My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 206 - Spatula City

Episode Date: January 23, 2020

Karen and Georgia cover Laurie Dann, the Winnetka School shooter, and Leopold and Loeb.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We at Wondery live, breathe and downright obsess over true crime and now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music, Exhibit C. It's truly criminal. Hello. Hi. Welcome to my favorite murder. Goodbye. That's not how we do it. That was it. Boom. And it three-third time's a charm. Oh, man. Hello. Hi. Welcome. How am I there, murder? Oh. What if I do sound effects pouring water right now? Wow. That's an aggressive water pour. Thanks. Wait, what about this one? That's another aggressive one in a glass that no one even wants to drink. Why not? Yes, you do. You're spilling it everywhere. You drink this water, Steven. She's trying to be

fancy by going up and down while pouring and just splashing it all over the place. Stop it. This is a true crime podcast. And welcome. Do you have anything this week? I have a couple things to chitchat about. What do you have business you'd like to get to? No, I drew a heart on my paper because I have nothing to talk about. Well, Valentine's Day is coming up. Right around the corner. Start working on those Valentine's you're going to send out. Do you, when you, back when you were single, just an incredible amount of dog hair on my sweater right now. Good. Didn't even do a pass on it before I left the house. This is like, I almost came in my pajamas. I might as well. We like go from our car to here and go back home,

or I do at least. Steven's the only one that ever sees us. That's right. And each other. And each other. I was going to ask you if that every year when you were single, did you get excited about Valentine's Day as a single person? Do you remember the experience of it? Yes, because my friends were usually single too. So we'd go, I'll go out or whatever. And did you ever have a Valentine's Day hookup? No, but I met a future ex-fiancee on Valentine's Day. Yep. Same with me. That's the first date I ever went on with my ex was on Valentine's Day. Oh, wow. That's bold. But it wasn't planned that way. It kind of like led up to, and then it's like, well, do you want to go to this thing on Friday? Yeah. And I don't think, I don't know

if either of us realized, I certainly didn't realize it was Valentine's Day. Sure. And then I was kind of like, wow, this is a scam because it's just like any other night. Even when I'm on this date, I'm excited about. Right. It's still just regular life. Yeah. So what are you going to do for Valentine's Day this year? Is it a Tuesday? I'll record on Valentine's Day. That would be, that would help me a lot. Shit. We don't, we don't fucking, even as a not single person, we don't really do anything for Valentine's Day. It's a scam. It's a scam. It's obnoxious. It's a Friday, but I'll record that day. Look, I'm a shit. It's, thank you. That's very good. We'll do minis that day. Yeah. But they'll take forever. Yeah. No, I think it's just like the, it's New

Year's Eve in that way where you're set up to fail. You'll be disappointed by nothing. Expectations. Very few people except for like super goofy 13 year old like boys in the drama department are the only ones really giving Valentine's to anybody in a meaningful way. Yeah. I think most people are kind of like, there's, romance is dead. Yeah. Could I even say it? Yeah. At least it is for me. Give me chocolates and flowers on every other day of the year except for Valentine's Day. I mean, I feel like also this, in this day and age, Valentine's Day was upended by social media where every day is Valentine's Day if you want it to be and you're willing to like slide into someone's DMs. Sure. You can, you can send a little Valentine simply by acting like you want

to talk to somebody. You know what I mean? And whatever the context. Valentine's Day every day is Karen's message to you. DMs are closed. What do you have? What else do you have? Oh, just that I'm going to give the outsider report. First of all, I'm loving the fact. You've, do you have an opinion this week? No, go. Yes. Go. Okay. I'm loving the fact that I've read, I've read multiple outlets, media outlets calling it the outsiders. Like it's the movie from 1983. It makes me laugh so hard. It's like, yes. See, Thomas Howell is back. So this TV show is called The Outsider Singular. It's not about a band of ragtag boys on the, who live on the bad side of town fighting socias. It's a, and this most recent one that I watched,

all of a sudden the Stephen Kinginess of it all came into it. And I was like, oh, but it was really believable and cool and not, you know, the spy, the giant spider queen that lives in the sewer type of shit. You have a corrections quarter from last week. Do I? Yeah. Is it about Cameron Britton? It's not Cameron Britton. God damn it. Yeah. You know what's funny? Cause when I, I just was listening to that, that was a mini said, right? No, it was the money nodding. Yes. It was the minute cause we were talking about the haunted house at campers house being haunted. Right. Um, what's funny is I was just listening to that little part on my, on my drive over and the way I'm going, it's, he's such a good actor. It doesn't look like

him. It's way shorter than him. His voice sounds different. And I was like listening to it going, it's like almost a different person. It's like it's a different person. It's like, cause it is. That's how much I believe in Cameron Britton. I want to get the word out. I think he could do that. He's a great character actor. He can do whatever he wants. He has range. He has range. He can be a totally different person if he wants to be. He could be a completely different talented actor. Um, do you know who that, what that actor's name is? No, but we should give him like, Stephen, can you look it up here? Meanwhile, here's my good luck. The correct therapist actor on the outsider singular boring over it. Really? It's

fucking boring. What? Yeah. I don't understand what you like because I feel like that's what you say about it. What do you like? I don't know. I couldn't even get through cheer, not cheers. I love cheers. I love every season. Not the cheers. Albania. The cheer. Albania. That's the one about cheerleading. Yeah. Cheerleading. And everyone's obsessed with it. I thought it was boring. I feel like the phrase everyone is obsessed with it is my indicator. I won't like it. The, the herky guy is on it. The guy who invented the herky. Is his last name herky? It's like Herculum or something. NERDS. Is George, it's George Bush Jr. in it? He is a big junior leader. Oh yeah. No, you, I think he would actually really like it to me. It just stressed

me out a lot. It was too, um, there's too many expectations and there's too many people who have like their fucking entire heart and mind on the line and body. I feel like I've been, been shown the cheer show all my life to show how I can't be thrown in the air. Two stories. Therefore, I'm not good enough and I'm tired of it. You could be a, uh, some of them are flyers that fly up in the air and those are the little ones. Some are tumblers and some are the ones that hold the other ones and they need those just as much as those. I don't want to be, I don't want to hold some small girl. If someone hold me, motherfucker, is what I'm saying. That's all she wants for Valentine's Day to bring it back. I want, I want to do an aerial, a triple,

lutz, Lundy in the, in the air and then have some George Bush look and mother fucker catch me. Okay. So no to cheer. You're saying no to the outsider. It's, I, okay. It's very slowly paced. Yeah. But have you gotten to the part where there's the new investigator? Cause she is quite something. Maybe not. But I don't like the, the cop, the guy in it who was played by Mendelssohn. Ben Mendelssohn. I don't like him. He, he fucked up royally. Real bad. And got someone fucking killed. No spoilers. And now he's like trying to. Well, someone dies. I'm going to tell you who it is. And gets, and now it's like, how's this like, oh, I have to fix this. And that's like, can you just leave it alone and

let everyone else take care of it? Cause you fucked it up already. Yeah. There's not, he's supposed to be the good guy when I think he's a piece of shit. Yes, for sure. There's not enough people and they're the lawyer that played the detective in the night of when we talked about that, which I was right about. But that guy does try to hold his feet to the fire, but they only do it for like two lines in that. I just hate that he's supposed to be this like, what's the word, character, like sad. The protagonist. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, no. Let's see. Yeah. Don't like it. Okay. Look, we're still at the point where we're giving our actual opinions on the show, which I think that in and of itself is valid and legit because as my pen says, get to

fuck you. Not a great pen. It's just like kind of nice pen with gold and black and then really great block letters that just says fuck you on it. Thank you so much all our listeners who give us gifts constantly. Definitely give it to me by a murderer now. That's a classic, isn't it? All right. Should I reach back into the pen thing and just see what the pen I grabbed says? Oh, BIC. What does that mean? That's the new insult. Well, you fucking BIC. Yeah. Yeah. BIC. Paper met profile. What's a promo code murder? Yeah, I don't think we have that much business. We're back into the making of this show in the constant way. We're not on tour, no break. So now we're just doing it on the weekly. Yeah. I have no idea from week to week what murder I'm going to do.

