My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 278 - MFM Guest Host Picks #1: Steven Ray Morris

Episode Date: June 10, 2021

Throughout the months of June and July, Exactly Right family members will be guest hosting My Favorite Murder! Each week a guest host will pick their favorite stories from Karen and Georgia. Today's episode is hosted by Steven Ray Morris -- MFM audio engineer and host of The Purrrcast -- covering the stories of Selena (Episode 32) and The Lady of the Dunes (Episode 133).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. Hello and welcome to my favorite murder. Hey everyone, it's Steven, the audio engineer and editor of my favorite murder.

I am so excited and thrilled to kick off exactly right guest host picks. Just for a little context, throughout the months of June and July, you're going to hear from exactly right host and family members who are longtime listeners of my favorite murder, and they're going to pick their favorite story from Karen and their favorite story from Georgia. And this week, I'm going first. Woohoo. It's unbelievable.

I celebrated my fifth year anniversary working on the show. My first recordings were episodes 17 and many so to back in May of 2016, and it has been wild to see how much we've grown over the years to all the people and the whole network and everything. It's honestly just breathtaking almost, or it's just amazing to see how far we've come. And yeah, I'm excited to share my favorite murder stories by Karen and Georgia. All right. To kick things off, we're going to take it all the way back to 2016, episode 32, just

the 32 of us, it's Georgia's Telling of the Life and Murder of Selena, and this is not only my favorite murder, but it was a very special episode for me because Karen and Georgia were truly welcoming me into the show and into the family, and yeah, it was just really good to re-listen to this. And now enjoy Georgia's Telling of the Life and Murder of Selena. All right. My favorite murder this week is Selena Quintinilla Perez. No.

And the reason I'm doing it is that it is audio engineer Stevie Ray Moore, so the per cast favorite murder at Tribute. Yeah, no. You've been sending me shit. Yeah, I was like sending you texts, and I was like, oh my God, I'm watching, and then Aaron Brockovich did like a true crime. It's crazy. I watched it.

I watched it. Well, I grew up listening to Selena because I'm half my family, I'm half Mexican, and so that music was always playing, and I remember like even listening to the music, just feeling really sad for Selena. Were you little when she died so you didn't know yet? I mean, I knew it affected because I would still go over to my family's houses and stuff. She was huge. She was like Madonna times 20.

Well, I'll tell you all about it. Oh, oh. Did I say even Quintinilla? Quintinilla. Oh, I don't. I mean, I'm half Mexican, but I don't know how to speak Spanish. Okay, I wrote it down like I was very. You didn't know how to speak Spanish either.

I know. I know. Did you fuck it? Both of you shut up. Oops. Oh, Karen, your doorbell phone is ringing. Selena Quintinilla Perez was born on April 16, 1971 in Lake Jackson, Texas, and was called the Mexican American Madonna.

Oh, I must have known that. I've watched the movie with J.Lo. I haven't seen it. It's wonderful. Gosh, she's beautiful. They were both beautiful. And she was poised to become a crossover success when her death turned her into a legend. Selena's father discovered Selena's, quote, perfect timing and pitch and helped his kids

form a band. And she was like nine years old when they started performing. The band, once her parents lost their family restaurant, the band became the family's main source of income. And they were in poverty, and Selena's career just took them out of poverty because they were evicted from their home during the Texas oil bust of 1982, and they moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, which sounds very hot, doesn't it? Yeah.

It's super southern in Texas, like down in the Gulf, maybe. Right. That's a total guess. I know. I was like, right. Do I want it? Well, my cousin Cheryl lived in Corpus Christi when I was like in junior high. But why do I ever say anything?

Is that a big military town? I think it is. Yes. In fact, it has 25 that I have no fucking clue. Let's just talk about Corpus Christi for the rest of this. So then the family band began recording music professionally. And in 1984, when Selena was, I think, 13, the band released its first LP, Selena Los Dinos.

Fuck, I hope. I hope you don't get it. That's Selena and Fred Flintstone's dog, dinosaur, hate mail can be sent to Karen Kilgera. I'm just translating. Karen Kilgera's apartment or house at the address is. So yes, Steven, you are correct. Selena was a third generation Texan of Mexican descent, so she didn't grow up speaking Spanish.

So she didn't know any, but she learned all her songs phonetically. And when her popularity grew, she had to learn it. And she did it very quickly. Just like Rockset. Like what? The band Rockset. What were they German? Yeah.

Our Swedish or something. Oh, they had to learn English? Well, no, they just sang phonetically. They didn't know what they were saying. That's funny. That she had no clue what that song was about. But it's so powerful. But it sounds so pop.

The ignorance makes it powerful. That's what it is. Like, because that's what love does to you. Like, she's a stupid idiot. That's right. Okay. Groom popularity. In the year 1987, she won the Tanejo, Tejano Music Award.

I was watching videos to get this correctly, and I'm just screwing it all up. Tejano Music Award for Female Vocalist of the Year. And then she landed her first major record deal with Capitol Latin in 1989. So she performed several times at the Houston Astrodome to sold out crowds of more than 60,000 people. And after her death time, described her as the embodiment of young, smart, hip Mexican-American youth from a tight-knit family and a down-to-earth personality, a Madonna without the controversy. Essentially, she was a huge Mexican-American star in her community and was poised to become

a mainstream success. And that community was obsessed with her and proud of her and felt like she was one of their own. And she was a big fucking deal. And she seemed like a very sweet person. Everyone in her band was her family, except the guy, the guitarist they hired, who she ended up marrying. Like, they were, they seemed like good people.

It's like a Jackson 5 situation, like super-talented young kid. Yeah, but not creepy. And her dad was the manager. So they were very tight-knit. More like a partridge family. But like, there we go. But actually, a real band. Or like a Manson family.

Fuck. Cut that out. Don't cut that out. Not sorry. All right. Where am I? I'm in 1991, Yolanda Saldavar. So you see all these photos of her and videos of her.

She was, when she got arrested, she was 35 years old. What? That's quote, unquote, my age. Okay. So 1991, Yolanda Saldavar was around 30. And she was an in-home nurse for patients with terminal cancer and just a fan of Tejano music. Just a fucking random woman.

She had a history of stealing money from her employers, as well as trying to become intertwined with the lives of other performers. And she attended one of Selena's concerts and became a fucking psychotic fan. With the intent of starting Selena's fan club, she started obsessively calling Selena's father, leaving almost 15 messages until he gave her permission in June of 1991 to be the president of the fan club, which sounds like, okay, you know what? Take this, run with it to your thing, right? Yeah.

Right. Because you're harassing us. Yeah. So, I mean, that's, it's, it's the thing that they didn't know back then that people know nowadays, which is like, don't engage. Right. Yeah. 15 calls to anybody at any time is too many.

Yeah. I don't care if like, you have a flat tire and you're going triple late. But it's almost like, well, she's being consistent and she wants to run this thing and make us more money. And it's the thing that we haven't started and maybe it'll help her with her. Like this is what I'm thinking was there. You know what I mean? I'm just saying that's three calls.

Totally. In a day? Yeah. Totally. Also like, you don't need to have contact with her after that. Okay. So as president of the family club, she was responsible for membership benefits, collecting money and promoting Selena, all that kind of thing.

And she actually didn't meet Selena until December 91, but they became close friends and Yolanda became a trusted, trusted by her whole family. In 94, she became Selena's assistant and quit her job as a nurse. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. I did not know that. I thought she was just the fan club. No.

She became her assistant. She quit her job as a nurse, even though she was making more money as a nurse than she was doing this. Like she was just so obsessed and had posters all over her house and people come over. She would just make them watch Selena videos, talked about nothing else and was just like, kind of like crazy about Selena. Wow. Yeah.

I was kind of that way about kids in the hall for a little while, but it was a dark period of my life. Were you? Yeah. I went to college and I was just weirdly obsessed. It was when they were running them on Comedy Central and I just, it was the only thing that made me happy. Oh.

That laugh was the creepiest. That was, I've never heard that laugh before. I just realized, I mean, every, we all have the potential. Everybody likes a thing. Sure. Like crazy. And wants them like, has this feeling of like ownership and like, and like no one understands it the way I understand it.

It's almost made for me kind of a thing. Yes. But have you met them and told of that? See, my thing is that, and maybe it's just from working in TV. I really don't like celebrities. Like there's nothing more disappointing. And I think most people know it these days from reality TV and stuff. Celebrities are very disappointing in real life.

Except for us. I'm just kidding. I'm not telling us. Yeah. No, they're just, I mean, the most they'll be is slightly pleasant, but for the most part you will, you will have regretted trying to be like, Hey, can I get a picture? I'm a big fan of whatever. You're not going to get a picture.

And it's some obscure thing. And they're like, okay. They don't care. They don't care. It's super weird. It's like, you know, yeah, it ruins it almost. So yeah. Good luck everybody.

Good luck in life with your fucking cute little fantasies. All right, well then. So in 94, Selena starts opening fashion boutiques. She has two of them opening up. It's called Selena, et cetera. I didn't know that. Yeah. I didn't either.

It's a crazy style. It's very nineties and very like on point, like, you know, almost Madonna-y, but a little more hip. Right. It's cute. It's those cute. Well, from what I remember in the movie, there's like a lot of ruffles and a lot of like, you know, shimmery, velvety pants and stuff like that, hoop earrings and red lipstick and

all. Yeah, it's totally pretty fucking sweet. So, so she, she's opening these clothing, these fashion stores and asks Sal DeVar to become the manager of the boutiques. So Sal DeVar, because of doing this is authorized to write and cash checks, had access to the bank accounts associated with the fan club and the boutiques. And Selena gave her an American Express card for the purpose of conducting company business. So she put her stalker, she made her stalker the CEO of the company.

Doesn't know that she's the stalker though. Oh, right. Oh yeah. Selena has no idea that she's the stalker, she just thinks she's a good friend of hers. That's like willing to do all this hard work. Yeah. That's like, you know, Selena's in this bubble of becoming famous and touring and all these things.

And this person is becoming a trusted confidant and is a huge fan. And clearly is an intelligent woman if she's a nurse and a lot of other, yeah. Totally. Okay. Yeah. She's very manipulative and good at, you know, being manipulative. Yeah. 15 calls.

That's all I have to say. Yeah. 15 calls. It worked somehow. So within a year, Sal DeVar had mismanaged the boutiques and they were failing. And then upon investigation, the family finds out that Sal DeVar had embezzled more than, I saw 60,000, but I also saw $100,000. And forged checks from both the fan club and the boutiques.

But Selena refused to believe it. She was like, no way, that's my friend. Like even her father, who was a manager and her husband and brother were like, dude, they were like, dude, probably not like that. But eventually Selena kind of sees some shit going on and believes it and the family fires her, tells her not to come near Selena. But Selena still wanted to become friends. Stay friends.

She was like, you don't work for me anymore, but let's stay friends. So at this time, Sal DeVar purchases a snub nose 38 caliber revolver. And here's what I think is the fucked up thing is 38 caliber hollow point bullets. Then the bullets were designed to cause more extensive injuries than normal bullets, which like throws out, later we'll talk about it. So on March 31st in 1995, she convinces Selena to meet her alone in a days in motel room promising to restore, just return financial documents that she had stolen and telling Selena that she had to come alone and that she had, that Yolanda had been raped and needed

someone to talk to. Oh no. And this, she has to make up this lie because three other times in the past, the couple weeks Yolanda had tried to get her alone and it had been foiled every time and her husband had come or they had met in a parking lot or something like that. So Yolanda was trying to get her alone. So in the hotel room, they kind of, they kind of fight over the, the documents and as they're doing that, the gun comes out and Selena turns to run and out the door and Sal DeVar shoots

her in the back as she's running out severing an artery leading from her heart and it came out the front of her chest on the other side. So it's kind of like a shoulder shot. And Selena's running towards the motel lobby as she's bleeding. And Sal DeVar comes, there was a witness said that she chased after her, pointing the gun at her and calling her a bitch. Selena ran 130 yards to the motel's lobby and collapsed on the floor. And meanwhile Yolanda's now trying to escape in her car and it was theorized that she's

heading to the recording studio where the rest of Selena's family is to kill them. Oh no. I thought, but a police officer who was around the corner responded, stopped her and instead of getting out of the car, she pulls the car into a parking space and gets kind of blocked in, in this parking spot. So she's in her car in a parking spot with a gun won't come out. In the meantime, the motel staff is trying to help Selena. An ambulance comes in less than two minutes, but Selena's pronounced dead at 105 from loss

of blood and cardiac arrest. Her last words were, this fucking makes me want to cry. Her last words, Yolanda Sal DeVar room 158. Those were her last words, like not telling my family, I love them. She was just trying to make sure they knew who did it. Yeah, which makes me so sad. It's just like the last words out of your mouth are about your killer's name. Well, yeah.

I mean, I know, like, I know, like you should get them out, but then it's just a wish it could then be like something sweeter. She was only 23 years old. Oh, no. No, baby. Well, an autopsy is performed. And this is what I thought when I heard about her running after getting shot. She died of heart failure.

Wait, no, we realized Selena's heart fueled by adrenaline. And I think from running pumped all the blood out of her circulatory system. So I feel like if she hadn't run, she either might have gotten shot again by Yolanda, but she, but, or the blood might not have. It's those hollow point bullets. Yeah. I mean, I don't think you can get shot and it comes out the other side and you can survive that, right?

No, because isn't that part of it is like they explode inside you. And so when they come out, they just instead of a bullet hole size coming out, it like rips out. I mean, those things are evil. Yeah. They're evil. That's the thing is so event. So South of ours trying to say, I was trying to say that it was an accident that she was

going to kill herself. But it's like, well, why did you buy those bullets then? Yeah. Like you clearly had a motive. So meanwhile, there's a nine hour standoff with Yolanda in which she is in her car with the gun to her head, hysterically on the phone with the hostage or with the negotiator trying to say that she didn't mean to kill her. She was an accident.

She was trying to kill herself and all these other excuses, but ultimately, let's see, she gave herself in and she got arrested. She's tried for first degree murder and claimed that the gun quote accidentally went off and all these other excuses. But ultimately, it didn't work and the jurors deliberated for less than three hours. And on October 23rd, 1995, they found South of our guilty. She sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 30 years, which is going to be March 2025.

But everyone's like, she is so incredibly hated in Texas. She will be murdered. And she has to be in solitary confinement because of that because the rest of the everybody wants to kill her in jail. Yeah. Everyone in jail who was huge Selena fans her whole life wants to fucking murder her. Yeah. That's I mean, yeah.

Yeah. So she spends every day, 23 hours a day alone in a nine by six foot cell. Let's see. So the case has been described as the most important trial for the Latino population and it was compared to the OJ Simpson murder trial. It was one of the most publicly followed trials in the history of Texas. Wow. The posthumous 1995 crossover album Dreaming of You debuted at number one on the Billboard

charts and became Triple Platinum. That just gave me chills. I know she was the first Hispanic artist to have a predominantly Spanish language album debut and peak at number one. That's so fucking cool. I know. I mean, terribly sad, but also because I remember that being in the movie where it's like it's a tragedy anyway.

But this was someone who was poised on the verge of crossing over at a time before that was like before J-Lo, before any of those things were happening. We remember like in the late UNI and people in our age will remember in the late nineties that this huge, this huge Latin pop explosion, that was like the first time it became mainstream. So Selena's doing this in the early nineties. Yeah. She's for Ricky Martin. Right.

I remember that where it was kind of like the sexy Shakira, any of that stuff. That wasn't on American pop radio yet. That was not on there at all. She was kind of a trailblazer and seemed like a good person and this fan. I didn't know. I always pictured it differently and it's just like so fucking tragic. Well, it's also fascinating that thing of like when you can, it's like when you were saying, you know, she's just this random person, but you do trace those things of like a person

who embezzles, a person who like those kind of smaller crimes. That's how every story goes like this where it's like they always have a background where they're trying to get anything they want at any price. And they have like gray area morals too. Yeah. I don't like, yeah, someone, if I knew a friend embezzled money, I would not trust that person. You're not allowed to steal money from other people.

No. It's not your money. No. No, you don't get to have to abide by certain rules in life and not screw other people over. And you don't want to be that person. Like I remember there was a cafe I was working at when I was a teen and I had it in my mind. I decided that I could take a $20 bill when I was closing at night so I could buy beer because they only paid me minimum wage.

Right. This whole rationalization. Totally. And I did it two times, was wracked with guilt about it. And then the manager told me, did I tell you this or the manager who was also my friend, like someone I hung out with, he goes, I don't, something's going on more, always short. I think it might be the janitor. And then I was like, oh my, because that's what happened.

You steal, somebody else could go down for it. Or like, I mean, the idea that he even would suspect this person who has nothing to do with it. Then I thought maybe he told me that because he knew it was dead, because it was always me or was me the two times and that was just a manipulation, which God bless you, genius move. Yeah. But also like, and then I, like the next week I was talking to my dad on the phone and

we were talking about something else. And then he goes, Karen, there's some people out there that just can't keep their hands out of the till. Oh. And then I almost threw up because I was like, I almost wanted to go, that's me. My dad is, my, my sweet dad is talking about bad people. And I'm the bad one. You don't want to be the bad person.

No. You don't, you don't need whatever the thing is you think you need. You don't. And, yeah. Get your own. Get your own. Get your own. You can.

Yeah. Wow. Keep your hands out of the kitty. That's super weird that I talked about that picture. It is so weird. Sorry. I didn't mean to tip it. No, I don't care.

It's super weird. Like we've never talked about her before. No. Not at all. That is super weird. Time for a better cooking routine. With meal planning, shopping, and prepping handled, Hello Fresh has you covered. Hello Fresh makes home cooking easy and affordable so you can stay on track and on budget in

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Goodbye. What makes a person a murderer? Are they born to kill or are they made to kill? I'm Candice 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. What a tragic story.

What a beautiful story. What a beautiful person. And Georgia did a damn great job telling it. And now we're taking it back to 2018 with Karen's story from episode 133, Made of Crystals. It's The Lady of the Dunes. And I think for me, this is my favorite murder of Karen's because it combines all the things I love about Karen. It's a good mystery.

It's a cold, you know, windswept beach. There's movies, Hollywood involved, Stephen King. I won't spoil anything. You're going to love it. Enjoy The Lady of the Dunes. Okay, so we will downshift slightly here. Thank you, Jesus. Yeah.

This one is older, less intense, and has some interesting layers to it. Pre-1990? Yes. Okay. But I liked it because lately I haven't, there have been times, obviously all my life where I will sit there and watch like, if it's like real detective, I just watch every single episode. And then sometimes I'll make notes and then later go back and be like, oh, that's a good

case. Yeah. But lately I haven't, I think it's just, I think it's the heat, I think it's like cultural political stuff that's happening where I just want less of everything. And so when I go to do those things, the things that used to relieve my anxiety, they cause more. So now I've been doing, watching things where it's like slow and easy and low key and like far away.

No. Like the Japanese TV show that we watched last night together. Let's talk about it at fucking hooray. Okay. You'll hear it. Georgia busted out a show last night. I had no idea. You didn't.

Let's, we'll talk about it. We'll save it. Okay. So anyway, I love that people constantly suggest cases to us like, have you covered this? Why haven't you covered this? And it's funny because I, you know, there's too many questions to answer on Twitter. But sometimes the answer is, we did it in a live show, you just haven't heard it yet or hasn't been posted yet, or we can't post it for whatever reason.

Or like, like, for example, I read the research of Danny Rawling that Steven put together for me when we went to Florida, but when you're doing a live show and you have consist, you have a 30 minute story of people going, oh, yeah, it's like, it's like not as fun for us. And that's in the, not even just the live show, but in actual recording too, like it's really hard to do stories like what I just did, like the eyeball killer or like any kind of fucking child murder, they're like, why don't you do this one? It's like, because we don't want to fucking talk about it.

Yeah. And there's no way to do it. Like that was the cleanest I could have done it without talking about his fucking past and getting really descriptive about the mutilation. Yeah, we still, we still have to do it so that we walk away here and not bummed out, you know, as much as anybody else. So which is fine. It's just like, it's a version of how to talk about.

Which is why we love when people are like, have you done this one? I have so many screen grabbed and saved that people having suggested things like, I've never fucking heard of that one before. Same. And I am always looking for, I just like the weirdness. So even like, especially lately, I've been like, has anyone ever been killed by a random cyclone? I'm doing stuff like that where I'm like, you're making this way too hard for yourself.

And then this one came up the other day because there was this article in the Washington Post a bunch of people sent to us. So I would like to thank listeners, Natalia and Amanda and the first one to have posted this article and say, hey, what about this? Have you ever heard of this theory? I love that you're giving fucking first person credit. This is great. First is like, come on.

First is the best. First is first. Fruity troll roll got this to us first. Of course. Of course. Good old fruity troll roll. FTR. FTR.

Yeah, you know. I was like, can you please find, because I really want to give credit. This is something that came to me and sometimes I rely so heavily on that suggestion. And fruity troll roll was like, hey, do you guys, and I was like, thank you. So this is the story. I get so excited. Karen just one second in me and now I'm like on the edge of my fucking couch. I just want to double my article couch.

Check. Wait. Uh-oh. Karen has a pen in her mouth, which actually disgusts me. Don't ever put your pen and pencils in your mouth, people. It's just germ city. It's like licking a fucking doorknob, especially in this house. You've seen my cat sit butthole first on a pen, Karen.

God damn it, Georgia. That thing was in my mouth. Also this. I don't know. I'm feeling, feeling the silence when we could really just have stew and cut it out. That's right. Because I had. I like it.

It's like I've saw, I've somehow fallen and you have to cover. And I'm covering with a couple glasses of wine that I've had and I'm just going to fill the time. Elvis, how do you feel about it? Great. Thank you fruity troll roll for sending the story of the lady of the dune. Yes. Have you heard this one?

Oh shit. Yes. But I don't. Yes. Okay. This is a cold case from 1974 and. Oh, I know. Yes.

Do you know? Yes. And did you read this article? Yeah. But I was like, I've heard this before. Like I didn't like pay attention to it. Okay. So great.

So this was just in the Washington Post and which is why it's kind of come back around and in this article and sorry, it was the article was written by a guy named Isaac Stanley Becker for the Washington Post and it's really, it's so fascinating and it's cool and it's about somebody, but then it's also about this cold case. And there's a movie involved, which of course, you know, I love. So it was all very interesting, but it's very pop culture. It is. And kind of timely.

It crosses lots of interest lines or makes a lot of connections. But also there's a book written by a writer named Deborah Halber. She wrote it in 2014 called The Skeleton Crew, which is about online sleuths, solving crimes. Fucking fun. And so they refer to this cold case as the Holy Grail of a case to be solved. So I think that's why it comes up a lot. And I also think it comes up a lot because the police in this area, Provincetown, Massachusetts,

kind of haven't let it go. They just keep. They just keep bringing it back to the news. Like it seems like every 10 years. It's like the one that they really want to solve and can't, but it's also got a really cool name. That's like creepy. The Lady in the Dunes.

That's like, so it's like the Talmud shoot kind of case where it's like, that sounds, what is that? It's intriguing. That's right. Also, I just said the Lady in the Dunes, which is what I wrote in this document. It's the Lady of the Dunes. I keep saying, as if it's the Lady in the Water, the M Night Shyamalian film that I don't think that many people saw.

It's the Lady of the Dunes. Okay. So essentially here's how it goes. On Friday, July 26, 1974, a 13-year-old girl is walking her beagle along the Race Point Dunes in Provincetown, and her parents are there. They're visiting their friend who lived in one of what they called the Artist Studio. It was an artist studio. They were called the Dunes Shacks.

So they were these old shacks that basically people went and lived in and kind of refurbished. And it was like because it was away from everything and like everything's like, like, like sea salt orn and shit. Exactly. I'm thinking of the Lost Boys right now, like, you know, like that kind of when they pull into town and shit. That's Santa Cruz, you know. Oh, right.

Yes. Yes. Well, then I'm thinking of the wrong city. Weird thing in the wrong coast, but it's that feel because it's beachy, but it's very remote. And so she's walking her dog, right, because her parents are back. It's 1974. It's an artist shack.

Yeah. So, you know, she's like, bye, I'm going to walk around the Dunes. And when she gets to this basically a patch of pine trees, her dog smells something, runs off. Beagles. They're good at that. Those fucking beagles. And she finds in a clearing, the body of a woman is lying face down on a green beach

blanket naked. And the woman has been there long enough and she's in the state of decomposition that she's kind of a bluish green color. So of course, the little girl runs back to her parents and they call the park ranger station and head ranger Jim Hankins is the first person to arrive on the scene. So he finds the body of this woman. She's five, six, she's somewhere between the ages of 20 and 49. They can't really tell though, because she has so much damage and decomposition around

her face and head. Oh my God. She has an athletic build. She has long, arbor hair and it's tied back in a ponytail with a gold flecked hair band and her toenails are painted pink. And her hands are, they look like they're dug into the sand like she was doing a pushup. Yeah. Like trying to get up.

Yeah. And when he looks closer, her hands have been removed. Oh my God. Isn't it insane that someone couldn't lay there that long without being distracted? They think it was between, it could have been between one to three weeks that she was lying there. So that's kind of how remote this area is. And at the time, what the park rangers were trying to figure out is like they knew who

drove in and out of that park. Right. Because you had to go by the park ranger station. And that's the old sign up here and we bugger on your license and they know everything. So they don't know who she is. She didn't have a car. They don't know how she got to such a remote location. It's also so creepy that she's on a beach, like she's not, no one like tried to hide

her. It's like the place where she last, it's almost like she lay down on this beach blanket and died. Right. But no. Yeah. And because she's, so basically because she's naked. And there's no overt sign of assault or struggle.

They are thinking that she could have been, she was laying in this patch and it was, she went into the patch of trees so that nobody could see her from the beach. Right. Because this is like in the dunes area. So it's away from the water. And she went to basically not have tan lines. So she's nude sunbathing, maybe falls asleep in the sun. And that's when some, she gets hit in the head, blunt force trauma that cracks her skull

and that was the cause of death. The angle, when they do the autopsy or figure out the angles, they realize the person who hit her was probably laying next to her. What? Yes. Because that's the angle of the blow. Hit her while they were laying next to her? Right.

So either she knew the person and that's why there's no struggle and she was asleep or just laying there calmly. Sure. Or she was asleep and the person came and like laid down, I mean like they, it's just like you can run 17 scenarios. She didn't, she didn't jump up in fear in any way. So yeah. She either was asleep or she knew the person is the theory or wasn't threatened in some

way by this person. Right. And the, and the reason that they, they don't believe and there's not evidence of a sexual assault because she's, yes, she's nude, but her, her genes are folded up underneath her head. Okay. And so it got laid out in that position and that scenario and that with the pillow, naked. And her, the towel she's laying on is not disturbed, the sand around her is not disturbed,

which is very strange. So strange. So all of that is, you know, that's, that takes a while for them to put all that together. But basically once head ranger Jim Hankins basically sees what's honest, you know, what they have there, he calls police, police chief, Jimmy Meads at home. And so when the police further investigate, they find that she had dental work that they call, they classify it as New York style because it costs between $5,000 and $10,000. So she had, what year was it again?

74. That's crazy. And she had seven gold crowns. Holy shit. So there, it's the idea that this is not, you know, in their minds, it's not a runaway. She hasn't been living on the street. This is a person who has been taken care of, who's had a good life or at least access to good dental care, which means you're not probably not in a rural setting.

Yeah. Or like, yeah, the best insurance or whatever. It's just, it's a, you know, it's not someone who's like, I've been drug addict, living off the street and I'm trying to sleep in the den, they're like, there's, this is something else. Some of her teeth have been removed and they don't know when and they, you know, like not, they don't know if it's prior or didn't specify. But I mean, I think it was, I think it was, they believe in the act, yeah, like her teeth

were removed because later on they suspect whitey bolder, bolder, he, they actually question him. Okay. I'm so, I, I only know the basics of this and I'm so fucking deep into this and sad. It's very cool. But also I will say this, there's, I'm sure so much more online because so many people have done the internet work about this. Right.

And if you want the deep dive to know all these details and I would highly recommend, you know, first of all, this, I already bought and started Deborah Halber's book, The Skeleton Crew. And it's great. I'm doing it. Immediately. It's great. But also this is just, this is something that you know, it's one of those things that

if I right now went online and then saw where people are like, the whitey boulder theory is so immature or whatever, where I'm always like, afterwards I always get like, why don't I check Reddit first? They know everything. They know everything. I know. So let me get back to my paragraph. Go ahead.

Do it then. I'm going to wait here and just talk until you find it. They find two sets of footprints leading to her body. That's when Jesus, that's terrible. It's what we do. And then 50 yards away, there's a set of tire tracks. But all the park rangers, all the vehicles were accounted for. So that doesn't, like that never helps anybody.

But what if it's one of the park rangers? I mean, could be. That's Reddit. They're like, God damn it, Georgia. They're like, we already fucking, we already did it in 1997. They think her body could have been there for up to three weeks. But because they're at the dunes, so there's lots of insects, the decomposition makes, it makes it hard.

And she's laying in the sun. Yeah. She's laying in a patch where it's, and there's lots of grass around her. Also the picture, there's a photo. There's pictures. Actually, do you mind just clicking on that article so that I can show Georgia? Look, I'm going to do it at some point tonight, whether it's when you guys are here or when you're gone and I can't sleep.

Stop confronting me about your pictures. No, what I'm saying is I'm a monster. Just show it to me now. Okay. But, but. Don't look, but Steven, don't look at it. I should just not let make Steven look at this. I want Steven to sue us for traumatic stress at some point.

No, it's a Washington Post article. So essentially her face and head are unidentifiable because of the wound, because of the decomposition. Even though the head trauma, because her skull was cracked, that's, that was determined to be the cause of death, she's also strangled so severely that she was almost decapitated, which was also a whitey boulder thing of, you know, garrotting people, I think. I don't really know anything about whitey bulgur. Bulgur? I think.

Bulgur? Every time I say it, I think I should be saying the other one, but whatever. I don't know anything about it. He's a hit man. I know he's a hit man, but I didn't know like. Well, then you do know something about it. Okay, hold on. You got me back earlier.

Yeah. Did you feel the sting of it? Third grader and it hurt and it really hurt. I brought it back to third grade, I need to fucking write any chapter for the book about that third grade. Good. That'll be for the, that's bonus content. Yeah.

Oh, I see it. It's like a far away. Yep. Can't really tell. You can't really see, but you can like. Yeah. See that. Oh, I see her foot.

I see that there's something. Oh, poor baby. The only clothes that were found there were a blue bandana and that pair of jeans that were folded under her head. So she also had a hamburger and french fries in her stomach, which meant that she had been in town recently because she hadn't metabolized those yet. So there's nowhere to get any of that stuff where she was. So of course they begin searching and questioning as many people as they can and they look through

missing person reports and the list of vehicles that were in the entire area at the time they're getting nothing back, then when the police chief first sees the scene, the first person he thinks of is they had just had, he had just prosecuted and sent to jail a serial killer named Tony Costa. And for a second he thinks this could be his work and then, but that would be impossible because Tony Costa had hung himself in jail two months before, but it would, it had been right before. Crazy.

Bummer. There was another lead that they had, which I think is interesting. It was an escaped female prisoner named Rory Kessinger and who was around 25 at the time, she had disappeared. And so they were like, maybe it's, why do we know more about this woman? I know. I mean, you can Google it. I'm sure there's plenty to know.

And Reddit's like, well, fucking tell you. But when they went and took DNA from Kessinger's mother, obviously later on when DNA was modern and developed, it wasn't a match. So then there's the whitey boulder theory because he removed his victim's teeth. So you couldn't identify them as easily. And hands. And hands. So no fingerprints.

But I don't know if that was his thing. Right. He had also been seen with a woman resembling the victim around the same time. That's where he was like located in shit? Yeah. Yeah. He was a, I think he was Boston. Everyone can now go watch the Johnny Depp movie about him.

Okay. And then learn everything. I don't like Johnny Depp. I just don't like hit men. I just don't. I don't like men who hit. No. Of any kind.

So the police question him, but they, they can't ever link him to anything. There's no evidence linking him except for the MO. Yeah. Then there's a serial killer named Haddon Clark, who I've never heard of. He was also a paranoid schizophrenic and he was in jail at the time. He tells an inmate quote, I could have given the cops her name because I killed her, but not after they beat the shit out of me. So he also told the other inmate that what the cops were looking for was buried in his

grandfather's garden. And then finally he sent a letter to his friend from jail saying he killed a woman in Cape Cod and then he did drawings of a handless woman on her stomach, naked. He did it. And along with a map where her body was found. He did it. I think it's him. He also led police where he claimed to have buried two women 20 years ago.

But none of these clues or leads or anything lead to actual evidence. Who is he? I want to know this. Haddon Clark. I've never heard of him and didn't have time to do a separate book report on him. So that's for that's a future. That's for you. Okay, great.

But basically with all these leads, this case goes cold. So the police end up over time, exhuming her body twice. So in 1980, basically the case goes cold for six years, then in 1980, authorities exhumed her body so that they can test it for more leads. They're like, we have to do something. Then they, they rebury the body, but they keep the skull because they know that there's evidence there. They, that maybe they just don't know it now.

That's so awful. I know. And eventually the police chief, James Meads, he puts the skull on his desk and won't, and leaves it there. What? Because he says he vows to find the name of this woman, that the lady of the dunes will be identified before he retires. So then again, they exhumed her in 2000 to now because DNA, DNA developments.

And so they gather more DNA that protesting that they didn't have in 1980. In 2010, the forensic reconstruction of the lady of the dunes face appears in the Boston Globe. And that's when Deborah Halber, the author of the skeleton crew, she sees it in the globe and it inspires her to write a book about all these unsolved cases that people are working on on the internet. And that's basically what got her, the full name of the book, sorry, is the skeleton crew, how amateur sleuths are solving America's coldest cases.

Amazing. Very cool. So this is the modern layer that's fun and exciting and weird that made me go crazy. In 2015, there's a writer named Joe Hill, and he's watching an episode of Haunting Evidence. It was, the episode was from 2006, it was season one, episode six. He's watching it and they bring up the lady of the dunes. They show that reconstruction, the facial reconstruction of her. And they show, and they describe the clothes that were found with her, the jeans and the

blue bandana. That she wore around her head? The blue bandana. Yes. Like it's her chief. Exactly. We call it a schmucka. And yet.

That's right. So basically, he watches that and is fascinated by it. And then soon after, he goes to the 50th anniversary screening of Jaws. It's his favorite movie, and he takes his three sons to go see it. And as they're watching, it's 54 minutes and two seconds into the movie. You know the part where they reopen the beach so everyone can go to the beach for the fourth of July? So they have all these big crowd scenes of people going to the beach and wait, is that

filmed in Cape Cod? Yes. It's filmed like right there. It was filmed 100 miles, it was filmed in two different beach locations, 100 miles from where her body was found. But basically in the same, you know, state general area. But not right there. But nearby, and when he's watching, he spots this woman in the crowd.

I've seen this. Oh my God. She has a blue schmucka, her chief on her head. Long auburn hair. Long brown hair, loose white t-shirt, blue jeans. She looks mid-twenties, just like a random woman in the background. Athletic build, probably five, six. And when you see her, the woman in this picture's nose is a bit bigger than the one in the facial

reconstruction. It's creepy. But it's, he basically spotted it and then he talks about in this article, thank you, in the Boston, in the Washington Post article, he talks about how there's no rewind when you're at the movies. Right. There's no pausing at the movies. So then he was just like freaking out and going, could it be?

And he says, he knows, it's because he's a writer and he writes like ghost stories and creepy stories. Yeah. So he's like, of course, my brain wants to fill that in and wants to make that connection. But what if, what if, what if? And so then he goes home. And so wait, Jaws and that scene, everything was filmed like right before she got murdered or like she was found.

That's right. So they were filming Jaws in 1974 in that area. If I knew more about Cape Cod, I would be able to explain it, but I kind of can't. But it's basically the explanation is within a hundred miles, which I realized is a lot of miles wide, except they had to get people. So those scenes, they had to get a shit fucking ton of people to show up because they, it had to be the thing of look at all these people here. So it was hundreds and hundreds of extra small town, but that's also, that's also a typical

outfit for the mid seventies too, right, and the hair and the, you know, it's not that out of character for a woman to be wearing that at the beach. No, no, no. But I think it's just him seeing. It's basically the story that gets looped in his mind that is very, it's just like the kind of lead where you go, it's possible is because if she, everybody knew that Spielberg was making a movie on Cape that summer, everyone nearby knew it. And everybody knew that they needed people for crowd scenes.

Like that was, they said that that was the thing that like went all around everywhere. So, so it wasn't like, if it was like, okay, we live here, but up in Bakersfield, they're making a movie and we might be able to be in it. Let's drive up there. Like, and maybe let's hitchhike up there because it's 1970 fucking four. And maybe I rich and I live in this town with my parents, but I want to go up there and take my gold fillings up and fucking have a weekend. Well, that makes sense, and then it makes sense to whoever she is, her parents had passed

away and she was just like on her own because someone would have connected her with a missing person by now. You know what I mean? Yes. So that makes me think that like there weren't a lot of people who knew her or she was escaping a fucking, you know, a mess and no one reported her missing because they didn't think she was. They thought she just fucking skipped town.

Now this is making me think of the teachers pet podcast. It's where a woman who had tons of family friends, a brother who was a cop and the exact same fucking thing happened because it was back in the day and people kept going, I thought they were going to take care of it. I thought the police were taking care of it. And if you have one person giving a cover story, she's not here because she went to Europe because she finally wants to be a parent or something. She told us to say fuck you and everyone goes, oh, that's awful.

And then this is what it actually ended up happening. Yeah. I mean, it's just something, but I think it's kind of an interesting thing of the that they shot that scene in July of the 1974 and her body is found at the end of July of 1974. Wait, okay. I don't think I realize it was that close. Yes. And they've never been able to find if this extra woman was like, oh, no, that was me.

I'm alive. What's up? No, because the casting director and I don't know if it's the casting director or Jaws or if they had hired an extras casting director. Yeah. Could be a different person, but whoever that person would be that would have known any names or I guess. I mean, how would you know you don't get names, names you get release forms.

Yeah, I've been an extra and they give zero to none shit about you. Yeah. But even that person died in 2009. Yeah. So any they can't figure out the way to trace hundreds of people that way. Dude. Hundreds of potentially locals. Yeah.

And it's like a thing that a ton of people did. Oh my God. But he still goes in and pulls the thing and talks about his theory and brings it to the police and they're like, we've heard this theory. Yes. You know, like thank you. And they're, he said they're receptive, but it didn't, it didn't thrill them. It wasn't something they hadn't heard before and no link is found.

But here is the quote from Joe Hill in the Washington, in the Washington Post article that I liked, two astonishing things happened on cake God in the summer of 1974. One is that Steven Spielberg filmed Jaws and the others that someone murdered this woman in the dunes outside Provincetown and got away with it. Anything that stirs people's memories could potentially be productive. And this is still an unsolved cold case. And Joe Hill now has a podcast called Inside Jaws. And that's how this story, I think, got brought to light.

Wow, because he loves that movie so much. And then the thing I will say now at the very end, because in every article, it's what they start with, but Joe Hill is his pen name. And he actually is Stephen King's son. Oh. Oh my God. Yeah. And that's the lady of the dunes, the cold case that everyone's still working on and

hopefully will get solved someday soon and solve it. That's banana. I know, right? Oh my God. God. I know. What do they get solved soon? Also, I love that movie, Joe, so much the best.

It's truly a perfect movie. Yeah, it is. It's a perfectly, perfectly done movie. And the idea that it was Steven Spielberg's like basically like aside from dual, it was his first big like blockbuster is crazy. And that now it could be possibly tied to a fucking cold case murder of a woman. That's like, that's the creepiest thing I've ever. That's it's so, you know, it's like, it's like the guy in the exorcist that was the

X-ray technician that was a serial killer. It's that thing. I love that so much where there are some things, you know, it's not common at all that it's a movie, but there are things where like people get captured on film because back then it did happen sometimes. It's much more common today. But like back then, it happened. But it's also those weird back stories of like in like the Wizard of Oz, you can see

the legs of someone who hanged themselves from a tree or like in three men and a baby. You know that was a story, right? Yeah, I know it. That was, yeah. And then the three men and a baby, you can see a ghost in the background from a person who killed them. So it's like, none of it's true. It's all explained away, but it just like adds this level of like, like this like lore

to this, you know. And it's just as fun, at least for me, obviously the way I just said that to you, because it clearly it's the third grade episode, but at least for smart people like me, is that what you mean? At least for people that read half an article like me, but it's just as fun to get caught up in the in the lore. And then debunk the lore. You get to be all the people, you get to be the innocent, because there's no answer.

And then yeah, and then you get to read the article that says that was actually a cardboard cutout of a little boy that they hid behind the curtain thinking, get rid of this. And then everybody thinks it's a ghost, which is just as fun as there's a ghost to me. Totally. Because what if we're all wrong? Yeah. And guess what we are cardboard cutouts are ghosts. What if ghosts are cardboard cutouts?

What? Yeah. Every time it's just somebody floating a cardboard cutout by you, ghost cardboard cutout, paranormal cardboard cutout experiences, my new series. Someone please make our new series. Hi. I'm E.P. That's right.

We just think of an idea and I'm like, well, did you hear about my new series? Someone please make of your idea. Yeah. Someone please make the fucking logo on the, you know. It's already done. You don't have to face the time. I know. I know.

It's Wednesday night and by tomorrow morning it's done. Again, thank you, Fruity Trollroll, for being a part of our lives. Oh, that was a wild ride. I mean, I feel like this could have also been, it was a shorty for me, but this could have been 12 pages long with all of the players. So much to learn and grow from in these who truly who is the next eight episodes are going to be based off of this story. Who is Haddon Clark?

Whitey Bulger. Whitey Bulger. Then also. Bulger is that like cracked wheat that they serve. Yeah. Bulger. Whitey Bulger. Whitey Bulger, who played the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz.

Wow. What a great story, sad, but fascinating. Thank you everyone so much for listening. We appreciate all your support and love over the years. As always, you can catch me here every week. And also, if you want to hear me talk about cats with my friend, Sarah, you can always listen to the percast part of the exactly right family. Again, thank you so much for listening.

Stay sexy and don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie?