My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 446 - I'm Michael Caine

Episode Date: September 19, 2024

This week, Karen covers serial killer cop Gerard John Schaefer and Georgia tells the story of the 2015 Hatton Garden Heist. For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.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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Continuing Studies, where we offer career programs purpose-built for you. Visit continue.yorku.ca. My favorite murder. Hello. And welcome. To my favorite murder. That's Georgia Heartstark. That's Karen Kilgarriff. No, no, no sips right after I always say something. It leaves you to say something. Fuck.

But it's hard to do this. That's the spot. Guys, Georgia has brand new bangs. Thank you. This is. Thank you. This is breaking news. New bangs. I just kind of myself up in my sink upstairs. Did you? Yeah, because like we're trying to make the audio studio filmable so we can put that footage up because people like video podcasts these days.

I haven't been on camera since before the pandemic when I was in my 30s. So now, now I'm dealing with 40s Georgia. And so sometimes you just have to come straight home and cut your bangs off, you know what I mean? And so teenage Georgia shows up and goes, you know what we need bangs. Right. You know, it'd be great. That's a lot of face on camera.

Maybe half, let's do half that face on camera instead. Let's do a bunch of bangs, maybe some scarves wrapped around our necks. I feel like piercings always distract, you know, on a face. Yes, especially late in life piercings. Very distracting. You're like, oh, she's got a cool job, probably. She's got one of those septum piercings. Or she's going through something.

Right. Because she never had this before. Yep. And now she needs it. It could be anything. I feel like maybe more effective than a septum piercing would be like we get a little whiteboard in the studio and just write down what's bothering you that day.

Just write down the part of your, like for me, it will be my neck. Oh, yeah. The next there for sure. Being a woman is like, it's hard. Cause you want to be like casual about it and be like, I love myself. I'm a feminist. I like the way I look.

Beauty is like a fucked up standard and then not anyone can live up to it. And I want to look like myself. And then you see yourself and you're like, no, that's not what I look like. But not like that. But that's not what I see. Also, when I, a full on TikTok addict, I am watching like what seems to be 16 year olds being like,

here's this great moisturizer for fine lines and wrinkles where it's like, ma'am, ma'am, it can't be you that's telling me this. I can't. No, no. Yeah. That and like. All those kinds of things. Don't tell me your skincare routine, if your skin is already perfect, which I know is like the point, like your skin is perfect because of your skincare routine, but I want to see your fucked up skin when you're still doing your

skincare routine and it's not fucking working. Right. That's the thing that got me into Korean skincare was all of the people who had like fungal acne or cystic acne that were like, they went to it like as a last resort and it actually worked. I mean, you could join my church. Still out there. Is it TikTok or is it Korean skincare? Korean skincare church, yeah. Yeah, I'm dabbling in it.

I'm giving it a shot. Okay, cause I can put some products together for you. Just tell me your complaints. That'd be great. Let me know. I'll put some stuff together. That's our new thing. Literally. The last time I had people over, I brought my friend, Chase Bernstein, because she's a Maxinista herself. And I was like, do you know about this? Because not only are these products

great, they all cost $12 and it's insane. And so I brought her into my bathroom and just opened underneath the sink where it was like a small TJ Maxx under the sink. Cause I have to buy it if I see it. Yeah. I don't need it, but someone's going to need it. You're an influencer. You need to try it. This is swag. I have to give away to continue my. Well, this is a true crime podcast. Is it? That's not true.

Someone said it was once and and we just went with it. That can't be the truth about this podcast. I have a true crime documentary I can recommend so we can be on track for a hot second. Okay, it's just a two part documentary called Into the Fire, The Lost Daughter on Netflix. Did you see the trailer for this? No. It's so wild. Essentially this woman who when she was very young gave her daughter up for adoption, finds

out 20 years later that that daughter went missing when she was 14. And then is like this badass who's like, how has this not been solved? No one's looked into this at all. Here I go. And like with the help of, you know, the sleuths tracks down what happened and it's wild. I'm almost positive one of us covered that at some point in the past eight years, because it sounds familiar like in a forensic files way and then it also sounds familiar in a one of us talking way.

We covered it, man. Then I don't know what I'm doing. But that idea that this mother already had these regrets and these second thoughts and all these things, and then when she goes to finally find that daughter that she had been thinking about the entire time, she hears this horrible news and then takes up the cause. It's like one of the most beautiful, tragic stories. And it's so sad because when it comes down to it, she's like, I gave up my baby when I was 17 because I was convinced that I was giving her a good life.

Yeah. And these parents that needed her and wanted her, and it turns out the call is coming from inside the house. I mean, you kind of can figure that out. But it's like, she's so angry that that didn't happen, that she just fuels her. And it's really amazing. A horrible thing, and then she actually

gets to do something about it. Right, totally. God damn it. When did you cover that? Wait, sorry, which one of us covered it? You. Why don't I remember that? There's fucking 500 episodes.

What do you mean? I can't remember what happened this morning. Okay. All right. So yes, Karen did cover it in episode. What was it, Alejandra? 309. Not counting is the key.

The sixth anniversary special. Okay. Oh, okay. And I bet it was a great job. So you should listen to that and watch the documentary. Listen, I'm taking this feedback as it stands, which is I need to tell you stories better so that you remember them for years and years and years. How many cans of wine deep was I when you told that story? That's the most important question. Oh, I actually could follow that up with something that is also true crime related in a way that I thought was so touching and so beautiful.

Well, first of all, I just wanted to say, and I think most people understand this at this point, it's been going on for so long. We record this podcast on Monday and then the episode drops on Thursday. Last week, we recorded the episode the day before that debate. So we had no idea what was about to happen and we would have absolutely been thrilled to talk about it.

When she basically paused instead of calling him a motherfucker is one of the like most, I think, for me personally, I'll just say, therapeutic moments that I've had in a while in terms of what is going on around us. So everybody still has to try really hard and nothing is for sure, but wow.

It's so funny, yeah. And the like the restraint that she had as a woman had to practice in that moment or in that entire thing that clearly isn't an equal thing, are the restraint that we learn from childhood, because you have to seem a certain way or no one's gonna take you seriously, is like, was just on stage.

That night. Well, and also just, she's so overqualified the way it usually is for black women in this country, which is, oh, I have to come up here and do all this tap dancing to a person that some say can't read. That's just a, that's just a rumor. Like essentially a toddler could have my job

or I could have the job I've been training for decades. So. Right. Yeah. Let's see. Let's see how that goes. Anyways, good news. Yeah. Love good news. We love some good news. Who we do. Let's see how that goes. Anyway, it's good news. Yeah. Love good news. We love some good news. Oh, we do.

And then there was inspiring news because of the Emmys, which I think happened last night or the night before, Sunday, probably. Last night, yeah. For us, last night. For us, it's last night. Defero Wunatai, who was nominated for lead actor from Reservation Dogs, one of my favorite shows in the past decade, I'd say. And he's the first indigenous man to be nominated in a lead acting category for an Emmy.

Wow. He showed up to the red carpet with a big red handprint across his mouth to represent all the missing and murdered indigenous women that no one is talking about. And it was fucking amazing. Like it looked incredible. Of course, then everyone was talking about asking him about it. And just like to take that moment that he could have made all about himself. And I'm sure most people would be like, Hey, this in and

of itself is this incredible achievement, that whole cast. It's an incredible achievement that all you guys are here and you were so good in all those seasons of that show. But instead he was just like, why don't we actually do something here? I mean, inspiring. So beautiful, that's incredible. Oh, I have a little, like a fun,

cute little thing that we can, it's almost like a story that would be on bananas, but it made me so fucking happy, and I feel like majority of our listeners would rejoice that there's a bed and breakfast in Scotland that lets you run a bookshop. Like, they have a bookshop, you rent it out, like, as a B&B, and like, for a week, that's your holiday. I bet there's a cat, I bet you could bring a cat.

You just fucking, it's a volunteer run enterprise that lets visitors run their own bookshop. How incredible is that? I saw that on BBC Scott News. Sorry, do you have to balance that drawer every night? Oh, that's, yeah, that's hard. I bet there's like a, if you need me, I'm here. But with a Scottish accent, you know, background player that's hard. I bet there's like a, if you need me, I'm here. But with a Scottish accent, you know, background player, you know what I mean? It'd be great if there was a guy that kind of looked like Gerard Butler maybe in the cardigan.

He was there to balance the drawer and just kind of like, don't worry about this part that you don't like and go run your bookstore. Also when the money goes to charity. For the whole bookstore? What the fuck, man? I think so, or at least a large part of it. Damn, this is, that's a goodbye.

That's really cool. I'm going there now. Also, that idea of like, if you open a birthday present and Vince was like, here's what the present is, wouldn't you have a nervous breakdown of being so overjoyed? Yeah, that's a perfect vacation for me. I like this idea of like, vacations for people

who don't like typical vacations Yeah, go do this thing that you've always wanted to do that has nothing to do with like sitting by the beach or drinking Mai Tai's You know, right. I bet you could still drink at that bookstore if it's your bookstore You can drink all you want. Sure nice mug of something boozy. That's true. Just a mug of hot rum of something boozy? That's true. Just a mug of hot rum. Microwaved mug of rum. It's not, it's just microwave. In the staff microwave, it smells like fish and chips. Microwave your rum. Oh, okay. Hey, let's talk about our business that we run with cats. Oh, good idea. Hey, we have a podcast network. It's called Exactly Right Media. Here are some highlights. Over on I Said No Gifts this week, Bridger's guest is Sam Taggart, a comedian and the host

of the hilarious podcast Stradio Lab. If you missed last week's episode of Bananas with legendary comedian Kathy Griffin, go check that out. In the meantime, they're basking in the afterglow of BananaFest. And so are we. I mean, they should. What a success. Then over on I Saw What You Did, Danielle and Millie discussed two films this week, The Raid Redemption from 2011 and from 2014, John Wick. Oh, classic. Yeah.

And our next throwback merch from Rewind with Karen and Georgia is here from episode 11 of Rewind. We have a new go fuck yourself mug just for you through September 24th. Go preorder your limited edition. Go fuck yourself mug. These won't last long. This always sells out. So check that out at myfavoritemurder.com. Youself is spelled incorrectly. Yeah. Can you handle that?

As it would. Well, it's the original print. Yeah. And it is the way you say it's spelled as it's said, which is something that's important to us as a podcast host. Near and dear to our hearts. Yeah. Today's episode is sponsored in part by Acorns. You know, Karen, I used to think that investing was one of those things that I'd worry about like later, something for like responsible future me to figure out. Yeah, I've left a lot of my problems for future me to figure out. But with Acorns, you can start making small investments today and give future you something to look forward to. Acorns makes it easy to start automatically saving and investing for your future.

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Open an Acorns Later IRA and get up to a 3% match on new contributions. That's extra money for your retirement. Give your money the chance to work as hard as you do. Head to acorns.com slash murder or download the Acorns app to start saving and investing for your future today. Paid non-client endorsement compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns. Investing involves risk. Acorns advisors LLC can be SEC registered investment advisor. View important disclosures at acorns.com slash murder. Goodbye. So here in Los Angeles, we are coming down from a massive heat wave, but fall is days away. You can feel it.

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quince.com slash MFM. Goodbye. All right. You're MFM. Goodbye. All right, you're first, yes? Yeah. This story, I actually found this. I think it was on the now defunct website Twitter. Now I can't remember, but it was like one of those ones where there's like a picture and then there's

like a couple of facts underneath it. And it basically brings you to the Wikipedia page. Oh, yeah, I love those. But it was a serial killer I had not heard of before. Isn't that wild when that happened? They're like, I thought I knew them all. I think it's just such a sign where it's like, there are so many and they're all so horrible.

It's so scary when you realize that you're just never, yeah. It's an issue. It's a true issue. So this story I'm gonna tell you about today is about a man who by day sought a career in the priesthood, then in education, and then he ended up in policing. Jesus.

And all while committing heinous murders. Oh my God. The attorney who prosecuted this man called him, quote, the most sexually deviant person I've ever seen. He made Ted Bundy look like a boy scout. Holy shit. Decades after being tried and convicted for two homicides, this man is still being linked to missing and murdered women in Florida and beyond.

I'm going to tell you the story of Gerard John Schaeffer, the serial killer cop. Oh my God. The main source used in today's research is the book American Ripper, the enigma of America's serial killer cop by Patrick Kendrick. This is the exhaustive resource on this very, very disturbing case. I love that Marin reads entire books to cover these cases when she does research for me. It's just incredible. And I now want to read this because this case, you get just enough awful information to go, wait a second, how did I not know every detail about this?

And just if you are riding in the car with some people who maybe don't like true crime, if there are children anywhere near you, do not listen to this story with anybody. This is a very disturbing, very, very, very awful case. If you're easily kind of freaked out, don't listen to this. are easily kind of freaked out. Don't listen to this. So it begins in March of 1946. That's when Gerard John Schaeffer, who will go by John from most of his life, is born in Neenah, Wisconsin. He's the first child born to parents Doris and Jerry, who then have two more children after him, a daughter and another son. Doris is a homemaker, raises the children, Jerry works as a traveling salesman,

and his company repeatedly transfers him to different regions around the country. And each time he's relocated, he uproots his young family and moves them with him. The Schaffers first leave Wisconsin for Nashville, then Nashville for Atlanta. And then in 1960, when John is 14 years old, the family finally settles in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

So even though he's still young, John's already dealing with complex emotional problems. He has a lot of anger and a lot of resentment. And he's known to hurt animals, which is something that the kids in the neighborhood notice. He will eventually tell doctors that he fantasizes about dying. And one of his childhood friends, Gary Haneline, who is also his next door neighbor, says, quote, he seemed to enjoy killing things. He enjoyed shooting things, things you can't eat, songbirds, land crabs, that sort of thing." End quote.

