My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 435 - Ring Ring, Canada

Episode Date: July 4, 2024

On today’s episode, Karen covers the wrongful conviction of Lamonte McIntyre and Georgia tells the story of the Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist. For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavorite...murder.com/episodes. Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3UFCn1g   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:01:01 Visit amex.ca slash ymx. Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Heartstar. That is Karen Kilgara. Hello. And welcome. To my favorite murder. That's Georgia Heartstark. That is Karen Kilgarafe. This is like the most perfectly synchronized intro we've ever done. We're pros now.
Starting point is 00:01:34 We're pros now. We took two weeks off and now we're professionals. We're actually in the same room. That makes a huge fucking difference in podcasting you may have noticed. Oh man. Vacation made us professionals. Turns out all we needed, I needed to be a passenger princess in fucking Michigan. What, was that your dream to actually just be...
Starting point is 00:01:55 What? Like, I've watched you be a passenger princess while also being a passenger princess. That's right. But I'm not good at it in LA, so it really strengthens my and Vince's relationship when I can be a passenger princess in a different place, because most of our fights are about driving in LA. And what's the fight? That I'm insane and I can't fucking stand it and I know how to do it best, and I should probably be driving
Starting point is 00:02:18 and you're doing it wrong, and like, what the fuck, go around that guy? Go around that guy. Like, why are you... Like, we're not getting off for like a quarter of a mile. You don't have to get over all the way yet. You know what I mean? That's the whole thing. No, I try not to. So bad. I try not to. What pill, what car pill could you take? What car pill couldn't I take? Is there? Do they have car pills these days? They should
Starting point is 00:02:38 have a car pill. There was one, the first time I ever took Xanax was a friend gave it to me when we got in the car and we were driving all the way across town to Santa Monica and I was like, I'm going to try Xanax. I took it and I found myself on the 10 freeway in fucking bumper to bumper traffic going like it's so interesting how you can just see into other people's lives and other cars. I was like, oh shit, this works. This is drugs in action. Oh my God, I needed this. The first time I took Xanax was also recreationally at Margaret Cho's house.
Starting point is 00:03:08 That was when we spent our days drinking red wine and watching the Food Network. Oh, sounds fucking perfect. It was, ba-ba. It was new and we just couldn't get over. Old school Food Network is like Sarah Moulton. Yeah, it's two hot tamales. Two hot tamales, oh my god. Bobby Flay was all over that shit.
Starting point is 00:03:25 Bobby Flay with that emerald coming in hot. It was really a — and I didn't realize how much I — I don't want to cook. I'm not actually interested in cooking. Very interested in watching other people do it. Remember Yan Can Cook from even further back? Yes, he was like a PBS guy, wasn't he? He was a legend. He was so good.
Starting point is 00:03:41 Also, along those same lines, who was there was another guy —, oh you know what, he was local San Francisco I think. We used to do an impression of him, now I'm not going to be able to remember his last name, he's like a French guy. And when he was making his stuff, he would go, a little zolt, a little beba. A little zolt, a little beba. So we always said that. If you were seasoning your food at the dinner table, you had to say that. So are we both on Adderall or just me? If you're on it, I'm on it, because that's what I'm like. I'm breathing the fumes of my Adderall.
Starting point is 00:04:11 So you're back? I'm back on all the things I'm supposed to be on. Do you light them along your windowsill, like all the yellow coming through with sunlight beaming through? No, because the sun's going to damage the medication. Oh, you got to keep those inside. Room tap. What is happening? damage the medication. Oh, you got to keep those inside. Room tap.
Starting point is 00:04:25 What is happening? The reason I started back on Nataral, which has been prescribed by ADHD, it's like, that's not bullshit, which I still feel like I have to explain to people because I still feel guilty. It's got stigma. But yesterday, Vince and I were making our own lunches. And I explained to him my process for what I choose for
Starting point is 00:04:43 lunch. And it was so complicated. It involved so many steps. It involved the past, it involved the future. It involved like... Let's hear it. It was just one of those things where it's like, well, if I open that thing of chicken,
Starting point is 00:04:55 then I have to eat the rest of it by tomorrow, or it's gonna go bad. And if I open that avocado, then that avocado... Tomorrow, I know I'm gonna eat this for lunch, so I'm not gonna finish that avocado, and the avocado's gonna go bad. But I wanna eat this right now, but I know we're having beef for dinner.
Starting point is 00:05:04 So if I should, I shouldn't, and last night I had this for dinner, so I shouldn not going to finish that avocado and the avocado is going to go bad but I want to eat this right now but I know we're having beef for dinner so if I should I shouldn't and last night I had this for dinner so I shouldn't have more chicken. Shit. Do you do that? Oh yeah but me everything's like I just go hmm it's time to order out. It's the easiest. I stand in front of a refrigerator full of diet pepsi and I go looks like I need to get some Mexican food in here. I'm gonna definitely go to Trader Joe's tomorrow. Like that's happening, it's happening. But I think that thing of like the problem of half an avocado where you're just like, it's always a measuring timing cooking element that was never, what do they say, it was never
Starting point is 00:05:40 shown to me in like a way that I could copy. It was always my mom throwing everything up in the air and going, let's just get Chinese. I can't, I've worked all day. God damn it. I can't do this. And we'd be like, yep, here we go. Hey, yeah, that sounds great. Those people that can throw a couple ingredients in a pan calmly.
Starting point is 00:05:57 That's my fucking sister. Somehow we're from the same place, but she can like put a thing in a toaster on an English muffin and just be like, that's the fucking best thing I've ever seen. Why don't I eat that? Why don't I do that? What? Does she do a toaster on an English muffin and just be like, that's the fucking best thing I've ever seen, why don't I eat that? Why don't I do that? What, does she do a mini pizza on an English muffin? She'll do a pizza, she'll do a cute little sandwich. That's why she has kids and I don't,
Starting point is 00:06:11 because she can fucking handle shit and I can't. The reason she has kids is because she can make a really good English muffin. And she has to share that with somebody. That's right, she needs two sweet little boys to share that with. Oh yeah, shit. Damn it. Kara just placed her water bottle down so delicately because we're trying to be quiet
Starting point is 00:06:34 because of the mics picking everything up and it was just so like dainty. And it also took I think 18 seconds. It was a slow lowering. To go all the way down. Here's the thing that involves the podcast. Oh, good idea. There is a documentary out called How to Rob a Bank on Netflix about your boy, Scott Skirlok, aka Hollywood.
Starting point is 00:06:55 Yes. The guy you covered in episode 205 who in Seattle built the fucking tree house out in the woods and robbed the shit out of banks. Yes. It shows you the tree house. It shows you him, he's hot. It like just, it's like, it's a lot. It's good. That is how to rob a bank on what channel?
Starting point is 00:07:12 How to rob a bank on Netflix. Netflix. Yeah. How was your vacation really quick before we go back to the podcast? It was great. That we never started. It was great. I've been holding this since the first night, the first dinner Vince and I had in Michigan in the town called Petoskey, which was the cutest fucking thing I've ever
Starting point is 00:07:29 seen. We had a dinner and it was a steakhouse and they had a one pound twice baked potato. I was like, I cannot wait to tell Karen about this. It was the size of a baby. Yes. A baby filled with bacon and cheese. Yes. It was so good bacon and cheese. Yes. Yes. It was so good. Was it just yours or did you share it? We shared it.
Starting point is 00:07:48 Oh, that's nice. And then I almost ate French onion soup three times on my vacation, but it was only twice. During the summer. Not that interesting, yeah. So that's all I have to report. Love that. What about yours?
Starting point is 00:08:00 Well, I was in Milwaukee. Oh. Because I went to see Bradford. Yes, that's right. Who works in the legal department. That's our to see Bradford. Yes, that's right. Who works in the legal department. That's our Great Lakes office is what he calls his house. So we just had a very chill visit.
Starting point is 00:08:13 Milwaukee, we've had a very lovely time and experience doing our shows there every time. As a town, it's as good, if not better than those experiences we've had. It's so pretty there. People, everybody, like all their stuff looks nice. Every single house, every single neighborhood, everyone's yard is- All little Victorians and shit. And like, yeah, or even, I can't explain it. It was just like, it felt like a homey, cozy, beautiful, in every way city.
Starting point is 00:08:44 Yeah. a homey, cozy, beautiful, in every way city. Yeah, I think MFM moves to the Midwest is important. Decade two. Yeah. Of this podcast. With that idea that it's like, we should actually, we should go on themed vacations where it's like, this time we'll go to the Midwest, this time we're going to South America.
Starting point is 00:08:59 And what does that mean to you? And then like, we both do our own thing there, and then it's like, well, what did it mean to you? For me, it was twice baked potatoes. I think for me, if I had known, I would have just been trying to find a bigger twice baked potato than one pound. There can't be.
Starting point is 00:09:14 If there is, you need to at us. You need to tag us and tell us. There's guys in England that I was watching on TikTok. They have a, if I'm not wrong, a baked potato food truck. There you go. Have you seen that one? No, we've been looking for it forever.
Starting point is 00:09:29 It's just cute guys in England making people, I think they call them jackpot potatoes. They call them jackpot potatoes. Yes. Just filling them up with good stuff. Fuck yeah. But I don't want it like, I don't want it covered. I still want the big potato to be the vessel. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:09:43 You don't want like bacon to upstage your potato meat. I don't mind the bacon upstaging it, but I don't want it to be like, they open it and they almost use the baked potato like a plate and then they just put a bunch of shit on it. No, no, no, no, no. You know what I mean? No. No, you can't do that.
Starting point is 00:09:58 When you see a really great burrito and they're just covered in a bunch of sauces and things, you're like, well, the burrito is the point. Yes. So I want the burrito. Culinary world, now that we've admitted that we like you. Let's pull back on not only the sauces but sprinkling parsley everywhere. No one needs it. I fucking hate it. Have I brought that up on this show before? Not parsley, but I know you don't like cilantro.
