My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 231 - Small Bigfoot
Episode Date: July 16, 2020Karen and Georgia cover the murder of Michael Jordan’s father, James R. Jordan Sr.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#...do-not-sell-my-info.
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Hello and welcome to my favorite murder. The big one. The normal sized one. The long one.
The long one, babe. What? Not long enough? Not long enough for everyone else's taste. Yeah.
No, I was gonna say, well, the long one, but the single story just for this week. Right. Just to
finish out the circle. Yeah. Everyone, you're welcome for giving you something to fight about this
week. Enjoy your passions. We understand you can't go outside anymore and feel them. Yeah. So we'll
give you reasons to be deeply upset. Listen, next week we'll come back with a nice three hour and
45 minute episode. We're both gonna tell each other extensive stories. This story of the
persecution and crucifixion of Christ. Now I'm going to tell the story of this first seven days
of existence in this planet. Oh, it's like a father. It's like a father son episode. Oh,
that's sweet. So yeah, we're gonna. So yeah, everyone hated the idea that one of us does one
story and one week in the next. And it's understandable. Yes. One of your two stories.
That's kind of what we what we do. Here's what. Can I tell you what my sister Laura said? Yes.
Laura's got the final say on all of this. First of all, she doesn't listen. She's not a fan. So
she's so she's coming objectively to this. So no one can say, of course, your sister, whatever.
Right. My sister comes and goes, really, at a time like this, you're going to change the whole
setup. And I was like, we just were talking about it. We're tired at summertime. We're whatever.
And she's like, no, no, no, no, this is the time people need structure. They need things to be
exactly the same. You go to McDonald's, you want it to taste like McDonald's. Don't fuck around
with people at a time like this. I was like, shit, okay. I, of course, I think only of myself,
as we all do. I think only of myself. So yeah, every other week homework sounds great.
When one of us needs a mental health week and hasn't gotten their story finished,
and the other person has a nice, thick story that they can tell, you know, then we'll do one
a week. We'll be back to normal next week. Yeah. Don't worry. But also, you know,
we'll go back to normal next week. This week, when we're not back to normal, let's practice
flexibility. Let's practice change, liminal states where things aren't as we want them to be.
And practice our resilience within those moments. And right now, let's take a deep breath in
and let it out.
Sorry. Shit. I was trying to lead people in three deep breaths. Georgia couldn't have it.
I ruined it. And it was like the worst burp. It wasn't even a good one.
It was short and forced. You're lucky you didn't throw up.
You're lucky I didn't throw up. Stephen is. You're the lucky one.
Can we really, before anything, talk about this most recent episode of Perry Mason?
I knew. And there's going to be spoilers.
Truly, if you haven't seen it, we will not hear it from you after the fact.
This is going to be a spoiler chunk. Get away if you don't like it.
Five, four, three, two, one. All right. This fucking show is so good.
Dude. I knew from the tone of your voice that you were about to start talking about Perry Mason.
Because it is. Did you really?
Yes. Because it was like this. Yeah. It was an A, how fucking, how hot and like messy and
dreamy. What's his, how do you say his name?
Matthew Reece. Well, she Welshman.
Yeah. Matthew Reece sounds right.
Is it Matthew? Do you know that he has a fucking wine tour show?
I was. Listen, I was just casually reading, looking him up on Google.
Listen, no big. I just Google searched him. Does he come up on my,
wait, I just wiki feeded that guy just to see what was going on.
He has a show, this Welshman and a wife, as this is telling me right now.
He has a show called the wine show where he and his actor friend Matthew Good with an E.
Sure. Oh, he's like a, I think.
Beautiful brunette man.
Yeah. Yeah. He's, okay.
They all went to the Royal Shakespeare Academy together, I bet.
I'm sure. They just. They're all that, that style.
They just pre-pandemic travel like Italy drinking wine together and talking about wine and wine
varietals and like slowly getting drunk on wine and laughing about it. And he has this fucking beard.
Oh, shit. This like big, like Vince level quarantine beard.
See, that's the thing about that guy.
And I'll talk about him as Perry Mason because, because I don't know him any other way.
That's really respectful of you.
I know he's, I only want to talk about being in love with the character Perry Mason.
See, I want to objectify the actor.
That's my goal. I want to objectify the Merlot he's drinking.
But that spirit of a man, which is you're fighting your demons overtly.
You've got a very nicely weathered leather jacket.
You've got sparkle in your eyes, even when fucked up shit is happening.
But your eyes are also slightly dead because you've been around the block of time.
You've seen too much.
Everything about it and the way he, like when he fights with John Lithgow and he gets that kind
of like sparkle, it's just the dynamic and thrilling.
You're screwing this like really dark, interesting woman who like has her own secrets,
but you're like clearly in love with her a little bit.
Yes. And she's like, get out of here and fuck you.
It's not romantic, but it's very bonded and it's hot as hell.
I mean, it's okay.
So this most, the spoiler, I want to state just because it made me laugh so hard when it
actually happened, do you know what part of the show I'm going to say?
It's the part where the little girl walks up to give sister her gift.
This isn't a, like a real big plot spoiler.
So don't worry if you know, yeah.
No, if you're, if you're powering through the spoiler, but it turned,
the gift turns out to be a humongous snake.
And it's so shocking and the little girl is so good and it's played so perfectly
that you're as shocked as the sister is.
I can't remember her character's name, her Tatiana Masli, I believe.
I have sister Elizabeth or something.
Who's from Orphan Black and she's unbelievable.
Oh, is she okay?
Cool.
But yeah, but that moment.
So my friend, Carrie O'Donnell, the hilarious Carrie O'Donnell from Sex Unique podcast,
he texted me and said, when the little girl tries to assassinate her with a serpent,
I knew this show was it.
And I wrote back, oh my God, that part was all caps, who I am.
Karen is a little girl, Karen, a perfectly wrapped, what you think is a pastry box too,
because that's a fucking mean thing about it.
If she's just like, these are going to be some incredible 1930s pastries, sweets.
They keep saying the word sweets and I was like, oh, I can't wait to watch her bite into
whatever the fuck this is going to be.
I was thinking Danish, like straight, hardcore Danish.
I was thinking of like a, you know, Princess Cakes that have the green stuff on it, like
the perfect fondant.
It's also called, they have it at Victor, but it's like our family, actually our family,
like cake.
It's what you fucking get and you fucking like on our birthdays at El Coyote.
It's what you have to have.
It's what you have.
Yeah.
Yes.
The, it's the stuff made of almonds.
Yeah.
What's it called?
Yes.
Everyone's yelling.
Someone tweeted a thing that said, you, you'll, the, the most you'll ever understand what
a ghost feels like is when you're listening to a podcast and the hosts are trying to remember
a word for something that you know.
I feel bad that I can't give credit to it.
I don't, it's just been going around.
I think my sister sent me that meme.
It's so true.
Cause right now everyone at home is yelling almond.
Marzipan.
Marzipan.
Marzipan.
Marzipan.
Steven's a ghost.
Steven.
Steven's a ghost.
Steven's a ghost.
A ghost.
Boo, boo, boo.
So that's what I was picturing, a little tiny princess cake or something that was kind
of old fashioned looking and she opens it up and it's the biggest snake.
It's the big scary snake.
Yeah.
Vince can't, can't do snakes and he washed his fucking mind.
It was so good and tricky.
And to me that's like, it's, it's how this show is so smart.
It's doing incredibly creepy things realistically.
So you don't go, you never walk away going, oh, that was a little, I mean,
there's things that are super graphic, but it's for the, it's for the pot.
It's got such a good creepy feeling of like everything's wrong in the world.
Yes.
And it, but it looks beautiful cause it's 1930 something.
There's also that brilliant scene with the black cop who actually saw the body.
Yes.
And when those other detectives come to talk to him and how incredibly oppressively, but
unspoken racist they are and like how they're controlling him with barely lifting a finger.
Like actually they're so well handled.
They're like speaking to him in a like, like a respectful, positive way that intones this
creepy fucked up negative.
It's like, you don't even have to say anything negative.
It's just, it's just in there fucking, it's in.
It's the vibe, it's the vibe.
It's, it's so like, it's so accurate to how that stuff actually works.
It's so good.
Anyway, Bravo.
Good job everybody.
I bet the people who pitched were going to do a gritty reboot of Perry Mason.
I bet you they had a lot of doors slammed on their faces.
So the idea that now they're the, the maybe queen and king who knows of HBO.
I love it.
It's just telling you Sunday nights, Perry Mason and I'll be gone in the dark.
It's like, oh, it's like, I'm excited in quarantine.
How do you fucking even do that?
It's crucial.
Yeah.
It's crucial.
Yeah.
And same thing with tonight, because tonight is Tuesday.
It's the final episode of this season two of Dirty John.
Oh.
The night.
I'm not watching.
It's the big finale.
Is it good?
I love it.
The new Dirty John.
Yep.
Starring Amanda Pete.
Amanda Pete plays Betty Broderick.
It's a classic story of a woman who supports her husband through medical and law school.
Come on.
He starts his own firm.
You owe her everything.
Get super successful.
Starts cheating on her.
Won't admit it for a really long time and basically drives her insane.
There's so many other elements.
I mean, that's the worst part.
Like the gas lighting.
Yes.
And the like, not, not being allowed to know your own life and to have any.
What's the word?
Ownership?
No.
Agency.
Yeah.
Over your own decisions in life because someone is lying to you.
Someone close to you is lying to you.
Like that is awful.
Oh, drive you crazy.
It's an exploitation of your connection.
Yeah.
Where they're saying, oh, why would you, now he basically denied it for so long to her.
Where he's like, you're really losing it.
You're, da, da, da, da.
You're going to ruin this relationship.
Yeah.
He would take it and like fold it back into what everything that was wrong with her.
So by the time he admitted it, by the time they broke up, she had snapped.
And it is, again, it's just, it's so, it was such a common thing in the 80s because this
takes place like throughout the 80s.
And it's so familiar to me because there was this time in like the early 80s where everyone's
parents got divorced all at once.
We're not saying murder is okay.
And obviously it's not.
And especially the new girlfriend, you know, it's not, it's not her relationship that was
ruined.
It's not, she has nothing to do with it.
She's not responsible for this dude.
His decisions.
No.
No.
But I will say this too, the children, the child actors in this show are exceptionally
good actors.
Okay, cool.
There's one child that's had to do two monologues.
Every time I watch it, I go, holy fucking shit.
How is this little kid?
He's, he's like literally going, but mom, he's trying to, to reason with this woman who's
basically been driven insane or like gone insane and obsessively won't leave it alone.
And he's trying to, as like a nine year old.
This kid is such a good actor.
I was just like, well, that's your, that's our next Liada Caprio right there.
It's so good.
I'm going to watch once we're done with, what are we watching right now?
We're, okay, we're almost done with VEEP, like all the way through.
Oh, wow.
Which is the best. I don't know what I'm going to do after.
We watched Rambo 2 on Sunday.
That's our Sunday matinee.
Sorry, what, in that one, does he go back to the same town?
Yeah, to the prisoner, to get the POWs out.
Oh, that's the one that takes place where he like comes up out of the river and it's,
yeah, yeah, yeah.
At one point electrocuted on like a mattress frame.
I might have been doing my laundry at that part because I walked,
Vince watched Rambo 2 and I snuck in and out of it. Little America is fucking excellent.
And like the British sketch show?
No, it's on Apple Plus and it's these little episodic shows that you don't have to watch them
order anything of like immigrants to America and their little, it's true stories of what
they went through and how they came to America and thrived and lived and, you know,
created their own lives there. It's a beautiful show. It's so uplifting. Little America on
Apple Plus. Yeah, definitely.
I mean, this is like Emmy shit. Is that for TV or is that Oscar?
Yes, it is.
Great. It's great. I highly recommend it.
They're going to get a webby for sure.
We're going to get a British podcasting award.
Absolutely.
And then books, podcasts or what are you, what else are you doing?
Well, oh, I, okay, here's a weird run. Someone, I believe his name is Drew McGarry and he's
on Twitter and he told a story. He was like, are you bored? I'm bored. I'm going to tell
you the story of the weirdest thing that's happened to me. And he did a tweet thread.
It's very strange story of him out hiking by himself one day and he's talking on the phone.
He's walking and he calls his mom and then there's a woman, suddenly he gets bumped into from
behind. He goes on an empty trail where no one is around and he didn't hear her coming.
And all of a sudden a woman bumps into him from behind and he turns around. It's a small woman
who is blonde. I'm doing all this for memory. And essentially then all of a sudden he wakes
up on the trail and it's four hours later and he doesn't have any socks on.
Okay, wait, this is a true story of a thing that happened to a guy named, what's his name?
I believe his name is Drew McGarry and it's like basically him saying this is the weirdest thing
that's ever happened to me. Okay, so she hits him with a sleeping dart or something, right?
No, no, well bumps into him. Just like, we don't know. And then after that, he doesn't know.
He doesn't know. And like he was able to do the time, like he ended up getting home,
checking his body. There's nothing wrong with me. I don't have any wounds or anything like that,
but his socks, his socks are gone and he doesn't know what happened. Listen, I'm a doctor.
Okay, I'm a trail doctor. And so I'm going to go with dehydration.
Hey, okay. And that all around hallucinated her. He hallucinated her. He was so dehydrated that
morning he didn't put socks on at all. Okay. And so maybe the woman existed and did bump him.
And then maybe he sat down to like take a rest, but he was dehydrated so he passed out.
Okay. Right. Or alien. Or she's a small bigfoot. Shaved down. Small bigfoot.
Coming up to CBS this Friday. The smallest bigfoot in the forest.
Well, but here's, so I ended up reading the thread because I was like, this story is amazing.
And it's what, it's just my cup of tea. And then I knew other people would tell,
either tell their stories or do some kind of link. And somebody named Jose Gomez said,
if you, if you're into this, I just found this podcast. And it's about stories that are like
stories that are hard to explain basically is how he, as how homemade Jose Gomez explained it.
Well, it turns out it's front of the podcast. Payne Lindsay's podcast. Radio rental. It's
hosted by Rainn Wilson playing a character. I think his name is Vincent Carnation. It made me
laugh so hard. This character that he plays is insane and goofy. And it says, if it's said in a
VCR of VHS video rental store, great. I love that spot to begin with. There's someone,
someone, a little kid just barfed earlier in the day and they put cat litter on it.
So that you've got that going on in one corner. Yep. And then of course,
Mrs. Doubtfire is playing on the TV over the cash register video store. Remember,
but it basically is like, he sets it up and it's very goofy, funny. And then they play the video
and it's the person telling their hard to explain story firsthand themselves, which is my favorite.
And it's real. That part's real. And they're real. And there's, so there's 11 episodes. I think
there's two stories per episode. I listened to it all in like three hours. It was so good. And
these stories, some of them are, some of them are like, oh, and some of them are like, holy
shit, there's one girl that tells so beautifully tells. And it's later on, I think it's episode
eight or nine. She talks about going to camp with a guy that everyone loved this guy. Everyone
loved this guy. And near the end of camp, they were all going to go out to everyone was going to
go out. I'm just going to spoiler alert this. I know they're going to go out. This is a recap
show of Payne Lindsay's podcast. Yes. By the way, I don't know if you guys know this. He's, yeah,
we are just going to talk through pretty much all the podcasts, Payne Lindsay's. Any and all
Payne Lindsay podcast. He's done a lot of work. This is going to be the summer season.
So, so essentially they had to sign because they're old counselors. So they had to sign
out for the day and say where they were going to go. It's like, here's my name and I'm going this
place, whatever. So everyone knew where everyone was going and when they'd come back. Yeah. And
this guy was like, Hey, let me give you a ride to her. And she said in her gut, she felt it.
There was something weird in his eyes. The energy was wrong. She knew she was trying to walk around
getting a ride from someone else. And it was almost like that was the last choice. And she
like, cause she was going to get into her friends, whatever. So she was like, you know what? I'm
actually going to hang back. And he was like, no, it's totally fine. I'll give you a ride. I'll go
wherever you want to go. Good for her. And he was really trying to convince her. And fine. And
then finally he got really mad. And so she stepped back and started making a bunch. She was like,
I don't want to go with you. And like made a scene. So other people came over and like guys
basically got him away from her. And she went back up and was like, I'm staying here for the day.
And then everyone left. She went back up and checked the log book. Her name had been erased
from the log book entirely. And she was like, there's no doubt in my mind that he wanted to kill
me. He was going to do something to me. And that and she basically gives its beautiful little speech
that's essentially the, you know, what we've all been saying to each other for so long. But
essentially you don't owe anybody anything. If somebody wants to give you a ride because
they're being nice, you don't have to be nice back to them. Making a scene is okay. Like you
can be a fucking everyone thinks you're crazy and you make a scene because you don't feel comfortable
situation. It doesn't matter what they think about you. Yes, you can be not not in the least.
Not when you yeah, when you're like, and apparently she grabbed her friend and said,
no matter what happens, do not get in the car with him because he had a car that could only
be him and one other person. So she was then convinced he was going to try to get a different
girl into the car. What's the podcast called? We're all going to listen to it. It's called Radio
Rental and that's just one of the many unbelievably creepy, amazing, horrifying stories. I love it.
I'm listening to that. I've been wanting to text you but I keep forgetting and I want to tell you
on the podcast too. There's this new podcast that I'm listening to called Missing in Alaska.
Have you seen it or heard of it? It reminds me so much of the Oregon one. What was the Oregon one
we loved? Murder in Oregon. Murder. You know what? It might be the same people. Oh, that would
make sense. Yeah. Because you know why? It's about in the 1970s, these two congressmen were on a
plane out of Alaska or like town to town in Alaska. These two and they and the plane disappeared.
No one ever fucking found it. And the whole podcast is about the conspiracies of like,
does it go all the way to the top? Because one of the widows and one of those congressmen ended
up marrying this dude who was like in the mob and like everyone knew he was in the mob and they're
like all these crazy mob ties. And like maybe there was a briefcase with bomb in it. And it's
just like it goes all the way to Alaska in the 70s, which is the creepiest possible place to be.
Yes. Okay, wait. It's really good. Do you have you listened to the entire series? Not yet.
Okay. No. Okay. So I'm awesome. I'm going to start that immediately. That's great. I need a good
morning. I'm all my morning walk around podcasts. It's kind of like I've used them all up.
This is like your, this is like made for you. Okay. Beautiful. Missing in Alaska.
Listen to it with me, everybody. This will be the new book club. There's also,
I always talk about the podcast family secrets because I just love it so much. It just speaks
to me. And there's an episode I listened to yesterday. Oh, I'm crying now, by the way.
It's kind of my new thing. I'm real dehydrated. I can't find my socks. It comes up real randomly,
huh? Like sometimes you do not see it coming. Yeah. You ever get those ones? No, I always can
tell. And I'm like, I think when I go, this is a time when some, when normal people would cry.
And then I'm like, oh, fuck. Hey, I'm normal. So there's an episode back from April called
Bug Dust of the podcast family secrets that made me cry. That is so beautiful. And I don't know,
it like hit a spot in me for sure. Love it. Love that. Go to our merch page, myfavoritur.com.
Wait, wait, what? Have we talked about unsolved mysteries? Oh my god. No, we haven't. Okay.
Let's clear the deck because lots of people have been like, we need to hear. And I am blown away
at how amazing, like, we do, we've done ads for this. We do ads for this. This is not an ad.
It's not an ad. But it's so, so beautifully. I mean, like, look, the original was great and
it was totally reflective of the time and like a guy in a trench coat coming out of the fog
being like mysteries. And there were like ghosts, bread, there was like ghost loaves of bread and
like alien. It was like a lot of that. And I was a little worried that this would be almost like
just another true crime show, you know, like, I think the key to this one too is it's the people
telling their own story. You get the people, you get the family, you get the wife of the missing
man, you get the reporter that was there first, like that is the way to do it. It's those, that's
the most compelling way to do it. You don't need a talking head. It's a really good. It's a well
done true crime show. It's good. Yeah. The fucking French story that's so much like the John List
story. I haven't, I only have watched the first episode and then I honestly couldn't watch another
one. It's going to be like moving on. But I was like, what in the fuck happened there? It's so
creepy. It's crazy. Well, people on Reddit are talking about how similar that is to the plot
of the game, the movie, the game. Yep. Right. So everyone go watch the game from the nineties,
I think. Well, is that just because he falls through a roof? No, he, he, because the guy,
Ray, the guy was a screenwriter. Oh, right. And then really in the movies, the whole movie was
that he felt like he was being chased in this simulated world that ends with him falling off
a roof. Oh, okay. So when he gets a call and runs out of the house, I don't know. I don't know.
Yeah. No, I see that. I see it. But I guess my thing is the fact that he's a writer makes
all of those things really difficult because truly if you saw the crazy shit, well, I mean,
really, yeah, the stuff you write down and the stuff like I don't explain to myself what my
documents mean. You never write like the following list is for the upcoming Easter Bunny movie I
might write. You just start going eggs, eggs, eggs. And everyone's like, she's totally lost it.
Like anything out of context that's creative like that could make you seem, yeah, because you don't
expect anyone else to ever read it. But then if they find it after your fucking sudden and mysterious
death, right, they're going to be like, and it's taped up under the, I mean, that one, that story
is just like, it's all of those stories are so much to handle and like absorb in there. And it's
so great they're doing. They're so good. I want more and more like I just wish they were I think
there's more coming out. There's only six, which sucks, but it's so good. Yeah, I love it. So good.
Yeah. Okay, good. We had to put that on the on the table. That's been so long. All right, good.
Merch. We have it. There's some new shit. The puzzles. I don't think a lot of people have been
tagging us in their finished puzzle because it's so hard to finish. You finish that puzzle. God
damn it. You do it. The quarantine depends on you. And then Oh, exactly right news. A couple
of quick exactly right podcast network. We have this week out is everyone's favorite. I said no
gifts podcast and get the guest is comedian Yasser Lester. The most hilarious. Yeah, murder squad
this week. They're Billy and Paul are actually covering that mysterious death of Tamla Horsford,
which is a story that a bunch of people have been talking about recently. It's it's they're
looking into this. Basically, she was the only black guest at a sleepover party in Georgia in
November of 2018. And she was found dead the next morning. And people have been asking to have her
case reopened. So Billy and Paul look into it. It's that's very I've seen a lot of people talking
about that recently. That's really interesting. I can't wait to hear what they what they talk about.
Me too. Anything else? And then of course, on dinar this week, me and Chris talk about the Dave
Matthews band. I don't know what more topical, timely, relevant material you need from a podcast.
No, I mean, yeah, it's like, don't make me cross promote. You guys are dropping the dime. I don't
know. You're on top of the news. Sure. Oh, my God. It's like, it's weird. We are as if the Los
Angeles Times was in a car had once been in a car and picked people up from the airport. Another
thing that Vince always reminds me of whenever he hears Dave Matthews band referenced is that that
remember that one time they were driving over a bridge in Chicago and they opened the they were
like in their RV or they're like touring van, they open the floodgates to like get let all the
you know, waste out as you do on a bus over the river. But there was a tour boat boat underneath
at that exact moment and they dumped all their touring, you know, excrement onto onto that boat,
destroying the lives of at least 35 tourists. I mean, you would I mean, where do you go? What
how do you stop screaming? How do you live your life? Like when you have your first child,
do you look at it and go like, this is so much better than that one time that
excrement got dumped upon us. Like every moment has to every worst moment of your life. Like
if someone dies, I mean, like, but is it as this is this is worse than the time that Dave Matthews
band but not by much actually now that I think about it because at least they lived a full life
and I was nearly 23 when I was on my tour. I mean, it is so fucked and it's so like,
I mean, it's like that it's I think it's that kind of thing like, yeah,
let's bring this to the forefront. You can't just dump shit anywhere laterally. You can't just dump
shit literally anywhere. You can't and like that's a good metaphor for life to like, well,
look where you're going before you open your floodgates of excrement from of rock and roll,
your backup band. Yeah, you're going to want to be careful when you are heading out of town.
Yeah. In love and life, please. Watch where you dump your excrement.
Please, your extra excrement smells extra bad to other people. Treat your friends and family
like you would a boat full of tourists below Dave Matthews and like cover them with your love
and a tarp of love. Actually, be the better bus driver that's like, I'm going to wait until we
get out by the the fields and grasslands. No, we're near Chicago. Like people are everywhere
downtown Chicago. I didn't know they must have just pulled out of their hotel.
Oh, they just they had just rocked out the night before. Best show. Everyone's high fiving,
high fiving each other. All three bass players are like, we did it guys. Dave Matthews like boop,
boop, boop, boop doing his terrible scatting. Scatting is right. I mean, this is we're right
now covering material that every decent morning radio show went into deeply 17 years ago when
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Are they born to kill or are they made to kill? I'm Candace DeLong and on my new podcast
Killer Psyche Daily, I share a quick 10-minute rundown every weekday on the motivations and
behaviors of the criminal masterminds, psychopaths and cold-blooded killers you hear about in the
news. I have decades of experience as a psychiatric nurse, FBI agent and criminal profiler. On
Killer Psyche Daily, I'll give you insight into cases like Ryan Grantham and the newly arrested
Stockton serial killer. I'll also bring on expert guests to dive deeper into the details,
share what it's like to work with a behavioral assessment unit at Quantico, answer some killer
trivia and even host virtual Q&As where I'll answer your burning questions. Hey, Prime members,
listen to the Amazon Music Exclusive podcast, Killer Psyche Daily, in the Amazon Music app.
Download the app today. Hey, um, am I first this week or are you first? I'm first.
Oh, first and only. And middle. All right, well, okay, so here's my story, my solo story.
I love it. Let's hear it. I know, right? Yeah. But I'm here for you to ask questions,
give me the old signal if you don't want me to ask the questions. Ask the questions. I just don't
know all the answers. Okay, great. Okay, I do have a question because I didn't know this until
very recently. Did you know that Michael Jordan's father was killed? Yes. Well, I'm going to cover
that murder. Okay. Oh my God. Amazing. Great. What were you just going to say? I was going to say,
if you ask me a question and you frame it, did you know? Okay. I always have to say that. I'm
sorry. I was damaged terribly as a child. Damaged terribly. It's going to be like pulling teeth for
me to be like, I didn't know. Okay. There's no like, there's no world where it's okay for you not to
know a thing or like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Make fun of you and like, come after you.
I mean, after the fact, when I've already been wrong and, and it's being discussed,
that's fine because I won't be there for sure. But in the face to face you and me,
you might, what you should say is, I know an interesting thing. I found out an interesting
thing. I didn't know. And that's okay. Cause it's okay not to know everything. It is. Yeah.
I'd in fourth grade, I got made fun of for not knowing what the word horror meant. And looking
back, I'm like, that's probably good that I didn't know. Yeah. Fucking kind, but I mean,
at the same time, it was humiliating. Well, what is it? I mean, when you're in fourth grade,
that's that kind of thing where every day when you are in like grammar school and especially into
junior high, you get up and go to school. The rules have changed overnight. You don't know what
you're supposed to know. All you know is you're already behind. Totally. You don't have the right,
you don't own the right things. No, this fucking hyper color shirt was baller a week ago. And now
I'm now, now you can just see where I'm sweating because I hit puberty. What? Now it's just tragic.
Wait, I have to, that just reminded me. I was telling my sister a story about things that
happened today. And at one point my sister goes, Oh my God, Jesus Christ. What are they a seventh
grade girl? And then my niece goes, Hey, that's offensive to me. Seventh grade girl here.
Representing. I would never act like that. They're more woke than we are. They know.
Yeah. Okay. So actually you mentioning this to get back on your topic. Let's talk about this.
Sorry. I cannot wait to watch the ESPN 3430, not 30 by 30, which I called it was.
That's a home improvement show. Yeah. 30 by 30. I thought it was all about beams, posts and beams.
So yeah, that's, there's, and there's also the last dance, which is the documentary on ESPN. And
it's 10 episodes. And it's all about Michael Jordan's life. Okay. Which Vince watched and
loved. And I kind of checked in and out as I do and did with Rambo. But then honestly, I didn't
know about James Jordan, his father being murdered until I watched this. And then of course Vince
knew everything about it. And I was like, why didn't he told me? And it was, it was ugly. Okay.
So then I looked into it and it's like a whole conspiracy mystery thing. Oh,
shit. Please tell me all about it. Because when everyone was talking about the last dance,
I assumed it was 30 for 30, but it's the last dance, whatever. But I was like,
I'm going to watch that because every sports documentaries, even though I'm not the biggest
sports fan, neither, they, when they know how to tell a story and they, they tell, they basically
save it for the good ones. The good ones are unbelievable. And this is that. And it takes
you back to that early nineties time and place, you know, space jammy fucking cool shit. And I
think because I didn't care about sports so much, I tuned it out immediately. I didn't know about
this whole story about Michael Jordan's dad. So I looked into it for this podcast that we great
little podcast. This one, this one, this one now, mostly. So I got information from the website,
all that's interesting. There's an article by Marco Margaritoff. There's a Washington Post
article by Kyle Swenson. There's a great article on Deadspin. That's just an old GQ article from
1994 by Scott Rab. There's an Insighted Edition article by Sal Bono, a Chicago Tribune article
by Dan Widerer. And then there's also a NBA like YouTube channel hosted by this guy named Mike
Corzamba, who does like conspiracy theories and like little 10 minute stories about the NBA.
It's really cool. Wow. And he had a whole episode about this. So all right, let's get into it. Okay.
So James Jordan is born in the tiny town of Wallace, North Carolina in 1936. At the age of 18,
he joins the Air Force. And in 1956, he marries his high school sweetheart Dolores.
They have three children. They moved to Brooklyn in 1963. So James can receive training as a
mechanic on the GI Bill. He studies airplane hydraulics and Dolores finds work at a bank.
And while they're there, on February 17, 1963, they have their fourth child, Michael Jordan.
Wow. You've heard of him. Pretty soon. You may know. Yeah. Wait, can I just say really quick?
Yeah. The mind bogglingly humongous donation that Michael Jordan made like in week two of the protests
to Black Lives Matter. How much was it? Steven, I think it was like $100 million. That's amazing.
He's really big on charity. And that's kind of his mother's work. His dad was like, so James
Jordan, his dad was super supportive. And behind him the whole way, advising him on sports. And
his mom was like, okay, but you can't become a big headed asshole. And she would organize all his
chair because he was really big into charity and, you know, children's charities. And that's
his mom Dolores. It's pretty, it's a pretty beauty. He had really supported wonderful parents.
Karen, you were correct. It was $100 million. Wow. Thank you. Yeah. Isn't that crazy?
Amazing. Humongous. Yeah. So the family eventually moves back to North Carolina so the kids can
be raised in a safer environment. And then Michael decides in high school that he wants to play
basketball, which James supports him even though James prefers the game of baseball, which he
actually had played semi-professionally himself, but he was like, basketball, let's do this.
In the early nineties, Michael Jordan is an enormous basketball star and store kind of.
There was a couple stores. Yeah. And he becomes a household name. He wins championship after
championship, three NBA championships, three NBA MVP wins and two Olympic gold medals. And he is a
fucking global icon. Whether or not you're into sports, I remember this so well. I mean, he was
just, he was a huge, he was a star. So Michael describes his father who he calls Pops, which is
my favorite nickname for a dad or grandfather character. It's just... I call my dad Pops.
Yay. My brother-in-law and my, so my nephew, they call their, the grandparents Honey and Pops.
And I just, and her name's not Honey. She just goes by Honey and Pops. And they're the sweetest
fucking people on the planet. That's so cute. Yeah. So he calls him, he calls his dad Pops.
He's his best friend. He's his number one cheerleader. He, like from high school to Michael's
NCAA career at the University of North Carolina to his professional career with the Chicago
Bulls starting in 1984, James Jordan is there every step of the way, flying from city to city
with his son to support his career. So a really important figure in Michael Jordan's life,
which takes us to July 22, 1993. So James Jordan is in Wilmington, North Carolina. He's attending
the funeral of an ex-colleague. And after the funeral, he visits with friends late into the
night. I think kind of like when you do after a funeral, everyone's kibbutzing and such.
Yeah. And then so he hits the road sometime after midnight for the three and a half hour drive back
to Charlotte, which is a long drive after midnight. You know, he's expected to catch a plane to Chicago
the next day to meet up with Michael. And an hour into the drive, he gets tired. So he pulls over
to take a nap in his, it's his prized, he's in his prized Cherry red 1992 Lexus SC 400. I know about
as much about cars as I know about sports. So I don't fucking know what that means. So he pulls
off the road to take a nap. He's just south of Lumberton, North Carolina, which is a city in
Robeson County, about 30 minutes outside of Fayetteville. So we're talking a lot of little
rural areas, right? Yeah. Like long stretches of road, that sort of thing. It's disputed whether
or not he just pulled off the road or if he was in the parking lot of equality in, but either way,
it wasn't a really great place to stop. They were like both known like drug dealing areas.
Okay. You know what I mean? I do. Do you know what I mean about drug? I do personally. Dealing
and areas. Karen's face used to be a drug dealing area. Listen, I spent some time out in front
of the quality and not in that area, but of my own personal quality and side. So 11 days later,
cut to a local fisherman hunting for catfish spots a man face down in gum swamp, which is a creek
near South Carolina's northern border. The body is tangled on a branch and is fully dressed,
but missing its shoes. Authorities from the nearby town of McCall, which is another timing
town, can't find any identification on the badly decomposed body. So they classify him as a John
Doe and an autopsy determines that the cause of death is a single shot gunshot to the right side
of the victim's chest with a 38 caliber bullet. I know. And because it's such a small rural community,
there's a lack of storage at the morgue. So when the body isn't claimed or identified for
a while, it's cremated. Oh, no. But thankfully, the coroner who by the way, he's a part time
coroner and how small the town is. And he also owns a construction company in town. So like,
that's what we're fucking, that's the kind of size we're talking about here. Volunteer coroner
pretty much town size town. Okay. He notices that the John Doe has expensive dental work.
And so he's like, let's just save this. So he removes the jaw from before they cremate.
Thank God. Remains as well as the hands just in case they're able to identify them in the future.
Crazy, right? Yes. So meanwhile, when James Jordan doesn't arrive as expected in Chicago
the following day, his friends and family actually aren't worried because he's known for
changing plans without notice. And but when he doesn't check in with his secretary after a long
period, she calls Michael Jordan as well as Michael Jordan's mom to let him know she hasn't
heard from him. It's 21 days before family members officially report Jordan missing,
which is a long time. And I think it adds a little bit of like a suspicion to what happened.
But it seems like it was kind of like everyone was doing their own thing. And it seemed like it
was a normal thing in the family. So on the 22nd day that he'd been missing, his body is identified
with the dental records from the jaw bones the coroner kept as James Jordan. Wow. Yeah. And
police also find his prize Lexus, it's been abandoned and stripped in the woods near Fayetteville,
which is about 60 miles from where his body had been found. So when news of his death breaks,
though, the media goes fucking apeshits. Do you remember any of this? Yes. Okay. I don't.
And there's and there's all kinds of speculation based on the fact that so I there's another thing
I wasn't really like keen on is that Michael Jordan was super into gambling. I had no idea.
So Michael Jordan would gamble on anything from like ping pong games to golf games to like, is
my bag going to come out first while we're at the airport waiting for it? Like he was super into
like gambling and stakes. And you know, I bet you at this, I bet you that, right? Yes. Sorry,
I just got really sad because it makes me think of all those times that we would be waiting for
our bag. Oh, Karen, all those times on the road. Why haven't we been betting 10 bucks on them this
whole time? Seriously, Georgia and I had a running like argument about like, will our bags come out
first? Because we paid for first class this time. And sometimes they wouldn't. Sometimes they wouldn't.
I would say it was like 50 50. But every time we get up there was like, we were both kind of like,
what's it going to be this time? That whole time we could have been having fun and betting. And
now we don't get to do it anymore. COVID ruined all of it. We are going to have in 20 years on
our on our first when this is over on our first tour back, you mean events, we're going to have
the most fun. It's going to be fucking ridiculous. We're gonna, I think that's when we go on our
Dave Matthews bus tour and just dump shit across this nation, whether it be on stages, in a show,
verbally, literally, whatever it takes. Okay, sorry. No, amazing. So he would he would bet on
anything. Yes, you bet on anything. But he also was into like Atlantic City and Vegas and shit,
like high roller style. You have to think about the fact too. Michael Jordan is, you know,
the biggest basketball star consistent wins huge paychecks or whatever his, his,
what is that the, you know, his excitement. Oh, he was always trying to peak that excitement.
Yeah, the problem with with people that get into that position, where then then you win the great
the golden championship, I don't know what it's called, you win the championship, the golden
championship, the golden championship, and you're the golden boy of the golden championship. Yeah.
And like, of course, then you're suddenly you're just like $10,000 that my bag comes out next
totally need the hit you need the adrenaline and you probably go from like, I don't know what
their financial situation was, but like, let's say they have a normal, you know, middle class
situation and suddenly you have, they're throwing Nike is throwing you millions of dollars to make
your own shoes. And you don't ever have time off because you're practicing all the time. So yeah,
of course, like with your fucking best friend, Scotty Pippin, I don't know if that's a thing,
you're fucking betting, you know, all the time because there's nothing else to do probably. So
it becomes this compulsion, I would imagine. And it's a, and it's about winning and it's about
power, but it is like, it's also about you get to a point where you're in those people get to
that point of success where they don't even see the rest of the of the casino because they're
always behind the velvet curtain. Exactly. Where the food spread, where there's gambling and a food
spread. No one else has ever seen before. That's right. Yeah. All right. Sounds great, actually.
Yeah, we'll get there. We'll get there. Except it becomes a problem though. And in fact, the summer
that James Jordan is killed, the NBA had just announced a huge investigation into Michael
Jordan's gambling problem. Oh, yeah. The investigation sent around the fact that Michael
had given a large amount of money to a known drug mule, then like gambling crony, who had worked
for what was a dude who was known as a drug kingpin. And he, and it was for gambling debt.
And there's proof that he was in business with all kinds of shady characters who he owed lots of
money in gambling losses too. So that's not the not fun part is that you actually rack up losses.
Yeah. Because you do, you know, when it's out of your control, it's just the luck of the draw
that you lose. Luck of the draw, but fucking the chips are stacked against you. Yeah. Look at me.
Terminology and shit. So it's theory. So the media goes crazy. It's theorized that the killing
isn't a random act of violence because it is a fucking crazy coincidence, right? And instead,
the media implies that the murder happened because of Michael's gambling debts. And maybe they killed
his father to send him a message. And actually to this day, it's still a huge conspiracy theory.
And there are people who will see who totally stand by this theory, like maybe the mob did it,
maybe the NBA was like sick of his shit. And they were making him look bad. They were making them
look bad, or they were gonna, they thought they were going to come after them and their families.
So that's like a theory. I don't believe it, but no, it's not, it's not true. So I'm just gonna
say it. At the time of his father's murder, Jordan issues a statement saying he was outraged. And
that quote, I'm trying to deal with the overwhelming feelings of loss and grief in a way that would
make my dad proud. I simply cannot comprehend how others could intentionally pour salt in my open
wound by insinuating that faults and mistakes in my life are in some way connected to my father's
death, which is like, you're not just, yeah, you're not just dealing with your father's
unexpected brutal murder, right? It's also people saying it's your fucking fault.
Yeah. So Michael and his family have James's ashes interred at a small cemetery near a church in
Teechee, North Carolina during a private ceremony. And 52 days later, Michael, now 30,
with his, without his biggest supporter shocks everyone by announcing his retirement from the
NBA. And he says, quote, the most positive thing I can take from my father not being here with me
today is that he saw my last basketball game. And that means a lot. So he retired because he
didn't want to play another game. And, you know, obviously he said that. I just read it. Yeah.
He's heartbroken. And there's this crazy heart wrenching video that I think is in the last dance
after he wins a big game on the first father's day without his dad. He goes back to the locker
room and just lays down on the floor and he's sobbing. And there are all these cameras around
him and they like kind of no one knows what to do. It's really sad. But no one, no one knows what
to do, but they certainly don't stop rolling those cameras out of decency, right? That's exactly right.
So meanwhile, the investigation has to go on, right? So investigators led by Robeson County
Sheriff Hubert Stone, they're able to trace, so they get the car, they trace 36 calls made
from the Lexus's car phone to friends and family of two local teens. So Daniel Green and Larry
Demery. So they're 18 years old. They had become friends when they met in third grade. They're
really close. They had both been outcasts and Daniel is black. Larry is a Native American from
the local Lumbee tribe. They're both just kind of outcasts and their families and they find
each other in third grade and become inseparable almost like they see each other like brothers.
The now 18 year olds both have criminal records. So it seems like an open and shut case,
these two kids. Police charge them with murder on the first degree, conspiracy to commit armed
robbery and armed robbery. Sorry, because they made calls from that stolen Lexus. And that's the
connection because they're known criminals in town, in the small town. And because all the 36
calls that are traced through those, they are all two friends and family of those two boys.
Yes, but stealing a car is not the same thing as killing a person.
If you're questioning the investigation into the stolen car sounding weird,
you're exactly right. Thank you. Thank you for supporting me.
So Demery quickly turns on his friend, Daniel Green, when police tell him that Green had already
read it about, you know, that lie of like, well, he told us what happened and said it was your
fault. What are you going to do? Yeah, Demery agrees to a plea deal and a lighter sentence when
the DA points out the evidence they have against him for the murder. And as well as three other
armed robberies, he'd been a part of that same summer, one of which he had smashed an elderly
woman over the head with a brick. Oh, no. So it's not looking good. No. Demery pleads guilty to charges
related to the murder and agrees to testify against his lifelong friend Green. Demery's story is that
he and Green originally planned to rob a tourist at the Quality Inn, but then they saw this, you
know, this red Lexus parked along the shoulder of the road nearby with the driver asleep and they
were like, easy target. They said that they planned to tie him up and leave him alongside the road
and just take the car. But Demery claims that Green, that his friend Green shot the driver in
the chest when he started waking up saying it's all his fault, you know, and then they took
a look at the victim's driver's license, realized who he is and then decided they have to get rid
of him. So they dumped the body over a bridge near the swamp and abandoned the car in the forest
40 miles away. And that's his story. And since Daniel Green doesn't give a statement at all,
that's, and he doesn't testify, that's kind of the official version of what happens. And that
goes on the record. So the case against Green mounts. Okay. So a rap video, like a homemade
rap video comes out that was filmed days after Jordan's death in it. Green is wearing the NBA
championship watch and 1986 all star ring that Jordan was given by his son, which had both
been taken from the Lexus. So like, they're clearly involved. They were both there. I feel
like there's no way to dispute that. Um, yeah. And also you can't, if you, you're wearing the jewelry
of the person, then my whole theory of, Hey, you can steal a car, but not kill the person.
Like those could have been two separate things, but right. Yeah, right. That doesn't look good.
Yeah, it doesn't. It's, yeah. So when Green's murder trial starts in January of 1996,
the state's case rests mostly on Demery's testimony against his friend, but it's supported by
supposed blood evidence. The prosecution maintains that Jordan was shot through the heart at close
range while sitting in the driver's seat of his Lexus. But the coroner's report shows there's
no exit wound. Like it didn't come out. You know, it didn't just go in and stay,
which I think is what happens when a gunshot is, um, is shot close up. But it's, so it suggests
that the, um, the gunshot was actually shot from farther away. Does that make sense? Because there
was an exit wound? Because there wasn't an exit wound. Because there wasn't an exit wound. Exactly.
And there's also no blood or gunshot residue found inside the car. But the state presents expert
testimony from a woman named Jennifer Elwell. She's a special agent at the state bureau of
investigation to support that Demery's story against his friend. And she testifies that
two chemical tests suggested, quote, a pretty good indication of blood in the car. So it's like,
we don't know, is there, isn't there blood in the car? How close up or far away was he shot?
It's weird. Huh. Well, very weird, too. You would think that there would be more than a
pretty good indication of blood at a gunshot scene. There should be if you're bringing it up as a
large part of the evidence against someone, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Um, but it's 1996, you know,
shits fucked up. Green is convicted and sentenced to life and Demery is only given 40 years because
of his cooperation and the case is officially closed. But now a days, 25 years later,
Green is trying to get a new trial in the North Carolina justice system and key elements of the
case are coming to light. So first is the mystery of the shirt that James Jordan was wearing when
he was shot. The autopsy concludes that Jordan is shot once on the right side of the chest, but
the pathologist notes that there are no holes in the shirt that he's wearing. Whoa. And there's no
sign of gunshot residue either. Okay. Ready for this? After the autopsy, the police gave the shirt
to a company that performs funeral services and then they buried the shirt because they claimed
it had an overpowering stench, which like, I don't care who is responsible for what. That's the
fucking weirdest explanation I've ever heard of something like this. I mean, I guess because
I guess because the body was decomposed and in a swamp or whatever, but still like,
shouldn't you keep the shirt for evidence? Yes. Yeah. Right. So they bury it, which I think is
weird too. Yep. And the shirt is later dug up at that facility and it has a hole in the chest
where it didn't before. Okay. Yeah. So Green's attorney theorized that the state was at least
careless with the evidence or maybe even tampered with shirt and added a hole that wasn't there
to begin with. And then there may be, there's a reason. And then this is where it might,
does it go all the way to the top question mark? So remember all those phone calls made from
Alexis? There were 36 total. Well, the police figured out that the first call went to a sex
hotline because the kids were fucking 18 years old. Of course it did. Yeah. Idiots. Okay. Yeah.
The second call is made to a 919 area code in Hamburg, North Carolina, seven hours after the
murder. And it's registered to a man named Huber Larry Dees. And the call lasts less than a minute.
But this dude, Larry Dees, is a coworker of Demri. He is also a high level drug trafficker who ends
up being arrested in February of 1994, less than a year after the murder, and is linked to a Colombian
cocaine pipeline that had connections in New York and North Carolina. So it's a second phone call
they made off of this stolen car's car phone. Okay. So this guy Dees, most importantly though,
is the biological son of none other than Hubert Stone, who I mentioned before, who happens to
be the Robeson County Sheriff. What? Yeah. Does that make sense? They called the Sheriff's Son?
Yeah. Yep. Uh-huh. Who is a drug trafficker and drug dealer? And in a lot in the same ways where
the, um, like the preacher's son would be kind of a rebel. Right. You know, like he might be the
only man who could ever teach you. Really ever reach me, the son of a preacher man. That's right.
Okay. So, okay. Their first call is to their drug dealer friend who's down to share. No, no.
First call is to a sex hotline. Oh, sorry. They had to get on. That's where I said idiots because
they're, so what? Together in a car, they're making a phone call so that someone's like,
hey, what are you guys doing? Like they're going to have dual phone sex with the one person.
Right. And then it's like, charge it to the phone like, so yeah, when I was in junior high and I
got in trouble for something, probably, I think it was drugs, they put me in a room to be like,
wait, you're, we're going to call your mother wait here. And like, I didn't, and there was a phone
there and I was like, I'm going to make 900 calls and like, I'm the only number I knew from like
the back of a rolling stone was the grateful dead hotline. So I called it. What'd they say? I think
it was just some recording of like dead, like grateful dead music. What I'm saying is that's
such a fucking, what's the word when you're really young immature thing to do? Yes. It's just like
yeah, your brain is like, what do we call? Who do we call? Plus they probably never used a
fucking car. Like we didn't have car phones. That was like a rich people fucking thing.
94 car phone. That was a car phone. That was a very big deal. That was a very big deal. So like,
who do we call? And like the only number I know is the one that comes up at fucking 1am on the
TV every night. And I call it when it's like, do you want to party inside? Hey, hey, hey,
do you want to get double car sex with your friend? With your friend sitting next to you?
So horrible. It's horrible. So in addition to him being the biological son of the Robeson County
Sheriff, he's also no, he one of the lead detectives on the case is Mark Locklear. He's a friend of
this kid, the son, Deese, and sometimes let's Deese ride along in his patrol car with him.
Okay. All right. Here's the biggest problem is that Deese is the only person on that car phone
call log to never be questioned in connection with the case. They call 36 people. They question,
let's say 34 might end the sex line. They give it a call for her. She's like, hello,
I'll answer any questions you want. Right. But tonight, they lead out the number 36 person.
Ridiculous. Right. It doesn't. It's bad. That's bad. Yeah. That's, that's not good. No. And
Green's attorney finds that the prosecution knew of Deese's relationship to the Sheriff
and Lee detective and he doesn't disclose any of this to the defense at trial. So like that alone
is just a mistrial probably at that point. Don't you think? Yeah, I would think so. Yeah. So I think
that's what they're going for. Yeah. So Green's lawyer thinks that James Jordan, what they say
is that James Jordan was in the wrong place at the wrong time when a drug dealer drug deal was
about to go down and Demery, this kid Deese or another party shot him and they say that maybe
Deese's connection to local law enforcement helped him get out of trouble. But the kid,
this kid Deese himself doesn't comment on this angle, but his lawyer says that the
theory is completely unfounded and he claims that Green and Demery had only called him because
they kind of knew that he was a local drug dealer and he might be someone who would be
in the market to buy the car they had just stolen, which sounds totally feasible to me.
It's just so weird that he has these connections. So that makes sense. It's just such, you know,
it's the investigator's fault that they didn't look into this one name.
Well, and then why? Is it their fault or was it intentional? Yeah, because it's on them.
New diligence, right? I mean, call every person because also why wouldn't you,
it just doesn't seem very smart where it's like, if you say you were trying to cover for someone's
son as an incident, why wouldn't you just have the actual, do the investigation,
do the interrogation, go through the motions? Give them a fake alibi if you need to. Like,
I'm not telling you how to do your shitty job, but like, pretend that you're going through the
motions, right? But maybe in those, you know, what we've seen before in stories like this,
where in small towns, when there's such a lock on that, the law enforcement aspect of life,
and it's a lock, like no one messes with certain people, no one does certain things,
that maybe they're, they're never pulling back and saying, this is going to be a national,
if not international story, we better cross every team dot every I, they're just like,
a business as usual. So in the early 2000s, actually, the Robeson County Sheriff's Office is
like caught up in a federal corruption probe. So there are issues with the Sheriff's Department
aside from this, it's not a coincidence. The probe is called Operation Tarnished Badge,
which is really clever. 22 officers are charged with crimes, including perjury, drug trafficking,
and money laundering. So, but neither Locklear or Sheriff Stone are caught up in the federal
probe at all. And Stone dies in 2008. And D serves some time of a federal sentence, he's released
in 1998, he denies any involvement with the death at all. And there's really nothing to connect him
to him, except for that phone call, and the curious circumstances that he never got asked about it,
you know? Yes. And what's interesting is, they could have literally been like, we got this car,
which means we might have money soon. Let's see if we can get some pot, or something that is just,
it alludes to more, but actually is just kind of a standard fare, could be very standard.
Like a small town, small time drug traffickers, or drug dealers, so they can't have, you know,
maybe maybe $5,000 at a time of drugs to be sold. So they know that's going to have the kind of money
to buy this brand new Lexus, not a lot of people. So they think of the one guy they know who might
have an actual hookup, you know? And then if it's a hot car, they can actually... Right. And it's a
hot car and he's like, fuck you, no. Right. Which any smart crook would know to do. But see, yeah.
And they also, like the idea that they would make that video and wear that jewelry, which means that
at some point they knew who they killed. Oh, they absolutely knew. I think, yeah, it sounds like a
soon as they killed him. You think they knew that night? No, I don't think they knew, but I think.
Oh, okay. Whoever killed him didn't know. They found out immediately. But they didn't seem that
bummed. They made a fucking music video. They made a video. So it turned, you know,
meanwhile, both, both Demery and Green had been partners in at least two other armed robberies.
That's that same summer during one of which Green had stolen a.38 caliber gun from an elderly
county store clerk who he shot allegedly. The clerk survives. They found that stolen firearm in
a shot vac in Green's home after his arrest. They say it's the weapon that killed James Jordan,
but they can't prove it through ballistics. So they're like, this is, you know, this is obviously
what happened. It's not that complicated, but they're still fighting it. In Green's post-conviction
motion, his legal team argues that prosecutors didn't disclose at trial that multiple other
chemical tests performed by that woman Elwell on the leather taken from Jordan's front seat were
inconclusive and blood might not have been present. So there's all these blood issues.
And over the years, the state has agreed that there was little evidence to show
much or any blood inside Jordan's car. And Green's attorney says the absence of blood goes against
the official version of events which Demery, you know, had made and gives enough reasonable doubt
for Green's case. And also weird is that the blood evidence in the case was destroyed almost
immediately after the trial, which Elwell later admitted was out of the norm. And the head of
the lab said the evidence had been destroyed without his knowledge. Whoa, someone got in there.
Yeah. And an outside audit of the state crime lab in 2010 that just happened, you know, otherwise
found that analysts admitted overstated or falsely reported information about blood evidence
in 190 cases from 1987 to 2003 that ended in convictions. Whoa. That's what people need to
think about when they think about fucking, well, he's a convicted felon. It's like, you know,
that's this person's clearly guilty because there was blood evidence or this kind of evidence,
you know, we're talking about humans making doing these tests, other humans and humans are
fallible completely. Yep. So you just never know what you can count on. Yes, it's very true.
It's very true. Thank you.
We've been doing this show for four years. Four and a half. You know what? Four and a half.
It's almost like we're in an abusive relationship with true crime.
You look at the way true crime has been served up for a long time is like, here's the story,
here's the case, here's the the infallible source or the final word, here's how you can feel about
it. Period. It's important and it's a major change, but it's like, yeah, it's like that part in the
staircase, you know, one of our bonding pieces of media where they show that that guy that was the
blood splatter expert was making shit up. Making it up. Just making it up. There were things. I
truly like, until I saw that documentary, I was just like, I'm sorry. Like this is, this is,
there's no way to make up science. Like there's no way you can do that. And it's like, of course,
you can. Of course, you can miss handle things. Of course, you do, you know, you're the ones that
saying, well, here's how we're going to test it in my garage. And the same way you can't rely on
eyewitness testimony because humans have fallible brains, you know, that can't be the only evidence.
Exactly. Then it's like, then you have to make sure that you're, that all the sources are okay.
And yeah, I mean, it's, it's bewildering to think about. And it's scary. It's very scary.
Things have to change. Yes. The processes have to change. And, you know, and that's why people
get mad at us if we're like, people clap at the end of a live show because they're glad that a serial
killer died or went to jail. And it's just like, that used to be, I'd be like, what are you talking
about? And it's like, because there are those people who are in jail and they should not be.
Right. Okay. So these days, as of 2018, Green is making an appeal for a retrial,
and he claims that he wasn't even present during the shooting. So at this point, he's now telling
his side of the story. He says he's guilty of accessory to murder after the fact at the most.
Green's official version of the events on that night of July 23rd, 1993, is that he and Demary
were at a cookout at a friend's house around 130. Demary left the party on his own and Green stayed
behind. And then Demary returned to grab his friend and he was visibly upset. He asked Green to come
along with him and they left the party together at 430 a.m. And Larry says that the reason he had
left earlier was for a drug deal instead of gotten in a confrontation with a man in a red lexus.
And he had fatally shot him and he asked his best friend, Daniel Green, to help him dispose of the
body. Green says he agrees to do it and they take his possessions, realize who he is, but he does
help him dispose of the body. So that's what he's admitting to at this point. But he says he
wasn't there for the murder and he didn't pull the trigger himself. If Green was only convicted
of what he's admitting to, which is accessory after the fact, he would have received a maximum
sentence of 10 years under the North Carolina law, but instead he continues serving his life
sentence in a medium security prison more than 25 years later. And so what's actually interesting
is that Demary's story between his original confession when he was told that his friend was
turning against him, interviews with authorities and his testimony against Green, his story has
changed several times over the year, whereas Green's has stayed the same. But after his request
for a new hearing is denied and Demary declines to comment on his new claims, nothing moves forward
and Green will be eligible for parole on October 14th, 2021. His lead attorney is Christine Mooma
and she's the executive director of the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence. So total
badass, a nonprofit that focuses on wrongful conviction and whose efforts have led to criminal
justice reform, she says that they'll continue to appeal Green's case. And you know, they're now in
their late forties and Demary is also being considered for parole, even though he was denied
twice once in August 2013 and once in 2016. And according to a spokesperson, there's a review
going on of his case as of 2019. And there's no deadline to make a decision. So it's kind of just
sitting there up there. Wow. So after retiring from basketball, Michael Jordan pursues a career
in baseball to honor his father and joins the Chicago White Sox, which I never knew was why he
retired from basketball and became, remember he became a baseball person. I never knew that was
the reason either. I didn't know the timeline of that at all. Neither. After one season, he returns
to the NBA. He won three more championships with the Chicago Bulls before leaving the team in 1998,
retires for a second time, joins the Washington Wizards in 2001 and plays for them until 2003.
He's considered one of the greatest basketball players of all time, and he's inducted into the
NBA Hall of Fame in 2009. But the death of his father still leaves unanswered questions for many
people. And the conspiracy theory that James Jordan was killed because of his son's gambling deaths
is still like hotly debated. And the fact that the actual story has a lot of holes and doesn't
quite add up just kind of helps with the rumors. And I feel like there's also this thing where it's
like the simplicity of two 18 year olds out for a, you know, a joy ride and trying to rip off a
tourist and murdering one of the greatest basketball legends of our time, his father and greatest
supporter. It's just, it's so tragic. I feel like a lot of people just don't want that to be the
truth. You know what I mean? Yeah. That tragedy can be that random. Right. I don't know. That's
fascinating. Yeah. James Jordan died nine days before his 57th birthday. Oh, it's so young. I know.
And about him, he has just this kind face when you see him in photos with his son when they're
celebrating. It's just like the pride you can just see in his face. About his father, Michael Jordan
once said, quote, he's a voice of reason that always drove and challenged me. My father used to
say that it's never too late to do anything you wanted to do. And he said, you never know what
you can accomplish until you try. And that is the murder of James Jordan. Wow. That's fascinating.
No idea. I can't believe it. Yeah. It's just bewildering. Yeah. Yeah. And tragic. It's crazy.
And tragic. And then him and Michael Jordan being already in the spotlight. It is so sad.
It's yeah, the idea that Michael Jordan was put through that tragedy, like in the spotlight.
Yes. And then blamed. That's disgusting. It's like you're blamed for it. Totally.
That's horrifying. Like look what you did when really it just I don't I don't believe any of
the conspiracies. I think it was just a fucking time and place and big coincidence. But I think
it was a simple, a simple robbery that turned. Yeah. You know, yeah, it would make sense. Yeah.
But then again, like there's still but who knows who shot him. That's the other thing is like,
we don't know who pulled the trigger. So there's still this mystery going on. It's just like,
right? It's just sad all around. Yeah. Great job. Thank you. Really good. Thanks. Oh,
we're coming up on the two hour mark. Yes. We're not so far away. You guys want a million hours.
We'll give it to you next week. Yeah, really? Should we do some some fucking hooray? Yeah.
Hey, you guys, we need you to send in more fucking hurrays, maybe just comments on Instagram or
Twitter or in the fan cult of your fucking hurrays or email them to us at my favorite murder. And I
guess they could just be things that have made you happy this week or wins that you're feeling or,
you know, shout out to you want to give just something good at the end of these horrible
fucking stories that we have. Yeah. So please send those in. And then if you sent them in and we
haven't seen them and or haven't talked about them, send them in again because we probably didn't see
them. This I love this one because the subject line is this is a fucking hurray, but I don't
know where else to submit. So here I am lost amongst the hometown page. So this must be from
the fan. It's a fan. Yeah, that works. Hello to all the beautiful souls of MFM both with and
without pause. I have only discovered this podcast very fairly recently, but I've been
in shawl episodes and I'm completely caught up. Yay. Thank God I found you guys truly feel like
I know you and that you both get me so much. It's beautiful. Anyways, my fucking hurray is not only
that my fiance and I both survived the Corona virus. Wow. Amazing. But that we're both also
celebrating 18 months sober and have truly gotten our lives back on track. Shit. Oh my God. That's
incredible. Okay. Not only as a unit, but as individuals as well. We have both struggled
with drug addiction for the majority of our lives and have been so extremely blessed to come out
alive and on the other side. I know it's not all going to be a piece of cake from here on out,
but I say we've already been through hell and high water so we can make it through anything,
including both testing positive for Corona. Oh my God. God bless it. It's real people wear your
damn mask. Crazy times. We are crazy times we're living in and I couldn't be more thankful to
have my recovery family, my amazingly wonderful man, and as my fiance knows y'all, my murder girls
love and light Eden see fuck. Congratulations. Eden see about six different fronts. Oh my God.
That's such lovely news all around. I'm so glad. Yeah. So glad that you came through Corona virus
and are okay. Congratulations. You're like the rest of your life is going to be fucking awesome
now. You've done it. Yeah. I mean you've really, you've really done it. You've done it and you're
doing it and you're going to continue to do it. 18 months of sobriety is so much. So much. That's,
let's not be weird new parents about it. Let's call 18 months a year and fucking six months.
But what chip is that? 90. Let's see. It's a big old, do they do it by days? Yeah. So 90 days and
then I'll set that two years. I don't know. Let's see. It's two chips minus a 20 day chip.
What if they just did you like a 90 chip? They make you change in chips. Congratulations.
Congratulations. The best. Yeah. And there's such a huge community online and just in murdering us
alone on Facebook and Instagram of people working towards sobriety. It's great. You can find them.
So much support. So many people that you know have found each other. It's really lovely. So cool.
Congratulations. Yeah. Okay. This is just goes a fucking hooray. My fucking hooray for this week.
I had to share with you. I work as a nursing assistant while going to nursing school. I take
care of women who have gynecological cancers. This weekend while being overloaded with too many
patients and not enough time, I was stressed and constantly running around. One of my 14 patients
asked for help in her room. And I go in to help her to the bathroom and get her comfy back in
bed. And while in her room, she told me she had recently had a stroke in May. And I told her for
someone who had a stroke, she was doing amazing with her speech and walking. And she said she had
one more goal she needed to achieve. And with her childlike sweetness, I'm assuming an intellectual
delay from her stroke, she said, quote, I need to keep working on my physical therapy with my middle
finger. I thought, okay, odd goal, but it's a goal. I said your middle finger. And she replied,
yes, I miss being able to flip the bird at people. I don't think I had smiled so hard and so long.
Then she said, quote, I usually just practice when the president's ads come on TV, I try and flip
the bird. I literally laughed out loud. And that sweet little goal of hers changed my entire
perspective for the rest of my crazy day. Thank you guys for keeping me sane during such crazy
times. I hope you all stay safe and healthy. Remember, stay sexy, don't hang out with murderers
at your kid's sporting events and wear a fucking mask in public, Lauren. Yeah. Nice. Nice, Lauren.
Good one, Lauren. You're doing God's work. Yeah, for real. Well, here's more of that.
Hi, friends. My fucking hooray is that I started a fucking hooray at work. I'm a social worker in
Philadelphia working at a methadone clinic. As you can imagine, our work is filled with stress,
anger, fear and heartbreak. And as a black social worker, the pain has been doubled. We didn't want
to keep ending our weekly meetings on a low note. So I suggested we start a fucking hooray. The first
one shared was from my coworker who just got engaged to his partner of eight years. Oh,
that's beautiful. Thank you for continuing to do the work of destigmatizing mental health
and for your work towards equality. Stay sexy and be nice to your therapists in parentheses.
We're struggling to Britney. Wow. Yeah. Isn't that awesome? I love that. Oh, my God. So good.
I'll have one more. Okay. Hello, bold women, which I love. I've never thought of myself as a bold.
That's awesome. I have been embracing your fucking hooray messages lately, and I'm so happy to be
able to share one. I was diagnosed with breast cancer in August 2019, had a mastectomy in November,
chemotherapy from January through April, followed by radiation therapy. Holy shit.
I had my last treatment this Wednesday, fucking hooray indeed. The biggest hooray is that I have
my amazing husband and daughter. Hi, Emma. She's a listener who have done everything in their power
to make all this nonsense bearable. I honestly couldn't have done it without them. So fucking
hooray for my beautiful little family. Peace, Anne. Wow. I love this. This is like a medical fucking
hooray session. I know. It's like a yearbook of medical people. Roaring back. Yeah. I love it,
sobriety and health and healing and sassiness. Yeah. And focusing on the good, some gratitude.
Yeah. Love it. Do you have a fucking hooray for this week? Just so my sister and I have started
doing, no, wait, that's not it. You know what it is? Fucking crying. It is weird and good and also
not, I don't love it. It's terrible, but I know it's important and it's bringing up, you know,
old reminders of crying. That's not it either. It can be crying. Yeah. That's good. I did a like,
um, shower sob. Did you slide down the wall and then hold your face? We have a bench seat.
So I sat on the little bench and then, yeah, I held my face and it was like,
it was a kind of a thing. Yeah. Yeah. It felt good. It felt good. And then I cut all my hair off and
okay, my fucking hooray is that I, my first quarantine self haircut
isn't terrible. It looks great. Thank you. To be honest, I just thought you trimmed your bangs. I
didn't think there was any difference. It's just another bob. It's not, it's actually not the worst
haircut I've ever had, which is saying a lot. So yeah. Oh, that's good. I love it. All this
things and more. What's yours? Well, because I just was going to say, you know, for a long time,
my, I would try to very quickly talk through myself crying in therapy where I didn't want to cry. So
I'd be like, well, it's good. And I thought if I could just talk, it would, she would kind of
ignore the fact that I was crying and she would always make me stop and cry separately. So you
don't want to wait. You have 50 minutes. You don't want to waste any of it crying. Yes. And I have
like seven good stories. It's like, you need to hear this lady. And she was like, hold, breathe.
I'm holding it with you. It's infuriating. And it made me, I can only, I mean, it's been so long
and I can only now just, I have to stop myself and be like, mm-hmm. I know you're not going to let
me power through this. But it really is, because I think part of when I was younger, when I would
start crying, I would think, well, this is just how it's going to be from now on. You know what I
mean? Like I've been overtaken by this feeling. And now I'm powerless to it. And that would,
that idea would make me crazy. And anyway, I'm so, I'm such a fan now. Yeah. No, I am too. I'm
going to keep, keep going with it. It's bringing shit up. And that's important too.
I would say that mine, and this is very, almost like very specific to you and I and what we've
been going through lately. I'm really loving the power of not saying anything at all. We've had
a couple moments. Exactly what you're talking about. Lately that were very key and they were
important. And we, there was a lot of pressure on us to like respond and fill the air and make
other people feel better about things. And I would say it happened a handful of times over a
matter of days and we just sat there and it, there is something to not filling the air and not
letting other people off the hook and not letting people be comfortable when they're demanding you
do it in lots of different small ways and instead sitting in silence because it's a difficult thing
to do. And it really is a incredible power move sitting in silence without like filling the air
and not apologizing like stating your side and fact and truth without saying ever saying the
words I'm sorry or sorry or using that as I swear to you, it's a practice, it's a lifelong practice
but especially lately, it's almost like I feel inside, I feel taller. It's like, I have a super
power now where it's, I am so used to filling the silences to get other people off the hook
because I don't like awkward silences, but then no one does. And then you learn that when you just
be quiet and let other people talk, you learn a lot and it's important. And we've been going
through that and it's, it's been business stuff. And I think as women, yeah, we want to let people
off the hook a lot. And also just as a sidebar, just since it's on my mind in this moment, I would
just like to say this to both you and I and anybody who's ever in this position, but I think
especially women in business situations, people like to get you to talk about your feelings,
they like to refer to your feelings and they like to bring your feelings up so that later your
feelings are what the point is and not the facts of what you have a problem with. And so I would
just advise everyone to keep their eye on that, that when people start talking about, I know
you're upset, I know you feel this way, you have to be sure to get in and correct and say,
that's not what we're talking, whether I'm upset or stoked, this would still be happening.
We're not talking about my reaction to what's happening, we're talking about what's happening.
I'm upset because of a fact, my upsetness is not the fact.
It's not what's relevant here and we all have reactions to things and that's not,
we're talking about what the problems are. And that is something I got taught that a little
while ago, but it's come up lately. And it's really amazing how often that is in business,
in lots of things, in life, in relationships, everything can be a tactic. People want their
way, they want to feel right, they want to do whatever and you have to just always be your
own best lawyer and make sure that people don't allow people to frame arguments in a way that
then puts you in a certain light and suddenly we're all talking about what you're like because
that's not it. And I think it's a trick, it's a tactic maybe. And sometimes there's people who
just don't even know they're doing it, it's not an awareness. It's an inherent thing that we've
all, it's just the habit of, oh, the little lady's upset. Right, gal. So that's, yeah,
that's another, I just want to say it now. Well, I'm proud of us, I feel like we've,
we're getting the job done. We're badass motherfuckers and I'm proud of us.
And someday you'll be too. Someday. Cool. Thank you to Steven, Ray Morris. Ray Morris.
For always having our business ladybacks. Yes. And so much so. Thank you, Steven. And thank you
for all the work. Steven right now is a one man band of podcast engineer,
a some time podcast producer. He is wearing every hat in America. While he's at home in an
apartment, also raising a child at the moment. So there's so much. And Steven, you've been
killing it. And thank you so much. We could, I mean, I know we've said it a couple of times,
but we literally could not do the show. This network wouldn't exist as it is without you at
all. It's not at all. You're very dear to us. You're doing an amazing job and we really appreciate
it. Yeah, thank you. Raising a kid and a cat. Thank you guys. And we love you, Steven, on top
of all that. We do. Thank you guys for listening. As always, this is the fucking coolest job and life
and it's because of you guys. And we're so grateful for listening to us and connecting with us and
identifying. And we're so grateful that you like the idea of one story a week. Thank you for that
support, that unwavering and beautiful support. Our mental health could last another three years
on this podcast if, since you guys are letting us do so good of you, other than the one more year
with two stories. Our big once a year podcast episodes coming up. Thank you so much for supporting
it. No, we love you and thank you for even giving a shit one way or the other. That's what's
beautiful is people care enough to even care about it. That's right. So that's a gift. We
appreciate it. We're glad to do this show for you. Stay sexy and don't get murdered. Goodbye.
Bye. Elvis, do you want a cookie?