So along with those habits, John is developing sadistic sexual fantasies that involve hurting women. They seem to go hand in hand. So the fantasies progress as he grows into early adulthood. When he's about 20 years old, he seeks treatment for these troubling thoughts. And in therapy, he attributes his violent misogynistic fantasies to his father, Jerry. According to John, Jerry is an abusive alcoholic who sets an awful

example by constantly cheating on his wife. It is possible these statements are true because Doris will eventually go on to divorce Jerry citing quote drunkenness and adultery. But then at the same time, we're probably talking about a burgeoning psychopath. So it could be everybody else's fault. John does say that his resentment towards women also stems from his father. According to him, it's because Jerry clearly favors his daughter, John's sister, over his sons. So by the late 1960s, when John's in his mid-20s, he seems to be trying to figure out his life's path. In 1966, he tours the southeastern United States with a singing group that's sponsored by a conservative organization aiming to quote, glorify wholesome patriotic American youth.

Oh, good job. This is where he meets a young woman named Martha. Martha goes by Marty, the two wed two years later, but the marriage is short lived and they get divorced in 1970. So it's not totally clear why John and Marty break up, but a friend of the couples will later say, quote, Marty was a genius. John is very intelligent, but he's a very competitive person.

It was hard for him to be with a genius like Marty, end quote. All right. Kind of interesting though, that he would be attracted to her. But also she's like in this wholesome patriotic American youth singing group, maybe it all just, they all got caught up in the show. So around the time this marriage ends, John, who was raised Catholic, tries to join the priesthood, but he is turned away from seminary school after being told that he doesn't, quote, have enough faith. It makes him extremely angry, so angry, in fact, that he turns his back on the Catholic Church forever. Meanwhile, he keeps looking for a job, preferably one that would give him power and authority over others.

So before long, he becomes a teacher. He lands a teaching job, but it's short lived. He's fired for quote, trying to impose his own moral and political values on his students, end quote. I mean, and it's in the 70s. Yeah. And it's that bad. Like they didn't give a shit. You could fucking hit a kid back then. So whatever he was doing was like extreme, right? It had to be crazy. Yeah. And then also like you didn't have enough faith. Like what was he not doing that someone could tell if something was off?

Like that just might have been an excuse to be like, get this guy out of here. Yeah. I wonder if he had a particularly deep confessional and they were like, oh, that's why you're here. Right, how do we get rid of this guy? You don't like God enough, get the fuck out of here. Yeah, please take this elsewhere. Please take this to the local high school. So one of his teaching supervisors would later say that,

quote, I told him when he left that he'd better never let me hear of his trying to get a job with any authority over other people. I do anything I could to prevent it. End quote. What did he do? Oh my God. Unfortunately that person didn't try to prevent that job. And what does happen is that John is dead set on becoming a policeman.

No. Kind of the worst case scenario. Just go to a call center and leave everyone alone. So in the early 1970s, John Schaeffer is rejected by multiple police departments, including the Broward County Sheriff's Office, who pass on his application after he fails a routine psychological test.

Something basic. So he ends up getting hired by the small Wilton Manners Police Department based in Fort Lauderdale Suburb. Wilton Manners just happened to be in desperate need of officers right when John applied. So it was like the perfect storm. So at first John seems to be finding his groove, things at work are quiet and steady.

He even gets remarried to a woman named Teresa, but within a year of being hired by Wilton Manners PD, John is abruptly let go. The Tampa Bay Times, who later interviewed his colleagues, reports that, quote, supervising officers found him unreliable, a man who could be found leaning against a pole eating potato chips when he was supposed to be directing traffic around an accident, end quote. More troublingly, John is also caught, quote, running female traffic violators through the department's computer, obtaining personal information and later calling them for dates, end quote.

Oh no. We've heard about that happening through the police and police officers doing that same thing. So in the summer of 1972, just two months after being fired from the Wilton Manners PD, John somehow gets another job as a police officer. So in the summer of 1972, just two months after being fired from the Wilton Manors PD, John somehow gets another job as a police officer. This time he's hired by the Martin County Sheriff's Department, which is also in South Florida. And a month later in late July, John is out on parole when he sees two teenage girls hiking near Florida's Jensen Beach. They are 18-year-old Nancy Trotter and 17-year-old Paula Wells,

who goes by her middle name Sue. So Nancy and Sue are vacationing in this area from out of state. So John sees them, he pulls the cop car over, rolls the window down and warns the girls that hitchhiking is illegal in this county. This is not true. Nancy and Sue don't know this, of course,

and they don't think a police officer would pull over and go out of his way to lie to them. So when John offers to give them a ride back to their hotel in the town of Stewart, which is a few miles away, the girls see no reason why they shouldn't take a ride from a cop, like ostensibly the safest thing they could do. And also it's Florida, it's boiling hot. You know, they're like, we don't want to walk all the way back.

The ride back to Stewart is quick. And when he gets to the hotel, John drops both girls off. But before he drives away, he offers to give the girls a ride back to the beach the following morning. And that way, he says, they won't have to illegally hitchhike again. Nancy and Sue are very grateful for this young officer's kindness, and they accept the ride. And the next morning, at 9.15, John arrives to pick them up as scheduled. He claims he's on duty but he's wearing plain clothes and he's driving a civilian car. The girls don't think much of it.

Nancy says that then quote, he asked us if we wanted to see an old Spanish fort that was on the river. We said okay. End quote. So John pulls off Florida's A1A highway and onto a small dirt back road that leads to a woodsy remote area. His car is now on a strip of land known as Hutchinson's Island. It's about 10 miles away from Jensen's Beach. So he parks the car by an old abandoned shed in the woods and then his entire demeanor completely changes. That's the thing I think about in a lot of these stories too.

That point where survivors talk about a moment where the person that they met completely disappears and this new, entirely evil person arrives. It's like a horror movie. Yeah. The moment you realize, oh no, this isn't what I thought it was. It's so chilling. And he, the turn comes and Nancy and Sue are shocked and horrified when John announces, quote, I could dig a hole and bury you. There is no crime without a body.

End quote. And then he says, quote, I'm afraid I'm going to have to put you under arrest as runaways. Oh my God. End quote. And then he threatens to sell the girls into a sex trafficking ring. Jesus. He then instructs Nancy and Sue to dump their purses out in the car, and then he orders them to step outside.

He binds and gags both of them, and when they are tied up, he walks Nancy over to some thick tree roots. They stand about 10 inches off the ground. He tells her to stand on top of them and then he puts a noose around her neck and he basically swings it over a branch above her. And now Nancy is bound gad and basically with this noose around her neck, she's at risk of hanging if she slips off these uneven tree roots. Oh my God. So she's basically trapped in trying to stay perfectly still.

