My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 197 - Grandma Surprise
Episode Date: November 21, 2019Karen and Georgia cover the origin of ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ and Mack Ray Edwards.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#...do-not-sell-my-info.
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Hello.
Hello.
And welcome.
It's my favorite murder.
That's Georgia Hardstark.
That's Karen Kilgara.
I forgot my lines.
I forgot my lines.
We had the whole show memorized.
That's it.
And I immediately dropped lines in the first exchange.
You had one job.
You had one job to memorize your podcast lines.
How's it going?
Good.
We're leaving for the UK tomorrow, which is Tuesdays, but this comes out on Thursday,
so it's two days ahead.
We're ahead, and then we're also early because we just recorded a live one.
So this one, we're definitely off our normal system.
So it's going to be...
Oh, wait.
We said we were going to put our headphones on.
Oh, yeah.
Let's do it.
Let's do it.
We never have the headphones on.
Just to shake things up a little.
Oh, my God.
Who's a tiny head war these last time?
This is almost like now we're in our own separate isolation tanks away from the podcast.
Oh, wait.
Hang on.
I'm going to have to hear each other.
Oh.
Oh.
Oh.
Oh, hi.
Yeah.
Oh, they got turned on, Stephen.
That's exciting.
So we're wearing headphones.
No, this isn't very exciting at home for you listeners.
Kick mine up just a hand.
Which one's yours?
The first one you touched?
This one?
No.
That's mine now.
You're where your right hand is.
That one?
Get away from their area.
That one?
That one?
Yeah.
Okay.
That one?
Yeah.
Oh, it's perfect for you because you can't hear anything, right?
Oh, my God.
You look like such a podcaster right now with your headphones on.
Thank you.
Oh, my God.
I've always wanted to pet kids.
Oh, this is...
Now we're going to be able to hear all the intimate details of our voices.
Oh, shit.
Sometimes we clonk down the fucking table on accident.
And all the time my big, fake teeth get in the way of me talking, which is often these
days.
It's like our third podcast host to your teeth.
That's right.
And they are...
They will be heard.
They will not be silenced in my mouth.
I've been to hear myself drinking this can of wine.
Yes.
I love it.
How come I didn't get any can...
Like my favorite murder canned wine from the Santa Barbara weekend.
I didn't get one...
I wanted to save a can.
You just drank it all too fast and crushed it against your head?
That must have been it.
And I just don't remember that.
Because you remember that weekend?
It was show off time, the entire time.
I kept saying that to Georgia the entire weekend because as I described to somebody
yesterday, I said, it was a really fun weekend, but it was one of those things where every
time we were in the room, we were in the center of the room.
And there was a ring of people standing around us, just staring, like talking.
Entertain us.
You guys are the entertainers.
And I, of course, I can't resist that.
That's my nightmare.
Well, it's my...
Thank God.
It's my biggest dream since age five, so I had to keep pulling myself back from really
getting into it.
I'll do it.
I need it.
It's perfect for me.
It's my favorite.
I need someone else to talk because I...
Otherwise, I'll just like...
Remember when we were on stage with I.O. and I was like, so tell us about your hat.
I'm just not gonna shit like that.
It's about your hat.
It's about your hat.
Yeah.
I have been, it's showing off is really my passion and there's nothing, you know, like
this is the only thing that actually satisfies it is having a podcast makes you a nonstop
24-7 show off.
That's why you have two.
Yeah.
I can't get enough attention.
Speaking of attention, in the UK and Ireland tour, there are tickets left in the only show
we haven't sold out.
Dublin.
Yes, guys.
Come on.
Hi.
It's the 25th.
You said you liked us.
We added a second show for y'all.
Come on, y'all.
Come on, y'all.
I mean, I bet it's almost sold out.
Yeah.
It's almost sold out.
There's a handful of tickets left.
That's right.
We'll just hand them out on the street if we don't sell them all.
In the handful.
That's right.
To people who...
There's gonna...
There would be nothing worse than forcing Irish people to go to a show they don't want
to go to.
That's an audience you don't want just based on my American Irish experience.
They're already pretty judgmental of things they enjoy.
You know what the most fun thing, though, without touring is, is when we go to a pub
the night before, we go to a car rental the night before, and the person working there
is like, oh my God, I'm such a big fan.
We get to go, do you want to go to the show and give them tickets?
So we can do it now for that night in Dublin.
Okay, great.
Then let's...
You know what?
Cancel that announcement.
Yeah.
There's no more tickets left.
You don't get to go.
We're going to be driving up and down the countryside giving away tickets.
Stopping at pubs.
Yeah.
Whoever we see.
Yeah.
Farmers pulling hay in carts, old-fashioned style.
Does that happen still?
The first time I ever visited Ireland, we landed, of course, in Dublin, but then we
drove west to Doolan, I think, was the first city we went to when we got there.
We were walking up the street to our hotel, and on the passing us was an old guy driving
a cart that a cow was pulling with a bunch of hay in the back, and he yelled, top of
the morning to you.
Oh my God.
But I think it was sarcasm, though.
I think he was like, clearly you're a bunch of Americans, here's the experience you want
to be having.
It's like when you drive past a truck driver and you're like, honk the horn.
Yeah.
He was like, all right.
It's the Irish version of that.
But it was his idea, which is like another, like, the built-in sarcasm of that culture
where it's just like, top of the morning to you.
He was probably from Scotland, and the whole accent was fake, but you know, that's what
they're like.
Speaking of selling our souls, there's going to be new holiday merch in the merch store.
Great transition.
Thank you.
Beautiful, seamless segue.
Thank you.
And now we're boom into the place where you love to be.
That's right.
Merch.
My favorite thing.
We have some really fucking cool merch coming up that, like...
It's so exciting.
We're so anal about what we allow, like, to be merch, is that right?
Yes.
That's what it meant.
That's what it meant.
It's really important to us.
We won't just throw anything up.
We have notes.
We have this.
We want this.
We have these bright ideas of like, let's try this.
Yes.
So everything that's going in on the 25th of November is like all stuff that we are really
into and excited about.
Including some stuff from Murderino Makers that's so exciting that we get to support
and work with them.
Yeah.
Okay.
That's all.
I'm done.
Oh, okay.
I don't want to hear my...
The problem with these headphones, I can hear myself talk.
Yeah.
Do you need...
Are you going to get too self-conscious?
I might.
Maybe for my story, I'll take them off.
Again, over here.
I couldn't love it more.
I'm like, wow.
I've never seen...
I've never experienced how great my fucking voice is.
Why do I sit in my house crying all the time?
I don't.
I don't.
This was...
This is a...
So we were always talking about corners.
There are different corners, crushing corners or whatever.
We pretty much just...
On this podcast, George and I just kind of say the things that we think to say every week.
There's not a ton of planning.
There's definitely no pre-writing except for the stories we're trying to get said.
Not a lot of follow-through.
Not follow-through.
Not all the...
We don't have to explain it to you.
You know if you've been...
We're not going to follow-through with that explanation.
For you?
Look.
You know.
You're on your own...
This is more of a starter information starter kit.
Right.
Now you go look stuff up.
But somebody's sent in...
So we've been calling things corners this whole time for three years just out of laziness.
But someone wrote in a great suggestion.
Her name's Brittany Aaron.
It was on Twitter.
And she wrote to us...
She wrote to me and the podcast, I feel like your new segment, quote, I need to tell you
something should be announced by Drunk Karen.
So I guess last week I said that the new segment was going to be called I Need to Tell You
Something because it was so general that I was just telling you random shit.
Okay.
Do it.
Do it.
So let me...
I need to tell you something.
Oh no.
Yeah.
What does Drunk Karen need to tell you?
It's not good.
No, it's some podcasts.
It sounds like you got your period on the back of your pants.
I need to tell you something.
It's like shameful.
It's always bad news when it's coming from Drunk Karen.
I need to tell you something.
Can I have 20 dollars?
I need...
I need to tell you something.
We have to go to Jack in the box.
Okay.
Drunk Karen's always almost asleep.
That's the other thing I realized about her.
She's so drunk that she's right on the verge of just passing out.
It's almost night night.
So then anyway, look for that future segment that's never going to happen.
I need to tell you something.
Okay.
That was by Drunk Karen.
And then let's both collectively...
Forget it.
...forget it.
Set it and forget it.
That's right.
This idea is the dump cakes of ideas.
It's the...
It's the microwaving for one cookbook of the idea.
Of ideas.
It's the spoonula of ideas.
What's that?
It's a spatula spoon.
So you can flip it and scoop also?
You can scoop and you can also, you know, like stir...
You know, spatulas are like the things.
You don't fucking mansplain a spatula to me, Georgia.
I won't.
Thank you.
Where does how does a spoon happen though, since spatulas by definition are kind of flat?
It's lightly curved into a spoon.
Okay.
Got it?