Starting point is 00:10:17 I don't like cilantro as a flavor. That's just because it's, I have the soap thing. But the parsley as a kind of last splash accent, I don't need it, especially on scrambled eggs. Oh, let's talk to Tom Colicchio, get him on here. All right, well, let's talk about this podcast network that we have. Let's do it. I think we've talked about this already. Kate Winkler Dawson has done 12 unbelievably amazing seasons of Tenfold More Wicked. It was an OG podcast on this network.
Starting point is 00:10:45 Kate Winkler-Dawson is one of our all-stars. So she is putting that podcast to bed. So thank you, Kate, for all of your hard work and everything you brought to this network because it is beyond legit. If you haven't listened to Tenfold More Wicked and you're interested in historical true crime, let Kate Winkler-Dawson take you on 12 seasons worth of journeys. There's no better historical true crime podcast, in my opinion, than Tenfold More Wicked. Yeah, she's the greatest.
Starting point is 00:11:13 And so she's retiring it, but she has her podcast Wicked Words, which is actually kind of like a true crime talk show where she interviews true crime journalists, true crime authors, all kinds of people in the space that she knows, that she's worked with, that she's interested in. And so you can always listen to Kate Winkler-Dawson just to have a conversation with some of the leading people in the true crime space. The people who are the most enmeshed in the cases that we lightly cover, the people that we use as sources, she interviews those people about those cases.
Starting point is 00:11:45 It's fascinating. And on some upcoming episodes, she's talking to author Patricia Cornwell and journalist and podcaster Mandy Matney from the Murdoch Murders podcast. She's our friend. Mandy's our friend. Yes, our friend too. And then over on Ghosted by Roz Hernandez, we love her so much. She's joined by actor, comedian and her best friend, one of the favorite people here at Exactly Right Network, Sam Pancake.
Starting point is 00:12:08 Oh, Sam Pancake. He's my birthday twin. So over on That's Messed Up, an SVU podcast, Kara and Liza's guest is none other than Danny Pino, who played NYPD detective Nick Amaro on four seasons of SVU. Ooh, they got good guests on that show. I know, they really, that's our Patrick Cottenoir, the Booker. Hell yeah. He kills it. And if you missed it while we were on vacation, because we didn't get to announce it, Parent Footprint, the amazing parenting and beyond podcast by my incredible cousin, Dr. Dan,
Starting point is 00:12:40 celebrated its third anniversary on Exactly Right. And he had a great conversation with Tess, Brandy, and Babs from Lady to Lady. Whether you're a parent, you never want to be a parent, you think about being a parent, you're an aunt, you're an uncle, you're friends of people with children. Check out Parent Footprint. And finally, go to theexactlyrightstore.com to get yourself some shoe charms for summertime. We have croc shoe charms. Let's talk about people rating and reviewing for this podcast. shoe charms for summertime. We have croc shoe charms.
Starting point is 00:13:05 Let's talk about people rating and reviewing in this podcast, for this podcast. Let me just, okay, here's the thing. You guys, you rate, review, subscribe, and it really helps us, and we really appreciate it. Every podcast that you love and listen to, make sure you do that, because it's kind of what helps make the podcasts we do free.
Starting point is 00:13:23 It keeps us going, it makes other people find us, which is really helpful. And also recently Apple did a thing where now if you subscribe to us, you might not anymore. So if you just go double check really quickly. If you're not subscribed, please hit that subscribe. If you fucking feel like it, write a review. It helps. It helps and we appreciate it.
Starting point is 00:13:41 And all the podcasts on our network appreciate it as well. So thank you for doing that. Some examples of some great reviews that we've gotten lately. Nancy Girl says, MFM is that warm hug with that little extra tight squeeze at the end that makes you realize you can't breathe. And from me, you, her, him, us, five stars because of the cussing. See, go over there and explain why you like this podcast. Just have fun with it if you want to. Why are we your people?
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Starting point is 00:14:50 and that's why Seed offers subscription delivery. So I recently took a 10 day vacation. I brought my daily symbiotic with me and took it every day. And I'm so glad because traveling just like wreaks havoc on my gut. And I didn't have that issue because of this. This is like groundbreaking, you guys. You have to check it out and bring it with you on vacation. Trust your gut with Seeds DS01 Daily Symbiotic. Go to seed.com slash murder and use code 25murder to get 25% off your
Starting point is 00:15:15 first month. That's 25% off your first month of Seeds DS01 Daily Symbiotic at seed.com slash murder promo code 25 murder. Goodbye. All right. I'm going to tell you a story today that is pretty incredible. I think we talked about this a little bit, but when we went to the iHeartRadio awards at South by Southwest this year, I believe it was March, wasn't it? There was a podcast that won in the true crime category and that podcast is Wrongfully Convicted. That's a podcast that actually overturns convictions that are for wrongfully convicted people, really actually takes action, is doing something in this space, which is so exciting. So, a lot of those stories are just so overwhelmingly about how intense and impacted racial injustice is in our justice system.
Starting point is 00:16:09 And sometimes I can feel very overwhelming or difficult to talk about or like I feel like, oh, I'm not qualified to talk about it. But the stories are important and I felt like kind of inspired watching those guys and listening to them speak about how important these stories are, how common it is. So I'm going to tell you a story that took place in 1994 in Kansas City. So it started on April 15th around 2 p.m. Two men, Donald Ewing and his cousin, Donyell Quinn, are seated in a parked car. And witnesses nearby say they watched as a black man dressed in all black clothing walks
Starting point is 00:16:48 down a small hill through a vacant lot up to that parked car and without warning raises a pump action shotgun to the passenger side window and fires. The gunman then flees back up that hill, gets into the passenger side of an older model Chevy and they speed away. Danielle Quinn dies at the scene. He is 21 years old. He's the father of a six-month-old baby boy.
Starting point is 00:17:13 34-year-old Donald Ewing dies later that afternoon. So a double murder investigation is opened, and the detective on that is a man named Roger Galovsky. He questions the witnesses, and they include a 21-year-old woman named Nico Quinn. Nico had been walking to her mother's house when this shooting took place, and she's actually related to both of the victims. One is her cousin, then another. It's kind of unclear, distant cousin, basically. So in her statement, Nico tells police that she could identify the shooter if she saw him again.
Starting point is 00:17:49 Then police speak with a 27-year-old witness named Ruby Mitchell. She lives near the crime scene and describes the shooter as having slicked back hair and brown skin. She says he looks like a man named Lamont that used to date her niece, but she can't remember Lamont's last name. So Detective Galuski drives Ruby to the police station and shows her a photo array of five different men. And Ruby identifies one of the photos as the shooter, and Nico later confirms that identification. The man, Lamont McIntyre, is then arrested and charged for both murders and ultimately he's convicted. He's handed two consecutive life sentences. When I say the man,
Starting point is 00:18:30 Lamont is 17 years old. Oh my god. And that's not the end of the story, it's actually just the beginning of Lamont's nightmare. This is the story of Lamont MacIntyre's wrongful conviction and the individuals within the criminal justice system who knowingly orchestrated his imprisonment. It's so crazy to be like that person looks like so-and-so. That's it. That's all you're going on. Yeah. That is like what if you're trying to describe how someone looks by saying he kind of looked like my uncle and then they go after your uncle. You know what I mean? It's like that doesn't, don't say it looks like anyone when they're questioning you.
Starting point is 00:19:05 Right, and I mean, we'll get into this later, but it's that idea that when you see something as horrifying and traumatic as a double murder, a double shotgun murder in front of you, your instincts as a witness would be, I'm going to help. I'm going to say what's going to get that man caught. And that very kind of like innocent motive to be a part of it gets turned on these people. And it's just, it's crazy.
Starting point is 00:19:32 So the sources for today's show, a write-up on the website for the nonprofit Centurion, reporting by Peggy Lowe on the Overlooked podcast produced by Kansas City NPR affiliate KCUR and Articles from the Kansas City Star. And the rest of the sources are in our show notes. Okay, so in 1994, Lamont McIntyre is a tall, skinny 17-year-old kid who dreams of becoming a comedian. He's very close with his family. He actually works with his mother, Rosie, part-time at a restaurant called Fifi's Diner.
Starting point is 00:20:07 And he's also a skilled barber. He's been cutting his friends' and family's hair since he was 11 years old. On April 15th, the day that Donald and Daniel were murdered, Lamont is supposed to attend class for a GED program at a nearby college, but he decides to skip and hang out with his cousins at his aunt's house. They spend the day watching soap operas and watching movies on HBO. So basically, several members of Lamont's family live in the same neighborhood. So basically, throughout the day, Lamont goes from his aunt's house back to his mom's house
Starting point is 00:20:42 to another aunt's house. He's just kind of hanging out with his cousins. And at around 2 p.m., which is the time of the shootings, Lamont is en route between two of his family's homes. Those homes in that neighborhood is more than a mile away from the parking lot where Donald and Donnell are killed. Regardless, the police show up at Lamont's family members' homes that afternoon saying that they want to speak to him.
Starting point is 00:21:08 They don't explain why. And so when they hear about it, Lamont and his mom Rosie drive down to the police station to go talk to police. Lamont had recently missed a court date regarding a drug possession charge. So he figures that that's why the officer came and that he's going to go down and get it cleared up. Neither has any clue that a double homicide has taken place, much less that Lamont is currently considered a suspect in these murders.
Starting point is 00:21:36 But Rosie McIntyre, Lamont's mom, is familiar with Detective Galewski, and she has seen a very dark side of him. Galovsky had aggressively pursued Rosie in the past, asking her once to come down to the station, kind of for no reason, and then once she was there in his office, he sexually assaults her. Holy shit. But this is a well-known, powerful cop in their community, right? Rosie knows she has to keep quiet about this assault. She can't... Who's she going to turn the cop into?
Starting point is 00:22:07 The top cop, yeah. So even after that assault, Galovsky continues to harass her for sex. Rosie always denies him, but now she's in this difficult position of having to cooperate with and trust the police department that employs her abuser. Still, Rosie will later say when she brought Lamont to the station that day, quote, I believed in the system. They said give them 15 minutes and I did. The next thing Rosie knows, they're taking her 17-year-old son into custody and they will keep him there for the next 23 years.
Starting point is 00:22:41 Holy shit. So Lamont McIntyre's murder trial takes place five months after his arrest, which was incredibly fast for a murder case. The trial is overseen by a judge named Jay Dexter Burdette, and the lead prosecutor is a woman named Tara Morehead, whose case relies on Detective Golovsky's investigation. And to be clear, the case is a weak one. There's no physical evidence, there's no murder weapon, there's no prints at the scene, no bloody clothes are found in Lamont's possession.
Starting point is 00:23:12 In fact, there are no clothes and evidence whatsoever or any personal items belonging to any of the people involved in this case because unbelievably, Detective Galovsky didn't obtain a single search warrant during his investigation. The thing you need to go look for and find evidence. There's no evidence and there isn't a clear motive. Lamont has no connection to either of the victims. In fact, the two eyewitnesses, Ruby Mitchell and Nico Quinn, are the prosecution's entire case. So Lamont pleads not guilty.
Starting point is 00:23:47 He's actually kind of not worried. He's like, I have five witnesses who all can collaborate my alibi. And those people testify Lamont was in a different part of town with his family when these murders took place. Family members testify Lamont wasn't wearing an all black outfit the day of the murders, which is what both witnesses said they saw the Genman wearing. But even with all of that in his favor, the defense's case goes sideways fast.
Starting point is 00:24:14 Lamont's court-appointed lawyer is a man named Gary Long, and he has no experience with double homicide cases. To make matters worse, at the time of Lamont's trial, Gary Long is on supervised probation for failing to properly defend three previous clients. No, that's not probation anymore. That can't be probation. I mean, it's not like there's no other lawyers. Like, how many times? But I mean, as I was reading Marin's research, I was just kind of like, that can't be a coincidence that Lamont gets one of the worst lawyers maybe that there is nearby.
Starting point is 00:24:50 Right. We don't have motive, means, or opportunity, so let's give him the fucking lawyer who can't defend him against anything. Let's give him a lawyer who's on probation for being a bad lawyer. Even still, Lamont refuses to take a plea bargain and he would later say, quote, I was innocent. I thought the truth will come out and everything will be okay. End quote. This double murder trial lasts four days. Jury comes back with the verdict Lamont McIntyre is guilty on both counts of murder and he has given two life sentences with basically eyewitness testimony.
Starting point is 00:25:30 It says like no silver lining, rough, brutal justice system story as you can get. He goes to jail and he's just in jail now. But he immediately starts writing to innocence groups, including a New Jersey based nonprofit called Centurion that investigates wrongful convictions. It was founded by a man named Jim McCluskey in 1980, and since that time, they have freed 70 wrongfully convicted men and women serving life sentences or death row sentences. Wow.
Starting point is 00:26:02 Lamont reads an article about that nonprofit in a magazine in 2001 and so he sends him a letter and here is a part of that letter. Lamont says quote, I'm 100% innocent of the crime I'm doing time for. I've been doing my best trying to prove that. I have no money and I don't know where to go from here so I'm asking for your help. If you could just look at my case, you would see I shouldn't be here." And Jim McCloskey reads up on this whole story and he agrees with Lamont, he should not be in prison. So, between 2009 and 2010, this is 15 years after Lamont's conviction, Jim starts traveling
Starting point is 00:26:41 to Kansas City talking to these eyewitnesses, as well as the people who knew Donald, Donniel, and Lamont, and one thing becomes blatantly clear to him, and that's no one believes that Lamont committed these murders. But one name does come up when he talks to people, and that is the name of a notorious Kansas City drug dealer and convicted murderer named Cecil Brooks. So Jim goes to talk to Cecil. Cecil's in prison at the time and he agrees to meet with Jim. And when he does, Cecil tells Jim a teenager who went by the nickname Monster is the one who actually killed Donald and Daniel over a dispute about drugs. Cecil says he knows this because he's the one who ordered the hit. Cecil signs an affidavit confirming that all of this is true. That is unbelievable.
Starting point is 00:27:33 You actually have like the criminal responsible saying this kid is innocent. So at this point, Centurion has connected Lamont with a new lawyer who is very good at her job, her name's Cheryl Pilit, and Jim and Cheryl are joined in this fight by a retired detective named Mark Bussle and by the Midwest Innocence Project. So their work exposes the fact that the case against Lamont is even flimsier than anybody could have suspected. Since the prosecution's case hinged on those two eyewitnesses, Ruby Mitchell and Nico Quinn, the team goes and looks back at their testimony.
Starting point is 00:28:12 Nico Quinn identified Lamont as the shooter after being shown his photograph, but she explains that she felt manipulated into making that identification. While questioning her about the murder, Nico claims Detective Roger Galovsky lied to her saying that the gunman had already been arrested and police had recovered the murder weapon. And Nico said the officer with Galovsky, quote, had his thumb on one photo as if pointing Lamont McIntyre out. Can't do that, turns out. Remember that part in making a murderer?
Starting point is 00:28:45 Mm-hmm. No. That kind of like, they laid out a photo of a, and they basically were like, what about this guy? And it's that, it's just that thing where like, you see it, you know it happens, but the idea that in an investigation that important, that you would just be like pushing this all in a certain direction. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:29:06 That overtly. It's horrible. So it was only at the trial that Nico saw Lamont in person for the first time. And when she saw him, she immediately knew that he was innocent. He looked nothing like the gunman that she saw that day. So before she was slated to testify, Nico told prosecutor Tara Moorhead twice that they had the wrong man. And Nico claims that Moorhead told her, quote, if you don't do what we discussed, I'll throw your black ass in
Starting point is 00:29:35 jail. I'll send the police to get your kids and you'll never see them again, end quote. That is so shocking to me, a white girl from Southern California, but I don't think, unfortunately, that rare for black people who go through that on a regular basis. Yes. It's not fucking idle threat. No. It's not.
Starting point is 00:29:54 No, not in the least. It's the mark of unchecked power. It's the system that black people have been talking about for decades, if not centuries, that white people are like, there's no way that could happen. It's just, that's isn't right. That's not our justice system. Right.
Starting point is 00:30:10 That's not our justice system. Yeah, that's right. It's everyone's, it's the systemic racism justice system. So in the face of those threats, Niko was forced to comply with the prosecution. She perjured herself by testifying that Lamont was the shooter. And she absolutely
Starting point is 00:30:26 felt like she had no choice. And then there's Ruby Mitchell, the witness, who gave Lamont's name to investigators the day of the shooting, but she couldn't think of his last name. So only one person with the name Lamont was included in the photo array that Galovsky presented, and of course that was Lamont McIntyre, they could have included multiple men with the name Lamont without last names and just been like, oh, here's all the Lamonts that we could find. Is it any of these people?
Starting point is 00:30:54 But they didn't do that. They just had the one guy. So knowing that's his name and being like, oh, well, that's the, I guess. So not only did Galovsky's five-person photo array only contain one Lamont, it included a photo of Lamont McIntyre's brother and one of his cousins. KCUR reports, quote, Lamont's lawyers later called that unduly suggestive, meaning police were trying to get witnesses to choose him out of the lineup. And that's what Ruby did. She looked at the photo, she identified the supposed shooter by his full name.
Starting point is 00:31:32 But this is especially bizarre because Ruby and Lamont were strangers. Lamont's attorney, Cheryl, says, quote, This witness provided in a taped statement my client's last name, a man she did not know and had never heard of, which raises the very interesting question, who gave her his name? So it was only after Ruby sees Lamont's photo in the photo array that she changes her initial description of the shooter's hair. And her new description now matches Lamont's hairstyle, the one he had in that photo. So not slicked back, whatever. Right. Now she's like, oh, it actually kind of looks like this, the picture you were pushing toward me
Starting point is 00:32:13 as I was looking at this five-photo array. Then during Lamont McIntyre's trial, it comes to light that the Lamont Ruby thought she saw, the one who dated her niece, was actually a man named Lamont Drain. And she confirms this in her testimony. And these two men look nothing alike. The inconsistency alone should have tanked her reliability as a witness. But in an effort to explain it away, Tara Morehead claims that the two Lamonts looked,
Starting point is 00:32:41 quote, like identical twins. Oh my God. They don't. And also, spoiler alert, Lamont Drain was out of town on the day of the murder. So it was a misidentification all the way around. It was no Lamonts. Yes, no Lamonts. So most people consider Ruby's contribution
Starting point is 00:32:57 to be a very unfortunate mistake made by someone experiencing trauma and confusion after witnessing a double homicide. And as Cheryl Pilot points out, quote, take a person who's traumatized, who's just witnessed a really horrific event, and they can be pretty easy to pressure and manipulate. For sure. And it's pretty easy to believe that they would when the person that you're talking about is Detective Roger Galufsky.
Starting point is 00:33:22 Oh dear. According to the Kansas City Star, the team investigating Lamont's case will collect, quote, more than 15 affidavits from criminals and their cronies to police that point to the detective Roger Galovsky using terms like crooked and dirty, end quote. Among other terrible things, Galovsky is accused of using his position of authority to pressure black women and girls into having sex with him. A retired FBI agent named Alan Jenerech investigated Galovsky for several years, and he says in one of these affidavits, quote, as my investigation uncovered, he used the authority of his position to extort sexual favors
Starting point is 00:34:04 from black females. These women complied with his demands because they knew they would be arrested if they said no. The women were powerless and Galuski exploited them." End quote. And Ruby Mitchell would be one of these women. As Centurion writes in their report, quote, Ruby had a reason to fear him and succumb to his influence in identifying Lamont McIntyre as the shooter. So when Ruby Mitchell was going to go give her witness statement, Galovsky goes and picks her up and drives her
Starting point is 00:34:38 to the station. And so she testifies that on that drive, he made sexual advances toward her, made her feel super uncomfortable, very pressured. And like, so now you're just in the situation where you're just trying to help a crime. You're just trying to help some victims. But suddenly, somebody's basically threatening you.
