My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 3 - Our Favorite Thirder

Episode Date: February 1, 2016

In this episode, Georgia and Karen discuss the Cameron Todd Willingham arson case, the Oakland County child killings and comedian/We Watch Wrestling podcast co-host Tom Sibley shares his home...town upholstery murder story.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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Starting point is 00:00:00 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. How do we start talking about murder? I don't know.
Starting point is 00:00:50 Hey Karen, how was your day? It was pretty good. Did you get murdered? I did, and I lived through today. How about yourself? Didn't get murdered. See, that's all we want. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:00:59 That's all anyone wants. We're helping people not get murdered. I bet people did get murdered today, though. Like a lot of people. Yeah. Yeah. RIP to those people. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:01:10 We're sorry your time ended. It'll start again soon enough. Well, the day's not over yet, either, so. That's right. I have to walk to my car. Yeah. I'm like, Dory is locked, because of course it is. No invasion robbery, big fear of mine.
Starting point is 00:01:24 Is it really? Uh-huh. Yeah, around here, that's a reasonable fear. Yeah. Except for when you have people close by. Yeah. That's a great thing. Do you know you're across the hall neighbors?
Starting point is 00:01:34 Yeah, they're nice. They like me. Great. But a couple nights ago, I was thinking about how someone could break in here, and I was thinking about how they could parkour up the wall and into my balcony. Like you're some parkouring criminal. You're afraid to get murdered by Spider-Man? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:01:49 That would be. Yeah. You're the one person who murders instead of Steve. All right. That would be a bummer. This is my favorite murder. I'm Georgia. I'm Karen.
Starting point is 00:01:59 Let's start with a new piece of news based on murdery stuff. Okay, good. Okay, so you know how, Karen, you know how one of the many ways that you can collect and present evidence is by matching hair follicles from the scene to the person or the murder or whatever. Yep. That's a completely bunk science. No.
Starting point is 00:02:23 Yes. And the Justice Department is acknowledging that nearly every examiner at an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than two decade period. No. 95% of the 268 trials viewed so far says that they overstated forensic matches. Holy, no, this is humongous. I know because I've seen shows where they do this and I'm like, great, legit.
Starting point is 00:02:53 That's crazy. Every, I feel like every forensic files that I've seen, it's right and they're like pulling up those like the microscopic things, the slides. And you see the ridges and you see the color. It turns out in one of the cases, it turned out to be dog hair that they found. Oh, it wasn't even human hair and the guy convicted on it. Do you know that in the guy, it's the Atlanta child killings, that guy, they only had him on carpet fibers.
Starting point is 00:03:21 Holy shit. Which one's that? That's the one where there was tons of little kids in Atlanta, little black kids only that were getting murdered. And they had this guy and he is super suspicious because he was like, do you want to be a star? Posters all around the neighborhood and he had a recording studio, which is like textbook, like pedophilic entrapment stuff or also a way to get a star, a young star on the rise. But these kids were like getting dumped.
Starting point is 00:03:52 They were getting murdered and then thrown into the river. So like, and then one night it was like connected to him because one night someone was near the bridge where a kid was rolled up in carpet and dumped over and then his car was spotted like somewhere nearby and they got him on it. But it was all about matching the carpet kid was wrapped up in to carpet somewhere else in the home or in the car. That's the same guy. Yeah, he like, there was a big piece of carpet cut out at his house?
Starting point is 00:04:26 Yeah, I think so. I mean, now it's... That's pretty stupid, right? Yes. But the idea of that were because it's such a believable piece of evidence. Well, you know, another one is that's might be flawed, that is one of my favorite ways to collect evidence besides handwriting analysis is blood spatter evidence that they might totally debunk that too.
Starting point is 00:04:48 Really? I feel like it's, I mean, yeah, I guess it doesn't have how do you scientifically prove those things? True. Every for every single time. Which of course puts me in the mind of the staircase where all that blood spatter and I mean, that was a big part of that documentary was all that. But are they saying that the science of how it lands and all that kind of stuff isn't
Starting point is 00:05:15 real? Yeah, I mean, yeah, there's, you can't call it scientific evidence because it's not science. It's kind of like... Conjecture. It's like, yeah, and magic talk. But so when do they get to the part where they throw out owls? I feel like if you can use these things to get someone to confess, then great. But using it like the only thing to convict someone, that's insane.
Starting point is 00:05:43 Yeah. Well, but also I think it's fascinating, like the Memphis, West Memphis three, where you can get stupid people to confess very easily. Right, that's true. And those tactics, the other thing they need to reform is like keeping people in a room for 12 hours with no food and water and asking them the same question over and over and eventually having them just kind of go insane and want to be out of there. Yeah, and you lead the conversation.
Starting point is 00:06:15 You convince them that they did it. They're not confessing because they want to get out of there sometimes. It's like, maybe I fucking didn't forgot. Yeah, they tell you all these possibilities. It's crazy. It is super crazy. However, if there's some fucking creepy ass dude and there's a missing blonde kid and they find a long blonde hair in his trunk, why would that long blonde hair be in there?
Starting point is 00:06:36 Because he's a wig maker because his mother has long blonde hair because this. I mean, it's the kind of thing where it's like saying being creepy is illegal. That's the problem is that it's that thing of like you can't wear a black shirt, depending on which part of the country you live in, certain things aren't allowed culturally. That ties into my favorite murder today. Does it really? I want to hear your favorite. Let's tell each other our favorite murder.
Starting point is 00:07:04 Okay. Wait, you don't want to use that natural segue to go into yours? I feel like then I would be talking too much. You know, this is a podcast, right? I'll go into mine. Get into talking. Mine. Okay.
Starting point is 00:07:19 As a segue into mine is that he act this person had like Led Zeppelin and like Death Metal Band posters on the wall, so they were like he's, but I feel like it was early 90s. So this is my favorite murder is a man was tried and convicted and put to death for this murder. Oh shit. But it might probably isn't a murder in the first place. What? Have you heard of?
Starting point is 00:07:46 Oh my God. His name. Have I not heard of this one? That I would. That's what I would love. His name is Cameron Todd Willingham in the early 90s. He busted out of his house that was engulfed in flames and his three little daughters died in it.
Starting point is 00:08:04 Oh no. Have you heard of this one? No. It's like a big, it's a big case about like the Innocence Project and and debunking the arson, arson investigators testimony that ended up being just completely bullshit and wrong. Oh no. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:08:19 They had children that high stakes, we start out high stakes on this one. Yeah. He was fucking budget death for this. Okay. Fuck Texas. Yes. Oh yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:08:30 Don't mess. So yeah, he and they think that how it really started. So the arson investigators said that they found puddles where accelerant would have been and like the the outline of where the accelerant had been, you know, distributed around the apartment because or the house because the burns don't happen this way. And this is what fires do and here's, you know, we've been studying this for years and years. Right.
Starting point is 00:08:54 But we all saw back draft. Right. Exactly. So it turns out that that's just bullshit. And the the neighbors and the firefighters and all the people who initially got there said that he seemed so insanely distraught and was trying to get back into the house, but he couldn't because it was on fire. And then they later changed their testimony and he'd be like, yeah, he was too upset.
Starting point is 00:09:11 I think it was fake. And no, he didn't seem upset at all. He moved his car and then they said he moved his, he said he moved his car. So it wouldn't explode and add to the fire in the cotton fire. Right. I don't know. But maybe he's guilty though. I mean, maybe, but so sorry, would he be guilty of wanting his family dead?
Starting point is 00:09:30 Just like it was his wife gone. His wife was gone at the time and he said he was sleeping and heard his daughter say daddy and he and it was already smoke, heavy smoke. So he left the house with the children inside. He tried. He tried to get to them, but the fire had originated in their bedroom. The children? Yes.
Starting point is 00:09:51 So he couldn't get to them and he tried to go back in. He tried breaking windows. I know. See, I was like of one mind when you started this story, that just turned me hard. Well, here's what they say probably happened. And I kind of can see this and believe it that they're, they used space heaters. Yes. Those things are deadly.
Starting point is 00:10:12 Yeah. They're like blanky space heaters that literally are on fire. The daughter liked to lay near it and fuck with it. And her fucking blanky probably caught on fire. And her cheap Kmart polyester pajamas. Yes. Yes. Wait, this was the 90s?
Starting point is 00:10:27 Yes. 91. Because when I was growing up, those pajamas were covered in stuff that caught on fire. Yeah. How are we not dead from the 80s and 90s? It's a miracle. It's like anyone that's my age is a total kind of just a walking miracle. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:10:42 That we got to this point. Well, it's no, you got left home alone all the time. Can you imagine having a kid and watching them fucking run full throttle into death? Fuck. Well, here's the thing. It's that thing. Like it's the moralistic thing of, oh, no man, which kind of goes back to that, the thing that the last episode when we talked about would like, no man would let his wife
Starting point is 00:11:06 get raped in front of her more and more. It makes me want to say that of like, no man would leave a house where his three children are burning. Right. But the instinct to get out, to live, and the heat, the amount of heat, I mean, think of like the last time you cooked something and like the pan was hot and you touched a pan. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:11:25 That's what the walls would have been like if the house is on fire. I mean, in reading his account, it sounds like it was, it was already up in smoke. And he came out, got a breath and tried to go back in, but just it was walls and black smoke and you couldn't get in. What's the poster, like the metal posters and stuff? What is that about? There was like an Iron Maiden poster that had like a skull and crossbones on it and they're like, he's Satanic and he's a sociopath and here's the proof because he has a like a sword
Starting point is 00:11:54 and a heart tattoo on his arm. So he's in the cultism and Satanism and it's just that kind of small, that small town shit, you know, in the nineties. And now that would be anyone, if you went to intelligentsia right now, it's like, oh, so this whole place is filled with satanists, although I have a feeling like there's places in this country where you could still get, you know, that's evidence towards you being a murderer still. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:12:18 For sure. And God, we don't live there. And also think of how creepy it would be if you were the fire investigator and you were walking through a burnt house and you see, but because that's those people, they're just people and they're just civil servants. So like they go in and see dead children in a room, their first responders. That's a huge emotional reaction. They look up and see a pentagram poster or whatever the thing is.
Starting point is 00:12:43 And they're not thinking, let's not be reactionary or whatever, they're just human beings going, this whole thing looks like living hell. Yeah. Or look at this pentagram, let's look for accelerant traces and you can find them if you look. Or, you know, I can't remember how they explained away the accelerant, maybe that, oh, they didn't say something weird that I was like, meh, that there was accelerant in the doorframe. Yeah. Like lighter fluid.
Starting point is 00:13:10 And when the firefighters came, there was a barbecue grill on the porch. Maybe that's, it got blasted off and that's how the lighter fluid got there, which sounds like a lot of fishy, but what could happen? It totally, and also it doesn't sound like they, they didn't, it wasn't like they're running a tight ship over there. Right. Right. It doesn't sound like it.
Starting point is 00:13:31 If you have shitty old space heaters. Yeah. The, probably the rest of your house is like a lot of random paper towels in bad places and stuff. Right. I mean. Oh, there was a refrigerator blocking the second door and the kitchen, all this, you know, it's like.
Starting point is 00:13:44 But my dad used to talk all the time because my dad was a San Francisco fireman and he would talk constantly about how stupid people were about stuff like at Christmas when they're, they would not water their tree, cover it in lights, leave the lights on all night and people and then, and everything's next to old curtains or like the people don't even realize or like, I'll just take the time right now to tell everybody, clean out the lint trap in your dryer. Every time you do a load of dry, every time you dry a load, because that's the number one way people's houses catch on fire.
Starting point is 00:14:16 Wow. You know, when you pull off like that big crazy sweater of lint trap, because it's so much fun. And it's the, right. And it's like a big thing, but that's how people's houses catch on fire. Also battery. I heard the thing about batteries, if you leave like a deep battery out and near another one, they can spark somehow together and light on fire.
Starting point is 00:14:33 Is that true? Because you have to like, jeez, dispose of them in the most like crazy way. Yeah. I worry all the time. I know. Well, and some people don't at all. I know. And that's why shit, like that happens.
Starting point is 00:14:43 They're just like, you know, we'll see what happens, but that's fucked up three little kids died because of that. Yeah. Either way. And in the beginning, his wife was like, he's absolutely innocent on his side later. She divorced him and kind of went back and forth between if he was innocent or guilty. In the end, when he was put to death, she thought he was guilty, but she went back and forth a couple of times.
Starting point is 00:15:06 How could you not? And also it's not, you didn't lose one child. You lost all of your children. And now there's a, there's kind of a backlash because there was a, there was a prison informant that he shared a cell with who's now, who, who testified that this, this Cameron willing guy confessed to the murders, but now it's coming that he actually had been like paid with money and less jail time to testify. Yep.
Starting point is 00:15:35 And, yeah. Jailhouse tests, like it's also in, how do you ever go, no, this guy's really telling the truth. This time though. This one is trustworthy. This is it. Cause it perfectly fits our investigation and what we need to hear right now and now we have the information.
Starting point is 00:15:53 I have a hard time when, like in this article that I was reading, it's not in the New Yorker. It's called trial by fire. They were saying that like his parole officer had said how nice and sweet he was, which I, I can never, sociopaths are the nicest, most charming people you'll ever meet. So I don't believe any that. I don't give a shit about nice. Nice does not qualify for anything with me cause it's the easiest way to be. Nice is not a big deal.
Starting point is 00:16:18 I don't like charming. I'm creeped out by charming people. Yeah. Well, they want something. Right. I mean, everybody does, but like if you're going to be, if you're going to put the energy behind being charming, then there's something going on. There's an agenda at play.
Starting point is 00:16:31 Also, if you feel like you need to please every single person that you meet, you've got a fucking emotional mental issue that. Yeah. There's something going on. Right. I mean, truly at the end of the day, give me an asshole and I don't mean that the way you think and want me to mean it. I didn't think about it until this now.
Starting point is 00:16:47 But yeah. But you know what? Did you stand by that? I would stand by it at every interpretation, no, of just like people who are self-possessed enough to not care what other people think or need them, need to manipulate what other people think. That's what it is. It's like, I'm going to make you think this certain thing about me.
Starting point is 00:17:06 That's where, that's the problematic thing. That scares me so much that I just don't ever believe anyone until I know them well enough. But I think that's the healthiest way. Because I remember being in my 20s and getting tricked by plenty of people who I'm sure were sociopaths or just deep narcissists. And you kind of, I think, eventually you learn, you know, you just start picking up on those signs and that's a good thing. That's what we're supposed to do.
Starting point is 00:17:35 This is my therapy session. This is it. Let's like, let's do half murder, half, half kind of a psychological analysis of how to be. It's all intertwined. Isn't it? We should tell everyone these, I mean, who else are they going to hear from? Right.
Starting point is 00:17:53 Yeah, listen to us. This is kind of a DIY how to live. It's a lifestyle podcast. Let's get that lifestyle. With the murder theme. Right. Um... Lifestyle, death style.
Starting point is 00:18:05 Yeah. How to decorate your murder. There's four DIY ways to decorate your murder. Splatter, splatter, splatter. It might not be a viable way to approve a case, but it still looks great on the wall. Put your hair everywhere because they can't convict you now with that. They can't do shit about it. Put your carpet fibers where you want.
Starting point is 00:18:26 What makes a person a murderer? 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.
Starting point is 00:19:02 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's your favorite murder, Karen? My favorite murder this week is one that I've been so excited to talk about because this
Starting point is 00:19:37 was one of those ones where I went deep Wikipedia one night alone and it was too late at night and often there are not very many friends I have that I can be like, guess what? Guess what about these children that were murdered in the late 70s? Until I met you. Yeah. We're the only people that won't text back. Are you okay? Are you okay?
Starting point is 00:19:59 Are you okay? What's really going on? Yeah. So there were these four kids who were murdered in Oakland County, Michigan in the late 70s and this whole case was called the Oakland County Child Killings. Sounds fucking awesome already. So they found a 12-year-old boy kidnapped and raped and smothered and that was the first one and then like a week later at these, I didn't write down, I didn't do my super accurate
Starting point is 00:20:34 homework. Listen, the people are coming here for facts that are in the wrong fucking place. Yeah. And also it's all off Wikipedia so you can get it and really, really enjoy it for yourself firsthand but essentially all 11 and 12-year-old children and so it goes boy and then a 12-year-old girl was found kidnapped, not raped, bathed, fed and then shot point blank and left in the snow. How was the first kid killed?
Starting point is 00:21:03 Smothered. Smothered. So those aren't the same murderer probably? Well, they probably didn't connect them then but then the third kid who was an 11-year-old boy who was kidnapped and so he was gone for like, he disappeared and so on say the 7th day or whatever, the parents went on the news and said please bring him home so we can give him his favorite dinner, Kentucky Fried Chicken, that thing they do to personalize and the next day they found his body.
Starting point is 00:21:42 Don't tell me he had Kentucky Fried Chicken in his belly. It smothered with Kentucky Fried Chicken left in his belly. No. Exactly what you didn't want to hear. Oh my God. And he was also washed like the girl was, his nails were trimmed, his clothes were spotless, they were washed and pressed and his body was still warm when they found him. So that's when they knew something super terrible was happening.
Starting point is 00:22:12 And then the last girl was 11 and she disappeared, just kidnapped and then she was found murdered. So the girls were not sexually interfered with and the boys were raped. So that was just, that was like a big thing that happened and they called, so after they got all that information they called him the babysitter killer, which is, it's fucked up and almost sweet to him. Because the way he treated the kids. Well, because of the way he left them, which kind of implies the way he treated them was nice except for, we all know that's not true and imagine.
Starting point is 00:22:52 Because he kept them for a while, which is the nightmare part. Alive. Alive. So, yeah. So that's horrifying. I feel like when you're alive there's some chance of escape, like there's some hope left. Yes. Well, it's still happening for sure.
Starting point is 00:23:10 But then it's just that thing of like, it goes to the total insanity and, I don't know. Depravity. I wish I knew the difference. Yes, depravity for sure. But like when you're really psychotic or whatever, where you're keeping the thing, you're going to murder. Like you know this is all the plan and so you're keeping a child like a pet or whatever. It's just beyond.
Starting point is 00:23:40 But when they started looking at the suspects that were around Oakland County, one of the people, and this is where I went down the hole, one of the people that was a suspect was like a 24-year-old rich kid and his name, oh shit, I'm not going to find it, dang it. Christopher Bush. So his father was like either the GM or the vice president of one of the huge motor companies. Wait, it might have been GM and his father was the vice president of GM or one of those ones. Hugely rich.
Starting point is 00:24:21 He was always in this big mansion by himself. His parents were always like working or on vacation or whatever. And there was a constant stream of young boys coming in and out of the house. Because he was a child monster. So he was paying kids to come over and whatever. And so he got arrested for sexual assault and child molestation several times. Like he was a known pedophile. How the fuck those people stay out?
Starting point is 00:24:47 Because he was rich. So they always bought him out of jail and cleared him and whatever and tried to do Stephanie. So they went and found him and started looking through his room and looking through all his stuff and they thought that they found a picture of one of the boys. I think it was supposed to be Tim, the third one, screaming like a drawing of him with his hoodie on because I think they said he was found in a hoodie or something. So it was a picture of him with the hoodie looking like he was in total terror. But they don't know for sure that that's who the face was, but that's what he looked like.
Starting point is 00:25:24 And so it was like, it was the circumstantial evidence. That's such a small thing to go on though. Yeah. They put all that together. But apparently his room was really messy and filled with all kinds of creepy stuff. And then one of the things that they connected, because apparently so that kid Christopher Bush, they confiscated eight rolls of film in his room and it was all kiddie porn. And then they find out, and this is the thing that stuff like this is what makes me so fascinated.
Starting point is 00:25:56 It piques my interest in it. It's probably the writer in me where it's like, this is such a good story, separate from tragedy or whatever. They figure out that there is an island. So I guess there's like an island chain up way north in the peninsula area of Michigan. And one of them is called North Fox Island. And it was empty, they thought. And they find out that there is a Christian boys camp.
Starting point is 00:26:25 There's a camp like St. Somebody's for wayward boys on North Fox Island. The only way to get on or off the island is by plane. There's one airstrip down the center of it. And when they go to investigate this island, they find out that they had set up this fake boys camp to get boys like poor children who would sign up for a place like that. It was like this free thing of like come. And they were all being used in Kitty Porn. It was just a Kitty Porn ring.
Starting point is 00:27:00 It was a Kitty Porn ring. So then when they showed up, that's what was happening. And it was Nightmare. I mean, like, that's like a Friday the 13th Freddy Krueger Nightmare movie right there. Which part of it do you obsess about? The idea that these boys would be there thinking they get to go to camp and what that turns into and then Nightmare that it would be on that island. And also then when they go back because I was talking to somebody about that and they're
Starting point is 00:27:28 like, why wouldn't they say anything? And I was like, I bet you these were the kids. They were probably getting kids out of juvie or in situations where they don't have their foster kids or like the most underrepresented. And they're already wayward so no one believes these little shits because they get in so much trouble. Right. Or they're paid.
Starting point is 00:27:46 And that turns out the guy that owns the island is this multi-millionaire. That when they bust it, they find out and whatever. They realize that this camp is there's no church affiliation. There's no affiliation. It's just these. It's a pedophile ring that had also been operating in like the really bad part of Detroit that was well known where like kids on the street, they would get kids and pay them and get them into that ring and pay them to have sex with them.
Starting point is 00:28:16 And it was just this whole huge, ugly thing full on exploitation of poor children. So that gets exposed in the in the baby civil killer investigation, which is amazing. And then they they just I just read an article that they found a man. So they had all these people that they suspected. And they found a man named Ted Lambergine who they they got on kitty on those kitty porn charges where he was definitely involved in that that there was like the ring that they busted in the bad part of Detroit. He was somehow definitely linked to it or whatever it was.
Starting point is 00:29:03 And then oh, and this was a thing where a prisoner, a detective from Detroit was out in California interviewing someone about something else. And then the prisoner was like, I know who your babysitter killer is and says it's Ted Lambergine. I knew him from this pedophile ring. We'd all go and pay to fuck kids in Detroit, essentially. And this guy told me he basically pointed to a picture and said, doesn't that look like Tim, whoever, the third little boy?
Starting point is 00:29:31 And so that that detective went back and went and they started casing this guy who is now 70 and only leaves his house to go to church and da da da and like living like the silent old man that no one knows anything about. And then they go into his house and they find all this evidence. And he will not admit that he was the babysitter killer, but he first all the evidence points to it. All the evidence points to that. And he and they have him on all the pedophile charges and all the the ring charges and all
Starting point is 00:30:01 that. Does he? When did this happen? When did he get busted? 2005. Oh my God. So and they, uh, oh Christopher Bush, the rich kid killed himself in 1978. So they kind of like assumed it was him because there was all that weird evidence and stuff.
Starting point is 00:30:20 So then the Ted Lambergine thing, they like kind of came out of the blue. Are we okay with Christopher Bush killing himself because he was a child molester or do we not think that we're allowed to make that judgment call? I mean, we can kind of do anything we want. If that guy, if these people can pay children to rape them, we can make judgment calls on these motherfuckers. Like I never want to say I'm glad someone's dead, but it's probably for the best that this person was harassed so much by the cops that he killed himself.
Starting point is 00:30:50 Well, yes, because, and also I bet you he killed himself for lots of other reasons. Like in, in so far as that he lived a life where this terrible thing that he, a compulsion he couldn't control was basically being okayed by his rich parents who didn't give enough of a shit about him to take any real action. So he was trapped in this weird world of money. Yeah. I mean, I think that's also really fascinating too of like you, that's a person that gets to do whatever they want because of money.
Starting point is 00:31:18 Same as those people at the North Fox Island. Yeah. So like, what did that guy get? Those people all disappeared. The guy that owned the island, they escaped to Europe. Holy shit. Like flew, left the island, flew away and they just couldn't find him or extradite him. Money.
Starting point is 00:31:36 I love that, that, that was this island that no one thought, you just take it over. Who's going to fucking know? Right. And build an entire camp there. A fake church camp. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I mean, to me, like pedophiles and kiddie porn, that kind of shit is the darkest.
Starting point is 00:31:53 Yeah. I like serial killers that just kill random people, obviously not good. Yeah. But that kind of stuff. Yeah. Where you, what is wrong with that person where that's, they're not just doing the wrong thing, but they're, they're loving doing the wrong thing. And specifically to helpless people who can't make any decisions about what, you know, you
Starting point is 00:32:18 know, control. Yeah. You don't think the way you do as an adult when you're a kid, you don't understand what's happening to you. Yeah. It's, it's super ugly. And it's like that, it's exploitation. It's just the dark, it's the darkest to me.
Starting point is 00:32:30 It's like the closest thing to real monsters. Those people are real monsters. Definitely. Kind of a bummer though too. So they're arresting the 70 year old and that's how it's ending. Well they, they got him on the other charges, but they can't get him. They don't have enough heart evidence on those murders, but they're positive. They lined up because he also, the murder stopped when he moved to Cleveland.
Starting point is 00:32:55 And when he moved to Cleveland, he started going to church every day and they think that the priest there knows, like they think he confessed to the priest and the priest isn't saying it. They, there's all kinds of things like that that are very clear and it was like the days he wasn't at work or the days the children disappeared. All kinds of stuff. Those are always so interesting to me or like finding out that someone, you know, had someone clock in for them, even though they were, they have an alibi and it turns out it's
Starting point is 00:33:21 total bullshit and here's how they know and I just, it's so fascinating the detective work that he takes to find that. And also those poor detectives, like the way your life gets affected by having to go and investigate these people. I mean, nothing justifies the crazy murdering that's happening on the street of most black people today in America. I will never, I never, ever mean anything is justified in that way. What I mean is that when you, like as a detective, when you have to visit time and again, people
Starting point is 00:33:55 who are depraved. So it's not just crime or like, I'm desperate and on drugs and so I'm doing this thing. A fight with my wife and killed her. Yeah. It's the depravity of like a child, rapist, murderer, coming face to face with the actual evil thing, which you and I probably never will unless we search it out, but these detectives would knock on one, but these people have to then delve as deep as they can into it and all the facts and not kill them so that they can be brought to justice and have some
Starting point is 00:34:26 jailhouse justice and just get killed terribly in jail. That's the ideal. Yeah. Then getting even arrested is a small, you know, can't be a huge percentage of them. So even getting someone arrested has to be hard. So imagine retiring after never having solved this case. No, that's terrible. I know.
Starting point is 00:34:47 And it ruins people's lives to go investigate this stuff and to discover this like, it's just the seamy underside. And I only, I surfed it on Wikipedia and was just mesmerized by how horrifying it is. Are you watching the new season of Fargo? Oh, yes. This is related. That's not like an, like anyways, children are dead. That's not how I meant.
Starting point is 00:35:10 But how this, the cop in it is, went to war and is now seeing all this insane stuff at home. Yes. And the, what the toilet must take on you to have gone to war and seen shit that you would never tell anyone about and then come home and do that too as a cop? Yes. Which is how it happens a lot of the time. I just started thinking about the fact that this, with the whole France bombing, people
Starting point is 00:35:36 talking about going to war again, where I was like, how many, we don't have that many more men left that this country hasn't ravaged. Who do they think they're going to send to war? Right. Who's going to, yeah, the people who are going to, yeah, enlist or have already enlisted right? Yeah. And, and yeah, and then how do you, I mean, there are plenty of people who come home and
Starting point is 00:36:02 make lives, but they're probably the people that didn't have super terrible things happen to them. But there's, it's still bad. I know there's plenty of people or it's just, it's still a horrific experience. Yeah. I love that TV show so much. It's so amazing. Fargo, this season is fucking out of control.
Starting point is 00:36:19 It's so cinematic. That's gorgeous. It's crazy. And I love that Native American. She's a doll. He's. Kirsten Dunstall is, I would just watch a whole thing of her day. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:36:32 She's so funny in it. Well, and also that it finally came together of her and all those magazines, which I never paid attention to before the stacks of magazines everywhere. I didn't think that she wants to escape. Is that what it's for? Yes. Okay. Like when she finally sat down with Ted Dunstall and they started talking, these are spoiler
Starting point is 00:36:49 alert. Right. She's like, here's why I have this obsession is because I'm not supposed to fucking be here. Yeah. Yeah. And then that, that's his childhood home. Yes.
Starting point is 00:36:59 But they live in, and how fucking depressing to just live your whole life in the same house. Yes. And there's some people that are happy with that and want it. And then if there's some people who just dream of going to California, I know, it's amazing. Why do I think it is so much easier than it is now to like break away and do that? Because you can get, because you can't get traced. You could go and change your fucking identity. Yeah, probably.
Starting point is 00:37:21 Yeah. And there's one part where she was on the bus and I was like, oh, she's out of there. This, you were not going to see Kristen Dunst anymore. And she said, here's the thing, Kristen Dunst is one of the most brilliant actresses of our time. And no one knows. I am, I was very surprised to like her this much in it. When I saw her, I was like, okay, here we go, but fuck, she's so good.
Starting point is 00:37:41 Well, because I saw her and I thought, oh, this is going to be like a quote unquote comeback thing. But she is, every person in that cast is brilliant and she's equally brilliant. I agree. I'm proud of her. I am too. We're, we're definitely ending it on an up next. Are we?
Starting point is 00:38:01 I think we are. Oh, should be, I have Tom Sibley's death story. Oh, yes. That's a great, so. Should we play that? Yes. Okay. All right.
Starting point is 00:38:11 We're going to explain. You explain. So I think we said this in our last episode, but we want to hear other people's stories of like murders that they grew up with or things that happened in their hometown or the one like murder story you tell of, right, from your hometown or the thing that you know. And so this was, we were all at our friend Matt McCarthy's birthday party and Georgia was smart enough to ask our friend Tom Sibley, who's a comic and a lover of wrestling as is our Vincent Matt.
Starting point is 00:38:41 From the Feral Audio podcast, we watch wrestling. Yeah. Of course. So this is his hometown murder story. Yeah. Okay. This is Tom Sibley. My murder story is where my parents live.
Starting point is 00:38:55 I'm not going to say where they live. It's an island in New Jersey and there was a guy that everyone used for their upholster. He made really good couch cushions, especially for outdoor furniture, like outdoor cushions. Everyone has his stuff and he killed his mother because he lived with his mother and he killed her and he kept her like in the house for months and like no one knew where his mother was and et cetera, et cetera later on it came out that he had killed her and was just kind of keeping her body in the house. How did he kill her?
Starting point is 00:39:36 I'm not sure. I think it may have been strangulation. And oh, I love it all because we everyone has the cushions of this guy. He was the go-to guy for cushions and like I was just sitting on those cushions like a week ago and but it was the cushions of a mother murder. So everyone kept the cushions after they found out they were like, well, they're good cushions. Thank you Tom Sibley. Thank you.
Starting point is 00:40:06 Did you? When I listened back to that tonight earlier, I realized that when he said like he was there was this thing and there was this guy and he murdered his mother and you could hear me in the background crack up. I think it's just like giddy glee at the story. Yes. Yes. That's fucking like most people who are not you would be like, what the fuck?
Starting point is 00:40:30 Did you just laugh at him killing his mom because you know what it is? It's like this is the shit. People walk around all day going like, would you watch on TV last night and can you believe this weather? It's not so warm, but at the end of the day, people are murdering people and doing extreme and same things. The second he said made couch cushions, I started laughing because if for some reason and maybe it's because the hillside stranglers, the one of them was an upholsterer, I think
Starting point is 00:41:01 so. I think that's why where it came from. I'm not sure, but their upholstery is something to do with it, but something about that is so sinister to me. It's like there's tools that are very violent in upholstery and I thought it was, yeah, that's a really good one. Plus, I love that everyone has one of these stories and no one ever asks them these stories. Yes.
Starting point is 00:41:26 They'll never tell them. Right. Unless you- Everyone has one of these stories and it's just because it's like the thing that freaked you out. Yeah. There's always something freaky and insane. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:41:37 Should I end it on that? I think so. Okay. Is there anything else? No, I don't know. You want to add anything? I don't know. Just try to be nice to people.
Starting point is 00:41:50 Yeah. People don't get murdered. People you don't really know until you see in the grocery store line. That sucks for them. And also just for yourself, be excited that you're not murdered yet and enjoy yourself. Do what you want. Do what like you're someone's telling you you have to do because there's no have to because you never know what could happen.
Starting point is 00:42:10 You never know. This is really- I mean, when it comes down to it, this is a positive podcast where we're trying to lift people out. Yeah. And make them their best selves. And sometimes you lift, we lift each other up by pushing down the murdered. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:42:25 It's as if to say, it's a celebration of life. Yeah. L'chaim to life. L'chaim to life and death.

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