So you're not going to eat cereal with this, but you can get stuff out if you need to.
In a pinch, you could eat cereal with it.
It would kind of be more depressing than just eating cereal with like a wooden spoon.
Which I think is...
So I have a spoon that's bigger than all the other spoons, and I intentionally use that
to eat cereal?
Sure.
You have to cram as much in your fucking mouth as possible.
Yes.
I have the...
And it's to my detriment, but I definitely have the eating attitude.
If I'm going to do it, I might as well fucking go for it.
That's what...
That's my plan for the two weeks we are in.
You can.
I really...
It's happening.
We had a little discussion before we started recording about how exciting it is that we
get to have tea in the UK and Ireland.
We're so excited about it, and all the little things that in my...
I will just make it personal in my childhood and growing up.
Candy was not...
It was not...
It was frowned upon.
It was...
It was...
I always had to sneak it, and I wanted it all the time.
Sure.
I thought about it all the time.
Candy and cookies and sweets.
Yeah.
Especially in London, I will say, or England, sorry.
Yeah.
London, England.
In the whole country, they take an intentional break at three o'clock every day and eat candy
together.
And I love that they call it cakes.
There's like cakes and like little things and crumpets and...
They're really into Twix.
Yeah.
Really into Twix.
All right.
It's going to...
It's happening so hard when we're there.
We just get...
We're going to get supported for our bad habits.
Do you know what else we're doing that I'm really excited about?
What?
We're going to a football match.
Oh, yes.
And we have to sit in an area for people who don't usually go because it's so rowdy and
crazy.
I love it.
It's going to be the best.
I'm going to be the one sober person in that entire stadium.
You are.
I'm going to be the only beer-free human being there.
You are.
And Vincent and I are going to like...
We had to tell you something.
You guys...
That would be...
That would actually be a good penance for me to pay, is I have to handle drunk vints
and drunk Georgia and get us out of a football stadium without getting punched in the face.
Have you seen drunk Georgia?
She's fun.
She is fun.
Right?
And she's exactly like regular Georgia.
It just gets a little bit like gigglier as it goes.
And louder.
Louder, gigglier and a little more like slappy.
A little meaner.
Yeah.
I like it.
Oh, like talking shit on people, not like...
Yes.
To you.
But almost...
Yes, exactly.
To...
It's to someone else like almost in the bonding way.
Yeah.
And it becomes almost out of like...
You clearly don't mean it because you're just saying whatever comes into your head.
Yeah.
It's really enjoyable.
Thank you.
Yeah.
I'm honored.
And a lot of arm grabbing, which I really enjoy.
Oh, yeah.
That's me.
Yeah.
There's a lot of touching when I'm drunk.
It's fun.
Okay, good.
Yeah.
Remember in Hawaii when we were in the bed with Lizzie?
And you realized it was...
No.
Fucking hilarious.
I don't remember.
We...
Vince ordered us room service.
Right.
Yeah.
He just got whatever.
And we were watching a movie.
And whatever was happening, we were laughing so hard and you just kept hitting me on the
arm.
Oh, like...
And then eventually you got aware of it and we're like, I'm so sorry.
And I'm like, no, I like it.
Like hitting you on the arm, like nudging you.
Yeah.
It was like...
I would make a joke and then you would slap my arm.
Oh, yeah.
And then you got self-conscious about it.
I'm like, no, no, this is what I...
This is what I'm looking for.
I love it.
This is what I like.
Speaking of what you like...
I'm gonna tell you something I like.
Do you feel beholden to do just transitions like that?
Listen, we gotta pretend to be professional.
No, we don't.
That's just it.
We never have.
We simply don't.
I just have a recommendation that Karen, I actually...
I can't believe I'm recommending this to you because this is so you that this is a travesty.
There's a show called Back to Life.
Have you heard of it?
No.
Okay.
It's from the BBC.
It's a British drama and comedy series about this woman in her later 30s who returns home
after 18 years in prison for a thing that you slowly...
There's six episodes.
Wait a second.
I've seen the trailer for this.
Yeah.
Like a redheaded girl.
Yes.
It looks amazing.
It's on Showtime.
We binge-watched it in one night.
Wow.
You have to watch it.
I will.
I mean, listen, I'll just tell you.
She's back from prison for murder.
Yes.
So it's right up our alley.
But then slowly it starts to tell you what really happened and you find out all these
crazy things and the acting is great and it's just like in the seaside town of Kent and
it's just like...
Yes.
Yeah.
Yes.
It's great.
You'll love it.
Back to life.
You should download it for the plane, actually.
Ooh, okay.
Because it's so British.
It's such a British comedy, but it's a depressing thing.
Great.
Great.
Okay.
That sounds like our combo right on the nose.
Yeah.
And here will be my sister recommendation to that one is on Starz, the series Dublin
Murders began.
I wrote that down.
Yeah.
And it's great.
You give the Irish some time on screen, I'll be there for it, supporting them, do whatever
they want to do.
Although I have to say the main investigator, her Irish accent is so strong and foreign sounding
to me that it's bewildering.
And she kind of...
Everything is a little bit of slide from here that everything goes a little bit like
this and that.
It's all a little out over the side of her mouth.
And I can't fucking understand what she's saying and I love it and it's so exciting.
But the guy in it is one hot piece.
He's a snack?
Crazy.
That's what the kids say.
He's a snack.
Is he a snack?
I don't know.
Is he?
Is he a bop?
Remember that?
What's that?
Like over the summer people would call good songs.
It's a real bop.
And I was like, what's happening?
We don't have to make up new words every three months.
It's not required.
It's not.
But this guy is definitely a bop snack for sure.
Is there something about...
He's a real snacky bop.
Because you want to bite right into that song.
There's something...
He is like...
It's the beauty of men who have plain faces.
No.
I'm not following you.
You got to get behind me right now.
Okay.
I'm standing behind you.
There's something about...
Maybe it's just all his shirts are super tight and he's the lanky type.
It's just...
I'm going to check it out.
I love a guy-girl combo in...
It reminds me of the killing.
Remember that old one?
Yes.
Totally.
It's that feel.
It's like a real business.
And he's kind of like got his eye on her.
And he's like a little ex-methy, like maybe undercover.
No.
No, the wrong way.
Okay.
But that...
You're right for the killing.
This guy, it's different where he's actually much more buttoned down, which is even more
exciting.
Yeah.
Button him up.
Button it.
You love...
I love a guy with like a tailored shirt that can't help himself because he likes the
girl that he's working with.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm all about that story.
That's right.
I love ensues.
It's because it's about respect.
That's what it's about, George.
It's about smart women getting some fucking love for not for the shape of their ass, but
for the diligence of them following up on DNA test.
And the brains.
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Am I first this week?
Yes, you are.
Okay.
All right.
So we're done with that section.
Are we?
No.
Yeah, we are.
Oh, I thought it was a good sec.
Yes.
I thought it was good.
No, no.
You were right on.
Okay.
All right.
Well, here we go.
Let's do it.
I'm going to start again with a paragraph before I say it.
Okay.
This is my new thing.
I love it.
Okay.
Hold on.
I have to burp.
Whoa.
That reached out and tickled my ear lobe.
See, when you just mute that, but leave it in.
But mute my burp.
It was fucking baritone.
It went all the way down to the basement.
I'm pretty good at it.
My mom says I rattle the walls.
You're like an opera singer of belching.
That's like the most proud of my mom has ever been of me as my belching.
For real?
She brings it up all the time.
She's like so like, I think she digs it.
Well, Georgia can belch.
You should hear her.
She's Barney from The Simpsons.
And I just proved it.
Okay.
Love it.
She's still mad at me about the book.
Oh, okay.
That's okay.
Well, I'm still mad at her about a couple things.
So fair is fair, where there's always tension somewhere.
Okay.
So I'm going to start with this.
Okay.
Here we go.
Okay.
On the morning of August 23rd, 1973, and a newly escaped convict in Sweden's capital
city of Stockholm entered a busy bank in the upscale normal store square.
I know what you're about to do.
Yes, girl.
I know what this is.
Don't say it.
Okay.
Jan Erik Olsen walked into the bank wearing toy store glasses and a thick brown wig to
conceal his identity.
And from underneath his coat pulls a loaded submachine gun and fires at the ceiling.
Then in English with an American accent, you know, like Swedish.
Sure.
The party has just begun.
And so begins the origin story of Stockholm syndrome.
Yeah.
Love it.
I can't believe we haven't done this before.
I know.
And I would love to thank my friend, Carrie Sellenbetter, for me badgering her at a bar
saying, just give me an idea.
I don't know what to do next week.
And she was like, what about this?
What about that?
And then what about Stockholm syndrome?
How did we not do this when we were in Stockholm?
I don't know because it's not a murder.
I think that's only recently that we're doing stuff that's not murder.
True.
Yeah.
True.
We wanted to be more on her.
Good job, Carrie.
Nice one.
So I got a bunch of...
So, and also I had just maybe like a few months ago listened to an episode of Criminal about
where they interview one of the robbers.
Yes.
And it's so, of course, well done.
And then they got a bunch of info from a podcast called Memory Motel where they interview
one of the hostages.
So I listened to both of those and got most of the info from there.
And then from the smithsonian.com and history.com got the rest of the info.
Can I just do a quick sidebar?
Please.
Phoebe Judge on Halloween tweeted, what do you do when a trick or treater comes to your
door smoking a cigarette?
And I retweeted it, but it made me laugh so hard.
I don't understand.
She doesn't understand how funny she is or how I think how awesome she is.
Like how cool I think she is.
She's the coolest.
She's really young.
I thought she was like older than me because of how much she handles shit on that podcast.
She seems like professional.
She's so professional.
And she's like, I think she's in her 30s.
Fuck.
I know.
God bless her.
Anyway, just because this is, if it's a, there's a criminal element, source element
that I just don't want to give props to.
Good.
Now she's the best.
I'm Phoebe Judge.
I'm Phoebe Judge.
And this is criminal.
But this isn't, this is my favorite.
That's right.
Okay, so we're not trying to steal her shit a little bit, not plagiarizing the name of
her podcast.
Okay.
What Jan Eric didn't know when he fucking, the party has just began was that a silent
alarm had been triggered.
And so when a policeman responded, Jan Eric shoots at him and hits him in the hand.
So I don't know if this was just supposed to be a robbery that turned into a hostage
situation because this was triggered or if that's what his plan was to begin with.
So he shoots and the, at the policeman, it hits him in the hand.
So then he freaks out and takes three female bank employees hostage while letting everyone
else leave.
So he's, let's talk about him.
Okay.
He's a 32 year old career criminal and he had been a safe cracker and was serving, which
is like such a necessary job, right?
Yes.
There's, there's only handfuls and I'm out there and they have to be good at it.
That's right.
He was serving a three year sentence in prison for grand larceny.
He had achieved like a little bit of fame when an elderly couple had caught him robbing
their house at which point the elderly man had collapsed and the man's wife was like,
oh my God, grab his heart medicine.
It's in the kitchen and he did it.
And many continued ransacking their house.
So he was like known as like the bumbling.
I don't know what he was known as, but like that got him some notoriety.
He was the criminal with the heart of gold.
Maybe.
Yeah.
Who still didn't got caught.
Yeah.
You know, right?
Maybe he wasn't that good at it.
He was just kind of making his way.
Right.
It sounds like that.
Okay.
So he was in prison, but he was on furlough that day.
I don't know, you know, at the shops and such when he took the fuck off and went out
to rob a bank.
Okay.
So in Sweden, you go to jail, but you can also leave jail and do things you'd like to
do with your life.
I think that means like you're on your way to being let go, like let out soon.
Got it.
Yeah.
Like reintroducing you into society and shit.
It's kind of a parole feel.
Yeah.
Gotcha.
But he was like, I'm going to ruin this and fucking rob a bank.
I have a passion for ruining things.
Yeah.
I'm really good at it.
So once the hostages are secured, Jan Erik announces his demands for the release of the
hostages.
He wants three million Swedish kronor, kronor, me too, which is about $700,000, a couple of
guns and bulletproof vests and a getaway car.
But do you know the story?
Yes.
But I mean, it's all, it's in the files with 18,000 other stories.
Okay.
You're not the only one listening.
Yeah.
Stephen's listening too.
Okay.
And the other thing he insisted that he wanted was his old jailhouse buddy, Clark Olfsson,
to get out of the jail and help him in the situation.
So he was like...
He's calling in support.
Yeah.
Okay.
From a guy in another buddy of his in jail.
So Clark Olfsson, he's 26 years old.
He's definitely a bobsnack.
Okay.
For sure.
Great.
He's serving time for armed robbery and acting as an accessory in a 1966 robbery that had
gone wrong and a police officer had been killed.
Okay.
Yeah.
So he's kind of a celebrity bank robber.
And while he and Jan Erik, who Clark describes as a, quote, useful idiot.
Wow.
Yeah.
So if he were in prison, Jan would beg Clark to tell him all the wild stories of bank robbery.
It was like almost like, you know, storytelling time.
Sure.
And in his eyes, Clark was the best that there is at robbing banks.
So knowing he was in a bad situation and needed help, he demanded that Clark join him.
Clark had been in solitary confinement, so of course he was like, fuck yeah.
Get me over to that bank.
Let's fucking do this.
Where there are lights and sounds and human beings.
Right.
Exactly.
Jesus.
So he decided to join Eon.
At this point, the unfolding bank robbery and hostage situation is fucking huge news
all over like peaceful Sweden, right?
Sure.
It's the first televised crime in Sweden and it's being broadcast all over the country.
The public is like obsessed with this crime and they fled the police stations with suggestions
for ending the standoff.
Some of those were soping the floor of the bank so the criminals would slip and be easy
to capture.
So that happened to me in the bathroom the other day.
Getting out of the shower and walking over to.
No, he slipped.
I had a weird slip where as I was falling down, I was like, this is very dangerous in
this bathroom.
Yes.
And I just kind of hit my knee.
It wasn't that big of a deal.
But I now have bathroom slippers so that when I get out of the shower, I immediately have
rubber-soled shoes on.
They don't need to get you life alert?
Not yet.
But that's, I think, next year we'll do it.
Okay.
That's so scary.
Be careful.
Put towels down.
Don't be afraid of bath mats.
I'm a strict slipper person.
My feet don't hit the ground and I bet it saved me from some slip and fall.
I bet it has.
So another suggestion was that they send a swarm of angry bees into the bank to sting
everyone into submission and they, of course, they'd run out being like, ah, you know, hijinks.
No, it's the perfect solution, Bugs Bunny.
Thank you so much for calling in.
Or Drunk Karen.
Yeah.
Yay, there's so many bees and Jack in the box.
Zackos.
Meanwhile, inside the bank, the terrified hostages are taken inside a cramped bank vault, which
is like, don't go in there.
The hostages are tied up, but when Clark finally shows up from prison, he takes command of
the situation.
He's like, we're all going to be okay.
Everyone calm down.
He says it'll all be fine and they're like, oh, he's our savior.
Yeah.
The three female hostages are Kristen and Mark.
She's 23 years old, Brigitte Lundblad, I don't know her age, and Elizabeth Olgren, who's
21, and they're all bank employees.
So they're all young women.
Kristen later describes Clark as, quote, a mix between Che Guevara and Jesus.
Hey.
Hi.
What's up?
Yeah.
How are you doing?
What is going on?
Are you at snack?
I'm on a glass of wine.
I'm feeling it with you.
And Kristen and Clark become close because he's 26, and she's 23.
Also they're in a situation that is the most heightened.
That's how people fall in love, whether it's at your personal bank robbery or someone else's
bank robbery.
The problem is one of them has a gun to you.
True.
But isn't Clark the one that came in that got him called in?
But he's now part of this.
Did he get called in from jail and then they gave him a gun?
No.
He got, I don't know.
No.
No.
I can't be.
I bet Yon had other guns and gave it to him.
Yon's like, can you please take this off my hands?
I don't want to hold this gun anymore.
And so I think Clark just took over the role that we're robbing this bank.
We have hostages.
And I bet you what he brought into that situation is that feeling, like you said, everything's
going to be okay or whatever, where it's not some lunatic with wide eyes and shaky hands.
With someone that's like, look, we just want the money.
We're trying to do this.
No one's going to get killed.
Or he's like, Yon is in charge.
I'm doing what he does, but making sure that no one gets hurt.
Yes.
And that I'm sure was a great feeling for those people who are only freaked out.
And he's like, Shay Gamara and Jesus.
So I'm just picturing whatever the shirt he had on, there was a v-neck element to it.
It was the 70s.
So it was unbuttoned to the naval.
And there was just all kind of hair.
Everyone was a bear in the 70s.
So Clark orders Yon to loosen the hostages' ropes to make them more comfortable.
And this is when the tides turn and instead of being afraid of their captors, the hostages
appreciate being treated with respect, which they didn't feel that the cops were giving
them at that moment.
They thought that the cops would fucking blow down the doors and kill everyone.
And they see Clark as their saving grace.
And Clark is the one who's interviewed in the criminal episode.
And he's just...
Oh yeah.
He's great.
He's charming.
You remember?
He's great.
He's kind of a dick though, but he's great.
Charming dick.
Well, he's the kind of guy that would rob banks.
You'd be like, let's do it.
I can handle it.
Totally.
So Clark also does a once around the bank and finds an employee hiding in the closet,
which is like...
Yeah.
His name is Sven Safstrom.
He's collected and brought with everyone else, making him the fourth hostage.
Okay.