Please continue to, we should have Denton put a tab on the website where you can suggest a murder and then they just send them, he sends them directly to us because I need help. So you need them from six sources now? The fan forum, the Gmail. They get lost in there. They get lost. No, we're getting them. I mean, we thank you to everyone who's been sending them. I've been getting tweets of them. I've been getting a bunch. Okay. Yeah. Well, yeah, I had to go to alone this week, so. Oh, you're never alone. I tell you that Jesus is with you and you don't listen. And I say, no, thanks. You're drinking both glasses of water. Oh, like you said, you didn't want it. I better get two coaster. I did do my funny comedy water pour and now

there's so much water. You got to hydrate. I think you're first this week. Yeah. Oh, Stephen, did you, were you able to? Too hard to find that actor's name. No, it was a lot of just like, this character sees the therapist, no listing of the name. Poor guy. Well, then it could be. You don't know it's not Cameron Britton. We're going back. Uncredited cameo. Yeah. He did it as a favor to a friend as a Valentine to the director. It was an Easter egg for murderinos. I caught it and I win. It's like we live in a culture now where everything is either supposed to be proven incorrect, false or like Easter egg style. Like, were you watching? Did you notice the crown of sorens on the? That's what everything is. So it's like you, I think I feel the pressure

to have to prove that I'm a super fan by being like, I'm the one that recognized Carrie Coon when it actually was not her playing both parts. That was a classic Fargo mistake that I made. And can you believe this star turned by Carrie Coon? I feel like, I feel like you're at 98% correct though. So that's not bad. It's just if I wouldn't keep making those crazy reaches, I would have, I would be doing even better. 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

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20. Goodbye. Hey, I'm Mike Corey, the host of Wondery's podcast against the odds. In our next season, three masked men hijack a school bus full of children in the sleepy farm town of Chowchilla, California. They bury the children and their bus driver deep underground, planning to hold them for ransom. Local police and the FBI marshal a search effort, but the trail quickly runs dry. As the air supply for the trapped children dwindles, a pair of unlikely heroes emerges. Follow against the odds wherever you get your podcast. You can listen ad free on the Amazon music or Wondery app. So this was a suggestion that came through from the fan forum. Awesome. In your face, Georgia. It's already crabbing to get over it. This was suggested by Sherry,

and I thought we'd already done it. So Jay found it for me and was going to do the research, and then I was like, no, Georgia did it. I'm positive. I know, I know, I know. And then he's like, I have checked three things. I think he actually may have even checked with Stephen. Really? Because I wouldn't have it. And then I realized I was going to do this story the last time we did Chicago, which was a very like 2018. Hold on. My story, Chicago too. Go on. Laurie Dan. No. God, four years and we still haven't done it. Still haven't done it. Okay. I was going to do the story in Chicago, but it was a live show and it's so dark and rough.

But there's a great spin on it because I had found this article that was written in the Chicago Tribune by a writer named Eric Zorn for the 30th anniversary of this terrible tragedy taking place. He wrote the story from the point of view of one of the children that was there that day, who is now in his 30s and an adult and tells his own story. So what is it? It's the Laurie Dan and the Wadnetka school shooting of 1988. I don't think I know this one. It is very similar to the, I don't like Monday school shooter that you did. I can't remember her name off hand, but it's another female. That was a teenager that shot up that school.

So I think it's because it was so similar to that that I was like, I'm positive Georgia did this one because I keep thinking of that one that you did. So yeah, Sherry suggested it in the fan cult. And then so it's a 2018 Chicago Tribune article from a writer named Eric Zorn, but then also it's Wikipedia and of course, Murderpedia that has the comprehensive. So this takes place May 20th, 1988. So eight year old Peter Monroe is sitting in his second grade classroom at Hubbard Woods elementary school in the wealthy North Shore suburb of Wadnetka, Illinois. And he's super excited because today is bike test day. And what that means when you're in the second grade, you get to go, you go to school and then outside you go and take a bike safety test,

like a driving test. And then if you pass that and then you go inside and take the written test, this is just like driving. If you pass both those tests, you get to ride your bike to school by yourself. And he was so right of passage. Yes. And also it's such a smart thing to do back then. When it's like, well, you want to do this, but we have to make sure you know the rules and you basically keep yourself safe. Yeah. So they set this whole thing up. And Peter was super excited even though he lived across the street from the school. It's adorable. It's the cutest. So they had already been outside. They did the bike test outside. He passed that. Now he's inside, they're taking the written test and all the kids hear a commotion. And basically the next thing

Peter knows, he's on the ground and then everything goes black. When he comes to, he's crawling down an empty hallway, the school hallway by himself with an intense pain in his hand. And then when he looks down at his hand, he sees it's covered in blood. And then when he looks closer, he realizes there's a hole in his hand. Oh my God. And he's really scared. He's really confused. He's in pain. He thinks it's maybe a safety drill. And then he also, it flashes through his head that maybe this idea that the school janitor, who he very much likes and respects, came into the classroom and shot him with a fake gun, like a safety drill. Like he's can't, he can't put it together. Yeah. He starts to feel cold and tired. And then he looks up and he sees an adult step into the

hallway. And he sees a terrified look on the adult's face as the adult looks at him. The adult picks him, scoops him up, brings him into a first grade classroom. All the kids are staring at Peter. He just wants them to stop looking at him. All of a sudden he just wants his mom. He starts crying. And the next thing he knows, he's back in his second grade classroom. And the paramedics are running through the door at him. And they surround him. And he's like, okay, great, finally they're going to fix this hole in my hand. But they instead all start concentrating on his stomach. And he doesn't understand because his stomach feels cold and numb, but there's nothing wrong with the stomach. And then he realizes that there is something wrong with his stomach and he loses

consciousness again. Oh my God. And when he wakes up, he's in an ambulance. The paramedics are talking to him. He tells them he's cold and he's really tired. And he just wants to go to sleep. The paramedic says, you cannot go to sleep. Keep talking to me. But he goes to sleep anyway. And then when he wakes up, he's in the hospital. There are tubes coming out of his stomach and there are tubes going up into his nose. And he sees all these bandages that are on his stomach. And later on, when the bandages are pulled off, he'll see staples covering the stomach where his stomach was basically being held together because it had been blown open. His parents are there. They explain to him what happened. They tell him a mentally ill woman came

into his school and shot up his classroom and his classmates. And that woman's name was Lori Dan. Okay. So we'll start with Lori's early life. She's born in Chicago on October 18th, 1957. She grows up in Glencoe. She's the only child of an accountant father and a housemaker mother. And she is a shy and withdrawn child. So it's not that much is known. That I know about her childhood, but I think this is a very indicative thing is when she's older, her parents offer to pay to get her plastic surgery, which apparently helps boost her confidence. But it's a little bit about like, this is how you deal with a shy and withdrawn child, which is a little bit upsetting. Lori isn't a very good student in high school. She does

manage to graduate from high school in Winnetton in 1975. And she goes on to attend Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, where she is equally unsuccessful, but she wasn't really there to get an education. Her plan was just to meet a rich man and get married. The Mrs. Degree. Yeah. MRS Degree. MRS. Yeah. So she doesn't, it doesn't happen for her at Drake. So she basically gets her grades up so she can transfer to the University of Arizona. Yeah. Because that's where all the good men are. I guess. If you want to get married, you got to University of Arizona. And then if you want to party, you go to the ASU. And now I'd like to remind everyone of still my favorite Twitter bio that I've ever read is

Don't Be a Fake Bitch and You Can Party With Me at ASU. Remember that one? No. Yeah. Is that real? Yes. I can't remember. It was like some girl that made a comment on something and then I looked at her bio and that was her Twitter bio. Twitter bio and it's real. Amen. Yeah. Don't Be a Fake Bitch and You Can Party With Me at ASU. And then fill in the blank of ASU, whatever is going on in your life. ASU is like the Arizona State University of Life. That's right. That's me in a nutshell. That is my real bio. Yeah. Sick of fake bitches. Okay. So her new plan is she's going to become a teacher at University of Arizona. So she actually starts focusing on that and soon she meets a

pre-med student and then they start dating, which is how it works. Focus on yourself. My mom's friend in college, you know, it was like the 60s or 70s or whatever, she got a job in the medical library so she could meet a doctor to marry. Did it work? It sure did. I know I'm not like the others, but I have never, of all the things I've obsessed about in what I wanted and what I wanted to do, marriage was never on the line. It's like, be famous, take over, do this, do that. It was like that idea. I just don't relate to it. We're a new breed. My mom was always like, just marry while you'll appreciate it. Did you see that one interview with Cher? You'll appreciate it. Cher goes, someone

interviews her or she goes, my mom always said, I should marry a rich man and I said to her mom, I am a rich man. Yeah. Isn't that amazing? Yeah, that's what it is. My dad used to say, he would watch things on the news and say, you better marry a doctor. My mom was like, bullshit, become a doctor. Yeah. Then I was like, how about I become a drug addict and to stand up comedian. Would that work for everybody? A podcaster, man. Is that like a doctor for you? Podcasters are the new doctor. Right. Okay. Lori in 1977 transfers then to University of Wisconsin at Madison. Although she and her boyfriend are still dating, the longer they go out, the Lori gets more and

more possessive and erratic in her behavior. They end up breaking up in 1980. They go out for kind of a while, but it falls apart. And I think that too is a little bit indicative. The thing of moving, it's just like, yeah, just keep on moving colleges. That'll do it. Just keep getting away from your whatever's going on with you and the problems that are coming up. You just keep starting over, keep starting over. So after the breakup, she moves back in with her parents and she starts taking classes at Northwestern to try to finish her degree, but she never graduates. So while she lives at home, she gets a summer job as a cocktail waitress at Green Acres Country Club in North Brook. You pointed at me when you said cocktail waitress. Because it made me think of the Medical

Library. Oh. Oh. Because basically I think she, that's a good way to meet people. Because smart. That's where she meets an executive in an insurance brokerage firm named Russell Dan, and the two hit it off. He's from a wealthy Highland Park family. And basically he's everything Lori dreamed of, a sentient wallet with two cartoon legs I wrote. But I mean, that's what it seems like and sounds like. They get married in September of 1982 and they move into a beautiful home in Highland Park. But Lori's behavior becomes more and more erratic and strange. Even though it's been her dream to get married, she shows no interest in this new house that he buys for her. She doesn't try to decorate it. She never cleans it. Instead, she sits in front of

the TV for hours and hours. Let's not judge. When she does do the laundry, she, this is such a strange detail. She folds the clothes while they're still soaking wet and puts them wet clothes into the drawer, leaving them to mold. So she's like such a weird little detail that you think everything's normal around here. La la la. And then that happens when you're like, oh, fuck. Also, that's it. It's a specific thing. Like I have a real fear of moldy towels and moldy like leaving stuff because I always forget that I wash something. And then the next day I'm like, oh, and I have to wash it again. Yeah. So that idea that she's just kind of like, whatever, here's what you want me to do, like skipping the drawing altogether. Does the mold grow that fast

because I don't do that. You don't do what? Well, if I forgot it for the day, I'll just throw in the dryer. You know, that's just to your taste of if you can smell it or not. And it'll come out the next time you wash it. But I mean, yeah, if you put it in soaking wet. That's a telltale sign of something. Flags are popping up. She also is very careless with money, literally like throwing dollar bills in the backseat of the car like it's trash. It's just kind of like nothing is real. Russell loves Laurie, but he slowly realizes there's something really wrong with her and he's not equipped to help her. So they separate in October of 1985. So he gets an apartment for himself. Laurie moves back in with her parents and then a bitter divorce battle ensues.

Laurie claims that Russell was abusive to her. He starts receiving threatening phone calls. He says, Laurie is the one behind it. She denies it. So it's very he said, she said in the beginning. Like 80s divorces were particularly hardcore. I think because they were so new. Yeah. I remember a time where it was like late 70s, very early 80s. All of a sudden, everyone's parents got divorced like all at once. And I kept every day I would just say to my parents, so you're going to get divorced now. Like any slight bump. Yeah. Because it was like, oh, this is the new normal and everyone's doing it. What if I'd say with their marriage that you reminded them that the other one could do it?

So be nice to each other. They owe me. They both owe me. I also think it would just be so like a lot of those stories where it was like suddenly one of the parents, it was often the father, but it'd be like, oh, I just need a new version. I just need a younger new version. And then all of a sudden it'd be like, I have a friend, his dad married a girl that was a couple years older than him. Like went to his high school. Like how gross. Wait, what do you mean was a couple? Oh, was a couple years, I thought you meant the dad. Ew, a couple years older than the son. Parents got divorced and then say 10 years later, his dad's like, here's my new fiancé and it's a girl that was like a senior when he was a freshman. Stuff like that where you're just kind

of like, now I just think you're gross. Like you can go do the, you do you and live for your own life and be happy. But there is an impact. Sure. Dang. Look at me. I'm a podcaster. Look at the impact. But your parents, your mom just recently got remarried, right? Yeah. Yeah. No, they neither of them ever date. I mean, they dated at Suck, but they neither of them got remarried until yeah, right recently, till recently, which I'm glad. Okay, so Lori's living at home with her parents, her behavior gets more and more bizarre. She's obsessed with personal hygiene. She washes her hands compulsively. She won't let anyone touch her for fear of germs. And this is the kind of thing where this is now her parents adult daughter. So they can only do, they're like, you know, when

these things start, the behaviors start getting more and more pronounced. They're, they ask her to check into hospitals and she just won't do it. It's all, the answers always no. Yeah. In April of it 1986, Lori claims that Russell broke into her parents house where she was living and vandalized it. There's no proof of that. But she uses that incident to justify buying a Smith and Weston 357 Magnum for self-defense. The police get involved because they know Lori's history so far. And both the police and her parents try to convince her to get rid of the gun, but she won't do it. In August of 86, Lori starts making harassing phone calls to the ex-boyfriend that she dated, the med student, who's now a resident at a hospital in Tucson. She tells him she gave birth to his

child, which he knows isn't true because they haven't seen each other in five years. When he says he doesn't believe her about the birth of their child, she calls the hospital that he's working at as a resident and tells them he raped her in the emergency room. Oh my God. So she goes to fucking DEF CON 1 like immediately. And so she starts also sending him letters. She continues the phone calls. And then she begins to include death threats to him and his family in the calls and the letters. Finally, the ex-boyfriend's lawyer sends Lori's parents a letter telling them they need to control Lori. And that's when she finally stops harassing him. In September of 1986, so the same year a month later, she stops harassing the ex-boyfriend and then her ex-husband Russell

reports being stabbed with an ice pick while he was sleeping one night. And the ice pick missed his heart by an inch. Oh my God. So he survives. He tells the police he didn't get a good look at the attacker, but he knows it's Lori. Yeah. The police can't find any witnesses who saw Lori or anyone else enter or leave Russell's apartment that night. But they do find a store clerk who witnessed Lori buying an ice pick. Oh my God. But that's the only piece of evidence that they have to prove that she was the attacker. Sounds like a good piece of evidence. Yeah, it's pretty solid. But when they give Russell a polygraph test, he fails it. So they just have no choice but to let Lori go. Because it's circumstantial evidence that she bought an ice pick. I guess you would use

an ice pick more often in the Midwest because it snows there. Do you use ice picks? Is it only ice like social drinks ice for ice picks? No. Or do you use ice picks in the snow? It's like a wind shield in shit. It's not on your windshield. Oh. I cracked another windshield this morning. I was late for work. I've only lived in Southern California. I have no fucking clue how that shit works. I do know that sometimes these like just a rubber part of the squeegee. Right. And then like, I know there's like, it looks like a, you know, spatula. Yeah. Like the chipper thing. Spatula city. Can you imagine living in like a place where it fucking straight. There's places right now. Yeah. In like that have so much snow right now, like snow piled up. Yeah. Guys. We're

sorry for you. Guys. It's like. We can't relate. It was like a cute 67 degrees today. And they're like huddled around a fire burning in the middle of the room. For some reason, they don't have a fireplace because it's the most talking about. Okay. They're huddled up by the podcast player. They're wireless speaker that they're all rubbing their hands over trying to get some warm and they're all watching the wireless speaker because that's what you do. It's just an automatic thing. You just stare at it. Yeah. Okay. So now it's January 1987. Lori starts working babysitting jobs. Oh, no. Just a quick update. She's 30. Okay. So, which is not like you can't, that's probably when you get really good at babysitting. Yeah.

Being a teenager, the worst at it. Yeah. But clearly she's just trying to, I think, hold on to some semblance of normal life and behavior. So she, a woman hires her and to her, Lori seems nice. Like she's just kind of shy. And the woman even recommends Lori to other families. And so Lori begins babysitting for a bunch of people. And it's kind of seems like she's pulling it together. Then the trouble starts. These families start noticing their leather sofas have been slashed. What? And that their rugs have been cut. And that their closed food and garage door openers are going missing. Yeah. Some report, some report these incidents to the police, but again, only circumstantial evidence. There's no proof. She's the one that did it. No charges are filed.

In one case, Lori's dad paid off the damages. So the issue would just be forgotten. So some, you know, again, red flags and and Lori sending up these red flags of behavior like I can't be in normal society. Yeah. And the slashing of things like cutting and slashing is things that are like going to point to you clearly. Like it's you're going to get caught for these things. Right. It's clearly you. Yeah. And you still can't help but do it. And yeah. And yeah. And maybe that's why you're doing it. Yeah. So in April of 1987, just before their divorce is finalized, Lori accuses Russell of raping her. So this is the second, third rape allegation. He denies it. There's no physical evidence. But Lori passes two lie detector tests. Yeah. She

also accuses Russell of trying to burn her house down in May of 1987. No evidence of that, obviously. She doesn't file charges against him for that. She starts seeing a psychiatrist who diagnosis her with OCD and a quote chemical imbalance. He puts her on drugs for those things, but he tells police she's not a homicidal or suicidal threat. Okay. So Lori's divorce is finalized in the summer of 1987. So the I guess the idea is she should go back like restart her adult life and go back to school. So her father sub lets an apartment for her on the Northwestern campus. So it's like student housing. She's quickly asked to leave because reports roll in of her leaving meat in her couch cushions to rot. And so it's stinking up her apartment. And

there's other accusations that she was stuffing the other students mailboxes with trash. It does sound OCD-ish. OCD and maybe a touch of schizophrenia. I have an ex boyfriend whose sister had a roommate who kind of had a nervous breakdown in college, which I think is kind of when it happens is when things are very stressful and like young and also your brain is changing, the brain chemistry is changing a lot. And she said she was seeing meat coming out of the electrical sockets. Like that she was constantly trying to block them because she thought she could see that. Yeah. So that meat, when that came, that detail came up in the story, I was like, ooh, that's interesting. Yeah. That's like a thing. A theme. It's a theme. So in January of 1988,

Lori moves back to Madison. So she leaves town again, tries it again at the University of Wisconsin. She starts taking classes. She, she's, she, sorry, she enrolls in classes. She never actually makes it to school. Instead, she just lives in the student housing as a recluse. She becomes known as the elevator lady because she spends hours and hours every day writing up and down the elevator. And at this point, she's obsessed with good and bad numbers. She's really locked in. It sounds like some bad OCD shirt. Wow. And, and some ritualistic, the ritualistic behavior of I have to do these things or whatever. Oh my God. And she always wears gloves. She walks around naked a lot and all the trash and rotting meat in her apartment just, it just is crazy. Yeah. So the

March of that year, she's arrested for shoplifting. She's released on a $200 bond and they accept her into the first time offenders program, which is kind of amazing considering this pass she had with her ex-husband and all those accusations and all that, that she's not, she's not new to police action or getting in trouble. But her being in this first time offenders program helps her avoid jail time. And later that month, one of the apartments in her apartment building is set on fire. Everyone knows that the elevator lady did it, but there's, again, no evidence that she's involved. So in April of 1988, she starts up the threatening phone calls to her ex and Tucson again, which that part is like, oh, we all have the actually can't let go. You just kind of go back

to like, yeah, but we don't, yeah, you don't, you don't literally go back. But it's like watching a person, she doesn't have any of the capabilities to cope. She clearly has displayed like pretty severe mental illness that's maybe untreated specifically. So she's just kind of doing these things that like we all have the impulse to do and then are able to control or it just, yeah, that part of it makes me sad for anybody that's in that position where you just kind of like can't help it. Yeah. So threatening phone calls. And this time the FBI gets involved immediately. They find out Lori owns three guns. They can't confiscate them because she acquired them legally. And her dad, when they talk to the family, her dad backs her up saying that she does need them for

self protection against her ex husband. Yeah. So on May 14, 1988, a student who lives in the same building as Lori comes back to his apartment to find all of his clothes and books destroyed. She's suspected she's nowhere to be found. That night, an RA finds Lori in the garbage room of the building naked in a sleep on a pile of trash. So there's an issue with nudity, garbage, meat, elevators, destroying things, slashing things and setting things on fire. Okay. When the FBI comes the next day to question her about that attack on that student's stuff, she's gone. So four days later, Lori shows up at the home of the original family she was to babysit for. They tell her, oh, we're moving to New York, so we don't need you to babysit anymore, actually.

And she's like, okay, that's cool. Is it okay if I come by tomorrow and bring the two boys to the fair? And they're like, oh, yeah, that sounds great because they have no idea what's going on in her life. Yeah. And it sounds to me, this is an assumption, obviously, and just editorializing, but if it's in kind of this wealthy part of the ship, suburbs of Chicago, which is like, I'm pretty sure Winnetka or like that area, that's like the Ferris Bueller. That's where all of those John Hughes movies were found. Yeah. Big old houses, big old lawns, like rich people, dads that work in the city. I bet you saving face and not like the idea of having a mentally ill child was completely taboo. Right. And like made them this like, you know, people cast family. Yeah. Or just at least the gossiped

about. So keeping a lid on that and keeping all of that, like the stories about that, saving face for them and putting everybody else at risk. Yeah. Yeah. It's just horrifying. So of course, the family's like, sure, you can take our two young sons to the fair tomorrow. So Lori shows up the next day, which is May 20th, 1988. And she picks up their two boys and she's brought them homemade rice, crispy treats and milk and juice to have in the car. Uh-oh. But when the kids taste the milk, it tastes super weird to them. And so when Lori isn't looking, they throw it away. Okay. And they don't eat the treats. Turns out Lori also mailed these treats to some of the other families she babysat for, as well as fraternity houses on

the Northwestern campus. But they all smelled so bad and looked so suspicious that almost no one ate any of it. And later, of course, they were all tested positive for arsenic. Oh my God. Yeah. So with the boys in the car and supposedly on the way to the fair, Lori first makes a stop at Ravenous School, where she incorrectly believes her sister-in-law, whose Russell's sister's children go to that school. Okay. She walks in and tries to detonate a firebomb in the hallway of this school. What the fuck? But she essentially, it's like she has a bag of, I think in that one, she had like a, it's something that was like a bag of gas. So she lit it and walked away. And basically some students came out into the hallway and were like, there's a fire,

a teacher comes and puts it out and it all goes away. Then she heads over to a daycare center where the youngest child of this sister-in-law either did go or she believed went and she tried to walk into this daycare center holding a can of gasoline. And at the entrance, there's a worker that's like, hey, get the fuck out of here with your gas. And so then she is denied entrance and walks away. She drops the two boys back off at home, doesn't take them to the fair, doesn't even try to take them to the fair. But before she leaves the family home, she sets fire to the family's basement staircase. So she like sets it on fire, leaves, the family discovers that they're able to get out of the house in time. So everyone from that family is safe. And now Laurie heads

toward Hubbard Woods Elementary School and she's armed with three handguns. So she walks onto the Hubbard Woods school grounds and she walks into a classroom and just wanders around a little bit and walks back out. So this was the late 80s when there was, you know, these days you can barely get near a school without everybody being like, excuse me, I need three pieces of ID of why you're here now. And most of the time if you're going to go, like when I go to pick up Nora or like when she was younger especially, my sister would have to call her school and say my sister is coming to get her. Yeah. Yeah. That's how almost every school works these days. So, but not back then. So Laurie is able to walk onto the school campus, walk into a classroom, walk around, walk back out.

When she gets out, back out into the hallway, she sees a boy in the hallway, she pushes him into the boy's bathroom and shoots him. And then she turns and there's two other boys standing in the bathroom watching that. She aims the gun at them and pulls and the gun jams. Oh my god. And so she doesn't shoot those two boys. She throws that gun into the garbage can and then she walks out and walks over into Peter Monroe's second grade classroom and she tells the teacher she's there to teach the kids about gun safety and she orders all the kids to get into one corner. But the teacher won't do what she says, isn't following her direction. It's like, what the hell are you doing? And that's when Laurie Dan pulls out a gun. So the teacher immediately tries to wrestle it out of her hand and actually

successfully does. And she takes the gun, gets the gun away and as she's unloading it, Laurie pulls out her final gun and opens fire on the children in the classroom. Oh my god. The teacher is a fucking hero. That teacher is a fucking champion, but I'm sure she, I'm assuming it's a she, she also beats herself up for assuming that this lunatic only had one gun on her. That's such a heartbreaking moment of she was thinking, I got away and now we're okay. So including Peter Monroe, six children are shot, five of them critically injured and a sixth boy, a very smart and well-liked eight-year-old named Nicholas Corwin is killed. Oh my god. So after that, Laurie flees the scene in her car, but then she actually turns down the street and gets caught. The street has become a one-way

street because there's a funeral. What? Caravan. What's that called? Percession. Thank you. A funeral procession is coming the other way. So she throws it into reverse to try to pull a jazz commentary and drive backwards up the street, crashes into a tree, gets out of the car and just starts walking through the woods. Okay. And then she soon comes upon a house, just a random house and walks inside. And now we go to the hometown email from a woman named Gemma. Yes. Hello, ladies, Stephen and Co. I'll get right into it. Yes, you will. One day I was chatting with my mom about how all my uncles, her brothers met their wives and somehow she revealed to me an amazing I survived, worthy story of a family friend that involves the 1988 case of Laurie Dan. Holy shit.

I'm not sure if two of both of you are familiar with the story and I'm not going to lie, it's a bummer mostly because of this woman. I just got in the mental help she needed. None of this could have would have happened. Also definitely a story that my sixth grade teacher told the entire class, probably contributing to my chronic anxiety. Yeah. Then she recaps the story that I've just told you. So basically we start with where I ended. After the shooting, she wandered into the home of one of my uncle's good friends, Phil Andrew, who was home from college at the time. He was 20 years old. He was sitting in the kitchen with his mother that morning before Laurie barged in, still armed, telling them that she had been raped and had shot her attacker. Phil and his parents,

having no idea what had just happened two blocks away at the grammar school, negotiated with her for about an hour and a half. Phil eventually convinced her to let his parents go. So she's holding them hostage? Yeah, basically. She's like in the house saying she needs help, but clearly, I think that all falls apart in about five seconds. So he basically takes him an hour and a half to convince her to let his parents go. And then afterwards, he tries to disarm her, but she shot him in the chest. Oh my God. He survives and ends up becoming a huge advocate for gun control. Good. He ended up becoming the executive director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence before eventually becoming a hostage negotiator for the FBI. Holy shit. Here's where my mom gets

to the point. Phil convinced my uncle to join the same organization after he'd been held up at gunpoint at an Elstop in Chicago. It was there that he met my aunt, who was just recently moved back to the city after her her fiance had been shot and killed in an armed robbery in Ohio. They are now happily married. Oh my God. So these two young people met each other after coming from these horrible violent experiences and then met and married at gun control at a gun control meeting. My uncle has since gone on to become a state senator where he advocated for gun control and even helped pass legislation for it. Amazing. My whole life, my uncle has been truly supportive of me and whenever things don't work out, he always says everything happens for

a reason. No matter how cheesy or cliche it sounds, I think it's important to remember that sometimes. Stay sexy and fight for what you believe in, Jenna. Wow. Yeah. Wow. So basically that's the story of Phil Andrew and the Andrew family who miraculously survived being shot in the chest. Yeah. So basically after shooting up a grammar school and then shooting Phil Andrew in the chest, Laurie knows the house is surrounded. So she walks upstairs into this family's bathroom and shoots herself, basically bringing her reign of terror to an equally violent end. I feel like I say this so often, but how have I never heard of this? Yeah. I know. It's really, it's just one of those shocking, I think it's one of those shocking

explosion of violent stories that once people start looking at it, it's like, oh, this has, this actually was unfolding for at least 10 years before it happened. And also because it's a school shooting that had one, terribly had one victim, what tragically an eight-year-old victim. But these days, we hear about school shootings that have 20 victims and we go, oh, because it's now become this factor of this horrible fact of life. Yeah. Okay. So in the aftermath, Laurie Dan left no suicide note, no explanation, but it was clear that she was refusing to deal with severe mental illness. Yeah. It was attempted, she attempted to treat it and she was on some medication, but clearly she needed to be hospitalized. Clearly she was in an extremely

bad place. And no matter what her family said, no matter what anyone around her said, she refused to get help. After the shooting, the city of Winnet can name to park in memory of eight-year-old Nicholas Corwin, who was the one fatality miraculously in that shooting. And although the other children were in critical condition for a while, they all recovered. So it was just Nicholas Corwin that was lost. So sad. And so, I mean, eight years old. So tragic. It's horrible. So survivor Peter Monroe is now in his late 30s. He's a licensed clinical social worker, doing God's work and a staunch advocate for gun control. He still suffers from PTSD and he's written a beautiful piece about the attack that you can read on www.livingaftertrauma.com.

And his story is retold in Eric Zorn's amazing article that was written on the 30th anniversary of the attack for the Chicago Tribune. And one of my favorite quotes from it is Eric writes, as we rage at the perpetrators and more in the dead, we tend to forget the survivors. And then he basically goes on to tell Peter Monroe's whole story and his whole point of view of that day. And that is the tragic story of Laurie Dan and the Winnet school shooting of 1988. Wow. That is a mind fuck. Yeah. Horrible. Yeah. Horrible. And there's lots of, you know, if you, when you look into the story yourself, it's like, there's tons of detail about her, you know, clearly, really bad OCD problems and that kind of stuff where she was stuck.

We just know so much about that part of it. And it's like the other side of it where it's just like second graders on bike test day. Totally. Like this, it just, yeah, it's heavy and it's like a school shooting. So I was like starting to write it up that time we're doing that live show and then I'm just like, sorry, what am I doing? No, no, but you did a great job. Thank you. You did a great job. This one I was, I was never going to do because I felt like everyone knew it. Like, I feel like I learned this in high school. Then I asked Mince if he knew it and he had never heard of it. So I thought maybe people don't. And then it also relates to what we were talking about last week of, you know, people with privilege and afluenza and all that shit.

So this is the murder of Bobby Franks by Leopold and Loeb. Oh, yes. Right? Yes. Okay. And there's also a lot of information, even though I fucking have known about this forever, there's a lot of information I didn't know about. So I also think this is one of those stories that's, it's, I feel like the cases that are, there's, there's no reason behind it. Yeah. Aren't as interesting because it's like there, because it leaves you with such a terrible feeling at the end. Oh, yeah. And this one totally does that. It's just like, sorry, what are, what? Yeah. What are you saying happened? Like, this is unimaginable. Cold blooded. And it's scary to think that there's people like that out there. Yes. Got info from crimereads.com, an article by Nina Barrett,

the Chicago Sun Times, the Smithsonian article by Simon Botte, and also an article in the Jewishstandard.com. May 21st, 1924, 14-year-old Bobby Franks. He's the son of a wealthy Chicago watch manufacturer. He leaves his afterschool baseball game and begins to walk the three blocks home to his house in the Kenwood estate neighborhood of Chicago. So Kenwood estate is like fancy fucking schmancy. It's a mainly Jewish neighborhood, rich people, mansions. And in fact, the Obama family has a house that used to live there. Ooh. So it's like hoity fucking doity. It's fancy. Yeah. And are you saying it was always Jewish? It's Jewish now or it was Jewish then? At the time, it was like a lot of Jewish, a lot of wealthy Jewish families live there. Cool. Which Bobby Franks

is one of them. Okay. When Bobby was at home by dinner, his father, Jacob Franks, begins calling Bobby's friends and then looking around the neighborhood for his son. But Bobby's nowhere to be found. At about 10 p.m. while Jacob is still out looking for his son, at home is why Flora gets a phone call, answers the phone, and a man who called himself, Mr. Johnson, tells Flora that Bobby had been kidnapped and to wait for a ransom letter the next day if they wanted to see Bobby alive again and then hung up and then Flora fainted. Yeah. Straight up. I bet. So at around 8 a.m. the next morning, May 22, the frantic parents get a special delivery letter informing them that their son is still alive but they have to deliver $10,000 ransom that afternoon in order

to keep him safe and to stay tuned for more information. Stay tuned. Well, that's not it. In a manner of speech. Sure. So at the same time that Jacob Franks is at the bank withdrawing the money as instructed in old $20 and $50 bills, 25 miles south of Chicago, a drain pump worker walking home along a desolate forest preserve on the outskirts of the city notices a foot sticking out of a nearby drainage pipe. Walking closer, he sees the naked body of a young boy and with the help of some other men nearby, they retrieve the boy's body and call the police. And the body is eventually ID'd as that of Bobby Franks. So Bobby had large wounds to his forehead and the back of his head, which the medical examiner said had come from a blunt instrument, but they didn't cause

the boy's death. He also had large scratches on his back and what would turn out to be hydrochloric acid had been poured on his face and genitals after death to obscure any recognition of him. Okay. At least it's after. Yeah. That's so horrible. The genitals because his circumcision, Haji's get circumcised. Oh, yeah. So they wouldn't know who he was. It was concluded that the boy most likely died from having a spond or rag pressed into his mouth. It's so awful. On May 26th, five days after being kidnapped, Bobby Franks was laid to rest with eight of Bobby's friends acting as pallbearers. Oh no, children. I know. Child pallbearers. Yeah. And these kids, you know, they're just, they're little boys still, the 13 year old, you know,

photos of Bobby Franks. He's just still a little boy. So at this point, the kidnapping and murder of a child from an affluent family, of course, becomes huge news and is on the cover of every newspaper. At the time, society had it in their heads that crime only affected poor people. There's this, you know, class warfare kind of going on where it's like, that happens to them and not us. And affluent people lived in this bubble that they believed was safe from this kind of violence. So it was really shocking. Yeah. You know, it's the kind of thing where if it had been a poor child or a child of color, it would not have gotten any news coverage at all. Yeah. That's the media doesn't, it's the overt not valuing of life in the equal way. Exactly. So found at the scene was a pair of

horn rim eyeglasses that were found on the bank of the culvert. They were, they were Bobby Franks size. So the detectives assumed they belonged to Bobby, but his father was like he didn't wear spectacles. Thankfully, that, you know, was caught. And though the prescription and frame were really common, like everyone fucking wore the same kind back then, the spectacles had an unusual hinge mechanism that had only been purchased by three customers into Chicago. So they were able to trace those three people down. You love, you got to love a clue like that. Isn't that amazing? And they were from New York. So they go to New York, find out what like what there was like one store that sold those and then they had to go through their records to find who bought them.

And oh my God, how exciting. So good. Yeah. And so one of those people who purchased them was a 19 year old named Nathan Leopold Jr. Okay. Spoiler alert. Like this is he's one of the killers. Okay. So let me tell you about Nathan Leopold Jr. Nathan is also from a wealthy and well connected Jewish family in the Kenwood neighborhood. He lives a block away. His father was a businessman who had inherited a shipping company and made a second fortune in an aluminum can and paper box manufacturing, which who knew? Big money. Yeah. Nathan was a brilliant student. He enrolled at the University of Chicago at the age of 15. Oh, shit. Yeah. He they said his IQ was something like 200. Whoa. Yeah. I think at the time, I'm sure it's measured differently than

now, but he was an amateur or anthologist, meaning he was into birds. He had published two papers in the leading or anthological journal in the United States and he was currently studying law at the University of Chicago and had just taken his entrance exams for Harvard Law School. Nuts. Yeah. So nuts. He was like a doogie howzer. Yeah. But evil. But bad. Yeah. The detectives initially thought it was so absurd that someone as well off and accomplished as Nathan could have had anything to do with the crime that in order to not embarrass the family and like draw attention, like have the press come and say he's a suspect, they took him in for questioning. Instead of the state attorney's office, they took him to the LaSalle Hotel.

I mean privilege. Privilege. And it's that thing of the concern and care that goes into protecting the guilty if they have money. That's right. I mean, this is just how it is and probably will always be unless very specific like, you know, laws are put into place where it's just like, yeah, like you already made it made that point. But I mean, that's like so far out of bounds. Yeah. And that's also that thing of like, oh, that's Jerry's son. Yeah. There's a lot of that. You can definitely know that's going on. I mean, at the same time, though, it probably was still so surprising that someone with that pedigree and like that, that's smart, that intelligent, that hardworking that he went to all these schools could have done something like that.

Yeah. I'm sure they were like, oh, this is just a formality. We just have to exclude you. Yeah. So when questioned about his glasses being at the scene, Nathan Leopold said that they might have dropped out of his pocket during a birdwatching trip the previous weekend, but she was in fact there the previous weekend. It's somewhere he frequented a lot. And so they checked that out and they kind of didn't believe it. And meanwhile, state's attorney Robert Crow searched Nathan's home and found nothing to connect him to the crime. But they did find a letter addressed to someone named Richard Loeb, which was sexually graphic and homosexual in nature. When Nathan used Richard Loeb as his alibi for the day of the kidnapping, saying that the two had gone out looking for

girls that night, he did not knowing that one of the letters had been found. Crow was suspicious because he was like, well, you're not into ladies. Yeah. So what, you know, you using that as an alibi doesn't make any sense. So they bring in Richard Loeb for questioning. What a turn. Okay, let me talk about Loeb. 18 year old Richard Loeb was also smart as hell. He had graduated from high school at 14 years old and then entered the University of Chicago. His father was the vice president or vice president at Sears Roebuck and company. Like, come on. These people are made of money. That was back when like this Sears catalog was the only way anyone could get anything in the entire country. That's right. Wanted Christmas present? Open that book. It was Amazon. Yeah.

It was the Amazon. The Amazon of the day. Right. Richard was less ambitious than Nathan was. His grades weren't great. It seemed like he just was bored and didn't care. And at the end of his sophomore year, he transferred to the University of Michigan where he spent more time. He played cards. He was drinking. He just wasn't interested in class. He was also obsessed with true crime. Oh, weirdly. And loved reading Dime Store detective novels. Nevertheless, he managed to graduate from Michigan and he was the youngest graduate there ever. And in 1924, he was back in Chicago taking graduate classes in history at the university. So Richard is like this narcissistic fucking egomaniac who everyone is attracted to. He's really attractive. He's really charismatic.

Everyone is drawn to him. He's great at talking. He's outgoing. You know, like type. Yes. Whereas Nathan Leopold is a little bit more nerdy and like withdrawn and kind of hates people. Okay. I'm sorry, but isn't this just like the Sandy Bullock movie with Ryan Gosling and Michael Pitt where they're the two guys and she's the detective investigating them and it's the exact same setup. Is it really? It's basically the exact same setup when she suspects that they are responsible for the death of a kid in their high school. What the fuck? And then, but then she also, I think, um, what the hell is it called? I wonder if that's if they did that on purpose. But it's kind of that thing of who's manipulating who because you think Ryan Gosling is the alpha

that's in charge, but then then you're like, but is it actually Michael Pitt? Yeah. It was the nerdy guy. Right. It's called Murder by Numbers and it was loosely based on the Leopold and Loeb case. For real? Yeah, yeah. Karen. 2002. I didn't know that. 2002. I didn't really know that. Wow. It's just that it's a Sandy Bullock movie. And those, I love it. Those are great. Those actors do kind of look like them. I had just put in, um, that the, that Richard Loeb, the handsome one, looked like a Jewish Joseph Ford and love it. Oh, Joseph Golden. Love it. Love it. Matt McCarthy's joke. Matt McCarthy, one of the great standups and actors. You've seen him in so many commercials. You've heard him on the great podcast. We watch wrestling. Uh, meanwhile, I said that Leopold

looked like a young handsome Tony Hale, but Jewish and he had a hardcore unibrow. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. I find Tony Hale incredibly handsome. He's like, it's like him, but like skinny and nerdy and kind of, he's, they're both still handsome, but it was just like the awkward one. Well, also, I think that's, it's like this, the smart boy thing and like this smart outsider, because when did they ever fit in? If they were these kind of like, you know, child phenoms or whatever that are going to college in high school. Yeah. That's the thing. They didn't have friends because they were all so much older than them. So they were awkward and shit. Okay. Richard confirmed Nathan's alibi, repeating the story of picking up girls in the car that evening, but Nathan's

chauffeur came forward and also they didn't have lawyers with them because their parents were so convinced they were innocent that they were like, just go talk to the police. Just walk down to the old hotel and get interviewed by the police. The parents were just like, this is absurd. Of course, or not. They have nothing to do with it. Their chauffeur comes forward and was like, guess what? The night in question, Nathan's car was parked in the family garage the entire night. It needed work and it wasn't running. So that lie of driving around also, you know, couldn't have happened. There's also found that the handwriting on the ransom note envelope matched Nathan's handwriting perfectly. And the typewriter used for the ransom note matched the type of the typing on schoolwork

turned in by Nathan. And those typewriters will give you away. They will. That's such a good like crime movie detail. They're such an arcs. You dropped an F. I think there was a drop to an F in this. Karen, psychic. I actually think that I looked up this one to do in Chicago one time. And then again, I was just like, I'm surprised we haven't actually. It's a good life. It's such a legendary true crime. Totally. I never heard of it. I know, but I do think it's like inside. It's a little bit like a musicians, musicians type of story. You know, definitely. So it also turned out that Bobby Franks, the victim was Nathan Leopold's second cousin. Oh, no, I know. He lived across the street

from the Franks. Like they lived right there. Hate that. I know. And Bobby played tennis at the Lowe House several times. So they like knew each other. And he trusted his cousin implicitly. Exactly. Yeah. So the young men were fucking cocky and arrogant with the detectives at, like, you know, this kind of, you can't do, you know, you can't touch us attitude. They felt their superior intellect would keep them from being arrested. But when they were brought back in for more questioning and the evidence against them was laid out, the confessions started. Here's the backstory. They had known each other casually while growing up, living down the street from each other and both being a part of the wealthiest Jewish families in Chicago.

But Leopold and Lowe hadn't become friends until the summer of 1920. Richard and Nathan now began to hang out more and became close, even though they were total opposites. I told you, Lowe was super handsome, outgoing, extroverted, Leopold reclusive and aloof. And he seems to have become obsessed with the handsome Lowe. And so Lowe, who was super cocky, would often kind of indulge himself in these pointless, destructive behaviors like stealing cars, setting fires, and smashing storefront windows, which Leopold was stoked on. And he would, and Lowe was stoked that he could found someone he could do this stuff with. So Leopold, Dirty Leopold, was obsessed with Frederick Nietzsche. I know. That's so boring.

Do they make you feel smart? You're so smart. Talk about it some more. Oh my God. Talk all about it. You're right. Nothing matters. You're right. That's right. So he was obsessed with the idea of the Ubermensch, which is the Superman transcendent individuals possessing extraordinary, unusual capabilities. Basically, they're smarter than everyone else. So the laws don't apply to them at all. And moral laws don't apply to them either.

And they can do whatever the fuck they want. They're not bound by any of society's normal ethics or rules. That's a lie. Nobody is. That's a lie. You're telling yourself so you can throw a fire bomb through the butchers window again. Look, stop going to the coffee house and fucking talking about Nietzsche and how great he is.