Starting point is 00:34:58 It's just the grossest, like, it's exploitation of power in every possible direction. So this story is as much about who the police and prosecutors leave out of the case as it is who they decided to include in it. The biggest one, prosecutor Tara Morehead never reveals that she once had been in a relationship with Judge Burdett. You can't do that. It was a short relationship. It was long over by the time Lamont's trial began, but it is still a humongous conflict of interest and one that one of the two parties should have definitely admitted to and then
Starting point is 00:35:37 recuse themselves from the case over. Another big omission, Josephine Quinn, Nico's mom, was also a witness to the murder. She was basically where Nico was same day, same time. And during the investigation, Detective Galovsky interviewed her and showed her the same photo array of the five men, but Josephine told him it's none of these men. At one point, Josephine even went down to the courthouse to see if her testimony might be useful. Tara Morehead told her no, it would not. But at the courthouse, when Josephine saw Lamont McIntyre for the first time, she went
Starting point is 00:36:14 and told Morehead, you have the wrong guy. But Morehead ignored her concerns, saying, quote, it's in the jury's hands now. Yeah, after we gave them everything against him. Right. And also, this is a witness, like they pick one witness over the other. Yeah. The one they want. It's dirty.
Starting point is 00:36:32 It's just outright cheating all the way down. And then there's Stacey Quinn, Josephine's daughter, Nico's sister. Stacey actually had the closest view of the murder. More than any other witness, she was the closest to the crime scene. She was never interviewed by police. Cheryl Pilot will later write in a legal filing, quote, the failure of detectives to interview Stacey is inexplicable. But it's actually no mystery why Stacey was left out.
Starting point is 00:36:58 Officially she was marked by detectives as being, quote, not available. But as one of her family members noted in an affidavit, quote, most everyone in the family knew that Stacey Quinn had been having a sexual relationship with Detective Galuski since the mid-'80s when Stacey was 16 or 17 years old. Galuski would have been in his late 20s, early 30s at the time. And in a position of power.
Starting point is 00:37:25 Yes. Oh my God. But even still, Stacey tries to share what she knows. Just two years after Lamont's conviction in 1996, Stacey testifies at a hearing where a judge weighs the facts of whether or not Lamont received a fair trial. Stacey testifies that she's certain of Lamont's innocence. But the judge at this hearing is incredibly Judge Burdett.
Starting point is 00:37:48 Okay. So Judge Burdett is supposed to decide whether or not his own trial was okay. Right, right, right. According to the Kansas City Star, Judge Burdett writes Stacey's testimony off. He reportedly says quote, she is a felon. She's a habitual drug user, end quote. He ultimately refuses to give Lamont a new trial. So a decade later, it's 2016. Cheryl Pilot files a new motion to vacate Lamont's conviction.
Starting point is 00:38:17 She includes all the affidavits her team has collected. And in response, an evidentiary hearing on Lamont's case takes place in October of 2017. At this point, Lamont McIntyre has been behind bars for over 20 years. But at this hearing, there's a new judge presiding, God bless. He listens to witness after witness, including members of Donald Ewing and Donyell Quinn's families all testifying that they believe that Lamont McIntyre is innocent. Oh my god. One day later, after 23 years behind bars, the judge vacates Lamont's conviction.
Starting point is 00:38:52 The now 41-year-old Lamont McIntyre is a free man. The first thing he says after 23 years behind bars is, quote, it's nice outside. From 17 to 41, it's sickening. In prison for something you have literally nothing to do with. So this awful story shows just how brutal our criminal justice system is and the reality of the many bad actors who populate it.
Starting point is 00:39:19 Cops who are themselves criminals, prosecutors who are hell bent onent on winning cases, no matter what. It all leaves the accused extremely vulnerable and their rights. And as Shell Pilot once said, quote, other than the 20 minutes of taped interview from eyewitnesses, there was very little else in Lamont's case. Someone can go to prison for the rest of their life because of a total of 20 taped minutes. 20 minutes and they never got a search warrant, they didn't find the weapon,
Starting point is 00:39:50 there's no evidence. And they didn't do the one step past a photo array of how about you look at these people in real life. Totally. But I mean all of that is we're arguing it like they had intention to be fair or to do anything. Clearly there was an agenda here. So for years, these bad actors who engineered Lamont's conviction faced no consequences. Detective Galovsky remains a detective. Tara Morehead is promoted to a federal prosecutor's job.
Starting point is 00:40:19 No, please. But Lamont McIntyre's fight for freedom eventually brings them both to justice. So and it just happened a few months ago in April of 2024. The Kansas Supreme Court issues an order of disbarment against Tara Morehead after she surrenders her law license. She is no longer prosecuting cases. And according to KCUR's reporting, there are at least two different U.S. Department of Justice investigations into her alleged misconduct. Damn.
Starting point is 00:40:50 And as for Roger Galovsky, in 2021, Lamont McIntyre filed a lawsuit against the local government and police department over his wrongful conviction. This suit included the initials of 70 women who claimed they were victimized by Galovsky while he was a Kansas City detective. 70 women. 70 women who were brave enough to come and put their initials on that. Right. In 2022, the lawsuit settled for $12.5 million. Damn. That same year, Galovsky was arrested and charged with six counts of deprivation of civil rights.
Starting point is 00:41:25 Yes. That's kind of a shocking turn. I was surprised when I heard that because it so, so rarely happens. That's how egregiously insane. Lamont's lawsuit isn't the only case that's focused on the disgraced detective. In 2023, five black women file a 138 page lawsuit, accusing the county government of allowing Galovsky and his fellow officers to, quote, kidnap, coerce, pressure, sexually assault, and rape black women in violation of clearly established constitutional rights, end quote. One of the plaintiffs demanding justice in that case is none other than Nico Quinn. There's also a federal conspiracy case looking into Galovsky, which alleges that he was heavily involved in the local drug trade
Starting point is 00:42:12 while being a Kansas City cop. —Fuck! —One of his co-defendants in that case is none other than Cecil Brooks, the drug dealer, who claimed to have ordered the hit on Donald Ewing and Daniel Quinn —So this guy might have even known about the hit and knew who even fucking did it. Yes. Of like he... Ah.
Starting point is 00:42:30 Covering. Covering and because there was a quote from Rosie McIntyre, Lamont's mother, who said that she basically believed that if she had just kind of given in, because Galovsky was after her so much, she says she believes that if she had just given in, her son would have never gone to jail. Like he was just picking someone and he was like, retaliatory. Yeah. Oh my God.
Starting point is 00:42:57 The most disturbing allegations from the suit claim that Galovsky physically and sexually abused girls as young as 13 years old. And along with his co-defendants trafficked them to other men. Jesus. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. And one more PS just on the subject of bad actors in the system, that first lawyer, Gary Long, he was disbarred a few years after Lamont's trial for violating Kansas rules
Starting point is 00:43:25 concerning competence. He was eventually reinstated, then suspended for not paying taxes, then reinstated, then disbarred again over misconduct in the 2010s. So that's how, how do you have that record? The guy that was already on probation for three charges. What in the living fuck is going on that that person continues to be a lawyer? Absolutely. I hope it looks into every case he ever defended because they should all be questioned. Yes, for sure. And also, is this just a tool that that system uses to make sure that people don't have a
Starting point is 00:44:02 good defense? Right. Right? Of course. That's inherently unconstitutional. Oh, you're very... Officially the murders of Donald Ewing and Daniel Quinn remain unsolved. But Nico Quinn continues to seek justice for her cousins as well as for her sister, Stacey Quinn, who was murdered in 2000.
Starting point is 00:44:20 Nico's convinced that the man who was convicted of Stacey's murder was not responsible for her death. Detective Roger Galovsky is the police officer who investigated that murder and Tara Morehead is the one who prosecuted that case. So in 2018 on the heels of Lamont's exoneration, Kansas passes a law that compensates wrongfully convicted men and women $65,000 for every year that they spend behind bars. And for Lamont, who served 23 years, that means he gets $1.5 million, which should be more money. It was a huge chunk of his life.
Starting point is 00:44:59 Lamont says readjusting to life outside of prison and the trauma of the whole experience is a complicated process. In 2020, he tells a local reporter, quote, people see me on social media, in the streets, at the store, and feel like, okay, he's happy, he's smiling. That nightmare of his is over, right? But I'm left with the side effects of it. I'm still putting together my life in that kind of way, the emotional side. This brings a lot of peace of mind to me, knowing I'm free like everyone else. I can pass a background check, no one's looking at me and seeing
Starting point is 00:45:29 the things that I was imprisoned for. It feels so good to know that I have my life back. To be free, it's something I can't put into words." End quote. Lamont McIntyre has created a non-profit called Miracle of Innocence with a man named Daryl Burton, who was also in prison for a murder he did not commit. This group's mission is to, quote, free the innocent and provide care when they come home. And we'll end this story with a quote from Lamont. He says, quote, I'm a guy who sees a fire and I want to put it out. If it's too big for me to put out by myself, I kind of expect my community to help me put it
Starting point is 00:46:03 out. Wrongful convictions are way out of control. It started as a bushfire and it's now spread. My whole thing is just trying to gain the right amount of awareness to change it." Wow. And that's the story of the wrongful conviction of Lamont McIntyre. Oh my God. So don't you think we should give $10,000 to Centurion? I was at the beginning of the story right there with you. Right.
Starting point is 00:46:30 Yeah. I mean, what incredible work they do. Just so you know, if you also want to give to Centurion, they are a secular nonprofit organization dedicated to freeing from prison those who have been wrongly convicted, are completely innocent, and serving long imprisonment terms or death sentences. You can go to Centurion.org to get more information or to make a donation yourself. Hell yeah. I love that. Boom.