So the hostages are allowed to call their families, to let them know they're okay.
And by the second day, the hostages were on a first name basis with their captors.
And they started to feel the police more than their abductors.
When the police commissioner was allowed inside to inspect the hostages' health, he noticed
that the captives appeared to be hostile with him, but they were relaxed and jovial with
their captors.
Right.
The police chief told the press that he doubted the gunmen would harm the hostages because
they had developed a, quote, rather relaxed relationship, which of course, then the public
was like, this is amazing.
What the fuck is going on?
What are they doing in there?
Yeah, exactly.
They had a few phone calls with the prime minister, Olaf Plom, and they let Kristen
talk to him.
You mean that snowman from Fresno?
Plame?
Olaf Plame?
Yeah, you doing?
I guess not good.
I really enjoyed that joke.
I've never seen it.
I'm sorry.
No, no.
It's my fault.
It's a snowman's name.
The snowman's name is Olaf.
Right, Steven?
Okay.
That's it.
So then I like to imagine that a snowman has a last name and then eventually becomes
the prime minister of Sweden.
Everything about that.
So sorry.
Yeah, again, show off time.
No, I was embarrassed because I haven't seen it.
So I was like, no, I get that joke, but I didn't get that joke at all.
It's pretty high level.
I have nephews, not nieces.
They don't want to watch Frozen.
Yeah, that's right.
You have a whole other.
I should have made a car's joke.
Minecraft.
Minecraft.
Minecraft.
So they let Kristen, one of the 23-year-old hostage, talk to him and she begs the prime
minister to let her leave with the robbers in the car.
She's like, she says, I fully trust Clark and the robber.
I am not desperate.
They haven't done anything to us.
On the contrary, they have been very nice, but what I'm scared of is the police will
attack and cause us to die.
So even when threatened with physical harm, the hostages still were compassionate towards
their abductors.
So Olsen suggested shooting Sven in the leg to shake up the police because it had been,
it's like this one on six fucking days.
Oh shit.
Yeah.
And so like at one point they're like, let's shoot him in the leg to show him in business.
And Sven said that he thought it was kind of them that they would shoot him just in
the leg and not in his body.
It is nice.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So Elizabeth Olgren complained of claustrophobia.
This part is a little weird for me.
Okay.
They tied a rope around her neck because they were in the bank vault and let her walk outside
the bank vault and just hang out, which is like a little degrading, but she was really
grateful of it.
So that's like the one hint of these two are the hints of Stockholm syndrome making sense
to me.
Yes.
That they definitely had a sway over these people and that they were doing things that
maybe weren't the coolest, but that the people are just grateful that they were having and
not the worst.
I'm sure that the shape of all this was this is going to be a traumatic experience.
Within it, it's not being a traumatic experience.
So it's like, oh great.
Or the little kindnesses in between that make, that assure you that everything's going to
be okay, which is all you're fucking grasping for is that something's going to be okay.
Yes.
And so when people come along and give you those assurances, then you're kind of like,
well now I love you because other than this, I'm just, I'm blind.
I'm in the dark entirely and I think I might die.
So whatever you say to me is going to start becoming very meaningful and make you look
very powerful.
Right.
Totally.
So it is in Hollywood.
I relate entirely.
It's like being fucking held hostage.
Ultimately, the standoff lasts six days.
That's fucking crazy.
It's so long.
They're in a vault.
They close the door to the vault.
They have no food and water and they have to poop and stuff in the corner.
For real?
I think so.
I'm making that up.
But they were locked in the vault, so they must have got to go to the bathroom in the
corner.
Right?
This is not criminal.
Here's your proof.
How is that?
I don't think so.
No, I think so because I think Clark says that he appreciated them going through this
disgusting, filthy event with him.
And so I think they were shitting in a corner if they were shitting it off.
I'd just be like, you know what?
Here's the thing.
No, I have a, I really have a claustrophobia around shit.
I could be out in an open field.
Six fucking days.
Let me walk away from this area.
Six days.
That's crazy.
Maybe there's vault bathrooms.
Maybe.
Just one emergency vault bathroom.
What if you like, okay, you know how they have safe deposit boxes?
Yes.
You just go in there.
What if a lot of people got a nice surprise the next couple of years for your safety deposit
boxes?
And you're saying how much is this shit worth?
15 million dollars?
Guys, we can make all of these jokes because it's the Stockholm syndrome story, which inherently
is about the violence not affecting people in the normal world.
Right.
Oh yeah.
It's basically our story.
It's our origin story.
We can put anything into it that we want.
Okay.
Six days.
Convicts, do no physical harm to the hostages and on the night of it, except for the pooping
thing.
That's very harmful.
Very harmful.
In 2008, after more than 130 hours, police, they start drilling holes in the vault the
cops were.
Yeah.
And then they finally put in tear gas, which is like such a dick move to the hostages,
right?
Right.
But I mean, after, I think there's so much pressure if the whole country is watching,
if not more people, and then it's like, well, what are these cops going to do?
And they're like, it's going to suck for them, but this isn't like, we're not killing them.
When it came down to the end, they were just like, okay, either we drill holes and put
tear gas in there or we go with the bees idea.
Which I still don't think is a terrible idea.
I'm still on board with Drunk Karen's idea.
But bees, there's a Drunk Karen in Sweden that called that in.
She's like, I can't do a Swedish accent, but the idea of like, they had to move it forward.
Yes.
Basically.
Yeah.
It was stalling.
And they knew, I think the police at that time knew, they couldn't do anything truly
violent because they couldn't... They were being watched.
They were being watched and the whole thing became about police violence.
And you know, Clark called the newspapers and everything and was letting them know that
everything is fine in here and no one's being hurt just so that they couldn't spin the story
and make him seem all violent and crazy and shit.
Amazing.
Yeah.
Amazing.
Yeah.
So, Jan and Clark quickly surrender and the police want the hostages to come out first.
But the hostages are like, we fucking refuse.
We know you're going to shoot them if they're last, so they're coming out with us.
Wow.
Which is like they're protecting their lives at that point.
Yeah.
And the doorway with the vault, the three women kiss Olson and Olson goodbye and Sven shakes
hands with them.
Wow.
They're captors for six fucking days.
Yeah.
And the police sees the gunman and while that happens, two of the hostages cry out, don't
hurt them.
They didn't harm us.
Well, Kristen is wheeled away in a stretcher and there's photos of her sitting up in her
stretcher like watching to make sure they're okay.
Oh.
She says, Clark, I will see you soon.
Oh, she liked Clark.
I think they, and I think they ended up hooking up later.
What?
Yeah.
Are you being serious?
I swear to God, in the criminal he mentions, yeah, we've got closer than friends.
I swear.
He's a real, he's a dog.
He's a cat.
He's a real so-and-so.
He's a real, that fella.
It later came out that during the standoff, he had soothed Kristen when she had a bad
dream and he gave her a bullet from his gun as a keepsake.
No.
I mean, it's just that.
It's just kind of because somebody, it's like, they're looking out for you and like
Jesus like, oh, I'm scared.
Like I'm all so titillated.
What if Jesus like you personally, that's big.
Jesus was like a bad guy.
No, we won't.
No, that is not from our Bible.
I'm thinking of Rambo.
I'm thinking of Rambo.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
But I think it is the, there is a manipulation obviously because it's not normal feelings
and it's not a normal situation, but I just keep thinking like after six days, you've
hung out with people where they're like, look, I don't want to be a bank robber.
I actually used to have a dream of becoming a great whatever thing Swedish people like.
And it's like, and my dreams were deferred.
Well, it's like they have enough time to get the, to get the stories straight.
So it's like you can empathize with why they do it.
And here's the other thing because the vault door was locked, they were also in the dark
except for the holes that were drilled into the, into it.
Wow.
So like that's, they just went through some shit.
Yeah.
They went through some.
That really, that kind of turns, that spins it as well.
And the smell.
Okay.
It was like a stinky podcast where they all became best friends.
We know what that's like.
Let's start it.
Both the public and police were fucking totally perplexed by the hostages, seemingly irrational
attachment to their captors.
The police began, even began to investigate whether Kristen was part of the robbery plot
to begin with.
Oh.
They were like, this is so impossible.
She must be fucking part of this.
Yeah.
The captors were confused too.
They, the following day, one of the, one of the hostages asked a psychiatrist, is there
something wrong with me?
Why don't I hate them?
Like they were confused too.
Right.
Psychiatrists were like, let's cycle analyze this motherfucker and compare the behavior to
the wartime shell shock exhibited by soldiers, you know, and explain that the hostages had
become emotionally indebted to their abductors and not the police for being spared death.
Yeah.
Right?
Makes sense.