And then going next door and breaking a window like a dick. It's not cool. Stop it, Ryan Gosling. The pair began asserting this theory of themselves with acts of petty theft and vandalism. They broke into one of their old fraternity houses, stole a bunch of shit, including a typewriter. They were, which they later used to write the ransom note. Oh, cool. They were hopped up on adrenaline and not being caught and they progressed to a series of more

serious crimes like arson, but no one seemed to give a shit or notice. It wasn't in the papers and they wanted attention. So they were disappointed with that and they decided to plan and execute a sensational quote, perfect crime that they thought would get them public attention and confirm themselves as these fucking smarter than, holier than now. I mean, why not just go out into the middle of the street and scream, daddy, daddy, pay attention to me? Right? It's like, ultimately, they're just asking for someone to come and backhand them and to be like, sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up.

Or tell them that they're smart and pretty. Yes. I guess hitting is bad. That's not what anybody wants. No. But it is, I think they do want discipline and attention and for someone to be in charge of them. Well, they were raised by nannies. They all had their own chauffeurs and they had their own governesses and all that crap. So they probably didn't get a time. Governments, all their own government.

They had, like, secret governments living in their house. Well, yeah, they basically, they had everything except for love. Right. So on the chosen day, they planned this for months. On the chosen day, May 21st, 1924, driving a car that Leopold had rented under a fake name, the two men cruised around the neighborhood near the grounds of the Harvard School for Boys in the Kenwood area. So they cruised around their own neighborhood. In their minds, they were like, we have to get someone rich. Otherwise, no one will pay attention.

Oh, well, they were right about that. That's right. They were looking for a boy who was by himself and by 5 p.m., they had almost given up because they hadn't found anyone when they spotted their victim, poor Bobby Franks. Being his second cousin, Leop knew Bobby Franks well and was able to lure him into the car. Bobby had first refused. He was like, they were like, do you want to ride home? He's like, I'm four houses away. And they were like, well, wait a second, get in. We want to ask you about some tennis rackets because Bobby was super into tennis.

So he got in, trustingly. Of course. And so it's almost certain that Leopold was driving the car and that Richard Loeb sat in the back seat. And shortly after Bobby climbed into the front passenger seat and they started driving, Richard Loeb struck Bobby several times in the back of the head with the chisel and then dragged him into the back seat where he stuffed a rag into Bobby's mouth to stifle his cries. And that rag suffocated him. It's so awful. And they thought, they talk about how surprised they were at these crazy chisel blows and the blood and he was still fighting.

And they couldn't believe it. So they had to like pull him back there and kill him. They're just like so cold-blooded. Yeah. They're kind of looking at it in that super creepy, almost like as if they're doctors. Right. Like an experiment. Then they drove the body of Bobby Franks to their predetermined dumping spot outside of Chicago, stopping for hot dogs on the way. How dare you? On the way there. On the way with Bobby's body.

And a car full of blood. Oh my God. In the back seat. Can you believe it? They're not okay. At the dump site, they removed Bobby's clothes, which they later burn. And then in an attempt to conceal his identification, they poured the hydroclonic acid on his face and general's hydrochloric.

They concealed the body and the culvert along the Pennsylvania road tracks. It was during this time that Nathan's glasses fell from his pocket, without which I don't think they would have ever been caught. Yeah. Right? Right. There was nothing else. Yeah, right?

Yeah. I mean, I'm asking you. Yes. Well, nothing else until they started looking into them. So if they hadn't had the glasses, they wouldn't have known to start looking into them. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Yeah. The next day after sending the ransom note and making the threatening calls to the Franks family, their plan was abandoned when they found out that Bobby's body had been found. They didn't think he'd be found for months. So they were thinking they had all this time to do this stuff, but it quickly went south. They're perfect fucking crime. Yeah. They destroyed the evidence and they thought they had done everything right and just continued

to live their normal lives thinking they had gotten away with it. God. That's another example of the special when two sociopaths come together. I mean, that's what that feels like to me. Totally. You hope they'll never meet each other. Yeah. You'll have one person in every group has a conscience.

Yeah. Nope. Not these two. Yeah. You and I have too much. That's not true. Stevens are conscience. So Richard Loeb confessed first.

He insisted that Nathan Leopold had planned everything and killed Franks in the back seat of the car while Loeb drove. Leopold confessed as well, insisting that he was the driver and Loeb was the murderer. Their confessions otherwise corroborated most of the evidence in the case. So the question of why they would do such a thing made the case just this huge sensation, as we still want to know. Yeah. Both admitted that they were driven by their thrill of seeking the Ubermench delusions

and their aspirations to commit a perfect crime. Leopold admitted interest in learning what it would like to feel like to be a murderer. And he said later he was disappointed to note that he felt the same as ever. Wow. Nihilism. Super sorry. Yeah. Nihilism.

Yeah. Sociopaths. It they. They kick. Yeah. It's just like if you don't have a conscience and you don't have morals, then of course it's going to feel the same before and after because you don't care about anything. No.

You don't have a fluctuation of emotions. Okay. The question of why two young, well-educated boys from wealthy families would kill for no apparent reason, fascinated the public and add to that the young age of the victim, the brutality of the crime and the confessions made this murder front page news all over the world. Plus it was during a time in the 1920s when many people thought society was falling apart because everything was fucking going haywire.

Ladies were cutting their hair short and wearing shorter skirts and they called it the newspaper's attributed to murder to the jazz life as they called it. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So the third case ever to be characterized at the time as the crime of the century, the families of Leopold and Loeb who were both to be tried together hired Clarence Darrow. Yeah. Who was one of the most renowned criminal defense lawyers in the country at the time

to represent Nathan and Richard. He is the one who later did the scopes monkey trial. Yeah. Part of the reason that Clarence Darrow took the case is because he was a staunch opponent of the death penalty and everyone was just completely convinced that these boys were going to get the death penalty. The trial would provide him with the means to persuade the American public that the death penalty just didn't belong in the modern judicial system.

So he took it for that reason and he also probably got paid a shit ton of money. Yeah. So instead of pleading not guilty by reason of insanity, which would have led to a jury trial in a probable death sentence, Darrow decided to plead them guilty, which surprised everyone and throw them on the mercy of the court. This fucking trial is super long and super detailed. And I urge you to go read the Smithsonian article if you want to know the nitty gritty details. Let's skip forward a little, shall we?

Sure. This is already seven pages. We are the cliff's notes of podcasting. We are not here to get down and dirty. Oh my God. That's for the educated journalists to do for you. That's right. Don't let us translate.

Just go do it yourself. Let so many people have written beautiful articles about this. We're not going to do any better. People with college educations. Yeah. Okay. On August 22nd, 1924, Clarence Darrow gives this final summation that lasted about two hours. What?

You imagine it. Uh-huh. And it's considered one of the best speeches of his life. Doubtful. Yeah. Oh, of his life. Yeah. Because most of them were four hours.

So people were like, oh, he got in and he got out on this one. Concise. On September 10th, 1924, Judge John R.K. release sentenced both men to life imprisonment for murder and an additional 99 years for the kidnapping. They were sent to the same prison, Leopold and Low, where they were able to maintain a friendship. Nice. While locked up. Okay.

Together they worked on expanding the prison school system and taught other inmates at State Ville Penitentiary. Oh. So they tried to do some good while in there. That's nice. I guess. Sure. But on January 28th, 1936, 30-year-old Richard Loeb was attacked by a fellow inmate with a

straight razor. Yes, he was. And he died. Yeah. The inmate claimed that Loeb had assaulted him, though he was unharmed while Loeb sustained more than 50 wounds, including defensive wounds on his hands and arms. And his throat had also been slashed from behind. They're not.

Jailhouse Justice says that you can't kill children. They just can't have it. It's most inmates have trauma from their childhood, so when pedophiles come in and when child murders come in, they just don't, they have a clock on their head. That's a good point. I mean, it's, that's real. It's always been true. It's just like, oh, perfect.

Some vengeance for me. Oh, God. Yeah. Nathan Leopold became a model prisoner, though. And after 33 years and numerous unsuccessful parole petitions, Nathan Leopold was released in March of 1958. Wow. Yeah.

Where'd he go? He moved to Puerto Rico. Okay. Smart. Yeah. Got married and earned a master's degree at the University of Puerto Rico. Okay. And then taught classes there.

He went on to do all kinds of crazy shit. Like it's too long for me to even list. But like good stuff, you know, and advanced. I was just like, what? Like advanced this and advanced that. He said bird heads on to little. No, no, no, no. Like in the field of education, he did good things.

Okay. But, you know, yeah. On August 29, 1971, at the age of 66, Nathan Leopold died of natural causes in Puerto Rico. Okay. The whereabouts of both Nathan and Richard's remains are unknown. Their families hid them and did something with them. Yeah. So no one could like, you know, hunt them down.

I don't know. So no one could desecrate their graves or whatever. Right. But the gravesites of the three families whose lives were ruined by the acts of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, the Franks family and the Leopold and Loeb families, because all their lives were just fucking ruined after this, are all within a short walk of each other at the Rose Hill Cemetery in Chicago, including the 14-year-old murder victim who became lost and then since lost in the sensation of his own murder investigation, the subsequent trial,

the news, the media, all the sensation he was lost in it. And that's Bobby Franks. Yeah. Yeah. And that is the murder of Bobby Franks by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. Wow. That's so fascinating. Right? Yeah.

I had pictured it so differently in my head that I had, and I'd never bothered to like read up on it as an adult. The aspect that they were from super rich families is so, makes it so fascinating. It's like this, the super rich people are already fascinating. It's like the lives of the rich and famous or whatever. So everybody already has that kind of like the fascination of like what does go on behind those closed doors. Right.

And then it is a little bit of that indicator of like, I think a thing that reason people focus on that is because it is this thing of it's just more and more proof you can amass all the wealth that you want and it will not make you happy and won't make your children happy. Totally. Like it does, it's no guarantee of a happy life, it just isn't. It's a guarantee of not having to worry about bullshit that's making you crazy. Right. But it doesn't flip you over into happiness necessarily or like warmth or I think a lot

of times it really fucks families up or can make it. Those boys weren't just super smart and sociopaths. There's a chance they weren't sociopaths. Yeah. There's a chance they were just deeply ignored and felt like nothing they did mattered. Well, there's a chance and one of the things brought up in the trial was that one of them, I can't remember which was sexually molested as a child by the governess, his governess. Oh.

So there's that. I mean, there's just all kinds of stuff going on. And I think at the time everyone was so obsessed with this American dream and to see some people who had it and who had all the money in the world and what everyone else desired and they still couldn't fucking make it happen and put it together and live normal lives. Right. Yeah, it's fascinating. And once the Franks lost their child, it didn't matter how much money they had

because their child was dead. Yeah, it's really, their story is a sad story. Yeah. Wow. The mom couldn't come to terms with it. She would be like, Bobby's coming home soon. Oh, no. I know.

I know, it's really sad. Yeah, it's rough, rough. Yeah. Amazing. Great job. Thank you. Yeah. And it is funny, there's so many of those.

We have some of those outstanding dangling ones where just it's funny that they would be famous enough, at least to us, people that follow True Crime. Yeah. You're just like, oh, shit, that's right. We've never done this one. Yeah. And I didn't know all the details I thought I knew. Yeah.

Jeffrey Dahmer. Those details are just. Yeah, I'll never do it. It's just sickening. I know. And it starts sickening, it gets worse and then it's just depravity and depressing and tragic and then everybody's bad. Yeah.

You know, everybody's bad in that story. Totally. It's rough. Yeah. How about a fucking hooray? How about it? If we've ever needed a fucking hooray, it's this week. That's right.

You want to go first? Sure. Well, I finally started watching, and this is mild, but I finally started watching High Maintenance, the HBO show. So good. You've been telling me about it for a long time. I saw the dog episode, which was. Oh.

Oh, so it was so well shot. Guys, go watch the dog episode of High Maintenance and then cry your fucking eyes out. But also watch every episode because what I started really getting and I did, I am in this thing right now where I'm not doing anything and I'm binging a lot of TV. So I'm like, things are seeming very deep when actually it's just I need to get off the couch. But the, it's his whole approach, this Zen approach. I'm always very fascinated by people like that, this, like this character. It's very believable and viable where he's just kind of like, it also makes me really

badly wish I lived in New York City. Really? Yeah, because there's some New York City, you can leave your apartment and walk directly like down a set of stairs and be in the coolest city on earth. Yeah. Yeah. Or a great neighborhood with life, life. People all around you, something happening and it like, it's just such a fascinate.

The show itself is just this fascinating study of participating in life. There's one point where he, he breaks his arm and he has to have a guy help him deliver weed. And at one point the guy goes, can I just call the people to come down and just pick it up, get in the car? And he goes, you can, but then you don't go to the apartments. That's the best part. And like, you know, there's part of me is like, oh my God, no.

But then it's like, no, that's just it. He's like, he's kind of the Zen master. That's just trying to meet people and hang out and like observe, help people have fun and relax and everyone needs it for whatever their reason is. Just amazing, great storytelling, beautiful cinematography. I love that show. I think it's, I can't believe no one talks about that show. I'm so glad.

Yeah. Speaking of great shows, can we plug our friend of the podcast show, comedy show right now? Fortune Feamster just came out. Her stand-up special? Her stand-up special called Sweet and Salty just came out on Netflix. She's one of the fucking funniest people. If you don't follow her on Instagram and watch her, her. Tam.

Branda and Tam videos. You are missing out. Wait, listen. Hi, y'all. I'm back. Here's me, Brenda. And I just want to show y'all what Tim got me for Christmas. He got me this turquoise necklace.

Turquoise necklace. Yeah. You have to, you have to watch that. It's her stand-up special. She shot it back in her hometown and paid her what's my friend produced it for her. So I got to see, I got to see some of the promos before they aired. She's, Fortune's one of those people. The first time I saw her to stand up, I was just like, this girl has to be known.

She, she is so, she's just a delight. Yeah. Yeah. And she's a friend of the podcast. That's right. She listens and she loves it. We love you, Fortune, congratulations on your, I believe it's her first like hour special. Yeah.

But my fucking hooray is today's three weeks. Nice. I can't fucking believe it. I can't believe I haven't had a drink. Love it. Congratulations. So crazy to me. Thank you.

So nice. It's so nice. I feel good. I'm not exhausted all the time. I'm sleeping well. I'm losing weight, which is a bonus. Yeah. It's just, I, and I'm not eating trash all the time.

It feels incredible. And I'm just kind of in awe of it. That's great. Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you. Yeah, that's nice. It's also good.

I think it feels good to do something, to do something in a sustained way. I feel like everything I do is like four days and I'm out. Yeah. Thanks so much. I learned my lesson piece. Right. This is not like me at all. I am, I am an impatient person and I am like go, go, go.

This feels like, yeah, I have to be kind of zen and like go day by day and it's really fucking hard, but every day I wake up and it's worth it. Well, and that is kind of the, like to combine both of ours together. It's like, you kind of have to figure out what the point of your life is going to be. Totally. And basically how you're going to get there because go, go, go does not get you anywhere. Go, go, go is a coping mechanism. Yeah.

Just like laying on the couch is a coping mechanism. And what we have to do, I think ultimately is figure out what we can do past when we stop coping and start realizing that those problems aren't actually there. Right. And you're kind of like punching a ghost and you need, and like you can pick other things to do to, to deal with life. It's not as bad as you think it is. It's not as hard.

Like you can just get in there and fight the good fight on the daily. Yeah. There's a new way to do it, especially if the one you, the way you've been doing it isn't working for you anymore. And you know, and you get to keep doing it past when it's not working because that's what everyone does. Don't beat yourself up extra. Just like when you start doing it, you can really, you can really take every minute you're

not drinking, you can reinvest into yourself. It's more reason to prove to yourself of like, oh yeah, I can do every once in a while. I'll do that. I'll remember that I've, I've stopped drinking for a very long time or there's lots of things I've gotten myself through that. That's the kind of person you are, not the person you keep telling yourself you are. Yeah, it's weird. The storyline does not, and my personal storyline does not include any victories.

It's very ridiculous and dark. Wow. Yeah. Well, we're, we're all rooting for you and, and we think you, you're victorious. Thank you. Yeah. This is maybe one of the first times I'm legitimately proud of myself in a long time. As you should be.

Because it's hard. Yeah. It's also hard, we know, we know the shape of going back into a thing. Like it's basically like getting back under the covers. Yeah. Kind of feeling when you want to do it. And you know the sum total of that. And what's really cool is right now you're exploring brand new territory of not doing it.

And then what happens? Because the story is you have to do it or the world will explode. Totally. And every time you do it, continue to not do it and the world doesn't explode, you're basically redefining how things work for yourself. I love that. It's nice, huh? It is really nice.

Yeah. As a person who thought I would never be able to stop drinking when I did, it really was quite something. That's amazing. Yeah. It's incredible. And I'm definitely taking inspiration from you and the fact that you could do that. It's incredible.

Oh, thanks. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And also an episode of the podcast called The Lonely Brain, which I found very pleasant. Oh. It was really good. Nice.

Yeah. Um, keep it up. Thanks. Keep it up. Thanks for listening. You guys are the fucking best. Thanks to you guys for listening, for always being there, for always finding fun stuff. The show, it's so funny, like the week after a new episode comes out,

when people would just be like, did you hear yourself say this? Right. Or draw us as hot dogs or something. Oh my. Like, the, uh, is that, um, that's the guy that also did Mount Rushmore, right? Yeah, Mark Glasgow. I believe his name is. Mark Glasgow.

Thanks, Mark Glasgow. He, he sends us like just little sketchings and things that he does as he listens, and he drew us both as hot dogs. It sounds sweet. My favorite murder, Instagram. Quite disturbing. Pleasantly disturbing. Wonderfully, deliciously disturbing.

We love it. We love this. Thank you. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie?