My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 223 - Live at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland (2018)

Episode Date: May 21, 2020

Karen and Georgia cover Zodiac Killer suspects and the murder of Stephanie Bryan.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is exactly right. We at Wondery live, breathe, and downright obsess over true crime. And now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C, on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music. Exhibit C, it's truly criminal. What's up, Oakland? Holy shit.

Holy shit. Oakland. Thank you. Oakland doesn't fuck around. They really don't. They're not known for not fucking around. That's for sure. Can I see this cat pillow, please?

Holy shit. Is this your cat? It's not my cat. It's her own cat. She brought us a pillow of her cat. Georgia gave it back. Sorry. I guess we rejected that gift.

I didn't think it was a gift. I thought it was an emotional support cat pillow. That's a big... Is that what it is? Yeah. This is truly what I want to start bringing over. Just to freak fucking everyone out. A big stuffed cat?

Uh-huh. You know when you're on Southwest and they have to choose a seat and they're like, oh shit, not the woman with the fucking cat pillow. And I put her in a seat and I'm like, my cat's sitting here. You're petting it? Yeah. Jojo doesn't want you to sit in the middle seat. A little Jojo.

Jojo. Jojo. I had to name that cat so fast on stage in front of all of you and I did it. Professional. Thank you. It's just, I picked the same name and said it twice. It's not that big of a deal actually. If you break it down creatively.

It's Eric Eric. My cat Eric Eric doesn't want you to sit here. Two names, right? Just two names. 20 years of, this is what 20 years of comedy. Yeah. We'll get you. Double up and go for it.

That's what I say. That's all comedy. It's funny. You guys, this theater's humongous. No. It's crazy. You didn't build it? If it's not haunted, then I mean, I will cry.

Then what are you even doing? Then how do I, I was changing in like this big like vintage gorgeous ornate changing area and the sink had like, it had like powdered soap. It's like really old-timey. Very, very old-fashioned. And I was really hoping some go, like perverted ghost was watching me change. She's like in a bridal gown, but she's also like, ooh underpants. Mm-hmm.

Oh, old new fashion underpants. Oh, those are so much smaller than the ones I have on. That go from my neck to my ankles. Here, can I ask a question about this idea? Why did I need her to be a bride in a theater? It doesn't make sense at all. No. No.

I have a production of a name of play that's got it. The bride who died. No, that's, you know that famous play. The bride who died. The bride who died, comma, the bride who died. By Eric Eric. By Eric Eric. The great playwright.

Jojo. Jojo. Guys, welcome. This is my favorite murder. Right? Thank you. This is Karen Kilgaras. This is Georgia Hard Start.

Thank you. Thank you. We're so excited. We haven't even been in Oakland since our first tour. That's right. Am I making that up? You were there. Yeah.

I know. It's been a while. It makes sense because we actually like it here. I know. Steven, cut that please. You know, all those other cities like, no, Steven's. He's not here. He's not here.

No. He's not real actually. I know. Tonight's the night you find out. Yeah. He's a ghost bride. He's a ghost bride. That's the whole time.

That's edits, records and edits our shows. He doesn't understand modern underwear. It's real weird. It's kind of weird actually. It is. Last night, speaking of cities, we were in Sacramento. Good segue. Speaking of subjects.

You know how we like to talk about things. Nouns. Yeah. Places. Yeah. Guys, it was Sacramento. Do you tell them? But.

Do we break it to them? I was there. Yeah. Paul Hose was there. Sorry. I know. When your friend was like, I don't want to drive two hours. Let's just see them in Oakland.

Yeah, that was you. Let's stand Balejo or whatever. I don't know. I just picked a name. I live in the Bay Area. I'm better than Sacramento. No, you're fucking not. We owe them an apology.

We've never talked shit on Oakland. Till tonight. Till tonight. We do it to you. I'm going to go to Sacramento for because I've just been consistently talking shit about that city since 1990. And they weren't stoked about it. So I gave them a little here, shut up, gift.

That's what I call it. Shut up now. Gift. We got to say whatever we want now. Gift. Because this guy solved the Golden State Killer case. Yeah. It's pretty cool.

Yeah. Oh, my niece Nora's here tonight. So don't say we never gave you anything. Yeah. Yeah. So cute. Yes. That's right.

Perfectly done. Performance. It runs in the family. Ladies and gentlemen. We can't stay off the stage. The killer talent is just here's what I love backstage. I was like, hey, do you want to come out on stage? Do you want to see what it's like?

And she was like, no, no, no, no, no. I go, you can just like, it'll be fun. You can do like a cartwheel. She's like, I don't know. I have to practice because I was like, how funny would it be if she actually broke her wrist? Not funny, funny, but like of all the things. Weird, funny.

You know. Ironically funny. Not that funny. I'd sign her cast. But I thought we were going to have to like tee it up and then beg her to come out. It seemed like it was going to be a problem. She came without, just because when she heard her name, I bet my sister was standing by stage going, go now and smile.

Ask like you like it. Your sister just becomes a nightmare mom all of a sudden. She's there. Do you want to show them? Oh, this is a picture that I showed in Sacramento last night is my way of explaining why I hate it so much. But then I thought you guys might want to see it too because it's fun. Yeah.

Do you blame her? Look at us. 1988 slash nine. I don't like it here. It's too hot. That face. I mean, you're fucking, you're, you're Kelly Bundy. Thank you.

Oh, you're like truly like that's, I wanted to be Kelly Bundy so bad. And you're just like effortlessly. Well, do you mean because of the rage? Yeah. Yes. Kelly Bundy in the biggest T-shirt she can find. I just love that I was clearly, that looks like a solid three hours of makeup. Just to stand in a door room, a dorm room with like fucking Coors light bottles all around

me. It's like, what was the effort for? And then an effort to then being angry that you're there. That's right. I get ready to then act like I want to leave. That was my whole kind of my whole approach. And that's my friend, Patty Riley, who, who I went to college with. The reason I went to Sac State is because Patty Riley was going to Sac State and she goes,

Hey, will you go to Sac State with me? And I was like, all right, that sounds good. And then that was my roommate, Shelly Wilson, who just we, you know, got paired together randomly because I didn't turn the paperwork in in time to be Patty Riley's roommate. It's a long and very typical story. So Shelly was from Modesto. And she was like, Reba McIntyre's number one fan. And here I come with my Echo and the Bunnymen poster like, let's get modern.

We had fun. It was good. Oh, she looks like someone you gave her first cigarette to, which I'm not talking shit. I have plenty of those friends in my fucking wake. She, well, she partied, but she just wanted to get in there and get her business degree to fuck out like most people at Sac State. Whereas I was trying to develop a create a body of creative work stuff to tell stories about later.

That's right. On stage in Oakland, for example, right? What we love is that maybe some of you were like born in the 80s and you don't know that back then they don't cheer for your fucking cells. They were born in the 90s. Really? And they're here. They're not in.

They're old enough to like vote. Vote. Vote. Everyone. Oh, please vote. Oh, yeah. Wait. For good people.

No one's saying that part of the vote message. Please don't vote for fucking Nazi douchebags. Just now. Just right now. You know. Just at the moment. You can do what you want later. I forgot what I was going to say.

This is one other picture to show you. Because I'm calling this my tour food diary. Sometimes I make good decisions when I'm in a hotel room by myself at 1.30 in the morning going, shoot. I didn't eat dinner. It gets really weird, you guys. The stuff we eat. And if we order food before they, like we'll order food and it'll be ready.

I'll take it back to the hotel. And then we'll make good decisions because we're not like starving in the moment. Yeah. So I'm like, oh, Caesar salad. No dressing. Yeah. Thank you. You can keep the croutons for yourself because I don't do bread.

Shut like that. But if it's 1.30 in the morning, you realize, oh shit, this hotel has an all night menu, which I didn't realize I bolted out of bed and I was like, let's do this thing. What the fuck in? What? It's mac and cheese off the children's menu. We know what it is. Oh, you do?

So you're recognizing that those are goldfish on top. Oh my God. Children's goldfish. Wait, did that come on it? Or did you just open the minibar and dump whatever came on? No, no, no. Oh, it was like that. The chef made it that way.

Holy shit. I think the word chef is a little bit. You're giving them a guy theory, got a job in Sacramento. And he banned the shit out of that mac and cheese, you guys. Oh my God. It looks terrible. Was it amazing though? It was amazing.

I bet it was. Like, truthfully, I bet it was. Right? It was. It was amazing. Listen, I took the lid off and I started laughing. I put the lid back on like, I'm an adult. And then I walked like four feet away and then I was like, you know what?

And I sat, I pulled my chair up to the tray that was on like the weird desk. And I ate directly under the TV so I couldn't even see it. I was just like, let's focus and let's get this done. And let's try to grow out of this dress before the tourism. What am I doing? It's not a good idea. Anyway, get the children's mac and cheese at the Sacramento, whatever, whatever. Where were we?

No idea. I don't know. I don't know at Sacramento. I don't either. Blocked out. Do you want to talk about your Halloween dress? You guys can't tell there's little skulls and crossbones on it. And a nice big hole right here.

Yeah. For your Kleenex and your list change. It's my new pocket. Where's my Kleenex? There we go. Okay. Yeah, just stuff it in there, right? Absolutely.