Sweetest psychiatrist Nils Bergerot later coined the term Stockholm syndrome to describe
the so-called captor bonding, which became part of the popular lexicon in 1974, when
it was used as a defense for the kidnapped newspaper heiress Patty Hearst, who assisted
the radical Symbionese Liberation Army captors in a series of bank robberies, her fucking,
it didn't work though, her defense, and I'm still horrified by this, that she was sentenced
to 35 years in prison and it was later reduced to seven years, like that's so crazy, isn't
it?
Yeah.
I still think it's a miscarriage of justice.
The whole story is so beyond, it's like only in the 70s could that have happened because
it was so, and you know, it was in San Francisco.
Right.
It's just above and beyond everything and all those, like, she is so gorgeous, the pictures
of her, the whole thing is like a weird movie plot.
It is.
But in real life.
It's bonkers.
The hostages refuse, so the hostages wouldn't testify against the bank robbers.
And Kirsten even lied on the stand saying that Clark had never held a gun during the
six-day standoff.
Oh, wow.
She fucking lied.
She was going down for her man.
Yeah.
She said she didn't want him to be punished.
She said she would have given him a medal if it were up to her.
I mean, charm goes a long way.
I don't think they have medals for that, though.
No, I don't.
For the lack of extreme violence.
Yeah.
For not, number one, for not murdering.
Yeah.
But in that scenario, you work at a bank, you kind of fear this all the time and you've
already run through what could happen and how bad it could be.
So the thing is happening that you fear, but it's with people that are like, we don't want
to hurt you.
We don't want this money.
But there's still that little bit of chance that they could and that things could go wrong
and you could still be killed.
Yeah.
And like, it's so terrifying.
Yeah.
And then you're shitting in a corner.
Oh.
That part.
Yeah.
Jan was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the robbery and Clark didn't go to prison
at all for his crime because he was like, you guys made me go through this.
Yeah, yeah.
He can't be.
No.
He was pulled into it.
But he's been back in prison many times since then.
No shit.
Yeah.
And so even after they returned to prison, the hostages made jailhouse visits to their
former captors.
Wow.
I know.
And Jan was released in 1980 and once freed, he married one of the many women who sent him
admiring letters while incarcerated.
Oh, nice.
And they like had a kid together.
They went fucking straight.
They own like a mechanics place or something.
Wow.
And had like a normal life.
So he has a normal life because of being involved in that?
Yeah.
Well, because she sent the letter.
Yeah.
Like that was the inciting incident.
You gotta hope.
That's what the movie plots gotta be.
Yeah.
And since the robbery, Jan has not been convicted of any other crimes.
Great.
And has openly apologized for the hostage situation.
Awesome.
Yeah.
And that's the story of the fucking Stockholm syndrome.
God, I feel like that might be the best case scenario, any true crime story you could
talk through.
Yes.
I hope yours isn't horrible.
It is the worst.
Are you ready?
Ugh.
Hold on.
Let's see.
Are we back?
I'm ready to concentrate on you.
These are fun.
I know.
I love them.
I think they're really good.
Yeah.
It was a good idea.
Yeah.
Georgian, I just took a break in between.
Just a quick bathroom break.
Yeah.
And I have to say, first of all, we have to make a rule when we go to the bathroom during
taping.
Yeah.
I'm not allowed to use the tweezers in the bathroom.
No.
No.
No.
Only.
No plucking allowed.
I just did a serious amount of plucking in the bathroom.
You were gone for a while.
I couldn't stop.
But here's the thing.
As I did it, it makes me incredibly proud and grateful because we run our own company
now where we asked Danielle, who runs our network, can you please get a spare tweezers
for this bathroom?
Because every time I go in there, there's hairs there where I'm like, why is no one
telling me about these?
I think it's going to be like this fine, but we are going to need a solution for it.
Oh, yeah.
We need to be able to not feel like victims of our own faces.
Yeah.
And we work amongst and around people, and we've gotten this crew with us that don't
mind hearing about what a great plucking session we just had, or maybe they just don't want
to get fired and hired for a lesson.
I think Stephen would be expressing his true feelings if he didn't feel so threatened.
Yeah.
Stephen?
No, I was going to say, I have a little deodorant in the bathroom.
Oh, nice.
I was trimming my mustache hairs a little bit today.
He gets it.
He lives here now.
Oh, Stephen, you're not allowed to do that.
I'm a caught in the back room.
Okay.
That was just like a personal hygiene break that no one wanted corner.
Okay.
We're prepping to go on this big trip, and we just recorded an episode, so this episode
definitely snuck up on me.
So when I was looking for a story, I first tried to think, what haven't I done that I
really want to do, didn't think it's Stockholm Syndrome.
Yeah, me either.
I'm so mad at myself.
So what I did was I Googled the phrase, disappeared from the forest to see what would come up.
That's brilliant.
And which is a good way to do it, because the first thing that came up was this amazing
article from 2008 from the LA Weekly that was written by a writer named Christine Pelesack,
was the guest, is how you pronounce her name.
And that was the story that basically gave me this story, that article from the LA Weekly
from 11 years ago.
And then the supporting articles were found on Murderpedia, and basically, we've talked
a ton about how LA in the 70s, there were all these freeway murderers.
There were so many serial killers in the Southland, in the 70s, that there were actually subsets
and types of serial killers that you could be in freeway, killers were one of them.
And this hits on a bunch of my things, which is the disappeared from the forest thing,
the freeway killer thing.
And then, you know, the thing I always talk about where, because of the way the news cycle
is, because of the way the country is right now, and the politics and everything, that
I always talk about, what are the things we're not hearing about, because everything's getting
eaten up all day by basically the crumbling of democracy and reality.
And this is what happened in the 70s.
And that's why no one's ever heard of Mac Ray Edwards, the serial killer, the serial
killer of children in Los Angeles before the 70s.
Holy shit.
Yes.
Okay.
So I've never seen this guy's picture.
I've never heard his name.
No.
I couldn't believe it.
So it starts here.
On March 23rd, 1957, eight-year-old Tommy Bowman is on a short hike with his father,
his brother, his sister, his uncle, and his two young cousins, and they're going along
the Arroyo Seco trail in Pasadena.
They're from Andondo Beach, the Bowman family, and they're spending the day basically all
to Dina together.
Essentially, I think the family from the beach wanted to go up into the mountains and hike
around for the day.
Isn't that crazy?
Like that would have been a trek for the day back then, and now it's like a fucking errand
you run.
Yes.
And back then, it was like, we're all going to get into the car without our cell phones
and we're going to drive up into the mountains and walk around.
Well, they left their cell phones at home.
They left their cell phones in the future.
And this is that classic story.
Toward the ends of the hike, Tommy races.
He basically says to his cousins, I'll race you to the car, and they're only a quarter
of a mile away from the parking lot off the trail where they started.
So they all watch Tommy race ahead and turn a corner, and they never see him again.
What the fuck?
Yes.
So when the rest of the women's get to the parking lot, they don't see him anywhere.
They immediately call the police and then a week long.
How did that turn on?
I didn't do anything.
I think a ghost is here.
The fan just fucking turned on by itself.
That fan just turned on by itself.
Stephen, if you invited a ghost, it's like an old timey fan.
All right.
That happens again.
I'm leaving.
So they immediately call the police and a week long search ensues.
What the fuck?
Helicopter scour the 11 mile stretch of the Arroyo Seco from Mount Wilson in the San
Gabriel's to South Pasadena.
They add more police officers.
Even Tommy's father's named Elden and his coworkers from the company he works for start
showing up to help search for Tommy, all on foot, all in the area.
Things found, Tommy's basically disappeared without a trace.
So there's no solid leads, so investigators, they're grasping for straws and there's theories
that Tommy may have been taken by a mountain lion or some, like a wild animal theory.
There was also a theory that he'd somehow wandered to the, they were right near JPL,
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which we got.
We got a tour of, Steven and I and Scotty Landis.
That was kind of close by.
So they were thinking he wandered into that parking lot and someone from JPL kidnapped
him.
That's not the thing.
They're just basically, yeah.
We're like, those people are too smart, too together and they're worried about space.
But basically they're trying to theorize of what the hell could have happened.
There's no, of course, evidence to support either of these theories and nothing ever
comes from that.
They kind of disappear and then two different female eyewitnesses come forward to say that
on the day of Tommy's disappearance, they had seen a little boy who looked like Tommy
walking on the trail near Altadena Drive in Pasadena crying.
And they told police that just behind the boy was a deeply tanned, disheveled looking
man in khakis and a plaid shirt.
One woman says he's wearing a plaid shirt.
One woman says he's wearing a white t-shirt.
So the investigators start questioning registered sex defenders in the area.
Well, Tommy's father's employer, the Northrop Corporation, the one who his co-workers came
to try to search, the Northrop Corporation puts up a cash reward for information leading
to finding Tommy.
But neither of those efforts brings any new leads.
A few days after Tommy's disappearance, an unidentified man claims that he is holding
Tommy Bowman and he demands a $2,500 ransom.
So an exchange is set up at a gas station in Eagle Rock.
Police, of course, are staking it out when the man arrives to get the cash.
Police arrest him.
They find out the whole thing's fake.
Yeah.
He's just trying to get money.
It's such a strangely unstable and weird thing to do.
Where people couldn't be in a worse place and you're like, maybe I'll make money off
it.
Yeah.
It's so gross.
By 1960, the case of Tommy Bowman's disappearance goes cold.
Okay.
So now we skipped a fall of 2005.
No, what?
Yeah.
Nearly 50 years later in the fall of 2005, an author named Weston DeWalt.
So this is the guy who this article that I found is about.
It's about this author.
So he is a successful author and he's doing research on the jogging trails near his house
in Pasadena when someone tells him about the long ago disappearance of Tommy Bowman.
He's like, I just want to know how the river flows in my area.
And he's like, well, guess what?
Too bad your friend's with the murdering clearly and someone's like, you want to know how the
river flows?
How about I tell you what shitty things are happening right behind your house?
Oh my God.
So, but Weston DeWalt is intrigued.
He's an author.
He's, you know, so he starts looking into this case.
He states that when he starts doing this digging, he realizes, quote, he made a decision that
if he could find some of Tommy's relatives alive, I would write a book about what it
meant to a family to wonder for 50 years.
Right?
Heartbreaking.
So he gets, he's basically, he's in.
He's like completely hooked by the fact that this boy basically just disappeared off the
face of the earth and nobody had any answers for 50 years.
So Weston DeWalt makes contact with Tommy Bowman's father, Eldon.
And Eldon actually invites him over to his house in Seamy Valley where he now lives.
And when he, when Weston gets there, Eldon is laid out all the investigative materials
he's kept about his son's case for the past 50 years on the dining room table.
So there's letters and there's photographs and there's all the newspaper clippings and
basically everything that Weston might want to know.
And after a lengthy discussion, Eldon agrees to let Weston DeWalt petition the LA County
Sheriff's Department to reopen the case.
Wow.
So basically DeWalt goes and he starts meeting with LAPD to talk about this and how this case
needs to be reopened.
And over time, he becomes friends with the cold gaze detective, Vivian Flores, who had
been working this case since that time.
And she helps him sift through all the case file evidence and all the basically the available
evidence.
And there when he's looking through it, Weston finds an eyewitness sketch of the tanned
disheveled man that was seen walking behind Tommy by those two eyewitnesses.
And immediately Weston recognizes the face in this sketch as being very similar to a
photo he had seen while researching child abductions from the photo was from 1970.
And it was of a man being led into a courtroom in handcuffs.
And that man was 51 year old, heavy equipment, at least at the time of the picture was taken,
51 year old heavy equipment operator named Mack Edwards.
Oh my God, chills.
Right.
So he sees it and is like, he's here and then in this he's he's being arrested for child
abduction.
So who is this guy?
Could it be the same guy?
Well, we'll talk a little bit about Mack Edwards.
He moved he was an Arkansas native that moved to Silmar, California.
In the late 40s, he had just been married in Arkansas.
So he's a newlywed.
He had been a combat engineer in World War Two.
He he and his wife in Silmar adopt two kids.
He joins the Union of Operating Engineers and gets a job building and repairing LA's
freeways.
He's basically just a heavy equipment operator.
And all this is the time where they just start building all these freeways all around LA.
And so that's what he basically works on.
He operates the heavy machinery that Caltrans uses to build all these freeways and to like
to grade clear the land.
I know where this is going.
Yeah, you do.
Okay.
So he is described as having a quote, generally dorky demeanor.
So he wears glasses.
He doesn't drink.
He doesn't swear.
He's very friendly.
All the neighbors like him.
He actually owns horses that he lets the neighborhood kids ride.
He's also known for taking the neighborhood kids camping.
Oh, I bet he fucking is.
Yeah.
So he's very well liked in the community because he's that great guy that's so nice.
1,000 red flags.
Loves children.
Get away.
Creep.
All those sentiments go away on March 5, 1970.
When Mack Edwards walks into the foothill station of the Los Angeles Police Department,
he puts a loaded gun on the front desk and tells the on duty officer, I have a guilt
complex.
What?
Uh-huh.
So he's taken into an interview room where he eventually confesses to the kidnapping of
three young sisters from Silmar that had happened the day before.
Okay.
So basically, according to Edwards, he tells police that he and a teenage accomplice had
broken in to the three girls' home during the early morning hours after their parents
had left the house for the day.
They were robbing the house and then they abducted the girls.
So they were sisters aged 12, 13 and 14.
I do not know why you'd want to fuck with three sisters in that age range.
That's dangerous.
Yeah.
Maybe it's didn't know it, but they were about to find out.
Before they left the house, they forced the girls to write notes to their parents saying
they were running away from home, which is fucking evil.
That's so evil.
So evil.
So they get the girls in the car.
They drive to the Angeles National Forest, which is just those words put strike fear
into the heart.
At some point during the subduction, though, two of the three sisters get away.
And then the third sister is left there, Edwards and his teenage accomplice, of course, panic.
Edwards knows that these girls can identify him.
He's their old neighbor.
Oh, shit.
So they knew who he was.
He was like, oh, this is over.
So Edwards and his accomplice just leave and they leave the third sister in the forest.
Oh, my god.
Okay.
So Edwards knows that sooner or later he's going to get caught.
This situation's gone totally out of control.
So he decides I'm just going to cut to the chase and turn myself in because it's going
to happen anyway.
And why wait for it?
And it turns out the good news about all of that is that those girls were not attacked
in any way or physically harmed by those men.
They basically scrambled the situation and got themselves out of it before anything bad
could happen to them.
Amazing.
Aside from the kidnapping itself.
It's so awesome.
Yeah.
I just think like there's, you don't mess with sisters.
You don't mess with junior high level sisters.
They will murder you.
Yeah.
Okay.
So Mack Edwards, he basically the police ask him why he decided to kidnap these girls
and he tells them that he planned to rape and murder all three of them.
Holy shit.
And then Edwards says to the police, now there's other matters to discuss.
And Mack Edwards goes on to confess that between the span of 1953 and 1969, he had kidnapped
and murdered six children.
Oh my God.
So this is what he confesses to and what the police just have to, they can't write fast
enough to say what is happening here.
First it was an eight year old girl named Stella Nolan.
So she disappeared from the flea market that her mom worked at in Norwalk on June 20th,
1953.
So the story was that her mom had to work.
She knew that her daughter would be bored.
She's an eight year old at this big flea market.
So she said, you can walk around, but you have to come back every hour on the hour and
check in with me.
So I know that you're here.
And so that's what they, that was the plan.
That's what they'd always done.
And this day, June 20th, when she was supposed to check in at nine o'clock, she never showed
up.
So immediately the mother knew something was wrong because Stella was super responsible
and really smart and would not have just blown it off.
So she called the police immediately, but she was, again, it was a child who just disappeared
without a trace.
No one saw anything.
And that case went cold for 16 years.
Next was 13 year old Don Baker and 11 year old Brenda Howell.
They'd gone bike riding together in San Gabriel Canyon on August 6th, 1956.
And they were never seen again because the bodies could not be found.
In this case, there was just no evidence, so that case went cold.
This confession was especially shocking because Brenda Howell, the 11 year old, was actually
Mack Edwards sister-in-law.
He was his, it was his wife's little sister that he murdered.
Yeah.
So then he swears that he stopped murdering children for 12 years.
He tried to get it all together.
But that changed on November 26, 1968, when he shot and killed a 16 year old Gary Rocha
in Rocha's home in Granada Hills.
Then his son's classmate was a 16 year old named Roger Madison.
And Roger had left his house for the evening never to be seen again.
Turns out that Edwards had lured him into an orange grove and were stabbed him repeatedly
on December 14th, 1968.
So just killed him right there.
Finally, Edwards confesses to kidnapping 13 year old Donald Todd from his Pacoima home
on May 16th, 1969.
Donald's body was found under a footbridge.
He'd been sexually assaulted and shot to death.
So Edwards said that all these crimes were motivated by an urge for sex.
So he assaulted all of these victims.
And that was basically what was behind all of this.
So these investigators know that in this 12 year period where he's saying I was basically,
I was trying to be good at my family and all this bullshit, they're just like, no.
So he basically, he confesses to these six murders, pleads guilty to three counts of
kidnapping and three counts of murder because they only have the bodies of three victims.
He's immediately found guilty and sentenced to death and he's sent to San Quentin and
he's put on death row.
The reason that we've never heard or at least I've never heard of McRae Edwards is because
right when he went to jail and when all this, like this story broke, it was exactly at the
same time as the Manson murders and when they arrested Charles Manson and the Manson family.
So it completely got obliterated by the Manson murder story.
Isn't that crazy?
Yeah.
And this is a, I keep saying child serial killer, a serial killer of children, which
is I think the worst, I mean, it's all so bad.
So basically he just disappears because of Manson.
When he goes to San Quentin, who's two cells down from him, Charles Manson, yes.
Gross.
You know, boring that fucking idiot, the whole, the babbling that went on and that block.
But and there is actually a teenage prisoner that was only identified as being named Roberto
that was the person between the two cells.
Oh my God.
He's like, so he has Charles Manson on one side who he said he actually enjoyed talking
to McRae Edwards more because Charles Manson would be nice one second offering him cigarettes
and then threatened to kill him the next second.
Meanwhile, Edwards was really friendly and normal the whole time, but then starts telling
him about all the other kids that he's killed.
No.
Yes.
So he's doing that jailhouse confession slash brag thing to the poor guy in the cell next
to him where he said he couldn't sleep at night because the guy was just talking and
telling him all these other kids that he had murdered.
So it's all bad.
It's so horrible.
So basically when he's found guilty and he sent to St. Quentin, he tells, he tells the
court, I want to be electrocuted in the electric chair.
Can you move me up to the front of the line?
There's some people that are there, they're waiting and they're sweating.
Right.
I want, I want to be in the electric chair.
It's all I've ever wanted.
Oh my God.
They're like, yeah, it doesn't work like that friend and because it is all you've ever wanted.
Now you'll never get it.
Right.
Now we're fucking terrified of you.
Yeah.
So the request is denied.
He makes several suicide attempts and finally in November of 1971, Mac Ray Edwards hangs
himself with a TV cord in his prison cell at the age of 52.
So August, we're now back to August of 2006, where Weston DeWalt has dinner with Mac Edwards,
76 year old widow and her family.
No way.
Yes.
So he's basically saying, I'm trying to investigate these murders.
I'm trying to get these victims, families, some kind of, it's never closure, but some
kind of answer.
Right.
And he, to that dinner brings Bill Gleason, who's a consultant for the California Department
of Justice.
And so during that visit, Max Widow reveals he'd written a confession letter to her right
before his suicide from jail.
And in the letter, Edwards says this about his original confession, quote, I was going
to add one more, but that was the Tommy Bowman boy that disappeared in Pasadena, but I felt
like I would really make a mess of it, of that one.
So I left him out of it.
So then DeWalt finds that Max Employer in 1969 was a company called Cursed Construction
and they had an equipment yard less than half a mile from where Tommy Bowman went missing.
And in this letter, Edwards also tells his wife that he'd only killed one of the six
children that he'd admitted to and that the person responsible for the other five murders
was his quote, crippled neighbor, as the way he describes him.
He basically told his wife he's trying to cover for this neighbor, who's the one who
really did it.
Oh, what a hero.
So, but Weston DeWalt looks into this story, there's no neighbor there never had been.
So then Weston DeWalt, the author, he tracks down Edwards' arresting officer to get more
information.
He's trying to fill in these gaps and that guy points him to another guard that Edwards
had kind of befriended before he was transferred to San Quentin.
So that guard, the second guard tells DeWalt that while in prison, Edwards confessed to
him that he was actually responsible for 18 murders, not just six.
Jesus.
When the guard asked Edwards why he didn't confess to all of them, Edwards told him that
it was because the cops had quote, said bad things about me in court.
Okay, dude.
They're allowed to.
I mean, you're a bad guy.
Yeah.
But also it's that weird kind of thinking where, because they don't care about other
human beings and they don't think about other human beings or whatever, he doesn't see the
difference between confessing to these six and letting all these other people off the
hook for children that disappeared out of the blue for these poor families.
So then the guy that was in the cell between Manson and Edwards, Roberto, he said that
Edwards confessed to at least 20 to him.
We may never know the true count of his victims.
Authorities believe it's definitely safe to assume it's more than six.
So the bodies of three of Edwards' known victims, Don Baker, Brenda Hull and Roger Madison were
never found.
But Detective Flores had been focusing her efforts on finding Roger Madison's body.
She finally gets a break when she discovers there's a transcript of Mack Edwards' confession
of the murder of Donald Todd.
And in that confession, Edwards says that he stabbed Madison in a Silmar orange grove
and buried him along the 23 freeway on Caltrans land in Moorpark, but that freeway was still
under construction at the time.
So Flores finds a retired Caltrans employee.
This is how hard she's working this case.
Oh my, I'm on the edge of my seat.
She finds a retired Caltrans employee who had kept detailed logs of the work he had
done over the years, like where and when.
So using his logs, they're able to pinpoint the exact location of where Caltrans had been
working along the 23 freeway on December 16, 1969.
So three months later, Detective Flores has corpse sniffing dogs sent to the area where
they were supposed to have been working.
And those dogs all find the same spot.
They all...
Are you like 50 years later?
Yes.
Under cement.
Right.
And so that's when they're like, okay, this is where we're going to start.
So on October 6, 2008, Flores and her team start digging up the area next to the 23 freeway
in Moorpark.
Oh, shit.
They dig for five days.
And even though there were DNA tests taken of the area that showed that Roger's DNA was
there and ground penetrating radar said that there was something buried there, and of course
the logs showed they couldn't find anything.
And if they kept on digging, they were going to have to shut down the freeway.
It could have been like, you know, five fucking feet off.
That's what's like such a bummer about it.
It's so frustrating.
And because this guy, essentially, they're not going to shut down the freeway, so the
dig is called off.
And there's something so especially sinister, the fact that this was the plan all along.
Because when he was working on those freeways, basically, he would time his murders knowing
that they were about to go do, basically be building these things.
So the night before he would go dig the hole and then put his murder victims in these graves
and then the next day it would all get covered over by cement and freeways.
That's the creepiest thing I've ever heard in my life.
It's like the original freeway killer story where it's like just bad vibes, like that's
what this is all about down here.
That's what this fucking creepy, road ragey, agro feeling is.
But it was all rural back then.
And like it was all families trying to come out here and make a difference and, you know,
make their way.
It wasn't Hollywood and everything.
And it's just, it's crazy.
It's so nuts.
So as sad as that is and as unsatisfying as that is, it's basically, yeah, shut down
the freeways.
Who cares?
Find those remains.
Yeah.
It's basically red tape.
It's not going to happen.
What's cool and lovely and small but still important is that Roger's sister came and
she got to leave flowers next to basically the excavation area where they were trying
to find him.
And they, the police who are standing by and the Caltrans employees, everybody like
remove their hats and had a moment of silence for Roger Madison and his loss of life.
And then they basically had to cover it all over.
So despite his claims, no one believes that, of course, Mack Edwards went dormant for 12
years between Brenda Howell and Don Baker's double murder and Gary Roach's murder.
So Weston DeWalt, Vivian Flores, many LAPD cold case detectives continue to this day
to try linking Mack Edwards' movements and personal timeline with all the cold cases
of missing and murdered children in Southern California.
And that is the deeply disturbing and little known story of Mack Ray Edwards, LA's least
known serial killer of children.
Fuck, man.
Who knew?
Isn't that fucked?
What a crazy story.
Yeah.
Good job.
Thank you.
It's a...
It gets me in so many ways.
I know.
He's like, oh, he lets everybody ride their horses and he's so nice and let's go camping.
He's a molesting, murdering piece of shit.
He also, they eventually, you know, as they dug up all these files and everything before
he left Arkansas, he had molested a girl.
It was probably the reason that he left and came out.
So it's like he's just got the longest track record.
It's just so...
And what a perfect place to come to when you're like in a small town in Arkansas that you
get run out of because you're molesting someone.
You go to LA where it's like, it's a big, sprawling, you know, anonymous city.
That's growing.
Yeah.
You got to be...
The freeway aspect is so chilling.
And also the way he did it where somehow he was able to get in and out of these places
unseen and unnoticed.
He's, you know, like just kind of the master of that thing where however he did it.
And the idea that Tommy Bowman was crying when he was walking up that street and a man
was behind him, clearly he knew how to very quickly like win the favor of and then intimidate
children.
Or is it a time and a place where you mind your own fucking business.
And so no one is noticing these things and it's just a kid crying and upset and you don't
think twice about it.
A mean dad and it's none of your business.
You're right.
It was so long before, like this is pre so much stuff.
Yeah.
It's pre everything where it's just like, you could hit your kids, you could hit your
neighbor's kids.
Everybody gets hit.
Yeah.
Every...
Teachers.
No one gets looked out for.
Kids are out or like hiking alone.
I mean, he wasn't.
But you know, it was the time where it was just like, sure, if you want to go off and wander
around for a while, sure, do it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just no.
We just didn't know.
We didn't know.
No one knew.
It was depolite just to adults and yeah.
I mean, assume that if somebody, you know, whether it's owns horses or goes to church
or whatever, is like, everyone's buying everybody else's mask just a hundred percent outright
and like, sounds good if you're a man, you have a job and you're blue collar and then
you're nice.
Yeah.
No one would suspect you.
No one would suspect you.
These children camping?
Great.
No.
Wow.
Good job.
Thank you.
I'm going to put something in Google, like similar and get a story like that because
I was fucking.
Yeah.
Patered.
Yeah.
It really was.
Horrible.
Horrible.
It was the worst.
Horrible.
Patered.
The worst of all.
Patered.
But also it's the thing where you, I always think I've heard everything.
Yeah.
And you're, of course not.
There's so much terrible shit out there.
So much.
And we promise we'll bring it to you.
The second we find out about it.
We almost have 200 episodes.
Can you believe that?
We have to do a good one for our 200.
What are we going to do?
I don't know.
Stephen, just do it.
Make it happen.
Just edit everything we've ever said together.
What was my idea the other day of a compilation of the like one word from every episode?
You're like, Stephen, I know you're busy.
Stephen, if we're going to do a 200th episode, what if we just do like a great moment from
every episode?
Georgia goes, sorry.
Sorry.
Sorry.
I'm from Canada.
How is he supposed to do that?
And I was like, oh yeah, I don't know.
I just wanted to try to figure something out.
He's kind of running exactly right's audio engineering program.
Yeah.
He's kind of producing five other podcasts right now simultaneously as well as several
pilots.
But yeah, no, that's not going to work out.
What's your, and do you have a cigarette?
I just got a cigarette gesture to Georgia with a pen.
But the pen, it was pretty fabulous.
This is like me all through grammar school.
Another way to get a little attention.
Pretend to smoke as a child.
It's pay dirt.
Pay dirt.
It's so funny.
Do you have a fucking array?
I'm sure I do.
Okay.
I guess my fucking array is like a future fucking array.
Is that like, I can't wait to step onto that plane tomorrow.
Hell yes, girl.
I can't wait.
And like, so my therapist is like, you have to do five positives every day.
I can't wait for you to think cold, UK and Ireland fucking air.
I can't wait.
It's going to be all Christmasy over there and shit, which I love.
We're going to eat the best fucking food.
Yes.
We're going to have all this time on the airplane to work.
That's terrible.
And it's just going to be great.
I'm really, I'm really looking forward to this trip.
And then the three of us are going to fucking Barcelona.
Yes.
For the last three days, just to have a, we're calling it a work retreat.
It's a company retreat.
That's right.
I can't wait.
It's going to be so fun.
I love it.
Do you know that the company retreat is me laying in your guys' bed in your hotel room?
With us over.
With us being drunk.
Karen, I want more tapas.
I'll get them for you.
Just give me four hours.
I'm so happy to hear you say that because, you know, by the end of our spring, the fucking
winter spring tour, which really was just the entire first half of 2019 tour, it really
felt like neither of us ever wanted to do it ever again.
It was so, you know, it was long.
It was consistent.
It was whatever.
So I'm glad.
I'm glad that, you know, we took enough time off that this is actually like, yay.
Me too.
Because it is so fun and exciting.
I think mine is a, I definitely want to piggyback on that because I am truly so excited.
And, but I'll, but also today, so I of course leave everything in the last minute.
So today in between six other things that I'm supposed to do, I ran to Macy's just to
get some tights and what have you.
I get to get you some tights.
But as I was standing there in the line, which was very long and I started in my head basically
like as if I'm on the phone, we're going, can you please hire more people?
It's the holidays.
There's like, it's one o'clock in the afternoon and there were eight deep here at the, in the
section at Macy's, but instead of doing that, I was just kind of trying to my thing that
I'm working on now.
Thank you, Tara Brock is the just awareness of what you're thinking so that you can change
your thought patterns.
So it's like, if I'm just standing there and my habit is to mentally yell at people, maybe
just put the applause on that and see what's actually happening around me that I could
be enjoying instead of being in my thoughts negatively.
Okay.
So I'm standing, I realize I'm standing as a huge display of pajamas and they look kind
of cozy and they're like flannel red plaid pajamas.
Yeah.
So I start touching them like, I want flannel red plaid pajamas out of nowhere.
This lady comes around the corner and goes, I got pajamas just like that for my grandchildren.
They all matched.
We took a picture.
It was the greatest.
She starts telling me some God damn story.
Surprise grandma.
Surprise grandma who had no, there was not even, it was as if I told her, could you meet
me here at one o'clock so we could talk about this?
I wish I had a story about these pajamas.
And then boom around the corner.
And I realize when I'm not in my head projecting and making problems or trying to work through
problems, I'm the kind of person people walk up to and tell random shit to.
Are you?
Yes.
Okay.
100% if I can keep myself present.
Okay.
And that is, I have to remind myself, I love that.
Okay.
The way she told me that story and as if it was vital information I needed to know that
was going to help me decide whether or not it was going to get these pajamas, I was just
like, yes.
And then she, as she walked away, well, they, I wasn't thinking of them really for me.
It was conceptual, but I was like, Christmas, my sister always gets me pajamas and slippers
are the best fucking gifts for people.
Everybody always needs and wants them always, but as she walked away, she goes, I don't
know what I'm going to do this year.
And then I yell after her like, you can beat it.
You can do it.
If you did it last year, you can do it this year, I'm having, it's like, it was the funniest
moment.
So anyway, it was just a little reminder to me.
I think it's like, open yourself up to surprise grandma's.
Yes.
Because that's the, that is the stuff of life.
Yeah.
It's not the satisfaction you get yelling at people because there's not enough people
working at the counter that doesn't give me anything.
It depletes me entirely, even when it's just mental.
Yeah.
Where of like, being mad or, or staying in anger.
Now, if it is adrenal glands and shit, they just are like, no.
It doesn't do anything.
And also it's just like, and I'm lucky enough to be here shopping in the first place.
Totally.
You're going to get to the front of the line at some point.
Yes.
You might as well talk to us.
I'm really obsessed with this surprise grandma.
Surprise grandma is kind of the greatest because also they're all around us.
But if you're not, if I am not paying attention and if I need to feel like the way I control
the world is pre-argue everything, so the argument's ready, it's, I'm ruining my own
good time.
Okay.
And I, and I, I think I'm getting okay at trying to keep it in mind, but like, especially
on this trip.
Yeah.
That's when you need to do it the most.
Because I,
We have so many flights.
Yes.
And you just anticipate this is going to be bad.
And this, and it's like, no, no, no, these are all opportunities to have surprise grandma
moments.
I love it.
Oh my God.
That's it.
Right?
That's the answer to life.
Let's all keep our surprise grandma diary for our trip.
Okay.
Let me go back and tell these stories.
All right.
I'll see you at LAX tomorrow.
And we'll do it.
Let's do it.
We'll have a go surprise grandma.
Surprise grandma.
Come out wherever you are.
Awesome.
Love it.
Love it.
Love it.
Fucking thanks for listening, you guys.
We appreciate you so much.
I was at a bar last night and this crying girl came up to me freaking out and said, I just
got dumped, but I'm seeing, I just ran into you and it made my night.
Oh.
She was so sweet.
That's such a nice thing for such a shitty time of her life.
I know.
I was like, fuck him.
Fuck everything.
Yes.
I'm so happy to meet you.
And your friends are all around you.
Yeah.
It's what I said too.
Look up your Murderina friends.
They're here.
Yes.
It's just such a rad community.
You know, as you say that, sorry, but I just had one where I walked into the Starbucks.
I was actually just walking out of the Starbucks and a girl was walking in and she had the
moment as we were passing the doorway where she went, and I stopped and I was like, yep.
And then she didn't know what to do and I, and I had, I was on my, of course I was already
10 minutes late, but I had to stop at Starbucks and she stood there for a moment and then
I was like, hi.
Good to see you.
And I was trying to kind of like end it.
And then she just looked around and we started going, oh my God, to the rest of the Starbucks.
And so I just left.
And so I apologized to her because her excitement was real.
I'm sorry that I don't like that.
I liked the beginning and not the end, so I bailed and I apologize.
I apologize.
We're so different, you and I.
We really, but this was a small quiet Starbucks that I've just been super a part of.
And then it was like I caused yelling at the door tomorrow and shit and they like, I need
to be able to go back.
That's happened in my manicure place a couple of times for it, and I'm sure they're wondering,
who the fuck is this shit?
She must be some kind of lunatic.
That was the point of saying thanks you guys for supporting us.
Yeah.
We're so lucky.
Supporting us.
Even when we, when I don't make it seem like it's what I want, it is what I want and thank
you for doing it.
It means the world.
We're so grateful.
We're grateful we get to go to the UK and Ireland again.
We can't wait to tell you all about it.
So amazing.
It's going to be real good.
That's right.
So thanks for everything.
Stay sexy.
And don't get murdered.
Bye.
Elvis, you want a cookie?
Don't you need a cookie?