Starting point is 00:46:55 That was amazing. Great job. Thank you. Unbelievable and yet so common in our country that it shouldn't be unbelievable to people like me. That's right. common in our country that it shouldn't be unbelievable to people like me. That's right. Summer is all about floating in a pool, chomping hot dogs at a barbecue, and just generally being carefree. And with SimpliSafe, you'll have the peace of mind to make that possible.
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Starting point is 00:49:41 That's our way. We'll make a U-turn. We're heading to Canada. Thank God. I love it there. All right. So we're in Canada. Total different story here. Smells like maple syrup. Are you fucking kidding me? What?
Starting point is 00:49:54 Today's story is a heist story. Oh, really? It's the biggest heist in the history of Quebec. How did you know that? I am Irish psychic. I don't know what more I have to do to prove it. Taryn, it wasn't art, it wasn't diamonds, it wasn't money, it wasn't even drugs. This is the story of the great Canadian maple syrup heist.
Starting point is 00:50:14 What the fuck? Oh, these years you've been trying to hide your paper from me. I don't even need the fucking paper. I don't need the paper. You know the story I'm telling. You can smell it. Ooh, maple syrup heist. Irish psychic, I believe it.
Starting point is 00:50:32 All right, so obviously there's a lot of jokes to be made and no one was hurt in the story. Oh, great. So now we can feel free to. Yeah, go nuts. But this is serious business. If you've ever bought maple syrup, you know it's fucking expensive.
Starting point is 00:50:46 Yes, it is. Right? In my family, my mom, we were broke as fuck. There were a few things that we'd spend money on, but we would have pancakes for dinner a lot. And she would always buy pure maple syrup. That was not allowed in our house to have artificial maple syrup ever. Wow.
Starting point is 00:51:03 And I still to this day can't eat fake maple syrup. It really is so good. It's just, it's different, you know. My friend Jacob Tierney, who's a big fan of the show, Georgia. Sure. I don't know if you've told him. Best friends. He's from show business.
Starting point is 00:51:14 But anyway, he came down to visit one time and brought me 100% real Canadian maple syrup. And it was nutso. How incredibly delicious. I didn't really know the difference. Oh my God. When Vince and I, you know, Midwestern, him got together, I was like, oh, I don't eat that.
Starting point is 00:51:32 I just like won't eat that. I won't eat that. Okay. Disagreements over how Canadian's national treasure, maple syrup, should be regulated have led to deep seated rivalries and grudges within the industry. Sure. OK, the main sources I used for this story
Starting point is 00:51:47 are an episode of the Netflix show, Dirty Money, which I highly recommend, and an article from Bloomberg Business Week by Brendan Borrell. So here we go. July 30, 2012. An auditor for the Quebec maple syrup producer's name, Michel Graveau. Michel Graveau. There's a lot of French Quebec-ing,
Starting point is 00:52:07 like in pronunciations, and I'll do my best. So Michel reports to the Federation storage facility in Saint-Louis-des-Blaire-Four in Quebec. I would really like to go to Quebec someday, so let's not totally piss them off. It is beautiful. It's really a cool place. Yeah, I would love to go to Quebec someday, so let's not totally piss them off. It is beautiful. It's really a cool place.
Starting point is 00:52:26 Yeah, I would love to go there. So maple syrup production in Quebec is highly regulated. And this is because maple syrup is fickle stuff. And production can vary widely from year to year, as the weather does. Quebec maple syrup producers, often just called the Federation, which is already the fed Federation, like fucking red flag right there, guards against this by maintaining a strategic reserve of maple syrup, saving up more in good harvest years and releasing
Starting point is 00:52:56 more into the market on bad years, basically to regulate the price like you would with oil. Yeah. You can't have that go up and down. Yeah. But if it did, that means on the up years people like the independent, you know, producers could make a lot more money. Oh, right. And this kind of regulates how much money they can actually make. Frustrating.
Starting point is 00:53:14 Frustrating for a lot of people. Yeah, and trees. Mostly trees. They just want their credit. So yeah, it's comparative to OPEC, you know, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which maintains... Sure, OPEC. You Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which maintains — you know them — which maintains a strategic reserve of oil to control prices. So here's the thing. Oil is currently worth about $73 a barrel, and they use the same system, barrels, and maple syrup. But guess how much a barrel of maple syrup is worth right now?
Starting point is 00:53:43 Is it way more? So $73 for oil, it's way more for maple. Guess how much? 200? 1,800. Whoa! Oh, we're in the thousands. We're in the thousands, and it gets crazier.
Starting point is 00:53:55 OK. So the warehouse where they store these barrels is this huge space. It's as big as an aircraft hangar, and it's filled with about 16,000 barrels of fucking maple syrup. Can I please just do one dive, you know, into a pool? I bet they have a pool. Christmas parties are amazing.
Starting point is 00:54:12 Do you remember that video? Remember the video of the guy that went into the, Eddie Bauer has a main store in like Atlanta that has a huge, like a fish pond in it? No. A huge fish pond in like two Christmases ago. I think a guy was maybe having a moment and he just went and got into that and was swimming around naked. Ugh, just the fish poop. I mean, that's a virus waiting to happen.
Starting point is 00:54:37 It was more pool than pond, but it makes me think of that, that secretly the maple syrup people would have like an Eddie Bauer style swimming area filled with maple syrup. Which is way better, obviously. So the barrels are, so 16,000 barrels of maple syrup, they're all stacked up on each other. It's like very orderly, but they're stacked and they're all painted the exact same shade of white. So it's just white barrels as far as the eye can see.
Starting point is 00:55:04 I'm picturing the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. I'm not because I don't think I got that far. What? What? No, I just don't. I fell asleep. Are you? I can't.
Starting point is 00:55:14 It's one of the best movies ever made. Oh, Raiders of the Lost Ark. I was thinking of Star Wars. Yes. No, I'm there with you now. No, you're right. You're right. It was Star Wars.
Starting point is 00:55:22 Did you see this? Did you ever see Star Wars? You know, the Star Wars episode Raiders of the Lost Ark. There's some people that are getting really mad right now. Did you see recently, there was a, not recently probably, but there was like a, if Darth Vader was one of the Gallagher brothers from Oasis, it was just quotes he said. Like he's fighting too? No, like he's fighting too?
Starting point is 00:55:45 No, like he's Darth Vader and he's like, all right, mate, I've had, I've had bigger fights with the toenails, with my toenails before, like Talia, Princess Leia. Okay, stop it. So here's the barrels. The auditor wants to get some information off the top of a high barrel. You know, he has to like, check it. Check it, sure. So he steps up onto one of the barrels, grabs a hold of another, decline. That's how they fucking do it. Seems like they should have a lot of insurance, but that's just how they do it. They scale up like a wall of barrels of maple syrup.
Starting point is 00:56:13 Yeah, I think it's like stacked one, two, one, two. Like so it's climbable. It's not like one on top of the other. It's like one layer and then in the middle of those layers is another layer. You know what I mean? I love to get a visual on this. Look at Alejandra! Alejandra running in with a visual.
Starting point is 00:56:29 Got it in her hands. Maybe you can explain it better, Karen. Breaking news! Well, that's kind of how I was picturing it. This looks like, thank you Alejandra, this looks like a set piece from Austin Powers. Where it's like, here's where all the dynamite is held. And of course it's like, here's where all the dynamite is held. Right, and of course it's going to all fall over.
Starting point is 00:56:46 Yeah, guys, these are the most generic looking white barrels. There's not even like a, here's the thing you said they have to climb up it and check on the top. Why don't they put the sticker on the side? You know what? This is why you need to be in charge of the Maple Syrup Federation. Ring, ring Canada, what's this a boot? So he climbs up, then the next barrel he grabs while he's like getting towards the top, it
Starting point is 00:57:09 should weigh more than 600 pounds each of those barrels and be very stable. He's done this a million times, but it teeters backwards and Michel nearly fucking falls. Ooh la la, Michel. Michel almost eats it. He catches himself. The reason is because that barrel was empty. It was supposed to be 600 pounds and he was supposed to be able to rely on it, but he doesn't.
Starting point is 00:57:31 Oh, someone, a little mouse is tapping the back of the barrel. Michel quickly realizes that it's not the only empty barrel. He counts about 30 of them. Shit. So they're like, oh my God. So right off the bat, that's about how much worth of maple syrup that's unaccounted for. Money-wise? Well, if we're saying $1,800 per what though? Per barrel.
Starting point is 00:57:52 Per barrel. That's right. It's $5,400. I'll ask you more in the future. This is like real math and that's not what we do here. How insulting. What? No, I'm just saying. I'm not asking you to multiply 1800 by 30. Could you? No, I don't even understand what the question is. Actually, I was baffled. I wasn't even sure what I was guessing.
Starting point is 00:58:14 Was I wrong this whole eight and a half years? So you want me to guess tablespoons of maple syrup right now? Because I could do it. So he counts 30. That's about $54,000 worth of maple syrup that's unaccounted for. That's a fucking lot. Yes.
Starting point is 00:58:30 Michelle reports the empty barrels and returns to the warehouse in early August with the officials from the Federation. They confirm the empty barrels, but then they look more closely at some of the full barrels. And they notice that some of the barrels are leaving rings of rust on the floor and this shouldn't happen with maple syrup for whatever chemistry reason I can't even fucking begin to... These are high school students replacing half the maple syrup with water? All the maple syrup with water.
Starting point is 00:58:56 What? In the barrel. Oh, shit! And it creates condensation and so all this shit so they realize that thousands of barrels have been filled with water. Oh my God. Yeah. Oh, that is, wait, they made a documentary about this or a movie?
Starting point is 00:59:11 It's a show called Dirty Money. Dirty Money. Yeah, it's just like an episode of the show. Because this right there is an opening scene. Well, I've got info for that on you. Okay, great. For you in the future. In your future, I see it.
Starting point is 00:59:22 Okay. In your future, I see it. So in total, 9,560 barrels worth of maple syrup have been siphoned away and stolen. That's so time consuming. It makes me want to take a nap. It's so like, who is the person with the poker face that's so good that he's just like... But he has maple syrup smeared across his face and he's like, nothing, nothing. Little kids follow him everywhere. He's just dripping out of his pockets maple syrup and you're like, Michelle, what's happening? Michelle, qu'est-ce que t'as?
Starting point is 00:59:55 So that's more than half the entire strategic reserve or more than 5% of that year's entire maple syrup production in Quebec. And this actually makes the theft among the largest agricultural, like, crimes ever. COLLEEN O'BRIEN What are the other agricultural crimes? COLLEEN O'BRIEN I don't know. Like, that's for next week and the week after. COLLEEN O'BRIEN What was it? The Butter High stove.
Starting point is 01:00:15 COLLEEN O'BRIEN Cows. Lots of cows. COLLEEN O'BRIEN There's got to be some sort of cheese crime that we need to hear about. COLLEEN O'BRIEN Cheese crime. The authorities estimate the amount of stolen maple syrup to be worth about this much in Canadian dollars. Or do you want to do it in US dollars? I can't do it in Canadian.
Starting point is 01:00:29 No. Okay, so actually, sorry, I won't do it in Canadian. But to do it so US dollars were a little less than Canadian value wise, right? Now this is more. Okay. It's all over the place. It's similar. It's not. It's similar. It's not.
Starting point is 01:00:45 It's more. It's less. I don't know. But I'll just do a whirlwind guess. Is it like, well, thousand and then 10,000? Remember, it's almost 10,000 barrels. Are we up in the neighborhood of like $400,000? No, not even close.
Starting point is 01:01:02 I don't know why I made that noise. It's disappointing when you find out I can't do math at all. $24 million US dollars worth of fucking maple goddamn syrup. Jesus Christ. Yeah. You know when you go to like the almost fancy cafes and they're like, it's a dollar extra for real maple syrup. Like that, think of how many of those little cute little
Starting point is 01:01:28 like tin- Plastic things. Pours they give you. Oh, like a little guy like that. Yeah, it's a lot. It's so much. Yeah. Okay, so let's go back and talk about maple syrup,
Starting point is 01:01:38 your favorite subject. If you have a bottle of- Let's do the math based on how, like pancakes, how many pancakes would be affected. Oh my God. Or cleps. Five in a stack? Cleps.
Starting point is 01:01:49 Cleps. Okay. If you have a bottle of maple syrup at your house, the real kind, not the maple flavored pancake syrup that's all high fructose corn syrup, there's a very good chance it came from Quebec. Maple syrup has been harvested in North America for centuries by indigenous people. A tree is tapped and the sap is collected. The sap is then boiled down.
Starting point is 01:02:06 The water slowly evaporates and all that's left is a thick, sweet syrup, maple syrup. Oh yeah. If you keep boiling it until all the water is gone, you get maple sugar. Some of the very first Europeans to wind up in North America are French settlers in what is now Quebec and they learn how to make maple syrup
Starting point is 01:02:23 from the First Nations people. Like all props. Yeah. Maple syrup is now totally central to Canadian culture, as you clearly demonstrated at the beginning of this. And particularly to Quebec, to Quebecians, to... How do you fucking say that? Quebecois.
Starting point is 01:02:40 Quebecois. To Quebecois culture. Quebecois. Quebecois. To Quebecian culture. Quebecois. To Quebecois culture. Quebecois. Quebecois. Quebecois. To Quebecois culture.
Starting point is 01:02:48 Quebecois. Quebecois. To Quebecois culture. Quebecois. Quebecois. To Quebecois culture. Quebecois. To Quebecois culture.
Starting point is 01:02:56 Quebecois. To Quebecois culture. Quebecois. To Quebecois culture. Quebecois. To Quebecois culture. Quebecois. Quebecois.
Starting point is 01:03:04 To Quebecois culture. Quebecois. Quebecois. To Quebecois culture. Quebecois. quarters of the maple syrup produced in Canada goes directly to the United States. So we're actually like dependent on them. We're mainlining them for sure. Just like they're Kit Kats. Right. But almost agricultural products from North America have become highly corporate and industrialized. Maple syrup is still produced by a network of smaller producers. It's like the people that you'd meet in, you know. Farmer's market? Yeah. Yeah. Like the farmer's market, like off the grid, the like, you know, they're market? Yeah like the farmers market like off the grid the like
Starting point is 01:03:26 you know they're wearing crocs. Hey hey hey hey there. Are you a Quebois maple syrup farmer and you need some little dangly things for your crocs? What if the croc was the official shoe of a maple syrup harvester? Yeah and overalls too. And so in Quebec, those producers though are unhappy, a lot of them are unhappy to have to play by the Federation's rules. So they're regulated, it's like socialism essentially. So because maple syrup production is so central to the Quebecois identity, maple syrup producers
Starting point is 01:04:00 in Quebec are deeply divided on the role of the Federation. The group has become more and more powerful since its origins in the 1950s, and now all sales of maple syrup from Quebec must go through them. Which, like, I can understand why some people would be super pissed off about it, why some people would be supportive of it, like, but it's really divided and, like, both sides are really passionate. Yeah. The idea that they're trying to self-preserve by basically uniting and then keeping out commercial industry or whatever is a great idea.
Starting point is 01:04:33 But then it's like it usually always comes from within. Yeah. The money funnels through the federation. So if there is overage, it's not going to these producers. They're getting the same amount of money every time for their maple syrup. You know what I mean? Like they can't make more money off it.
Starting point is 01:04:49 So like it's just really regulated. And so actually the group has been described as a legal cartel. Like we're talking like mafia at this point. Like. A true federation. Exactly. And it controls how much maple syrup can be sold in a given year.
Starting point is 01:05:07 So they hold on to the excess. So basically there's like a secret uprising where they're like, you're not the only ones. And it does keep the prices stable, right? So some people would have lost a ton of money and maybe not been able to carry on with this job, if that hadn't been in place, although they would have had a lot of money from the good years. So who the fuck knows? Yeah.
Starting point is 01:05:30 So people who produce maple syrup, though, generally don't do it as their only source of income because it's so seasonal. I was going to say, people probably don't do it for the money. Well, they would probably if they could make more money on it. Yeah, if they could control it. Some producers are happy with the system. The Federation insulates everyone against the factors they can't control, like weather and international competition.
Starting point is 01:05:50 Others feel like it's a monopoly and that it introduces many opportunities for corruption to enter the system. Always. Always. And that it stops independent producers from generating as much profit as they can from their trees. So this has led to a black market, of course.
Starting point is 01:06:07 Of maple syrup. Of maple syrup. There is a maple syrup black market. Yes. And it's fueled by the producers who feel the Federation is unfairly regulating the sap in their own trees. I feel like this would make more sense for some reason
Starting point is 01:06:21 to me in Ireland. Like if they had Irish accents, it'd be like more charming somehow. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Where it's like, yeah, that's your fucking family farm. You could do whatever the fuck you want with your family farm. Yeah. Rise up.
Starting point is 01:06:36 Although I think if you went to Quebec, you would get it. Because it is very different. I believe they're the ones that wanted to secede from the rest of Canada. There's a real independent, they're very different there and very much their own culture and their own kind of thing. Well, I'd love to get to know it intimately within the next year for the rest of my life.
Starting point is 01:06:58 So I'm trying really hard not to piss them off. OK, good idea. Let's not do anything. And let's also do everything we can to get them as a city to invite us and put us up at a really nice hotel. Yeah. So that we can... For the rest of our lives.
Starting point is 01:07:12 Eat waffles and then taste maple syrup. I don't want to be here anymore. Oh, I see. We're trying to escape. Yes. Got it. Can I have a visa? Okay.
Starting point is 01:07:22 Producers who sell on the black market will sell to a person known, they're called barrel rollers, basically a fence for black market maple syrup. And it's led to a longstanding bitter tension between the Federation and its supporters and anti-Federation producers. Doesn't that sound like an Irish thing? Well, yes. But really quick, I was going to say, so you are in the market for some black market maple syrup. Where are you meeting that fence? In the forest?
Starting point is 01:07:51 Online. Oh, to pick up their actual product? Wouldn't the forest be the worst place to meet? Because that's where the source? I think it's already barreled. Oh, so maybe you just go down to like a, dress as a longshoreman and go down to like the yeah What's that one place we love that? Oh cracker. Go down to the Buc-Ease the Buc-Ease parking lot or a cracker barrel Buc-Ease parking lot They offload some fucking black market maple syrup. Got it. You know, I have a Buc-Ease bathing suit right now. What? Yeah, it's got Buc-Ease shit. Where'd you get it? My friend Crystal got it for me in Texas Buc-Eucky girl summer.
Starting point is 01:08:25 Nice. Okay. Stop it. Stop it. Okay. So in Dirty Money, a regional federation leader says that in 2000 when the federation was introducing more regulations, which nobody fucking liked, he was tapping maple trees and looked up to see an unusual amount of smoke coming from his sugar shack.
Starting point is 01:08:44 And it turns out that it was a fire and this was the first in a string of fires, all which targeted Federation leaderships. So shit started to get ugly between the two. As a revolt. Yeah, exactly. And of course, this theft that happened, we're back here, is serious and it could have actual widespread economic impacts, which is adorable. When the news comes out, one headline, it's also funny,
Starting point is 01:09:07 you know, people can't take it fucking seriously even though it's a ton of money. When the news comes out, one headline reads, quote, maple syrup heist puts industry in a sticky spot. Which I appreciate. They just got to. Yeah. It does sound silly at first because it's maple syrup,
Starting point is 01:09:22 but this is the biggest heist in Quebec history. Oh wow. Like, period. They do have art there. Take some art, friends. It's way less messy. They're like, nope, that's not what we care about here. No.
Starting point is 01:09:38 About 250 people are assigned to the investigation. Oh shit. That's a humongous task force. That's a big task force. We have murderers, shit. That's a humongous task force. That's a big task force. We have murderers, people. The warehouse has no security cameras and only one dedicated security guard. He only comes by to check once a day. He keeps licking his fingers. Part of the reason for this is that it's a temporary facility that the Federation is
Starting point is 01:10:00 renting while it builds its own storage facility, which will have better security. So in the meantime, it's like not secure. Barely. They're building that facility under the Denver airport. Oh my gosh. Very secret. And there's just fucking bears. Like, bears are the security guards?
Starting point is 01:10:13 Prowling? Brown bears? Yep. Do it. You did a swipe. I saw your swipe. I was going to do a thing, but then I wanted to ask, do bears like maple syrup? Or they're like, it's no honey.
Starting point is 01:10:23 Am I thinking of, yeah, you know what? I'm thinking of Winnie the Pooh. That's not the same thing. No. Oh, wow. So fairly quickly, they winnow down the potential suspects to a smaller group. Given the volume of syrup that's been stolen, investigators believe whoever did this would need to know the maple syrup industry.
Starting point is 01:10:40 Obviously, it's a very small world. The people who don't like the Federation have not been quiet about it, which is kind of dumb. They were all protesting and shit. You should have been in the background being quiet because they know your fucking name now. Well, but that also makes them like a good scapegoat. Right. Right. So there is this group of people who the Federation knows to have ties to the black market, though many of them would never think about stealing a vast quantity of syrup that doesn't belong to them because they're Canadian and so they're trustworthy. They're just like, everyone's really nice. Yeah. So almost right from the start, the Federation suspects a man named Richard Valliere.
Starting point is 01:11:14 Richard Valliere? There's an umlaut. There's not. What's the thing called? Accent a go, accent grave. It's V-A-L-L-I-E with a thing on top, R-E-S. Give me that. Oh yeah, that's an accent. Either I can't remember which direction. I really love taking French in high school. I did it a couple times. Oh yeah, I'm proud of you.
Starting point is 01:11:37 Richard Vallier. Richard Vallier. There you go. He's the barrel roller, so he's one of the black market buyers in Quebec. He's like one of the best known. He would be played, if you saw him, he'd be played actually by a Gallagher brother from Oasis who ate a lot of syrup.
Starting point is 01:11:56 That's what he looks like. One of the beefier Gallagher brothers. So his family has produced maple syrup for generations, and he's one of those producers who does not want the federation in his business. He has taken this to more of an extreme in the past, moving syrup through unofficial channels at higher volume than anyone else.
Starting point is 01:12:14 So clearly they're like, hey, Richard. We know this is your, yeah. You got your sticky fingerprints are all over this. Your sticky finger, you love this crime. You keep going back for more. When investigators examine the warehouse, they find footprints, fingerprints, and scratches on the barrels.
Starting point is 01:12:31 The Federation always uses one specific forklift to move the barrels around because it doesn't leave any marks, but the investigators find that the empty and doctored barrels have dents on the side from a different forklift. So this leads them to believe that the barrels were taken to a different location, siphoned, then brought back and replaced. And this turns out to be their break. They narrow down the type of forklift. What the f—
Starting point is 01:12:53 Like that's great detective work, right? Well, that's que becois for you. Que becois. Que becois. That is great. They narrow down the type of forklift that would have left those dents. So brilliant. And they go around to businesses that rent out heavy machinery and see if they carry that type of forklift. Like that's fucking, mwah. Then they look at the names of the people who rented those and one of them is a person
Starting point is 01:13:17 they're aware of having ties to the maple syrup black market, though it's not Richard. When authorities question him, this man claims to have transported barrels of syrup, but he says he had no idea they were stolen. So he's like, yeah, I did that, but, oh. And this doesn't really jive with his name being on the forklift rental records, but they get the idea that he's just one of a group that conspired to do this. It's unclear how much he really knows, but he does appear to be the connection point between Richard Valliere and another man. So he's the middleman between Richard Valliere
Starting point is 01:13:50 and another man named Havoc Caron. Havoc Caron. Havoc Caron, who owns the rented warehouse where the Federation is storing the syrup. Where they're like doing it temporarily, he owns that fucking place. Oh, it's an inside job. It might be an inside job. He is played, in my mind, by a Wilson brother.
Starting point is 01:14:10 Okay. Who ate a lot of syrup. Yes. Here's the thing. Up there is very far north. Yeah. No reason to be skinny up there. Absolutely not. It's not appealing. Insulation.
Starting point is 01:14:22 Benefits no one. It turns out Avik has a bit of a checkered past and some possible ties to our friend organized crime. Oh yeah, okay. It also seems like stealing the syrup might have been his idea to begin with. And then he asked his truck driver acquaintance to introduce him to this poor guy Richard who was like, all right, whatever that sounds like in Canadian. Uh, oui.
Starting point is 01:14:46 Uh, oui. Investigators eventually figure out that the three men met at a truck stop in 2011 and shortly after the meeting, the thefts began. So it was like these three main dudes. Here's the thing though. I think it started before that. Evac and some of the other growers, tappers, whatever you call them, super drunk in a bar one night. Oh yeah.
Starting point is 01:15:07 Complaining. Yeah. Pissing. Like fucking Irish people. Stop bringing us into this. We didn't do this one. But doesn't that sound like you know what we should do? That just sounds like a drunk idea.
Starting point is 01:15:18 You know it would be great. You know it would really fuck them over. And if we met at a Bucky's and we fucking all came together. There's a circle around the word Bucky's. You're just really trying to get Bucky's in there. I really am. So investigators learned that the group led by Avik and Richard started out by making hundreds of dummy barrels.
Starting point is 01:15:37 They painted the same shade of white, fake labels. Basically, they took the real barrels, they replaced them with the dummy barrels. Then the real barrels were taken truckload at a time, they were siphoned, and then brought back and switched out. You get it. Richard oversaw the sale of the stolen maple syrup, mostly to a licensed maple syrup exporter, aka maybe a barrel-er based in New Brunswick named Etienne Saint-Pierre.
Starting point is 01:16:04 Etienne Saint-Pierre. Etienne Saint-Pierre. Who looks like Michael Caine if he ate a lot of syrup. However, he also has zaddy vibes, which begs the question, is he a sugar daddy? Oh, get it? Because of the maple syrup. Sugar daddy. You know what I'm saying?
Starting point is 01:16:21 Is he single? Yeah, he's got those vibes. Like there's something like you go go to really fancy parties with him. Hell yeah. So he's discovering that he might be one of the minds behind? Is that what you're saying? He's the person who's willing to take this maple syrup that isn't sent from the Federation. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 01:16:39 Mm-hmm. I think a lot of people who are buyers in the US would be like, it's not from the Federation. I know this is like- There's something going on. Yeah. Yeah. but he was like, I'll take it. And he had a history of working with the producers in Quebec who wanted to circumvent the Federation. So he was like their guy. So it does result in fines when he does stuff like that
Starting point is 01:16:56 to the producers, but he's in the US. So it's not actually illegal for him to do that, right? Technically. Still the Federation has in its past sent him threatening letters letters telling him to stop buying Quebec maple syrup directly from sellers or just like trying to like, you know, shake a fist in his maple syrup face. One of the times this happened, his second in command faxed him a handwritten response
Starting point is 01:17:17 that said, quote, fuck you, gang of a-holes, ha ha, we will keep buying maple syrup forever." End quote. And that's when Karen fell in love. Because first of all, didn't you say he faxed that? He faxed it. What a bad ass. What a punk rocker that's just like, uh uh uh. It's all smear'd. Oh, that's a printer. But in this case, the syrup is stolen, so it is illegal. Although Etienne maintains that he has no idea where this, he didn't know it was stolen.
Starting point is 01:17:53 After buying it from Richard, he then sold the syrup to buyers in the US, Germany, and Japan. There's just a guy standing there with an IHOP shirt on. It's just like, I'll take 20 gallons. Exactly. I mean, I would buy it. They did this for over a year from August 2011 until the discovery in August 2012 from text messages from their burner phones. It appears the group knew that the audit was about to happen. Like they knew they were about to get caught. In one text, the investigators uncover it's unclear from whom. some suggest turning the lights down low in
Starting point is 01:18:25 the warehouse to avoid the rust stains showing from the water. Smart. And the forklift marks and empty barrels being detected. So they're like, what do we do? And then they're like literally gaslighting these people. Yes. Or they go in there and just throw like a red kerchief over the top like you do in college when you have this ugly lamp.
Starting point is 01:18:43 Nothing. Don't worry about this over here. Red care chief. Prosecutors eventually charged 22 different people, they say, were involved in the operation. But those three guys and the truck driver who testifies and gets immunity are the main players. So 22 different people and really only four people
Starting point is 01:18:59 it comes down to. Pretty much everyone involved says they played a role in the selling of syrup outside the rules of the Federation, but they deny knowing that it was stolen. That's it, deny, deny, deny. Yeah, got to. Authorities visit Etienne and he tells them about 700 to 800 barrels of the maple syrup in his storehouse came from Richard. But again, he claims not to have known they were stolen from the Federation, but still the entire operation is shut down, which is like, come on.
Starting point is 01:19:28 I'm just wondering how you get into the maple syrup trade where you as an individual, as Etienne, has his own storehouse of 600 barrels. You're not tapping. And you're not eating. And you're the middle man. You're certainly not the fucking Federation. You're certainly not. So who are you with your 600 barrels?
Starting point is 01:19:46 A fair amount, which actually came from legitimate sources in Canada, is seized. So goodbye to that sugar daddy business. Yeah, because those investigators are like, I guess we have to take all this maple syrup for ourselves. You can't like taste one and taste the other and be like, that's from this side and that's from this side because they're all the same. In the end, it's Etienne Saint-Perey, with Caron and Richard Valliere, who are prosecuted and to a lesser extent, Richard's father, who was found guilty of possession of stolen goods.
Starting point is 01:20:16 Oh. Because he was like, give me a barrel while we're at it. I know. I wonder if he's like, that guy just was like, hey, dad, I have to put some stuff in your garage for a while. Oh my god. That would suck. Your kids are just leaving shit at your house constantly.
Starting point is 01:20:27 Yeah. Does your dad do the thing where like my mom keeps bringing me like boxes of things she saved of like stuff that I don't want of my childhood? Oh, you don't what? You don't want it? No. It's embarrassing. That's literally my dream.
Starting point is 01:20:41 My mom used to be like the second my sister and I moved out, she's's like you better come and get this stuff you left in your room. I'm like it's an office no one uses could I have a shelf and the answer was flatly no. Did she throw it away? Yeah. Do you want mine? You can have my report cards you're welcome to them and badly written stories. I want school pictures with super fucked up bangs that's what I'm looking for. Aww. They're out there in a thrift store somewhere and some like, some Instagram influencer who's into like, found property is gonna like be like, does anyone know who this is? I found her home family album.
Starting point is 01:21:15 We used to actually do that when we go to thrift stores, find pictures of people in frames. Yeah. And we'd be like, I gotta take this one. She's so sad. I have a couple from estate sales where it's like, I love her. There was one I loved, but like, there was a matching one that was her sister that was in a school. So I was like, I can't separate them.
Starting point is 01:21:29 That's right. So I have both sisters displayed in my house. Nice. Etienne is found guilty of possession of stolen goods with intent to traffic. It's maple syrup, people, not cocaine. Trafficking maple syrup. Trafficking maple. You're just making waffle eaters everywhere happy.
Starting point is 01:21:46 Are you the hero of the prison yard or the fucking like bottom of the barrel? Hey. Hey. Or do you work in the kitchen? Hey. Hey. He sentenced in 2016 to two years of house arrest, never mind, and fined a little over a million Canadian dollars.
Starting point is 01:22:04 Shit. With currency conversion and inflation that works out to be about the same. house arrest, nevermind, and find a little over a million Canadian dollars. With currency conversion and inflation, that works out to be about the same. One million in 2024 US dollars. Avik pleads guilty and is sentenced to five years in prison and find $1.2 million. Richard is found guilty of theft, fraud, and receiving stolen goods and is sentenced in 2017 to eight years in jail and find 9.4 million Canadian and probably US dollars. I mean, that's where this story gets serious.
Starting point is 01:22:34 It's all fun and games until they actually prosecute these people. And then it's like, it's big money. It's big against the law. It's like, that's their their don't mess with that. No Anti-federation producers are still quite sympathetic to this poor Richard guy one says quote. I think he got carried away Yeah, quote. Yeah, you did you did that night at the bar just At the time of the heist maple syrup producers worried that the market will be flooded with black market syrup and that this will lower the price, causing instability in the world
Starting point is 01:23:09 of maple syrup production. In the end, it doesn't happen. The Federation has moved its Global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve, don't call it anything else, to three new facilities. The Globe and Mail reports that one of the new warehouses, quote, is protected by a security system said to rival that of a commercial bank, which means much more is going on than the motion detectors and electronic access panels you can see with the naked eye. The windows have handles but do not open. Alarms will go off if anyone enters the building
Starting point is 01:23:43 outside business hours, even employees. Cameras are everywhere. It is not quite Fort Knox, but it is a variable citadel of sap," end quote. Hell yes. Can I tell you something that happened recently? So we are setting our alarms at night now, you know? And Moe is a fucking just bad cat,
Starting point is 01:24:00 and he knocked a full glass jar of honey onto the floor in the kitchen. And our glass break sensors alarm went off. Oh, so we know that works. Similar, right? Yes. So like, thank you, Mo. Thank you, Mo. Good job. You tested it out. Good boy. I like the idea that there's these, that they basically have three locations now. Cause you can't, if you can get into one, that doesn't mean you can get in the other. Don't put it all in one spot, are you crazy?
Starting point is 01:24:28 No. In 2013, it was announced that a Seth Gordon-directed dramedy about the heist signed on Jason Segal, he's super tall, as the lead, but there haven't been any updates since then, but that was when you were talking about like, this is writing itself. Oh, yeah, yeah were talking about like, this is writing itself. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 01:24:46 It's like, yeah, it did. Yes, it did actually. It maybe did or it got dismissed or like nobody followed through. Right. Or maybe the Federation shut it down. Holy shit, it goes all the way back. They won't have anyone do anything.
Starting point is 01:24:59 No. So $10,000 right now, Karen. To the GoFundMe to make that movie. And that is the story of the great Canadian maple syrup heist. I feel like it's not so, I feel like unresolved feelings. What did you want? I wanted to know that the maple syrup would be safe. I also wanted to believe in the Federation, but I don't believe in the Federation.
Starting point is 01:25:25 I think I'm on the side of the black market revolters. Sure. Only because sometimes it's like, they've decided they've got all these barrels and they're like, now they're like little- Puppet masters. Little gremlins over their gold where they don't want anyone to touch it.
Starting point is 01:25:44 And then it's just like, is this what's best or is it just like trying to hold on to your maple syrup gold? Like what if exactly right media wanted to get into the maple syrup business for two fucking hard years and make a shit ton of money and turn around and get the fuck out? You know what I mean? And like leave it in a blaze of glory. We can't because the federation is there. You know what I'm saying?
Starting point is 01:26:02 So it's still gonna be like whatever dollars a gallon. What are we supposed to do then? I don't know. We can't because the Federation is there. You know what I'm saying? So it's still gonna be like whatever dollars a gallon. What are we supposed to do then? I don't know. I don't know. This podcast thing isn't working out great. We gotta get into a different condiment. What about mustard?
Starting point is 01:26:14 Is there mustard? Mustard. That's what it is. That's the ticket. Mustard. Mustard. That was delightful. Thank you.
Starting point is 01:26:23 I didn't know we had more maple syrup stories to tell, and we do. It turns out, I mean, it's an endless array of stories to tell. The only thing that would have made that story better, because it was really great, was if there was a way you could fold in, like, a corndog element to it. Something. Corn dogs. There's just no way.
Starting point is 01:26:44 I mean, I guess you could dip. I bet at the, like, the maple syrup festival that we should go to whenever in Quebec this year, there's gotta be one. We should go. There's, well, you know what it is. Go up there when they tap. Get it at the source. There's got to be, yes.
Starting point is 01:26:57 Just, like, open your mouth and fucking turn the dial. Yeah, or like, I'll do it, like cherry picking, where you're like, fine, I'll... I'll pick it yourself. I'll do it. I'll turn the tap or whatever. They can't let tourists from America tap. There's gotta be, there's a maple syrup festival, you know it, and I bet there's a corn dog with like bits of maple syrup throughout the corn batter. Yes. Yes. And if there isn't, then we're, then Exactly Right Media. Foreman's copyright, it's our idea. It's our idea. That's right. Go to exactlyrightmedia.com.gov for more info. And type in the federation and fill out your application to join. Oh yeah. All right, shall we? Well, we shall. We shall get out. We're gonna get out by reading you guys what are you even doing right now, which is our new ending of like you telling us
Starting point is 01:27:45 what you're doing while listening to this podcast, which we love. We've gotten some great answers. God, can you imagine if somewhere, somewhere in those replies, there's someone saying, I am tapping maple syrup as we speak. We need comments on our Instagram and TikTok. Yes, we have them both of like the maple syrup people.
Starting point is 01:28:04 And like, are you for or against the Federation? Let us know, fight about it. We have nothing to do with it. Like, don't come at us. That'll be our big distraction before the 2024 election. Quebec, we'll see you soon. Okay. Hashtag, what are you even doing right now?
Starting point is 01:28:21 This is from our Instagram. This is from Cinder Eric. Cinder Eric. After dragging my feet all week, your podcast was the neural engagement I needed to go through my closet and decide what I was donating and what I was bringing across the country with me this summer when I moved to New Mexico
Starting point is 01:28:38 to pursue an MFA in dramatic writing. Wow. Yeah. I know. Get it. Get it, Cinder Eric. Get your life, Cinder Eric. I say that now because I landed on the mini-set. Go get your life. Well, this is from, this is an Instagram message from Felicia Combs, who has a little blue check
Starting point is 01:28:57 mark. And it says, hashtag, what are you even doing right now? I'm unpacking and doing loads of laundry from traveling to cover Tropical storm Alberto. I work for the Weather Channel and I stand in storms on TV. I've listened to you two for years and you're my comfort podcast. I'm always listening as I'm getting ready to go stand in blizzards, hurricanes, et cetera, et cetera. I love it when you have weather included in your stories. There's a whole group of weatherinos out there. Oh my God!
Starting point is 01:29:23 I love it! Really? It's those people you see on those things and they're being blown away by the thing. Oh, that's amazing. Weatherinos, I've actually, there's been a couple weather forecasters. I'm sure there's a name that I should be saying and I don't know it, like massage therapists. Weather people, wait, wait, I know what it is. Meteorologists, god damn it. Meteorologists! God damn it.
Starting point is 01:29:45 I've seen them talking on social media before. Thanks guys. You're so smart. Well, we just stood in a storm. That was this podcast, didn't we? It's a fiery, fiery beast. And we counted down in five, four, three, two, and stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye! Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an Exactly Right production. Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck.
Starting point is 01:30:19 Our managing producer is Hannah Kyle Creighton. Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Liana Squillon. Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Liana Squillace. Our researchers are Maren McClashen and Ali Elkin. Email your hometowns to MyFavoriteMurder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at My Favorite Murder and Twitter at My Fave Murder. Goodbye!

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