Now you're free to eat gesture wildly while you tell a story. I was so encumbered earlier with my tissue. Yeah. Not anymore. Merely. Yeah. Yeah. What about you?

Encumbered. Freedom. Freedom. Oh, this whole thing? I just have pockets. That's all. What? That doesn't look weird at all.

What microphone? I don't know what you're talking about. These pockets almost go through to like a full pouch. Like a kangaroo. I think I'm going to email Land's End and let them know that that's what they should be doing. Keep your extra goldfish crackers in there? Yeah.

Or just hold your own hand. Whatever you mean. In your dress. You're feeling weird. Should we sit down? Should we? Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Last night, bless Sacramento's heart. They didn't, you guys, this is a cocktail table. That's what this means. Someone didn't know what that meant and we had the cutest little tiny chairs. It was very cute. It looked like it was kids' furniture from Pottery Barn. You know, and they're like, we're going to make furniture that looks real for children

so they feel like human beings. And so their parents spend a lot of money. Yeah. It was that with a black tablecloth over the top. And we're just like, yeah, we can't sit at that. They'll laugh at us for the wrong reason. This is a true crime comedy podcast. Yes.

Have you heard? We're breaking all the rules and combining true crime and comedy. And that can be difficult sometimes for people, especially those of you who've never heard this podcast. You have no idea what's going on right now. You're like, is there always a 12-year-old that does the cartwheel? What's happening? Should she be listening to that cursing?

It doesn't seem wrong. So anyway, if you've never heard this podcast before, you don't know us. You don't know how we do it. It might be hard to, I hate that. She's a drag along. I mean, I'm really, I'm mid monologue, right? It's trying to be serious about how hard it can be for people sometimes to hold two complex ideas simultaneously or let somebody else do it for them.

It's a control issue. Sometimes it's a cultural issue about the patriarchy, whatever comes into mind. Sometimes people hear that we might be conversationally joking, but also talking about horrible human loss. And they get offended by that idea. They don't like it. And they think it's wrong. And so for those people, we honestly just want to say, get the fuck out right now.

It's important. True. We'd rather you just take a nap. You can just take a nap. We can't see your face. If you just took a nap right now, it would be fine. Or if you're really offended, you could actually turn your phone flashlight on, hold it over your face, and make sure we know how mad you are.

Sure. Or how sleeping you are. That's fine, too. Did you bring your cat pillow? Because you're going to need it for your nap. Yeah, this is a cat pillow situation. Yeah. Has someone who can fucking take a nap anytime, anywhere?

I'm going to, this cat pillow is a game changer. Right. There was a woman in the meet and greet last night who changed my life a little when she handed me this bag and said, I work for, I have a company called Adventure Cats. And I was like, what the fuck is that? And she was like, I train people how to safely take their cats out into the world. And here's some supplies. And I was like, I was about to leave.

And just go home. And go into the world. And go find, go get my cats and be like, it's adventure time. Elvis, meet me, dot, hop into our wagon. We're going to go live our vins, too. We're going to go live our vins. He's invited. He's invited.

God, I miss that lady altogether. Are you sure she was really there? I don't know. She was really just telling me some crazy, some story about her job. And I was like, Adventure Cats just made shit up of what I wanted to hear. She's like, I'm a nurse. Adventure Cats? What?

No. You're training cats to do what you say? I deliver babies. Yes. That's a good sign for comedy. Our baby jokes are synced. So are periods. This is the comedy version of the red tent.

We're all on the same cycle of comedy. Yes. Cheer for menstruation. Menstruation. It's a part of life. Nora, get out here. Let's tell Nora about her period. She's gone now, by the way.

I mean, truly, once we sat down, sweet Laura was like, let's get her out of here. Yes, she shipped her out. I can be myself now. I almost had a panic attack. You can F and S it all over the place. Nice. Good action on that. She really is not listening anymore, so don't worry.

We're not that terrible of people. Well, my nephew, who's a, once I was in the car with him and he was like, I want to listen to your podcast. And I was like, okay, you could listen to the beginning, but not the murder part. And then maybe it's like, I'm like, fucking God, don't tell me you're saying that. It is really funny when it like a bunch of my relatives came last night, a bunch of my relatives are coming tomorrow. And they always like, especially the ones that are like my aunts, not the stuff they're

always like, congratulations. They had no fucking clue what to say. They're just like, we thought you, we explained to you this wasn't allowed. I was colorful. Well, at least it wasn't my dad in New York. When we did the beacon, like the beacon theater is a big fucking deal. And I flew my dad out to New York and I put him up in a hotel and I'm like, you'll finally be proud of me.

And afterwards he comes backstage and what does he say? He comes to the dressing room and goes, that was cute. I was like, get out. I don't care if you're her father. Get the fuck out of here. Well, that was cute. No, it was not cute in any way. There's nothing cute about it.

That's completely the wrong adjective. And that's why I keep trying to get his approval. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's fine. People get so upset. His name is absolutely Marty. That's correct.

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And I'm Brooke. And we're the hosts of Wondery's podcast, Even the Rich, where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about the incomparable diva, Whitney Houston. Whitney's voice defined a generation and even after her death, her talent remains unmatched, but her incredible success hit a deeply private pain. In our series, Whitney Houston, Destiny of a diva will tell you how she hid her true

self to make everyone around her happy and how the pressure to be all things to all people led her down a dark path. Follow Even the Rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Who goes first tonight? I believe it's you. Okay, great. I'll do it too.

Let's kick it off. And I'll do it. It's time. Guys. Tonight, I'm going to do suspects of the Zodiac. Whoa! Yes! Like, we all know, I know, right?

Because we all know it's like such a fucking bomber story and he's like not caught. So it like just sucks, right? It's not fun. But so I'm doing a few of, oh, I think are the top suspects. It'll be great. We'll all be here for it. Great. Did you hear them clapping?

I was trying to sell it. I know. They're fine with it. Okay, great. Oh, I'm with you. So. Okay. Here we are.

Picture if you will. Let's do a little overview first. Okay. You guys know him. The Zodiac killer has been linked to five murders, was linked to five murders in a 10 month spree between December of 1968 and October of 1969. That's a quick fucking period. Yeah, he got it done.

But it's suspected he could have been responsible for dozens more and he claimed 37 murders in letters that he wrote to the newspapers, you know. We've all seen Zodiac. Beautiful movie. Gorgeous. Let's watch it right now. If you get a chance, wouldn't that be amazing? We're not going to tell you the story.

We're going to go ahead and let the Finch tell you the story. Cinematic. And then we're going to talk over it the whole time. So the first murder that's attributed to the Zodiac took place on the night of December of 1968 when 17-year-old David Faraday and 16-year-old Betty Lou Jensen were shot to death near their car in a remote spot in Lake Herman Road on the outskirts of Vallejo, California. No. Nobody lives there.

I might need some help with names, by the way. At the time, police were unable to determine a motive for the crime or a suspect. They were fucking, they had no idea. The next murder attributed to the Zodiac took place early in the morning of July 5, 1969 when Darlene Faran, who was 22, and her boyfriend, Mike Maggio, Maggio. Thank you. 19. I didn't really say anything.

Totally meant to look that up. But that's ponytail. It looks front, so I think you did it right. Thank you. Okay. They were sitting in a parked car in a remote Vallejo location of Blue Rock Springs Park, you know. And they're approached with a man with a flashlight, the figure fired multiple shots at them, killing

Faran and seriously wounding Maggio. Then on July 5, 1969 at 12.40 a.m., a man phones the Vallejo police that same night. I should have just said that. We'll edit as we go. Okay. Early that morning, so then the sky fucking gets on the horn and he's like, the Vallejo police department calls and reports and claims responsibility for the attack. And he takes credits for the murder of Jensen and Faraday six and a half months earlier.

So this is like their first break in the case. The police trace the call to a phone booth at a gas station at Springs Road and to Lomany. I had no idea what you were saying. Into another road about three-tenths of a mile from Faran's from their home and only a few blocks from the Vallejo department, but there's nobody there once they get there. Maggio describes his attacker as 26 to 30 years old, 195 to 200 pounds, possibly more about five, eight white male with short light brown curly hair. Then on the evening of September 27, 1969, Cecilia Shepard and Brian Hartnell are chilling

out on the shore of Lake Beriesa. Yeah. Thank you. Oh, my God. Remember when we partied there? She sandwiches and wasn't so much fun. That guy had that boat. That's in Napa County when a man...

It's great grapes. Wine. You guys have wine. I love wine. A man about five, 11 weighing more than 170 pounds with combed greasy brown hair approaches them. He's wearing... Oh, God.

This is like the scariest part of this fucking movie. He's wearing a black executioner's type hood with clip-on sunglasses over the eye holes. I didn't know that part. Well, Wikipedia is... No, but I mean, I'm not doubting it. I am now. I went in there and thought I would lighten it up a little bit. No, that's that part in the movie because it's daytime, right?

And then suddenly they're like, why is that man approaching us? Why is the man... Oh, with a hood on. With an executioner's style hood on. This is not going to be chill. Clip-on sunglasses. That's even scarier. I hope they left that part in the movie.

And a bib-like device on his chest that had a white three-by-three cross-circle symbol on it. He tied them up and brutally stabbed them and then scrawled a message for police on the car door before leaving that said what dates he had done the other killings, like showing that he was involved. Shepard died of her wound shortly after, but Brian survived. Two weeks later, on October 11, 1969, the Zodiac shot 29-year-old taxi driver Paul Stein in San Francisco's Presidio Heights neighborhood.

It's really expensive. Nobody is from there. Not a single person. Nobody fucking cheered for Pacific Heights. You guys can't pay $9,000 a month for rent. Oh, I've got my North Face jacket. I can live anywhere I want. Congratulations.

I made up an app. I sell apps. I made up an app. You know that app that does that thing? It's the app that teaches you what North Face jacket you should buy for yourself. Congratulations. Great. Go have fun in the Presidio.

Good. It's kind of boring. I don't know it actually. No. I don't know if I'm wrong out there when I lived here. It says the girl who lived in the sunset, which is like the saddest. Sorry. Saddest best.

The saddest best. Saddest most fun. Taking that out terrible. The sunset is where you go to write your poetry and look at fog. Yeah. That's where you go to be like, I'm lightly depressed, but let's really get into this thing. Let's explore this depression in a real way.

Okay. And suddenly I'm having this flashback of my actual depression. Come back. No, come back. We have this show to do. 2000s. That was real. Okay.

Okay. So in the Presidio neighborhood, the murder was initially deemed a robbery until the San Francisco Chronicle received a letter claiming that from the Zodiac saying, yo, I did it. Great part of the movie because they followed the letter from the male basket all the way into the editor's office, no, that's the Wizard of Oz. Yeah. It's a different movie. Okay.

Close though. It's similar. It's like the letters writing a bicycle and coming to take their dog away, but emotionally, psychologically. Yeah. Yeah. At least five other murders have been tentatively linked to the Zodiac killer, including 1963 shooting of Robert Dominguez and Linda Edwards near Santa Barbara, California, and the 1966

having death of college student Sherry Joe Bates in Riverside, California. Over the years, Zodiac, there's these, you guys, these people are, it's like, they're really into true crime or something. Oh my God, so weird. I know. But they're obsessed with Zodiac, and they suggested dozens of possible suspects based on all this crazy speculation, circumstantial evidence. A lot of conspiracy theorists think that the Unabomber, Ted Gazinski was, I don't think

so, BTK, and some people think a guy from Charles Manson family is no way there's like, there's everyone has like 10 of the best suspects and like only a couple of them make sense and their weather ones are like, he, they think it's him because he lived near the area at the time and he kind of looks like the sketch and it's just like loose. So here's the sketch, the sketch that looks like no one. Oh, yes. My neighbor. Right.

Oh. I feel like what's so great about, like with the Golden State killer being caught and the fact that he looks nothing like any of the composites, like kind of here and kind of there and he changed his look so many times, probably on purpose, that you just can't rely on that anymore, that he doesn't look like the sketch or does look like the sketch. Well I bet you that no matter what, that that guy doesn't have army issue black frame glasses anymore, just because those were, I think, required in like 1965. Maybe the buzz cuts not there anymore.

Maybe some more wrinkles around the eyes. And maybe he has some sort of defining features, like a human being would single one. Just a mole. Maybe a mole. Doesn't he look like, yeah, what's that smell? Did you empty the garbage? That's what he's doing there. Yeah.

Fuck him. Who's supposed to empty the garbage? Dick. God damn that dick. Shut up. Okay, so I'm doing like my three that I'm like these, I think these are the most, make the most sense. You think they're all the Zodiac.

I think they're all the Zodiac. And they're, and I, there is, okay, here we go. Look. Listen. Listen. Right. I was swallowing. Sorry.

Sorry. Guys. So this dude, Richard Gaikowski, he was a civil rights activist and newspaper journalist and filmmaker born in Waterton, South Dakota in March of 1936. So this guy, he's like, he's like a punk rocker from the sixties, like before that was a punk rock thing. Okay. He was a member of this anti-police, pro-violence counterculture newspaper in San Francisco

called Good Times. That's not punk. Everyone. It's so they could get it past the, the cops. Right. I think let's see. What do we, what does Steven know? Good Times.

So this is, this is he. Oh, wait a second. No, his nose is too big. Right. He has defining features. His defining features. Can't be him. His big inhaling nose.

Yeah. So this dude, Richard Gaikowski. So from 1969, okay. Ba-ba-ba. Good Times. Good Times is a newspaper that runs violent works of fiction and there, some of them are nearly a blueprint for the Zodiac's future crimes. Also, so here's some things that tie him to the case.

So Wednesdays was production day for the, for Good Times, which was a weekly newspaper. I'm sorry, but now that it's sitting with me, I kind of love the title Good Times. It's just some person, like some grandma was like walking down the street and, oh, this newspaper looks fun. Yeah. And it's like, kill the police. Why? No.

What's happening? I don't like that. So it's their production day is Wednesday. So Wednesdays are bananas and super busy and no one has time and he's like the main guy there. And there's knives everywhere. It's crazy. And he keeps screaming, I'm the Zodiac.

Which wastes so much time when you're trying to make a newspaper about violence. So between, between 19, his first writer in July of 1969 until the, until when Good Times folded in 1973, the Zodiac mailed 15 letters on every single day of the week except for Wednesday. I think that's cool. And I can tell that it sounds kind of stupid, too. No, it doesn't. Isn't that interesting?

Well, it just makes sense. Right. He can't do it all. Right. So Wednesdays was his busy day. It's hard to multitask. Isn't that weird? Like murdering innocent people all over the place.

But between, I mean, that seems like a lot, right? Yeah. Never on a Wednesday, every single other day of the week he did. Too busy. At the time of the murder, the Good Times office was located only yards from the residents of Zodiac victim Paul Stein on Fell Street in San Francisco. It's a little more affordable. That's right.

Yeah. That's the real deal street. Yeah. Where the awesome people live. Right. As opposed to the motherfuckers we were talking about before. Here's some more. The Good Times was a counterculture, like hippie newspaper, once Gakowski came aboard.

He ran free ads for these really weird performances called the Mikado, which is a comic opera that deals with themes of death and cruelty. And there's in a lot of the Zodiac letters, they reference and quote that same play. Wow. Yeah. So like, that sounds obscure, right? I think it is. I've never heard of it.

Well, I believe it might be Gilbert and Sullivan, the Mikado. As to them. Nerds, am I right? So that's a connection. And so, so Stein, the cab driver, was killed on San Francisco's Washington Street. There's only one guy. No. No one.

Nobody lives there, but Washington. No. Well, there has been a Washington Inn. That's only five years. Oh, someone's shirt at the meet and greet last night said, well, there hasn't been a Karen and Sacramento for 25 years. Literally, isn't that the best? Imagine that people made shirts about your life.

It's fucking rad. It's like, it's true. And they gave them, they gave us one, right? That's right. Because I was like, can I have one? She took it off. No, she didn't. Okay.

So, let's get him out of here. Okay. So, there's only one guy that was listed in the city directory at that time, and that was Richard Gajkowski's cousin. She lived on Washington Street, and her birthday was October 11th, the same day Stein was murdered at the Zodiac. So you think he probably went out there to fucking, to the Presidio for his cousin's birthday party, brought a nice bottle of wine, maybe, brought, what did he bring?

The editor of the violence newspaper. Yeah. He's like, guys, I got to cut out early. I love my cousin so much. She's so sweet. That's right. I'm going to go bring her, I thought, oh, I'm going to go bring Carol, a fucking bottle of bourgeoisie.

I don't know what was popular in the 60s. I think that was, that was the wine to beat. That's right. I got to go, and then on the way home, he fucking hops in a cab and fucking kills the cab driver. Yeah. Boom, solved. Done.

Good night. We're sorry we brought you here. And so the other, oh wait, I'm sorry, Carol is not, so Carol, who's Paul Stein, his sister, the cab driver's sister, actually said that she recognized Gajkowski as having attended Paul's funeral, even though she had no idea who he was. She remembers seeing him at the funeral. Because she had seen him in the neighborhood before or something? No.

I'm sure the cops were like, did you see anyone at the funeral that wasn't here? And she was like, that fucking dude. Oh. Who's that guy? And it was that fucking dude. That fucking dude. Okay. But then again, he was a journalist, so maybe he sometimes just went to, no, you don't fucking

just drop into funerals. No. You don't. No, they're the worst. They just act like we're crying and everyone's like, oh my God, I'm so sad. Yeah. How else do we feel? Can I ask you a couple questions about crying?

That's true. Plus I didn't know it was Zodiac at first. So maybe, yeah. Also, this guy is looking good. I know. I like him for it. As they say. Yeah.

We're insiders. We're friends with a cop now. That's right. Same as Paul Hall's. Gajkowski served in the army in the 1950s and he trained as a medic, okay, and one of medics, tactics, there was that they learned was to tear the clothing of a bleeding victim to use as bandages if they didn't have access to the proper equipment in the field, and they used the undershirt first with the shirt tail brink preferred if tucked in because

it was what's it called when it's clean? Clean. Clean. Sanitized. I mean, not real clean, I guess would be a better word. Clean's the perfect word. Clean is a good word. So that's what that was the tactic they used.

And on October 13, 1969, San Francisco Chronicle received a letter from the Zodiac containing a portion of Stein's bloody shirt that was taken from the scene before the cops got there and took credit for the killing. And what was sent was a neat rectangular tail piece of the victim's shirt that had been torn off perfectly by the killer. So he's only one person and the army is huge, but still. Let's not let it go. Let's jump to conclusions.

Okay. Also, the dispatcher who spoke with the Zodiac on July 5, 1969 named Nancy, she said it was his voice. But I think she said that about a couple of those suspects. And it was like 40 years later that she said it was him. Sorry. You're talking shit on Nancy? No, no.

I love Nancy. That's one of the hardest jobs. Taxi dispatcher. So, okay. Here's this big thing. So before she became a victim of the Zodiac, Darlene Farron, she's from Vallejo, California. She got married on January 1, 1966 and moved to Albany, New York. Okay.

Okay. Gajkowski followed quickly, moved across the country from Martinez, which is near Vallejo. Affordable. It's just all in. Tasteful. Affordable. Martinez. So, Darlene's husband, they all moved to Albany, Darlene has moved to Albany because he worked

at the Albany Times Union newspaper and when Gajkowski quickly picked up and fucking followed them from Vallejo to Albany, he worked in the same exact same building as her husband at the rival Albany Knickerbocker news. So they both worked in the same fucking building and he later killed her. Okay. Why are you laughing? I don't know what they're doing, but here's my question. I think they're laughing at the word Knickerbocker, which is kind of lame.

No. I thought I said something weird. But here's my question. He's essentially stalking a married couple? We don't know if they even knew each other, but it's a really weird coincidence that these two people's lives overlapped like this and he, you know, right? Yes. Yes.

So, and he did kill couples. You said it first. So maybe. So then in August of 1973, four years after he killed or someone killed Darlene Farron, let's just say him, let's just use his last name from now on instead of saying Zodiac. After she was killed by the Zodiac, the Albany Times Union newspaper where her husband worked received a letter pertaining to saying it was from the Zodiac killer and threatening to murder his next victim at a certain time and date.

So he sent it to that newspaper. On the fucking east coast. What? Where her husband worked. I don't know. I mean, these are not coincidences. No. There's no such thing.

Okay. Except there are. Okay. There was spiritual Georgia and then not so spiritual Georgia. Okay. The thing. The cipher. Are you dismissing theories?

No, I wrote it all in cipher. I'm trying to, I'm trying to. What if I wrote the whole thing in cipher? This is a challenge. I want to, it's like a little flag. And then there was a red flag and an exclamation mark and an X. Don't know what that meant. So in 1971, Gajkowski is involuntary committed to a mental hospital after quote, and I don't know who quote, who said this, but I bet they were fun, going berserk.

Did you say he was voluntarily or involuntary? Involuntarily. Yeah. It's a big difference. Those Wednesday deadlines, man. Those are fucking. And when it's down to the wire, you lose your shit. That's right.

He's committed to him. When he was committed to a mental asylum for a couple years, the Zodiac never wrote any letters during that three year period. Nothing. Quiet. Coincidence number 26. And then in the cipher where he says he will reveal his name, the four symbols at the end of the sentence is G, Y, K, E, which is what he would sometimes maybe call him.

It doesn't make any sense. You guys, they're just grasping at straws at this point. Hold on. Are you saying he made up his own nickname and it was just a bunch of consonants? Okay. So his, his, his last name is, that's pretty rad. His last name is Gajkowski. So it's, it's G-A-I-K.

So he would sometimes just shorten his name to G-A-I-K or G-I-K-E, but G-Y-K-E is in the cipher. Because it's translated, I don't fucking know. This is, it's the most convincing one yet. Yeah. Let's see. First one. Oh.

Oh. Chute. Yeah. But I agree. Okay. To date, his DNA has never been tested against the zodiacs and he was, but he was cleared of fingerprints by the FBI in 1989 because they had fingerprints at this, the taxi driver signs in blood and he died of cancer in San Francisco on April 30, 2004 and the SFPD have

ruled him out as a suspect. Dang it. But the DNA thing is like, so they, they got the DNA off the letters, off lip stamps and the licked envelopes, but what if he had someone else fucking lick them from? He would absolutely take it down to like a 7-Eleven and just be like, can I get a pack of Marble Reds and really quick lick this, just do it and have a weird lick in his eye where if you worked out, you'd be like, okay. Anything else?

Yeah. That and like, it sounds like, like that kind of thing, he liked to fuck obviously with the cops with these letters, so why wouldn't he fuck with them with like fingerprints and his saliva and like, the fingerprints could even be faked. You know what I mean? Well, and also were they, the fingerprints inside a cab where 100 people are all day every day? Yeah.

But they might have been in blood, so I don't know what that, you know. It's so complicated, this one. This is hard for us to solve tonight, but we're going to sit here until we do until we run out of canned wine. I say the piece I like the most is that ripping the material because I've never heard that like connection before. That's so interesting. Creepy, right?

All right. And this guy. Okay. The next one is everyone's fucking favorite. This dickhead, Arthur Lee Allen. Yes. God. What a dick.

We call him Mr. Squirrels. Really? No, I mean, from the movie. Oh, yeah. Remember? No, I don't. Okay. Clearly.

I barely remember anything. Who's he playing by again? I know you'd know this. He is, hold, that's going to take me probably 10 minutes to think of. No, no, it's the comedian who's got like the ball. Arthur Lee Allen? Yeah. No, no, it's the husband from Fargo, the movie Fargo.

Yes. It's him. And I do know his name because he's my friend Sarah's stepfather. Uh-uh. Yeah. And he's super cool. He's a really good actor. And he also used to be the Dungeon Master for her group's Dungeons and Dragons.

Yes. Isn't that right? So he would be there like, no, you're an elf or whatever. And I was like, I almost am going to do Dungeons and Dragons. Do you remember his name? It's going to take me a second. Who did I think it was? It was that comedian?

No. Did you think it was Dave Kekner? Yes. Yes, yes, yes. She's talking about Dave Kekner, who is from Anchorman. He's the cowboy guy. Yeah. Right?

Because they look exactly the same. Right. So it's on them, not me. Yeah. And that's, it's not your fault in any way. Okay. But, but, but. Arthur Lee Allen.

He's born in Honolulu, Hawaii. You guys know where Honolulu is. On December 18th, 1933, he's, he becomes the most scrutinized of all the suspects. And he's also the only suspect ever to be served with search warrants by the police, which is crazy. I have all these crimes. The only person to have fucking gotten a search warrant, that's bananas. Okay.

And then our friend, Robert Grace, missed a book. He's, and the, which. Jake Gyllenhaal. You know him as Jake Gyllenhaal. Right. He, and, and the movie, which the movie Zodiac is based on, he's portrayed as the prime suspect, played by our friend and stepdad to all. Arthur Lee Allen.

Someone knows it. Luth Dobberson. Luth Dobbs? Luth Dobberson. That's not even a name. Luth. We got it. She's got it.

Thanks. I got it. Say it again. It's Luth Silverton. It's not Luth Solverson and it's not Luth Silverton. She's doing her best. We'll get it later. Yeah.

It also doesn't matter. We could probably have someone in the front row just Google it real quick so that that person isn't mad. Does anyone want to just be a stamp, a stamp? It doesn't work when you get it. Yeah. It doesn't work. Yeah.

Okay. Everybody at the same time. Can you see it in your mind's eye? Four people were like, we're going to solve this problem. We're going to save this show. Thank you so much. I want everyone right now to come up on stage and we're going to yell something to you from the audience and you have to guess what it is and no one's going to get it.

It's never going to work. You can't. Are you here? Homicide. Homicide. It's all you can fucking hear. Also, yes. Will you say it?

John Carroll Lynch. John Carroll Lynch. Thank you. Luth. Hold on. Did you guys know Danny Google is here tonight? Holy shit. He made the app.

He made the app. He's the inventor of the app Google. Thank you so much. Okay. Very good. Was it worth it? Very good. Bye-bye.

Not worth it? Great. Great exercise. Moving on. Okay. Zodiac. Ellen was questioned by police in 69 and again in 71 after his former friend, because yeah, dude, you wouldn't stay friends with this guy, this guy named Don Cheney.

He's like, yo, you guys got to look at my friend. We were hunting and he was like, you know what I want to do one day is kill couples at random. I want to call myself the Zodiac and I want to use a flashlight attached to my gun to eat and hunting at night and shine in people. Like he basically was like, I want to do these things. And then when did them and Don was like, yo, this is this guy. And he's like, and what do you want to do?

The friend's like, I want to run really far away from you. I just don't want to stop screaming ever again. I just, I'm very upset. Also as we saw in the movie, this asshole wore, his watch was a brand called Zodiac and had the famous crosshair symbol. His mom had given him the watch in 1967, like two years before the murder start. He owned the same caliber gun, uses the one in the Zodiac shootings and he told police he was, the day of the bariessa attack, like bariessa attacks, he was like, no, I had knives

in my car that were covered in blood, but it has a killed chickens and those chickens were like, no, he didn't. It takes us to the background and it's not, this is not true. We're right here talking. So clearly. Clearly. You're jamming. He owned a royal type that was similar to the ones that were used in some of the letters.

And then he was dishonorably discharged from the Navy, which I guess they wore those military style boots that had the impressions that were at some of the crime scenes. And he was also, guys, a fucking pedophile. So even if he wasn't, like, I'm listening to this recording of him being like, old timey voice, how dare they and I could never kill anyone and I, you know, my person can't get a good, I'm not saying I would help her even guilty and the whole time, it's like, you're a fucking pedophile, dude, so you don't, you don't get a fucking. You don't get anything.

You don't get anything. Goodbye. Goodbye forever. You know what he gets? Huh? He gets a trailer full of squirrels. Exactly. Come on.

Let's talk about that scene from that movie where, also because they're in Santa Rosa, which is right by my hometown, right, which if there's anything that perfectly describes Santa Rosa, it's a trailer full of fucking squirrels. It's just like, I don't know, do I want to go up there? Do you like loose squirrels in a trailer? Then have at. Let me show you his stupid idiot face. Oh.

It looks just like the comedian from Anchorman, doesn't it? It kind of looks like every dude in comedy. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It does. I'm friends with a lot of that guy on Twitter. I've drank with this guy a lot. I'm like, don't tell me about bands I have to listen to anymore.

I don't want to hear it. So he was fired from his school teacher job for child molestation accusations in 1968, right when the murder started. His house is located just 10 minutes walk from the pay phone at the corner of Spring Road and that other road intersection where the Zodiac first mate has called to the police. He fucking lives 10 minutes from there. Yeah. It's him.

He looks good for it. It's him and the other guy, for sure. Mech and neck. And then both the Blue Rock Springs attack and the double murder at Lake Herman Road were within 15 minutes driving distance from his house. So he just had a quick little jaunt and then was a fucking murderer. His sister-in-law named Karen confirms that her creepy as fuck brother-in-law, they showed her some of the letters and she was like some of the words he condenses in here, my creepy

ass brother-in-law also condenses, he's good for it. Also she was like, by the way, he knows how to write his ambidextrous, which is the absolute hardest word just to make up to figure out how to smell or smell. Also she was like, let me show you this Christmas card he gave us. He spells Christmas like an asshole and an idiot with two S's at the end. Christmas. That's hilarious. Just like the Zodiac did in his fucking letters wishing the police a merry Christmas.

Lock him up. Let's all begin a chant. He's not here. And Arthur Lee's actual brother, Ronald, he says it's unlike, you remember his former friend Don who ratted him out, his brother was like, Don wouldn't make shit up. Not his brothers. He was like, if Don says something is true, it's true, you can believe him. Yeah.

Not his own fucking brother. That's insane, child molester. He also, Don also confided to the brother that Arthur Lee Allen had made inappropriate advances with his children. So that's probably why they were former friends and he is a murderer. Okay. Yeah, we're on strike 52 now with this guy. There's a connection with Darlene Farron because she worked at the IHOP and he loved

to hang out there. Also, I mean, we all do, I know. And he's also a suspect in the Santa Rosa hitchhiker murders where at least seven unsolved homicides of female hitchhikers in Sonoma County and Santa Rosa in 72 and 73, some of the wires that was used to tie up these victims match the wires in the Zodiac shit. There was chipmunk hair on everything. That's your favorite. He lived in the area.

The guy was rodent crazy. He was arrested in 1974 for child molestation and he went to prison for a while and the Zodiac letters stopped then as well. And then as soon as he got out, like a couple months later, they get another letter. And then Michael Maggio, who survived the Vallejo tax, pointed him out in 1991 as the dude but he kind of said a couple weird things so they were like, well, we can't use this. This asshole dies of a heart attack in 1992. They say, well, he didn't match any of the descriptions, his fingerprints didn't match

and his palm print didn't match, DNA didn't match, saliva, all this shit. But again, could it be that thing of like, it's trick-or-rooing. The annals of unsolved crime, famed JFK assassination researcher, I don't know what I wrote here, Skye Edward Epstein, and I think this is fun, let's go with this, thinks that Arthur Lee Allen could have been responsible for the first two attacks, but a copycat or copycats were responsible for the rest of them, which I think is a cool. I don't know. And then the letters were all by one person.

Yeah, but I feel like they would say that was a copycat or because the Zodiac was so like, pay attention to me and put this in the newspaper or I'll kill a bunch of kids on a bus or whatever, I don't think they would allow, the real Zodiac would allow somebody else to step on his shit like that. For sure. And thank you, I'm a professional criminologist, psychologist. So for nearly five decades, police and amateur sleuths tried to name who he was, they can't figure it out, and it's still unsolved.

Here's the final, our final suspect. Yes, he was not born dead on, that is dead on, absolutely. God, it's eerie. It's so eerie. How creepy how like someday they'll figure out how he did it when he was not born yet and the baby. Yeah. But fuck.

I think it's more of intention and what you have in your heart, that could create serial killing and when you're a toddler. And those are the Zodiac suspects I like, that was awesome, beautiful, beautiful button. Yeah. Thank you. Now we're cooking. I'm going to do the murder of Stephanie Brian, right? I was going to do, can I tell the story, but I'm not trying to, Stephen, I'm not shitting

on you. I swear to God. Don't tell them what it is, because I'm actually doing it tomorrow night, so I'll just keep it general. Yeah. Because here's what happened. Well, then you should have got to get to the show and you're not in charge. We go totally squirrel in a trailer on you.

No. So I have this one ready, but when we do live shows, you know, sometimes it's like we don't, we want to stay fun and we're all live and having a good time and laughing, but Ted fucking Cruz, right? You know, we want to have a good time. And so this one I really like and it's good, but it's, you know, it is obviously the murder, and so I was like, last night I was like, oh my God, I have it. I have the perfect one because it's just something that's happened around here that you will

find out tomorrow night if you go see Georgia tell her story. So I text... If you're going, you should plug your ears and then we'll tell everyone else. Yeah, that's right. But I text Stephen at, you know, when I'm like mid goldfish mac and cheese and I'm like, hey, I want to change my thing. And he's like, sounds great. And I bet you the other end of that story is Stephen was like, I was in a bar or something.

Yeah. Because then he texted us this morning and he's like, I just checked my files. I screwed up and you can't do that one because George is doing it, which almost never happens. I was like, no, Karen can't have that. He texted me. It was like, I screwed up and I told Karen she could do it. And like, I think he was waiting for me to write back and be like myself of like, it's okay.

It's already in the works. There's no, I can't pick another one. No. Tell Karen she's fucked. I'm not fucked. I'm sorry, Stephen, like sending him to the wolves, like go tell her she's in shit up a creek or whatever. I'll just say that I just love the fact that everyone was scared to text me.

That's I'm just saying there's definitely downsides to being a big bitch, but there's tons of upsides, which is no one says shit to you about anything. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm learning that it's fun to be a bitch and just be like, well, you need to talk care and she's fucked. Sorry. I'm learning that also if you make daily television where like, if somebody, if somebody thugs

up, there's oftentimes, and I'm sure in lots of people's jobs, if it's like a high pressure job and there'll be people that come to you and like, oh, I really screwed up this thing in the river. And it's like, well, that's your problem. Yeah. It's the most satisfying thing in the world to fix it or get fired. So Stephen got fired. No.

So Stephen is fired. Never talk about him again. No. I probably shouldn't have told you any of that. But I like to do a behind the curtain peek into, anyway, okay, so basically this story is, I'm just going to do a retelling of one of my favorite episodes of the TV show, a crime to remember, which is one of the best produced true crime television shows on TV. They basically took the old idea where if you're going to do a true crime reenactment,

you know, like we've been watching really shitty, really violent and kind of, I would say, sexist reenactments, where like, it's like, do you have to stab the girl in the red bra again? We get that part. You said it already. Yeah. Well, crime to remember, basically they do all old cases and then they make these beautiful, it almost looks like a movie where they do these reenactments that are really gorgeously

shot and really well put together. So it's a great TV show if you haven't watched it already, but I know you all have. So you're like, shut up. So this takes place in Berkeley in spring of 1955. Yes. You see Berkeley, the fighting, um, barbacks, yeah, the fighting barbacks. We really love college sports and we follow all the teams. That's right.

And we want to make sure that every city we go to, we acknowledge your team, we acknowledge your team and we really support your whole college experience, which no one gives a shit about. Okay. April 28th, 1955, Stephanie Bryant's a 14-year-old girl whose family has just moved to Berkeley from Massachusetts about two years before. Her father's a doctor. Her mom is a homemaker.

They have five kids. Stephanie's the oldest. She's smart. She's quiet. And she's a rural follower. So when she is not home from school by 4 o'clock, that Thursday afternoon, April 28th, 1955, her mother immediately knows that something's wrong immediately. So she immediately starts calling around.

She calls the school and she calls Stephanie's friends and nobody's seen her and then she finally gets a hold of Stephanie's friend, a girl named Marianne Stewart. And Marianne Stewart says, yeah, we walked home. When school got out, we walked to the library and we checked out some library books and then we went over to the donut shop and we checked out some donut books. Great. Yeah, right. You know, the way you kind of like walk around your town after school, it's so long ago.

So then on that walk home, she decides when it comes to like where they're going to split apart, Stephanie tells Marianne, I'm going to take this shortcut and it's over by the Claremont Hotel tennis courts. And so she says... They know those tennis courts. Wow. Ritzy, those tennis courts are. So she says goodbye to Mary Ann and she takes this wooded path back to her house, boo.

Stay out of even the woods in 1955, just stay out of wooded lanes, even if it looks pretty. Stay away from nature of all kinds. So by 5.30, Stephanie's dad is home from work and she's still not home and he's like we're calling the police. So he calls the police, they come over to take the report and of course back then when teenagers weren't home after school at the proper time, the normal response used to be it's fine and calm down and they'll be back and this always ends up that they come back. But when the police talk to the Brian family and they get the sense of what this family

is like and everything, they know something is very wrong. And so at 9 o'clock that night, they put out an APB for a missing person. So this was also, it's 1955, which feels kind of late, but it was still the time where reporters, like reporters would hang out in the police station and listen for APBs so they could write stories. And they would also go to like if the police were going to serve a search warrant, they go with the cops and then just stand around ready to like write down stuff that got found. Like they were right there with everything.

So there's a bunch of reporters in the station when the APB goes out, so they immediately report that a girl has gone missing in the afternoon that day and tips come flooding in immediately. Most of the first reports talk about a man who was driving erratically with a young girl in the back of the car who matched Stephanie's appearance. And basically the only thing most people could say was that the car was brown and that the man had brown hair and that there was no license plate that they could see. So the police start to theorize that because Stephanie's father is a doctor and they kind

of live in a nicer area, that maybe her disappearance is kidnapped for ransom. So they tap all of Brian's phones. And 32 hours later, a call comes in. So a man demands $5,000 for Stephanie's safe return. And he tells Dr. Brian, do you have to meet me? Bring this five grand, no cops. And Dr. Brian, because he's a smart person, is like, hey, all cops come with me. And they go down to make this exchange and they end up arresting an 18-year-old who had

nothing to do with it and was basically just trying to get money from a grieving family. Four days after Stephanie goes missing, a man is driving down Franklin Canyon Road, which is an hour away from Berkeley, don't actually know that road. He pulls over because he needs to go pee in a field and he walks out into this field and finds Stephanie's French book laying out there. So police, how many people, I was thinking this as I was watching it, people who would have just like tried to pee on the book and then leave and never talk about it or think about it again.

It wouldn't even cross my mind that that's what that is for. But I will say, because the APB went out so early, because the reporters talked about it so much, all of the Bay Area knew there was a 14-year-old girl that had gone missing and possibly was kidnapped, everybody knew it. Was that an attack of some kind or just like... Something collapsed. Okay. Let us know if anyone needs help.

Someone was offended that I would pee on a French book, which I understand. Okay, so they take this lead and they're searching all over that area. Police spent three months interviewing any random creep that has ever done anything even slightly weird in the Bay Area. Must have been fun. It's just like a... Like a... What's it called?

A school... Never mind. What? So when they do... when they go on a field trip, it was like a field trip... to creeps. Yeah. A police field trip. Yeah, they would all get on a little bus and just go to the creeps house. The cops would come to you back then and you'd be like, no, no, no, stay there, creep.

So the entire three months, though, the newspapers talk about it constantly, that everyone's still looking and they really keep it in everybody's... in the front of everybody's brain. So that July, a 33-year-old cosmetologist in Alameda... Right? The best. Love your swap meet. Love your coastal views.

Her name is Georgia Abbott. No one's ever named Georgia. Never. Ever. Twice in one night. She goes into her basement to look for a hat... what? To wear to a costume party. She opens a box and inside it, she finds a red purse that she doesn't recognize.

So she opens the purse and inside, she finds Stephanie Bryan's ID card. Yes. So she calls the motherfucking police and she's like... Is it her house or is it like an apartment building? It's her own house. Creepy feelings. Who does she live with? Right?

We're about to meet them. So when the police come to the Abbott's house, they immediately recognize the purse as Stephanie's from how Stephanie's mother described all the things that she had with her that day. And so they question the entire Abbott family. So they talk to Georgia first and as she's explaining, I went to the costume party. It's going to be a lot of fun with the Johnston little things. It's crazy. And the guys there with the pencil like, no one gives a shit, give me facts.

But as she's doing that, she goes, what was that party that we had? Otto? What party did we come in? And then Otto comes in and he's like, it was a country and western party. I'm now doing impressions of the people that were in a crime to remember. This is low rent, guys. But he get basically answers and so then the cops like, oh, well, how long have you two been married?

And she's like, oh, he's not my husband. My husband's in there. And then the cop looks over and there's just a dude in the dining room eating dinner alone as if the cops aren't at his fucking house. Just like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. You think he was eating macaroni and cheese with goldfish crackers on it? Could have been. Immediately.

And then I found it where they're like, this is suspicious, we don't like this guy. So there, of course, the cops are like six red flags of like a wire Otto and Georgia so cozy and who's that fucking guy in the dining room? So Burton Abbott is her husband. He's a 27-year-old Berkeley accounting student and he and Georgia have been married for seven years. He's been in the neighborhood for five years. And Burton's mother, Elsie, also lives in the house.

But when the cops ask where she is, Burton says she doesn't like it when people intrude and so she left. So she heard the cops were coming and she noped out where they're like, hey, that's not suspicious or anything. You're not allowed to skedaddle if you come here. So Burton tells police they're not going to find anything because he wasn't even in town that day that Stephanie Bryan went missing. She'd gone up to the family fishing cabin in Weaverville.

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Prove it. We want your IDs. Pass your ID down to the front, please. Weaverville's six hours away and 300 miles away from the area. As a native Californian, I've never heard of it in my life. No.

Sorry, Weaverville. It's so great. They have cabins. So the police go check this cabin, which is actually, then I started to think of what a bummer that is where it's like, you get some lead and then you look at your partner and you're like, now we have to drive six hours together to the mountains. I don't really like you that much. Should we just say we didn't find anything?

Let's just, and then we'll go to IHOP. Let's pre-agree. Then we go down to where everybody loves to meet, IHOP with a B. Okay, so that was a bad idea, whoever's idea that was. But it made for a great joke just now. Right. Okay. So when they go up there, they find no signs of Stephanie or anything around the cabin,

then they go to the restaurant that Burton said he ate at, which is called the Chuck Wagon, which I would fucking kill to go to. Absolutely. The baked potato, I bet is, I mean... It's as big as your arm. And there's just like toppings everywhere. Yeah. Oh.

The Chuck Wagon was actually only, it was strictly baked potatoes, and they were so big you could get into it like a sleeping bag that was part of their... Eat your way out. It was a theme restaurant you wouldn't understand, so... It was the 50s. They did stuff different. They did fun, big, big potato stuff all the time. It was a simple time.

Now I'm going to want to do that so bad, I'm going to think about it all the time, because it would be warm, but then convenient for eating. Okay. The waitress that works there is like, oh yeah, that guy was here. She describes what he was wearing, that he said he was wearing. She talks about the conversation that he had. He basically has an alibi. So they head back to the Bay Area and they basically start at square one, and they're

like, we know the abets are weirdos, we have to go back there. Oh, the reason they said, when they were like, well, how would we... Why would anyone find a missing girl's purse in your basement? And they said, oh, it was actually a polling station recently. So hundreds of people have been in that basement. Their basement was a polling station? Apparently. And an unfinished basement, half cement and half dirt.

Goodbye, nightmare. You're like, I'm here to express my right to... Okay, I'm going to sit this one out. And that's why so-and-so won the election. Oh, if only we knew political things. I don't. Jerry Brown? Sure.

No, no, no. Too early. Okay, so this time when they go back, they go to search the home, Elsie's there. Grandma? Grandma's there. And they notice also that Burton's car matches the general description of the car. Look, arrest that motherfucker. Right?

Coming out of the ABB calls that they got. That's Brown, and he has brown hair, and it doesn't have license plates on it. So they call in a really well-known criminologist that was really good, and they have him go over the entire car with a fine tooth comb, like, get anything you can in there, fibers and hairs and things that can't be used in court anymore. Then they begin digging up half, digging up the dirt part of the basement. And as they do it, the reporters are down there with them, like, standing around smoking cigarettes, smoking in a small basement and watching other people do hard work.

And so they're right there when they hit upon something, and they pull up the library book Stephanie checked out the day that she went missing. Yeah. Shit. And her glasses, and her bra. Oh, no. That's all buried in this basement. So now everyone is looking at Burton Abbott, of course.

And he is very calm and composed, and he denies everything, which is like, he did it the end. He says he didn't know her. He is a father himself that someone's framing him. He tells police anyone could have stashed those items right after they voted their last municipal election. You know, that guy who showed up with a shovel to vote? Yeah. I bet it was him.

You know, here's the thing. I thought he was a minor or maybe a gardener or maybe I don't judge people. I want them to vote. Yeah. It's the political process. Right. Important. So he tells the press he's innocent.

He gives us pictures in the paper as being connected as a suspect. So now he needs to feel the need to talk to the press as well and say, I'm innocent. I'm clearly being framed. He says, he's the word, I'm mourning with Stephanie's family. And he volunteers to give a polygraph test. And the police are like, sounds great. We'll see you there. So as he is being given the polygraph test, he basically is asked to retrace his steps

for everything he did on Thursday, April 28th. He says he spent the night in the cabin, at the fishing cabin. And then when he talks about his route home, he calls it the quote, zigzaggiest route you ever did see. I mean, what are you a fucking old timey something? Perv? Yeah. Get out of here.

That's that alone should be like five years in this slammer, sir. You're just not using your head, sir. He also mentions taking a shortcut along Franklin Canyon Road, which is the same road where Stephanie's French book is found. Oh, come on, dude. Right. But the polygraph test comes back in conclusive. So just as they're ready, the cops are like, we have to start over.

It's where one start re-interviewing everybody, whatever. They get an anonymous note telling them that it's not Burton, but they need to look closer at Georgia and Otto. So they decide to talk to the one person who hasn't talked yet. And that's LC Abbott. LC, get your ass out to the dining room. LC, you crabby old bitch, get out here. In the crime to remember thing, they keep showing her and it looks like she's sewing,

but it looks like the director said, well, I can't tell what she's doing. So she's sewing with a big piece of yarn, like you used to in kindergarten, remember to be like, you can sew this shape of a rabbit or whatever, but it's like just six pieces of yarn. That's what LC is doing on the couch. LC. No one's buying it. We don't.

LC, stop fake sewing. It makes you look more guilty. It's like you're whistling. An old and dumb. Okay. So when the cops sit down with her, she immediately throws Georgia under the bus saying she's a tramp who jumps from man to man. This is very weird.

She slut shames her daughter-in-law and she claims that Georgia has been unfaithful to her son. So then the cops are like, so it could possibly be that Georgia and Otto are having an affair and Otto did it and he's framing Burton so that he can have Georgia all do himself and then kill people as well. They go to talk to Otto's neighbor and Otto's neighbor says that she heard screaming coming from his garage on April 28th. And now her shovel and hoe are missing from the garage.

This is one of those neighbors that's like, oh, I have to remember to talk to the police about the screaming. And she's like, oh, guiding lights on. I'm just going to... She's that lady. Okay. All right. So the police...

Her fucking shovel's gone. Her shovel's gone. Her hoe is gone. They're screaming. They're screaming that needs to be discussed. Who doesn't immediately be like, listen, they're screaming and it's in a garage so zero things are happening that could be good. Would you please bring over a blowtorch and every gun that you have as a favor to me,

the neighbor. When they bring Otto into the police department, he denies having a sexual relationship with Georgia and he says everything his neighbor said was a big fucking lie. And he says that he was paying a traffic ticket in Alameda at the time of Stephanie's disappearance, which is of course proven to be true. So he has a rock solid alibi. And so the cops are at another dead end and then this grizzly old crime reporter named Ed Montgomery, he's been following this and reporting on it the entire time.

And he's convinced that there's something at that cabin. So he goes back up to the cabin in Weaverville and he brings a photographer with him and they start walking around and they walk around the grounds of the cabin and just searching everywhere because it's just all overgrown and they do it all day long. And then finally he goes, you know what, let's get some blood hounds up here. So they bring blood hounds up and the dogs immediately pick up a cent within 330 feet of the cabin. They find a saddle shoe sticking out of the dirt and they then discover the body of Stephanie

Brian. Oh my God. Because this reporter was like, here's how police work happens. Well, or it's the thing of like, obviously they knew somebody in that family was doing something and so they were just like, well, if we found all this other evidence in their goddamn basement, we have to keep trying to be in this house. So I think he was just like, well, let's just go explore up here. I'm trying to defend him for some reason.

He's long dead. Okay. So they put together the in the coroner's report. They find out that she had been killed basically right after her abduction. It was a lot of blunt force trauma. And they found her underwear were like around her throat, but she'd been strangled with them. So they go and arrest Burton Abbott and her body was too badly decomposed to conclusively prove she'd been raped, but they did charge him with rape and murder kind of anyway.

So when it, when he goes to trial, he gets there and he's acting like he, it's like his first day on the red carpet. He's smiling and joking with reporters and like being really charming and stuff. And I was like, please. So not acting like someone who's about to face the death sentence. So there's no evidence that directly connects him except for the circumstantial evidence of it being in his polling place home. So, but the prosecution argues that Burton Abbott attempted to rape Stephanie Bryan and

when she resisted, he killed her and he got on the stand and testified for four days. Oh shit. I know. He said, I have nothing to hide. I'm innocent. I will confess. I will not confess to a crime I didn't do. And he was very calm and soft spoken and saying, this is a monstrous frame up.

The jury was out for seven days, they came back and they found Burton Abbott guilty of first degree murder. He's given the death sentence and they send him to San Quentin. So I'd hold personally, I would hold, but you can, it's also good to express your feelings in the moment. She's got bad news for us. I've got bad news for everybody. Burton's execution is scheduled to take place at 11 a.m. on March 15, 1957.

So basically, it's a very boring explanation, but he goes through, there's an automatic appeal process if you get the death penalty back then, but then that's denied. And then his attorney's appeal, directly, they try to then do another one to the governor. But governor Goodwin J. Knight, that's why I was going to say it was, you know, that's the name you're going to protect. Goodwin J. Knight, the great governor of California in 1957, you remember him with the big mustache. He was out at sea on a naval ship, just fucking around. So there's people getting killed in jail and people trying to contact him and say, maybe

this is entirely circumstantial, therefore maybe he stays in jail for the rest of his life, but we don't kill him, and they can't get ahold of him. There's a phone on the ship, and every time they call, there's two phones on the ship. Both lines are busy. Who's on the phone? Who is gossiping on the phone? What naval reserve? Girl, you would not believe, hold on, yes, he just puts one down, yes, the Navy, spacework

and character work. Amazing. Truly. They, the lawyers hold a press conference so that on TV they can say, we're trying to get ahold of the fucking governor, and he's on a Navy ship doing crazy ass shit, can he, please, hang up the phone, hang up the phone. So it works, and he calls it. So this is at nine o'clock in the morning, and he ends up granting a one-hour stay on

the day of the execution. It's almost like a prank. It's not cool. No. Yeah. So then, it's basically, it's denied. The Supreme Court, like a writ comes through, it's all shit, I don't understand. I want to say it, I can't do it with confidence, let's skip it.

Great. But then they try another route, going to the federal level, it's denied as well, so they call the governor again. The lines are busy again. Dude. It was, it was the Pacific Bell Navy ship that they just had, that's an old reference. It's fucking, I'm so, maybe a, how about a call waiting reference, like, needed to get call waiting.

They should have done Star 69, and then found out who was calling. They had a hamburger phone, a phone ship like a hamburger. Oh, Juno. So finally, they have the, this is a classic thing, I don't know if anybody remembers before call waiting, you would, if you were on the phone with your friend, sometimes if like your mom's friend really needed to call for some reason, they'd have an operator break into the call. So somebody would like click and be like, get off the fucking phone, you seventh grader.

That's right. That happened to me. Yeah. So that's what they have to do on the Nutsow Navy ship, where everybody was communicating. So at 1112, Governor Knight calls the warden and grants Burton Abbott a stay of execution. Here's the problem. They had started walking Burton Abbott down to the gas chamber, and he was in the chair. And exactly on time at 1115, while the warden and the governor are still chit-chatting away

on the phone, they dropped 16 sodium cyanide pellets. When does Ashton Kutcher pop out? Pranked. Guys, don't even freak out, never. The gas drops, it begins to fill the chamber. Right now, Abbott takes a big, huge gulp of breath and holds his breath. The governor's like, look, I'll stay. We can do a stay.

And the warden goes, it's too late. Wow. Thank you. It is good storytelling, isn't it? I've ripped it off directly from a television show. I'm just like the girl in class that won't pay attention. She's like, did you see a crime to remember last night? And I'm going to tell you about it from scene one to scene 22.

Basically he tells the governor it's too late, Burton Abbott runs out of air, takes a breath and dies in the gas chamber. Yes. Oh, I haven't shown you any pictures. God damn it. I was going to ask you for photos. There he is. I didn't want to shame you.

Oh, guilty. You didn't want to shame me for not showing pictures. There he is, denying, denying, denying. I have nothing to do with it. Even though I said I was at that cabinet and her body was there. Somebody else buried that crucial evidence in my basement. Hey, see? We're policemen.

Look over there. Look over there. I'm going to squat over here and you look over there. There you go. Pee on a French book. Why aren't we smoking? Aren't we required to be smoking? The coffee breath on these two individuals.

Truly. They both set up all night in a humongous ford, just like sitting in a ford. Smoking, eating pistachios. Smoking and spitting for no reason. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Great job, guys.

You did it. Oh, this is Elsie. Oh. Oh. My daughter-in-law's a slut, she says. Okay. That's her. I don't like it when people intrude in my house.

Who does? Elsie. Okay. Great. I think we're on the last page. One moment. Okay. Elsie Abbott, Burton's mother, believed until her death at 100 years old that he was innocent.

She said that Burton was weak and slight and had TB as a child and half a lung, which proves that he could not have killed or carried or buried Stephanie. Oh, honey, I have bad news for you. He did all of those things. He did. She said she thought that she, after his death comes out with this theory, she thinks it's her own brother, a truck driver in San Leandro named Wilbur Moore, right? You guys know.

She basically says her own brother did it and not her son. It's later revealed, this is the big twist-a-roo, that Elsie Abbott was actually the first person to find that red purse in the box in the basement two months before Georgia found it, and she just never said anything. Honey. Why would you do that? Why would you do that? Blinders of her mother.

Another purse I found, like the one I found in my son's room, this woman, was covering. All right. Wait, she found it in the room initially? No, that's, I'm making up lies about his childhood, because I'm convinced that he did it. The San Francisco Chronicle called this murder one of the most perplexing cases in the age old, in the age old annals of crime. And that is the Stephanie, that is the murder, sorry, of Stephanie O'Brien.

Wow. That is bananas and so sad and twist-a-roos. Sad, and then also it's not satisfying, because then you're like, oh, there's potentially two innocent people died. Do you think he did it? Yes. Okay. The thing of him holding his breath.

Okay, anyways. I know, it's really dark. Bananas. Do we have time for a hometown murder? Yeah, let's do a hometown murder. Oh, look who it is. It's Vince. Vince Averill, everybody.

Vince Averill. Say hello. The podcast's husband. How's it going back there? It's good. It's come to my attention that the term hella originated in Oakland. Oh, what? That's right.

In honor of that, let's keep this hometown hella tight. I'll be right over. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Okay, so that's, we're going to do a couple rules really quick. I know you know them, but this is important. It needs to be local.

Oakland would be ideal, but definitely barrier. We don't give a shit what happened in Wisconsin. Don't tell us about it. Obviously it needs to be quick because we have to get out of here at a certain time. So very, we need, you need facts and to be beginning, middle, end those facts. It's great when you know what happened at the end. So like a button of some kind, you can't be so drunk that you can't follow your own line of thought.

That's important in life in general, but especially up here tonight. And just remember if you get picked that everyone hates you. So you have to go fast. Yeah. Okay. Am I picking? Yeah. Do it.

Okay. Who do we got? Yeah. Okay. Come on up. Yeah. Yeah. The pillow gal.

Go over there. Fast. Quick. Quick. And bring that pillow for me. Immediately. I say fast six times and she jumps up and down with the pillow. We don't have pillow jumping time here to add a little extra pressure.

She just ran out of the fear. She's running to that canned wine. Oh. There she is. Oh my. Come here. Get out of here. Fast.

Heidi. Heidi. Come over here. I have a cat shirt on too. What's your name? Heidi. Hi, Heidi. Nice to meet you.

You're here. Come here. Okay. Let me hold this. Yeah. Okay. That's Willis. Willis, I love Willis.

Where are you from? Okay. I'm not from Oakland. Good bye. No, I'm just kidding. California though. And this is really good. Where are you from?

I'm from Bakersfield. Let's hear it. Okay. So I'll go fast. I was in seventh grade and my grandfather had been in the news because he misappropriated some government funds. Oh. Yeah.

That's a good start. That's a good start. That's a good start. So he was on Dateline. Oh, cool. That was not good in high school. But anyway, that was okay. But so.

Is this what the cat's about? No. Is this about the cats? No. I'm just saying, is that why you need a cat? Oh. Okay. It's fine.

I was making a light joke. No. I shouldn't have interrupted you. So anyway, so we lived out in this, my dad's a farmer. We live on the farm and this house way out in the country, which happened to be Merle Haggard's old house. Does anybody know Merle Haggard? Yeah.

Sure. Yeah. Okay. So Merle Haggard lived on our farm. He bought some acreage and he, anyway, then his wife drowned in the river. You guys know the Kern River song and she drowned. And so then he sold the house back. Okay.

And so we lived in his house, which was not the shape of a horseshoe, which is crazy. And it had a guitar shaped pool in the middle of it. It's crazy. And it had been abandoned, well not abandoned, but like nobody lived in it for seven years and then we moved in it because my dad had to come back to Bakersfield because of the whole like lawsuit. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway. So he's working on the farm. But so my dad, anyway, our family was in the news, which is not good for junior high. But so then people didn't like our families part of the time. And so my parents were out and I was at home with my brother who was in eighth grade and John Valeni, who was his friend, and I thought John was so cute and my other sister, who's special needs, she was asleep. And my other sister is even older.

She was out with her boyfriend and my parents were at a party. We're playing Monopoly and we start getting these phone calls like, we know that you're playing Monopoly. Who's your friend that's over and like, it's just her, Erin is asleep, wears Kara with her boyfriend. And we're like, oh my God, this is so cool, like somebody wants to get us, but no, this is before cell phones. So then my parents come home and we're like, oh my God, somebody's going to kill us.

And so they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So then the phone calls keep on coming and we're still like, oh my God. And my dad goes upstairs to the top of the horseshoe and I'm at the bottom of the horseshoe. And I hit the phone rings again and I'm like, I'm going to pick it up and listen. My dad's like, guys, like I'm coming out and he also said he was going to like rape us and all that stuff. Like he knew all of our names and he knew what we were doing.

And so my dad's like, okay, motherfuckers, if you come out here, like cause he's a farmer, he's like, I will kill you because I have guns. And so, so then the guy's like, okay, I'm coming. So phone calls stop. Okay. So then in the meantime, my oldest sister comes home with her boyfriend, Gino Valpreto. And Gino was super cool. Yeah.

We know Gino. And so we're like, so they come up and we're like, oh my God, I have a couple of this. Now they're coming. My mom's like, everybody go to bed. Stop it. And so, so, and I was like midnight cause Kara's, yeah, I was probably like 1230. She was probably late. So it was probably 1230.

And so then close the door, Gino. I think they kiss and then walk out. It's just like the old school 70s mansion with like 200 yard. Right. Drive. Yeah. Big ride, iron gate. And then door, like Gino's like pounding the door.

He's like, oh my God. Let me in. Let me in. A car just rammed down the gate. Oh, shit. So this car comes tearing down the driveway, like the horseshoe, like the outside horseshoe is all windows and the car just comes up and shines like in the windows. And my dad, he just comes down in his boxers with guns and he's just like, he's like John

Valenny. Poor kid is probably like, what? Are you in eighth grade? Like 13, 14? He's like, here's gone. Son of your ever used one. Gino, here's gone. Jamie, here's gone.

And he's like, I think John's like, son, what do you mean, no, no, no, he's gone. And he's like, girls, get your sister Erin, who's special needs, and like, you don't wake up Erin. Right. And so that was not good. So like, Erin, we have to go to the top of the horseshoe and get it locked in. And so then my mom's on the phone with 911 and they're giving us keys because we're farmers too.

So like, here's keys to the ATV and here's keys to the truck and if somebody comes, you just go down and swirl a car case and just drive, just drive. And so my mom's on the phone with 911 and then we hear a gunshot and my mom, she drops the phone so I grab it and the lady's like, there's gunshots, get your father inside. Well, I was self-starred. So anyway, the police come, we're on a farm with all these oranges and whatever. There's a big car chase and they never found him. Did anyone get shot?

No. They never found him. And John Valetti was never allowed to come over ever again. Shit. Oh my, hands down my favorite home town of all time. Easy. Easy. Heidi, you fucking, are you kidding me?

Are you kidding me? Our gift to you tonight is that you get a podcast. Yes. You get a podcast. You broke every rule and you nailed it like unbelievably. That was amazing. Oh my God. Great job.

So good. Heidi, everybody. Just Jesus. At the end. Yeah. So of course the girl with the, I don't know why I picked the one person with a cat pillow. And I was like, this will be normal. It'll be great.

That's what we're going to do from now on. Wow. Oh my God. That's my favorite story I've ever heard. This fucking, she must be scared of like cars and headlights and fucking keys and guitar shaped pools. Yeah. Merle Haggard.

Jesus. Heidi nailed it. Amazing. Wow. Oh my God. That was beautiful. Oakland, you angels. This show has been amazing.

Thank you guys so much. Thank you so much. That was the next level. Thank you for welcoming. It's been a while since we've been here and we appreciate you guys welcoming us back. We fucking love it here. We love the Bay Area. It's one of our favorite places to be.

Yes. It's very, um, it's for me, it's very exciting because it's kind of, it's like coming home and being here with you guys and, um, being here at the Paramount, not working at the Gap on upper market, but instead being here in a fancy theater doing basically my favorite thing I've ever done for a living in my life, which is doing this podcast with Georgia Hardstark and fucking talking about true crime, which we all love so much and we used to think we weren't allowed to say we loved it and now we can say whatever the fuck we want and it's the best.

Thank you guys. Yeah. Thanks for letting us fucking do this. It's amazing. We love you guys. Thanks for being here. And thanks for being so good to each other. Keep it up.

It's important, especially these days, stay connected, talk to each other. It's so cool to watch you guys all becoming such great friends. It's just, this is also exciting and we're so thrilled. So thank you for everything. Stay sexy. Bye Oakland. Thank you. Bye Oakland.

Thank you.