that as we found out more details about who this downstairs tenant was, well, it was actually a work associate of my then boyfriend. He was a freelance photographer. She was a freelance writer. And he's like, yeah, we knew, we knew Amber, he's like, you met her, you met her at Jackie's party. So it was just a lot to process for both of us and both in a really weird space for, you know, I guess weeks after that. And I

never really talked about it that much because it felt like it's not my story. It's not my tragedy. And it wasn't like they were friends, like super close, but at the same time, holy shit. Yes, Andrea. Yes. Amazing. Andrea from Calgary, everyone. Thank you. Great job. Okay, hi. Let's hear another terrible story. This is Jeannie, everybody. Jeannie, where are you from? Indianapolis, Indianapolis. Wait, are you the one that you told one already? Okay, wait, remind us of the hometown you've told so far. I mean, before I at the last indie show, I told the story of the woman who murdered her boyfriend by sneaking up while he was sleeping and dropping the bowling ball on his head.

But then your mom... Yeah, and then my mom did the ultimate foot in mouth. And the woman was hiding out in her, my mom's office during a break in the trial and the press was trying to get in. And my mom was like, oh, those damn reporters, can you just bash their heads in? Right now. Yeah. Epic. Okay, we're caught up. She never lived that down. Her co-worker was actually sitting on the floor behind his desk because he was laughing so hard. Yeah, it was very awkward. What are you up for tonight? Okay, so this is a story of a physician that I used to work with. I'm a physician assistant and I live in Indianapolis and I used to work in Lafayette, Indiana. And there was an orthopedic surgeon that worked there who his name was Dr. Gregory Conrath.

And if you Googled him, you would find that he had written all of these, you know, how to connect this tendon with this ligament and the innovative way to do this, just braniac. He was a mountain climber. He would climb a mountain on every continent and he wrote a book, a political thriller set in the Middle East and he was a total dick. It matches up. Yeah. His name was Gregory Conrath and your nickname for him was the Wrath of Con. That's clever. I like it. Every time you had to call him for any reason, it was just a nightmare. He had a short fuse and liked to yell. And one time he actually wrote a letter to the hospital complaining about me, something that I had done and I was terrified and my superiors were basically like, oh, you got your first complaint letter.

You're one of us. So I left the hospital and then a few years later, I saw his face on the cover of Indianapolis Monthly Magazine and it turns out what happened was he was getting a divorce from his wife and he didn't show up at his divorce settlement hearing for some reason and the judge was like, okay, well, here's how much you made last year. So this is how much you're going to pay your wife and, you know, clunk with the gavel and that was it. So he found a new girlfriend and they'd been together about a year and he took her to Puerto Rico. The girlfriend's name was Joanna and they're drinking one night in Puerto Rico and he starts telling Joanna about how he's going to kill his ex-wife and he has this meticulously planned.

He has done all sorts of research on which like gunshot wounds to the head, which bullets work fast. He knows how to use hollow-point bullets. He's bought an untraceable gun. He's going to wear telling her all this. And she starts to figure out that he wants her to be his alibi. Joanna is a badass. Joanna reaches into her purse, finds the voice memo button, which who the hell can know where that is? It's record and tapes this whole thing and then lets him tell this whole story and he's like, you know, she's got a million dollar life insurance policy, so I'm going to be set and everything. And then she's like, oh, yeah, that's great. I'm all in. I'm going to be your alibi. I'm just going to go pee and goes to the bathroom, hides in the bathroom. He comes,

pounds on the door, goes back to the bar. He goes up to the room. She lays there, lets him think that she's asleep. And then he passes out, she gets up, goes to the airport, takes, gets on email, emails this recording to a bunch of law enforcement, flies immediately to their house, takes $30,000 out of their joint checking account and is packing her bags. Yes. Police show up at the door and this woman's like, hi, I'm a police officer and your boyfriend Greg just called and said that he thinks you're going to kill yourself. And so Joanna again, bad ass is like, I'm going to need to see a badge. And it is actually a cop. Thank goodness. So anyway, she tells him the whole story. I'll try to speed this up. She tells him the whole story. They arrest him. He

sits in jail for like a month and then goes out on bail with restraining orders. He lasts eight days before he blows the restraining orders. He gets busted for trying to basically stock both of them. Creepy stock. Like he hired a private investigator and then he was writing fake prescriptions to Joanna trying to get her to come fill them. So he ends up with a bracelet on his ankle, which he saw as off police to Mexico. They're twists and turns. Because of Indiana law, you can't get convicted of attempted murder unless you actually wound someone. But he went to jail for stalking and for writing fake prescriptions. He's in jail for 10 years and he has filed 95 lawsuits and counting randomly against his lawyer, the state of Indiana, the prison system,

all these frivolous little things. Indianapolis monthly for writing that article that I researched with. And now probably me for telling this story. But that is the story of crazy Dr. Conrad. Oh my God. Representing Indianapolis well. Oh my God. So good. Guys. Okay, next up. Twist and turns. Hi. It's Lisa, everyone. It's Lisa, everybody. Lisa, where are you from? I'm from Williamsburg, Virginia. What you got for us? So this actually I was not a part of, but I was kind of there for it. This actually just happened this July 5th. There was a incident, a 911 call based on just what it was known as suspicious incident at a apartment building in my town. When the police got there, they found two girls who had escaped from a man who was basically

trying to bring them in for sex trafficking. They had been strangled, assaulted, and robbed. They were fine. They survived. They got cleaned up on site. Everything was great. But now there is this man on the loose. Well, that's right. This is where it gets hilarious. He slips on a fucking banana peel like you wouldn't believe. It's just some things you don't think you have to tell people to not do if you're going to live a life of crime. He had tattoos on his hands, his neck, whatever. But he also had six triangles tattooed across his forehead and then across his cheeks. What? Okay. Six inverted triangles. Okay. He was like he was like hella easy to spot. Right. So six days later, I'm at work. I'm coming back from my lunch break and I'm noticing there's

a lot of cops at the intersection by my office building and I'm like that's where something's going on. 20 minutes later, we get an internal everybody email saying, because we all have badges, do not let anybody into the building. We are on lockdown. There's a situation happening across the street. And we said, oh, shit. Okay. You know, get to a window. That's exactly what we did. We like open the curtains. Well, we see all of these cop cars in the parking lot of the best place in the world, Cracker Barrel. Yes. Best cameo. The parking lot was between the Cracker Barrel and a travel lodge in. Well, he had decided to, you know, you got to get your grits on. Right. So he was it. He went to Cracker Barrel and covered in triangles.

Smothered in triangles. And someone noticed him and he of course caught wind. He ran across the street to the travel lodge, found himself a vacant room to hide out in until things had cleared. Well, two maintenance workers at the lodge heard noises coming from what they knew was a vacant room. So they went upstairs. He'd immediately held them up at gunpoint. Oh. Had one guy on the ground. The other guy, I don't know how bolted, got the authorities. While this was happening, he let the second guy go. He ran into his own special separate room. Don't know how he kept breaking into all these rooms. Yeah. And basically he had to stand off with the police for about two hours. And then finally he came quietly. They arrested him.

Well, about two weeks ago, actually, he was deemed not fit for trial because he had a mental health inspection and was said that he couldn't, he didn't know he was doing, apparently he was being a real ass to his attorney and he didn't like him and he wasn't cooperating. And I was like, okay, Ted Bundy, like, let's calm down, you know, a lot of people don't like their attorney. But apparently he just like wasn't talking to him, was ignoring him, wasn't answering questions. So in January, he is going to be kind of reassessed. And until then he's going to be in jail. And if he is tried, it will be prison for life. Wow. Oh my God, Lisa, that what that had everything. That cracker barrel. That's all we remember from the entire story.

Lisa, everyone. Well done. Next up. Hi. Sprankers. Sprankers, everybody. It's our Sprankers friend. It's Jenny, everybody. Hi. Oh my God, you can't see anyone once you're up here. I know, isn't it good? Hey guys. It's scary. Where are you from? Sprankers. Oh yeah, Sprankers. I'm from Sprankers, New York. Cleveland, Ohio. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, Cleveland. Okay, so I work in a very glamorous job in Cleveland, Ohio at a TV station. Oh, news time. So we have security there because even though it's just local TV, we still have people who are crazy and try and come in and talk to the anchors or whatever.

So there was a guy named Juan and I just started at the station in 2007 and he was our security guard and he was super sweet. And you know when you start a new job and you're like, how could I meet more people here? And then they're like, there's a bowling league. Fun. And then you're like, yes, I'm in. Sign me up for that. So you get into the bowling league and your mom gives you her shoes and her ball. Oh, thanks mom. What's your mom's name? Janet. Every time you talk about your mom, I'm like, Janet. So yeah, so we're bowling. I had Janet's ball. I'm bowling. We go to the bar. We're getting Bud lights. We're, you know, palling around. Duane is there and he says to me, he starts talking to me. He starts flicking me in the ear.

I was like, Duane, back up. He's also a tiny, a petite flower of a man, even though he was our security guard. He wasn't very big. So he's flicking me near. I tell him to get away from me. He backs up. He looks me dead in the eye and he says, Jenny, I am the law. Oh, shit. And I was like, cool, buddy. Great. We finish our game. I leave, I go home. I think it was two weeks later, our boss comes in and he pulls us all into the aisle and he says, guys, we got to talk. And I said, okay. And he said, you know, Duane. And I go, yeah, bowl with him. That's what we do. And he says, yeah, he killed someone last night. And I was like, Duane? Duane? The one you told him to get away from you?

Who told me he was the law. The law? Yeah. So it turns out he hid outside of his ex-girlfriend's house. She had, I think, two kids and a boyfriend who she had just gotten engaged to. She waited for the ex and her kids to leave. Good. Yes. Okay. Less casualties. And then he slashed the tires of the new boyfriend fiance. So he couldn't leave. He goes into the house. He pistol whips this poor guy, slashes his throat, and then leaves him on the bed in a crucifix position. So he got arrested pretty quickly because it was pretty obvious that he was the culprit here. So he gets arrested. They test him because he actually did have a very low IQ. But as it turns out, the judge was like,

you've held down a job at a TV station as a security, like we don't believe that you're mentally incapable of handling this. So he gets tried and he is the third person since 1981 in Ohio to get the death penalty. Wow. Yeah. So that is my story of Duane, the security guard. Amazing Jenny. So good. And first hand. Oh, the ear click. That's amazing. Great job. Are you ready? Jessica. This is our contest winner, Jessica from Connecticut. Jessica. So tell us about the day you found out you were going to come to my favorite weekend. So the day I found out was right near a big tax deadline for my terrible people who don't give me their shit on time. We have an extra six months to get it done. So I'm like waiting for my people,

like hitting refresh on my email. And I'm like, what the fuck is this? So it's like, oh my god, you won. Like here's your information. We need to W nine. Send us your name address and social security number. And I'm like, I'm smarter than this. So I'm like, is this for real? They're like, yeah, it is. I'm like, great, I'll upload my W nine via secure link because share file. And I don't want my identity to get stolen. That's good. That's good to note. Accountants are boss bitches. They don't mess. No, we don't. So onto my Oh, yeah. And I got really excited. I invited my brother's girlfriend. So what's your hometown? Oh, um, so I'm from North Connecticut. I live in Colchester. If you're from the East Coast, I live near Mohican son. Yeah.

I love those casinos. So inside stuff. What does it mean for a girl from California? What is Mohican son? Oh, it's a casino. Oh, yes. It's your big brag. Yeah. I live near both casinos. Hey, girl. She can gamble whenever she wants and smoke. Not marijuana. Okay. All right. So on to the murder. I'm going to talk about Connecticut serial killer Michael Ross and all the weird connections we have to him. Okay. So Michael Ross was born in Punham, Connecticut in 1959. His mom wasn't super well and shocker. She kind of like beat the shit out of her kids and got institutionalized. And they're like, you know, it's a great idea. Let's have this young child move in with his uncle, who probably molested him. But no one knows because the uncle committed suicide when

Michael Ross was six. So he moves to the chicken farm. And guess what? His job was at the chicken farm killing the chicken with his bare hands. What? Yeah. Has a six year old. Yeah. He killed the chickens. One of his nicknames. I think he was the roadside strangler and the egg man. Probably cause like chickens. Yeah. So he did that. And then he ended up going to Cornell where my brother's girlfriend went. He studied agriculture. And then he became an insurance salesman, which is important in the future. But while he was in college, he got a taste for stalking and raping. So yeah, we have a quality individual on our hands. So between 1981 and 1984, he committed eight murders. He would find women walking on the side of the road,

pick them up, throw them in his blue car, which was like a very weird color blue. Everyone knew it. And then he would murder them. So my dad's friend, Wendy Barrabalt, was 17. The last time he saw her was at his high school graduation. Sorry, this is weird. I'm going back and forth. On June 10th, 1984, her body was found a couple days later, shoved in a stone wall near the McDonald's. And the cop that found her ended up marrying my mom's best friend. Oh, yeah. Really weird. And back to the insurance salesman. Supposedly this wasn't on the Wikipedia page. But everyone I know, like said this, the day after he killed Wendy, he tried to sell her sister life insurance. What? Yes. Yes. What a dick. Yeah, exactly. So because he had this like

really noticeable blue car, that's how he was found. He ended up confessing to all eight murders. And while he was in jail, I guess he became a super Catholic and got a fee. Yeah. Um, I'm too Catholic so I can say that. And he got a fiance. And she was like, Oh, you know, God forgives him and he's excited to die because he's going to go to a better place. Like, okay, dude, whatever. And according to his Wikipedia page, he had many accomplishments. But as a rape survivor myself, fuck you, bro. You have no accomplishments because you did rape and murder. So fuck yourself. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, you did, girl. Thank you. Yeah, you did. Yeah, fuck rapists, right? Yeah, exactly. No, why Wikipedia? Seriously? No. So, um,

he was killed by lethal injection in 2005 and he was the first person to be, what's the word, like legally murdered by the state, the government. I'm blanking. No, you got it. Yeah, you're nailing in New England since the sixties. So that's good for him. Jessica, you've won everything this weekend. You are the winner across the board. We're so glad you got to be here. Yeah. That was awesome. Oh my God. Awesome. Have fun. Wow. So that was a cavalcade of solid stories. That's right. Oh, amazing. For every live show we do, we need to go to the city two days before and then just start casually meeting and chatting with people and telling people not to get drunk. And that's it. That's right. And not give out fireball shots as our

specialty cocktail. We were asking for it. I mean truly. I cannot believe this is the end. That went so fast. That's crazy. We've been planning this and looking forward to this and adding these fun things to this all for like months. It's been so incredibly awesome. Yeah, so of you. Yeah, we want to thank all the murdering makers that came and brought their stuff. We heard that went amazing, that the stuff was amazing. Everyone sold so much stuff. And of course the murdering artists that came and put their stuff up. Like everything you guys do is so awesome and full on. And it's so beautiful to watch all of you meet each other and hang out and establish these relationships and create and do all this stuff. It's really a fucking honor.

Thank you all so, so much for being here this weekend. I can't believe it's over. I know. We should do this again sometime. Let's do it again next year. Yeah. Yay. You guys are awesome. Have so much fun tonight. Yes. And maybe we'll see you out at the after show. Yeah. The after show. I'll have a purple wig on. George is going to do some comedy after this. Do us a favor. Stay sexy. Bye you guys. Thank you.