And that is when he begins to molest her. Oh my God. He threatens, quote, I could rape you right now right here if I wanted to, end quote. And then after a few minutes pass, he starts walking back toward where Sue is. But as he goes, he tells Nancy that he will be back for her. Nancy is a very strong, determined young woman. So as she watches standing on her tip toes on these tree roots, John wanders off into the woods with her friend Sue.

And the second they're out of sight, she spits the gag out of her mouth. She like kind of forces it out with her tongue and immediately starts chewing through the knot that's next to her, that's around her neck. So like, yeah. Her chewing creates enough slack in the rope that she is actually able to wriggle her neck out of the noose. And then once she's free from the risk of hanging,

she's able to get all of her other binding ropes off. She actually will later say, quote, I didn't take very long, maybe 10 or 15 minutes, but I still had the handcuffs on. And then once Nancy gets free, she runs. Oh my god. She's panicked. She's still handcuffed.

She's rushing to escape through the thick Florida underbrush, but Nancy is only thinking about her friend Sue. She doesn't know where Sue is, if she's still alive. All she knows is that she has to go get help. So she comes to a river and she throws herself in and then she follows it upstream for what would feel like an eternity. She actually at one point gets stung by jellyfish. And then finally she sees the highway in the distance.

So she gets out and runs toward the highway. All well handcuffed. All well handcuffed. Jesus. And also like Florida, it's like Florida swamp, like everything in Florida. It's like the idea she's getting stung by jellyfish in a river is insane. It's just like so dangerous. So horrible.

Treacherous. Yeah. So she's running toward the highway and soon she sees a Martin County Sheriff's Patrol car driving toward her. And it's the same car John picked the girls up in the day before. But before Nancy can react, she sees John is not driving that car. Instead, it's Officer Robert Lewis Crowder. So she flags him down. Officer Crowder tells Nancy that her friend Sue also escaped

and was picked up by a truck driver 45 minutes ago. Oh my God. Right? He then tells her Sue has already told the police about how John Schaeffer abducted them and threatened their lives. And they've been looking for Nancy ever since. And that's why Officer Crowder is out patrolling the highway right then.

Wow. That's wild. So now both girls are safe. And they find John Schaeffer. And they bring him in. But when his coworkers ask him what he was doing, Schaeffer tries to cover by writing off his actions as foolish. He claims he was quote, demonstrating the pitfalls and the dangers of hitchhiking. And

he says quote, he had gotten a little carried away. Oh my God. But John Schaeffer's superiors are not buying it. He is immediately fired and then he's charged with multiple counts of aggravated assault. He's ultimately convicted and sentenced to six months in county jail followed by three years of probation. Six months. Like six months and also aggravated assault as opposed to attempted murder. Right. But here's the thing, don't waste your time getting upset at this because it's going to get much worse.

Because after his trial, when they figure all that out, he is allowed to post a $15,000 bond and live as a free man for several months until his jail time begins in January of 1973. What the fuck is that? That piece of our fucking legal system is so compounding. Well, and you have to, I mean, just for the observations of amateurs that have been telling stories to each other like this for nine years, practically. It's racism. Because I don't think we've ever told a story about the police letting a black man free on bond until his aggravated assault term comes up.

I mean, clearly, I'm sure it was the privilege of having been a police officer or something. Or it's also, you can afford $15,000, which back then was probably a fuck ton more of money. And so bail in itself is a racist act because it really favors people who are privileged and have money and opportunities to do that, you know? Yeah, and it also doesn't consider what it didn't at the time.

And maybe these considerations have been implemented. It would be fascinating to talk to somebody who knew. But the idea of, oh, no, no, this, what he did was not, it wasn't some funny mistake. This is something that he has, like that they would recognize the behavior and the violence and the threat. But the point is he should be kept away from society because he is a threat to

it. Not like, you know, when someone who has a drug charge is locked up the whole time where it's like, it's not, it's not equal. But those white cops are looking at this fired white cop and going, well, he's not a threat to me. So how much he wouldn't, I wouldn't. So he wouldn't. I mean, it's, you feel like perhaps that could be arguably, and in my opinion, what they are thinking. Who knows? It's also, like you're saying it's 1972.

His jail time begins in the next year. So it's September of 1972. He's supposed to go to jail in January of 1973. So he's out on bond. And just two months after Nancy Trotter and Sue Wells were abducted, two more girls go missing in Fort Lauderdale. 16 year old Georgia Jessup and 17 year old Susan Place. And Susan actually was a student at the school

where John Schaeffer briefly worked as a teacher. Although it's unclear if they ever interacted or even knew each other, but that is just a fact. So Susan's parents tell police the girls were last seen at the Place family home, and Susan's mother Lucille actually watched the girls head to the beach with this man in his mid-20s who went by Jerry Shepherd. And she watched them as they climbed into his blue Datsun and pulled away. But from the get-go, Lucille had a weird feeling about this Jerry Shepherd.

So as the car was pulling away, she ran outside and wrote down his license plate number. Look at her. Wow. Yeah. And then Lucille has to hand this information over to the police when her daughter never comes home from the beach that day. Horrifying. What's more horrifying is it takes investigators six months.

It's not until March of 1973 to trace this information back to the car's owner. And that's when they find out it's not Jerry Shepard. It's Gerard John Shaffer. She had been missing, missing for fucking six months before they put the most basic effort. This fucking woman went out of her way to take precaution because she was worried about her daughter. Her daughter's missing.ution because she was worried about her daughter. Her daughter's missing. Here's the car that took her away. Here's the license plate. A

citizen cannot do more. They can't do your job for you. She's not a runaway. I haven't received a phone call. No one's seen her. Like this is not, oh my God. Okay. Yeah. So by the time police do make this connection, John has already been serving his sentence at the county jail for two months. So they go down to talk to him. John is questioned about the girl's disappearance. He denies having anything to do with it. But this lie unravels very quickly.

A few weeks later in April of 1973, men collecting aluminum cans in Hutchinson Island, the same area where John took Nancy Trotter and Sue Wells, and they find the badly decomposed remains of two people who have been clearly very brutally murdered. The corpses are tied to the base of a tree at their torsos and their heads were cut off and those severed heads were later found nearby. A few days later, these remains are identified by dental records and the bodies in fact belong to Georgia Jessup and Susan Place. And their remains indicate that they were tortured,

hanged, and one of the girls had been shot in the jaw. Although it's unclear if that happened before or after she was murdered. So now, John Schaeffer has been unmasked. Days after Georgia and Susan's remains are found, investigators obtain a search warrant for John Schaeffer's house and his mother Doris' house, where he stores some of his belongings. Investigators need any evidence that could connect John to Georgia and Susan's murders,

and they do. It's a purse that belongs to one of the girls, and according to John's wife, Teresa, her husband gave it to her as a gift in September of 1972, the same month the girls went missing. I forgot he was married. And that is so troubling. Like, oh my God. But that's not all. It turns out that John is sitting on with all of these things that they find in his house and his mother's house. He's sitting on an arsenal of incriminating items. Journalist Yvette Cardozo writing for the Fort Lauderdale News reports, quote, the officers

found two gold crown teeth, small bones, much like wrist bones, a sorority pin, charm bracelet, a photograph, sketched over magazine pictures, rope, rifles, and hunting knives." Jesus. End quote. The bones suggest he like went back to the scene of the crime, you know, like went back. That's so chilling. And just that list of items is a textbook mixture of trophies from victims and possibly murder kit supplies. Oh, you think?

And the sketched over magazine pictures refers to random pictures of women pulled from magazines and newspapers that John has labeled with words like adulteress and streetwalker. In others, he's drawn images of nooses around their necks. There's disturbing photos of women that have been executed. Returned letters John has sent himself, posing as a researcher requesting information on urination and defecation that takes place during prison orchestrated executions of women.

What? Craven is one word you could use. It's base. It's just the basest, most disgusting. Oh my God. So, of course it gets worse because investigators find a so-called manuscript that includes several pages of various stories. So it's essentially like he's trying to write like a book of short stories, but they're all just vile

and they're all written from the first person perspective. It's like a journal almost that he's trying to pass off as like a... Yeah. Reporter Yvette Cardozo says, quote, the stories tell of hanging women, shooting them, hacking them to pieces, of sinking one body in a rock pit lake with a shotgun blast, and of having sexual intercourse with the bodies

months after the slaying. Fuck. End quote. So essentially, this is a serial killer just writing out his plans. Yeah. Oh my God, so depraved. Yeah. So some of these stories are clearly made up. Others read like diary entries, like you said, mentioning very specific locations down to local road names. In one story, John gives a how-to on killing women that eerily mirrors his attack on Nancy Trotter and Sue Wells.

So here's the writing from that. that eerily mirrors his attack on Nancy Trotter and Sue Wells. So here's the writing from that. Quote, he will need an isolated area accessible by car and a short hike away from any police patrols or parking lovers. The execution site must be carefully arranged for a speedy execution once the victim has arrived. Ideally, there would be two sawhorses with a two-by-four between them, a noose attached to the overhanging limb of a tree, and another rope to pull away from the two-by-four, preferably by car. The victim could be any one of the many women who flocked to Miami and Fort Lauderdale during the winter months."

Jesus. End quote. So this is a man that hates women so very much, so, so much, that this is what he's spending his time writing in notebooks, as if anybody is asking him how he does it. The idea of that, the depth of that misogyny and hatred is the thing that should be talked about. And this is the thing that everybody should talk about more when they're talking or that should be underlined more when we're talking about true crime and we're talking about these serial killers, these men that go on and on repeatedly killing women like this. It's a disease.

Yeah. It's so funny. You know, it goes along with the like question we always get asked or that you always hear. Like, why do women love true crime? And it's like, because it's so often perpetrated against us and we're terrified and want to learn everything we can so we can feel like we have some kind of control over our lives or some kind of power

over what can potentially happen. You know, it's not that we're voyeurists who are like, you know, gawking at something. It's like, this keeps fucking happening and we are so aware of it. And it's, you know, it's known to us since childhood that we're potential victims to any fucking misogynist man who has a bad day, you know? Right. And also to a cop, like, and then to someone that would, in your community, pull over and offer to help you that you would assume you could be helped by.

Yeah, your buddy. And yeah, you think he's a great guy and he would never do such a thing and he's married and all this shit. And it's like, terrifying. Yeah. So prosecutors are now building a case against John Schaeffer for the murders of Georgia Jessup and Susan Place. And as they do, investigators start looking for links between John's belongings and any open

cases involving missing or murdered women in South Florida. And they find them. So investigators recover items belonging to two missing 19 year old hitchhikers and their names are Colette Goodenough and Barbara Wilcox. These women were last seen alive in January of 1973, just one week before John started his jail sentence. Wow. So that time, motherfuck. Out on bond. Yeah. Oh, god.

Colette and Barbara's skeletal remains are found by a truck driver alongside a canal in 1977. Oh, wow. So not for a while. Not for a while. And the remains were bound together with wire and the bodies were missing part of their skulls. So police also find a piece of jewelry belonging to a 14 year old girl named Mary Briscollina.

Mary had gone missing while hitchhiking to a restaurant in October of 1972. With her friend Elsie Farmer, Elsie was just 13 years old. Oh my God, babies. In January of 1973, shortly after John reports to prison, those girls' bodies are found by construction workers in a large overgrown field, and their remains show signs

of horrific torture and mutilation. Then, investigators find newspaper clippings about the 1969 disappearance of a local waitress named Carmen Marie Halleck. Soon a dentist will confirm that the gold teeth found at John's mother's house belong to Carmen. A woman named Carmen even pops up in one of the most disgusting and disturbing stories from John's so-called manuscript. I'm going to leave out the details. They're horrible. Yeah.

Yeah. But basically in the story, he describes luring an unsuspecting woman by asking her out on a date. Once she accepts this invitation, she meets up with him wearing a black cocktail dress. Carmen Halleck was last seen wearing a black cocktail dress. And her remains have never been found. Police also find a charm bracelet with the name Lee etched into it. Immediately, investigators suspect that this bracelet belongs to a 25-year-old woman named Lee Haneline Bonadies.

Like Carmen, Lee was reported missing in 1969. So they had this like string of women missing. And like, then this guy kidnaps and assaults these two girls who get away. And they don't, like, at no point was someone like, why are all these girls missing? Right. That if it wasn't for Susan and Nancy getting away

and fighting their way out and getting their way. And you're right. And that mom. Yeah. That mom who fucking wrote down, I mean, what a hero. That was the beginning. That was truly the, they were like, oh, what's happening here? Yeah.

And then suddenly, it's like, oh, there's happening here? And then suddenly it's like, oh, there's murders every possible place there could be. It's like, instead of putting the pieces together and solving something, they just had to clean up this mess that they hadn't even realized was on their fucking doorstep. You know? And because of that, all these women were horribly murdered. Yes.

It's just not fucking fair. And I'm like, oh, this is infuriating. OK. It's just not fucking fair. And I'm, and I, oh, this is infuriating. Okay. It's definitely infuriating. Also, the name Lee Haneline Bonadies, if the name Haneline sounded familiar from the beginning of this story, Gary Haneline was John's next door neighbor and friend who would talk about John murdering things that didn't, you know, songbirds and stuff. Gary was friends with John. Lee was Gary's sister.

Wow. So, there was a point in time where John claimed that Lee, quote, teased him as a child by undressing near her bedroom window. Now it seems much more likely that he was a peeping tom, which we know is an early indicator of serial killer behavior. Peeping toms, killing animals. Fires. Fire.

In the late 1960s, shortly before she went missing, John had reconnected with Lee and they'd become platonic friends. He occasionally played tennis as a group with Lee and Carmen Halleck, the woman in the black dress. Fuck, like he's just like strangers or people I know, whatever, he's just. Yeah, so in 1978, a portion of Lee's skull

is discovered by hunters and is described as having at least three bullet holes, but it was not conclusively identified as belonging to Lee until 2004. Yet, incredibly, this is not the exhaustive list of victims linked to Gerard John Schaeffer. Dozens of missing and murdered women in Florida and beyond, and even some men will eventually be connected to him. Wow. So, John Schaeffer's ultimately charged with two homicides, the murders of Georgia Jessup and Susan Place.

And that fact might sound shocking, given all this evidence linking him to these other disappearances. But if the problem is, as it always is, that evidence is circumstantial, the bodies of many of John's suspected victims linking him to these other disappearances. But if the problem is, as it always is, that evidence is circumstantial, the bodies of many of John's suspected victims won't be found for years, if at all.

And prosecutors know it's too risky to bring murder charges against someone when there's no body, especially if that suspect, like John Schaeffer, isn't admitting to any of the crimes. That said, prosecutors feel like they have everything they need to secure John's conviction for the murders of Georgia and Susan. This time, John is kept in jail without bond as he awaits trial. Imagine that. As the news spreads about the horrific crimes

that he's accused of orchestrating, people across the country seethe. When the case finally goes to trial, the atmosphere in the courtroom is extremely tense. At one point, the proceedings are abruptly suspended after a bomb threat is called in at the courthouse. Then an anonymous caller threatens the local police, saying, quote, if the jury does not convict Schaeffer, the jurors should be shot, end quote. OK, so people actually did react to what we're reacting to. Yes.

I think people reading those stories, it's like this system kept saying, don't worry about it. Right. Why don't you calm down? This don't make such a big deal about it or whatever. OK. In total, there are six people on this jury, three men and

three women, and they are subjected to hours of horrific, devastating details from these crimes, including having to hear from the grief-stricken parents of Susan Place and Georgia Jessup, as well as the civilians who found the girls' remains out in the woods. Jesus. Very traumatizing, obviously. Yeah. We don't talk about that much, like the PTSD that the jurors on a horrific murder trial are, you know. Absolutely. What they're subject to and what they walk away knowing is just life-changing, it seems like. I mean, I've said stuff in this that I'm like, there's stuff that is on this page. I'm like,

let's just not say it. We just know it's horrible. Right. Those people had to listen to every detail, like as the police found it. Yeah. See the photos. I mean, geez. The jury also hears from Nancy Trotter and Sue Wells, who actually come back to Florida

to testify against John Schaeffer. Wow. And then prosecutors present a video reenactment of Nancy and Sue's abduction, just to show the jurors what John Schaeffer is truly capable of. And this very special level of violence against women that he was out there trying to practice on anybody who had happened to be walking down the road. But on the advice of his attorneys, John Schaeffer does not testify. His defense team does its best to wave off

the damning evidence against him in arguably offensive ways. For example, John's lawyers claim the brutal manuscript he'd written is merely their clients' exercise in creative writing. And in response to Nancy and Sue's testimony, the defense doubles down on the claim that John was just trying to teach the girls a lesson about the dangers of hitchhiking. Every other piece of evidence or testimony is dismissed as purely circumstantial. Regardless, in September of 1973, the jury declares Gerard John Schaeffer guilty on two counts of first degree murder,

according to a journalist who was in the courtroom at the time. John Schaeffer shows zero emotion when the verdict is read. And then as Patrick Kendrick reports, quote, as the court guards led John out of the courtroom, bombarded by flash bulbs and questions from the press, he smiled into the cameras. End quote.

John will tell reporters that, quote, that's the role of the dice. I had a good defense, but I'm innocent. End quote. Okay, friend, yeah. Meanwhile, the jurors seem grateful to finally put this horrible murder trial behind them. One member of the jury who asked not to be named

tells St. Lucie News Tribune that, quote, I just want to forget about the whole thing now. I hope you understand. Oh my god. So coincidentally, Gerard John Schaeffer is convicted one year to the day that Susan Place and Georgia Jessup were last seen alive. Wow, that's fast.

Yeah, it was fast, a year later. And that fact is not lost on Susan's mom Lucille, who tells reporters, quote, you know, when they brought the verdicts in, it was probably about the exact time he murdered Susan and Georgia last year." And then on October 4th, when John Schaeffer is sentenced to two life sentences, again, Lucille points out the significance of this specific date.

She says, quote, it's very ironic, isn't it? October 4th is Susan's birthday. She would have been 19. Oh my God. Yeah. My my God. Yeah. My poor mother. So just two months after John Schaeffer begins his prison sentence,

his wife Teresa divorces him and in a weird twist, immediately marries his defense lawyer. What? Yeah. What is, I, man, that, I wanna hear more about how the fuck that happened. Right. Well, you got to figure the defense lawyers have to give him a fair defense. That's what defense lawyers do. But he's sitting there going, you were given the purse of one

of these victims. It isn't real. And she is a victim too. Absolutely. I am hoping it's an empathetic connection. I just think it like, it would almost make more sense if she were like, if it was with the prosecutor, you know, not in my mind, it's like, wow, that's, that seems like a trauma bond in some way. Yeah. So meanwhile, John begins to flood the Florida court system with appeals,

each of which are summarily rejected. I added the word summarily. I don't know if that's correct. No, it sounded perfect. It sounded pretty smart. Next, John attempts to sue just about any journalist or public figure who dares to mention his name and he loses every single one of those legal battles. As the years pass, John pathetically starts bragging about the number of people he's murdered. He never publicly admits to killing anyone, but at one point he writes to a friend in a private letter, which you're in jail, but he writes, quote, I am not claiming a huge number. I would say mine run between 80 and 110 over

eight years and three continents. Wow. The rest of this quote is him describing and in these details that I don't want to repeat because they're so disgusting, like so disgusting. And basically he's writing it like it's just, Hey, how are you? I'm fine. Like just a regular letter. It's like, like a conversation. That's fucking wow. Horrifying. Wow. And that's such a short period of time too, you know, in eight years. Yeah. And like, if that woman hadn't written down that license plate number, because he was only going to jail for six months. He would have been in jail for six months. He would have been right back out.

Like literally he would have killed so many more women if that woman hadn't written down his license. Hadn't thought really quickly, you know what I'm gonna do real quick? Jot this down. Talk about following your gut in the most important way, which is what would it hurt to write? You can write down a life-saving play number.

What would it hurt? Just have it. Throw it away. In December of 1995, John Schaeffer is found dead on the floor of his prison cell. He was stabbed over 40 times. Wow. His killer was a fellow inmate named Vincent Rivera, was already serving a life sentence plus 20 years

for a double homicide. He got another 53 years for this murder. It's unclear why Rivera killed John, although it's suspected John was targeted because he was a cop and or a prison informant and or a serial killer. Right. Or just fucking the worst fucking person to be around. and or a serial killer. Right. Or just fucking the worst fucking person to be around. Yeah. You know? He'd been harassed by other inmates who quote, had repeatedly thrown human waste at him and twice set his cell on fire.

Wow. Gerard John Schaeffer leaves behind a horrific despicable legacy of cruelty and hatred and misogyny. And contrary to his claims, it's believed that he killed at least 11 people and as many as 28. And to this day, investigators are still linking Jane Doe's to John Schaeffer. As recently as June 2022, a 15-year-old girl named Susan Gale Poole was finally identified through genetic genealogy and is believed to be one of Schaeffer's victims. Susan went missing from Fort Lauderdale around Christmas of 1972, which is in the same window when John was out on bond. Insane. Her mutilated body was

found tied to trees off of Florida's A1A Highway. And it's easy to believe there are more victims out there that just haven't been located or identified yet. And that is the story of the serial killer cop, Gerard John Schaeffer. Wow. Yeah, that's a fucking heavy one. That shit sticks with you. Good job. Georgia, I feel like we never take the time to sit and connect anymore. I want to know what you're thinking about. Okay. Well at this very moment, I'm thinking about cat pee. Okay, forget I said anything. Pretty litter is the high-performance cat litter that controls odors, absorbs moisture, and changes color to help detect potential health issues in your cat.

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And it's surprising, but also kind of not surprising, notorious old timers who almost pulled it off. Hey, I've seen this movie. Guess who's in it? Michael Caine. Of course he is. I'm Michael Caine. Like you kind of couldn't make this movie

unless you agreed to be in it. You know what I mean? Yeah. I hope Judi Dench is also in it. Oh, yeah. So this is the story of the 2015 Hatton Garden safe deposit heist. Oh, safe deposit. Safe deposit heist.

Safe deposit heist story. Oh, yay. Yes. Yay. So sexy. Open those boxes, bitch. Okay. The main sources for the story are an article from The Guardian by Duncan Campbell,

an article from Vanity Fair by Mark Seale, and an episode of the podcast Scotland Yard Confidential. And the rest of the sources can be found in our show notes. So it's just after midnight on the morning of April 3, 2015. We're in London. It's the Friday morning going into the Easter weekend, which in the UK is what they call so darlingly a bank holiday. Which just means the bank's closed,

all the businesses are closed. It's a long weekend. So there's a man named Kelvin Stockwell. He's the main security guard for Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Limited. It's in London's Diamond District, and Hatten Garden specializes in the safekeeping of jewels, gold, and cash. Pretty much anything its customers don't want touched, as we've learned.

The customers are mostly other jewelers in the Diamond District because they don't want to keep their merchandise on display and out at night. So they tuck it into the security of the safe deposit boxes every night. And it's said that the Hatton Garden safe deposit is the best security in the area. We've heard that before. Very similar to the story in Antwerp that you covered in episode 441. Aim for the basement. So, Kelvin, the security guard is home in his apartment,

locked up the shop for the long weekend at 6 p.m. that evening. Everything should be fine. All the loot is stored in the basement vault lined with safe deposit boxes. The boxes are behind two alarm iron airlock gates, an 18 inch metal door, 20 inch thick concrete walls and motion sensors inside and out. So like, fucking safe as shit, you know? Classic safe deposit box area.

Right, so like, I shouldn't even have a story here. That should be the end of it. And no one got in, right? The end. The end. Michael Caine, it was a really short movie, but he was great in it. So when Kelvin gets a call from one of the facility's owners

saying that he just got a call from the motoring company that the alarm had been triggered. He's shocked. He gets in the car and heads over. But when he gets to the shop, it's totally normal. Looks like how he left it. There's no sign of force entry at the door. It's dark and quiet inside. He calls his boss and he's like, false alarm.

And then he heads home for the long Easter holiday. So here we are after that long holiday. It's 8 a.m. on Tuesday, April 7th. Kelvin gets his ass to work. And as soon as he gets downstairs to where the boxes are, he sees that something is very wrong. The wooden door that leads to the hallway that leads to the safe deposit boxes is smashed open. Why is it wooden? I don't know. It must be like the, I think it's like the first door to the safe, you know, to the like, hard core area probably, right? Yeah.

Right, like an office door almost, you would think. It's almost like you have to ask yourself, how safe do all the doors have to be? Right, right. Just that main safe door should be. Right, like how far out are we talking that you need to go, like to the bathrooms? Like I don't, yeah, it's so like, it's not on them.

Where does security end and where does it begin? Exactly. That's a beautiful question. So there's tools, dust, hoses, debris, and bits of pipe all over the floor, a big mess. The vault door is still closed, but in one of the walls of the vault, there's a gaping hole just wide enough

for like a Finnish man to squeeze through. Oh. I know you like to measure things by kind of finish man squeeze. How many finish men could squeeze through this hole? You know, finish like from Finland? No, like thin on the thin side of thin. One bass player thin. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So those 20 inch concrete walls on all sides of the vault

were impenetrable when the vault was built. We're not talking about today's fucking money. We're talking about 1946 walls. Oh, they had no idea. Which I guess were different somehow. Yeah, I mean, you'd think they'd hold, you know, but I guess they have like a 50 to 75-year limit of how, of the tools that could be

made to break into them. Yeah. Lasers. Wait, lasers. What year is it? 2015. Oh, yeah. Lasers. There's no way 46 can hold up against one. They didn't even know what we were going to have. Remember you get like, you get vintage clothes and everything is like size down. Yes. It's like and everything is like sized down. It's like human beings merely 70 years ago were way fucking smaller than they are now. It's weird. I see. I'm always, vintage shoes are so hard to find

because every woman had a size five fucking foot back then. Yes. The wastes on most of those dresses, I'm like, well, I guess if you have a waste, this is fun, but no. I'm hungry looking at that waist. What the fuck? So actually a 1947 thin-ish man.

Right. Very different than today's. That's so true. So Kelvin bends down and peeks through the hole and a wall of safe deposit boxes has been overturned and is on the ground and the boxes inner drawers are stacked all over the floor. There's actually a photo of this that I think we can include in the socials. It's a fucking huge mess and it's clear the vault's been ransacked. Wow.

So the press loves this story. Everyone's like kind of impressed by it because it's like nostalgic, like an old school, you know, vault breaking. People kind of love that shit. Everyone loves a heist. Yeah. You don't want your stuff stolen, but if it's some rich people stuff that they're just hoarding anyway, right. Let some wily, you know, talented Michael Caine fucking motherfucker. If they want it bad enough, let them have it.

Let it, let a Finnish man have some jewels. Kind of Finnish, Finnish man, please. Please. So, London used to be home to a lot of professional criminals who attempted and often succeeded at crimes like this routinely. This was a fucking regular thing, but with better technology to deter thefts, better forensic technology, and of course London's intense network of CCTV footage. They love that shit over there.

This kind of thing doesn't happen much anymore. So everyone, the press and the public eat it up. It takes a while to total up the value of all the stolen goods, but it comes out to be worth, in today's money, in today's US dollars, $77 million that they stole. Holy shit. From fucking safe deposit boxes.

Worth it. Yeah, but because it's all diamonds and shit, you know? Yeah. It's not like Aunt Marjorie's fucking candlesticks. But doesn't it seem like even the Antwerp one that we just did wasn't that high? No, no. I felt like it wasn't, but I also can't remember,

but it felt like it wasn't that crazy. I feel like because people took their loot, like jewelry stores took their loot every night there instead of like having it in the back of their store is probably a lot more. Yeah. But I don't remember. And it makes it the biggest jewel heist

in British history. Some people speculate that this is the work of the Pink Panthers. Hey! That's an audacious gang of jewel thieves who we of course know personally, not really personally but know the story of from Exactly Right's podcast, Infamous International, The Pink Panther's Story. So go fucking check that out. You like a haste, you're going to love that series. It's real good.

It's so wild. Real good. So the investigation is handed over to London Metropolitan Police's elite flying squad, which handles organized crime and major burglaries. And they're called that awesome name because they were formed originally to fly between London's boroughs, not to be tied

down to any one specific borough. So cover the whole damn thing. Because there was no sign of forced entry at the front of the store, investigators initially believed the burglars had help from an inside figure. They figure out that the thieves had been able to disable two different alarms, but not before one alarm sent a silent signal to the monitoring company, which was the one that Kelvin had checked off and then said it was fine and left. So when that went off, they were like already in there basically. Oh, yeah. And they just, everyone froze? I think, yeah, I think they were like, let's freeze and not move and it'll look like a

false alarm and then we can keep going, which is pretty smart. It must have been so scary on the inside of that. I know. Like, Jesus Christ. No sneezing. Investigators can also tell that the robbers accessed the basement by taking the customer elevator up to the second floor.

They just took an elevator. They jammed it there and then climbed down through the shaft into the basement where they forced the doors open. Okay. So like the shaft of the elevator wasn't secure. And then from the equipment left scattered on the floor in the state of the safe deposit boxes, it's clear that the thieves had used sledgehammers, crowbars and angle grinders to open the box.

So they just went for it. But before they did that, they had to get themselves into the vault. And police can see exactly how they did that too. Directly underneath the gaping hole in the wall of the vault, the thieves have left behind a highly specialized drill with a diamond bit. How ironic that they used a diamond bit to get to the vault. And they don't take it with them? I miss it.

It's a thing of like, you know, the Tiffany fucking skylight in the house was worth more money than they had in debt. Like that's, that's like the drill bit. It's actually one of your favorite drill bits. It's called a Hilti DD 350. You love that one. I love the Hilti. That's the one that I use for my really important heists.

Yeah. You always say it's the Porsche of diamond bits. It's kind of annoying. You say a lot. Look, I'm trying to stop. This kind of drill didn't exist when the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Limited opened in the 40s. Like, they couldn't even fathom this kind of fucking drill bit.

Maybe sometime in the future when they use the things that are in the boxes to break into the box, maybe. But until then, let's not worry about it. I bet they'll remodel that are in the boxes to break into the box, maybe. But until then, let's not worry about it. I bet they'll remodel this place in the year 2000. Like, we don't need it. It doesn't need to be 100 years, you know? Yeah, they're gonna have flying cars, TVs inside of their eyes. Right. These drills cost several thousand dollars and are used in big construction projects.

And basically, you can't just pick one up at the hardware store. So when they tried to trace it, it had been stolen from a construction site just four months prior and only half a mile away from Hatton Garden. So clearly, they were planning this thing. There is footage of the men who took the drill because of CCTV, but you can't tell who they are.

When investigators go to look for the CCTV footage from the vault itself, they find that the company's hard drive had been ripped straight out of the wall. And all the footage from the safe deposit company is gone, but footage from neighboring businesses is available. And as it starts to come in, investigators start to piece together what happened. So here's what happened.

Just after 8 PM on the night of Thursday, April 2, a white van pulls up outside the safe deposit building. Three men get out, all dressed like construction workers in yellow vests. So like so smart if someone were like walking down the street, they'd be like, these are workers, they're supposed to be here. I feel like those yellow vests are probably good to have around

no matter what. Yellow vests and a ladder, like you can get in anywhere. Right? And maybe some of those big kind of two big gloves, you know, they're like workman's gloves that almost no one has. Like leather ones. Yeah, definitely. It's only 8 p.m. So there are passers on the street, but none of them give them a second glance.

They just look like they're supposed to be there. So two of the men walk past the main entrance and one of them holding a big bag on his shoulder is blocking his face. He opens the door with, seems like with a key. Like, it almost seems like there's more information here than they get, but like maybe there is an inside person. I don't know. So that man goes to the back of the building

and lets the others in through the fire exit. And the men walk through a hallway that was shared with another business, and they were picked up on that business's security footage. I think they thought it was part of the bank one, and so they didn't try to hide themselves. So the footage shows a total of six men,

all disguised as workers, all with their faces covered by dust masks. Immediately police notice that this is not the Pink Panthers, first of all. Because those guys are like young and fun, right? They're young, they're fun. They do things to get like CCTV footage to go viral. They're not trying to hide anything.

No, no. And also these robbers seem old. Oh. The exposed skin they can see looks wrinkly and there are flashes of white hair. Some of them are moving slowly, like they're seemingly in pain, as you do when you're fucking older.

Hey. One of them is having breathing difficulties while he brings in bags of heavy tools through the fire exit. And there's also the one who entered through the front door is also wearing a red wig. So by 9 p.m., the robbers are inside the building and are no longer visible on this one camera. They reappear at 8 a.m. on Friday morning.

So that's how it took them, like, 12 fucking hours to do the mess they made to do that. Oh, okay. But the thing is, when they show back up at 8 a.m., they're empty-handed. They don't have any of the equipment they brought in, nor do they have any bags of loot, of $77 million worth of loot, you know,

which is probably a lot. The investigators keep scrubbing through the footage, and when they get to the night of Saturday, April 4, the night before Easter, they discover that this audacious gang of seemingly old dudes come back to the scene of the crime, the fucking following Saturday, like that following night, which like does not happen.

Professionals do not do that. No, that's what serial killers do. Yeah. So actually only four men come back. No, that's what serial killers do. Yeah. So actually, only four men come back. And it appears that two out of the gang decided it was too risky to come back, so only four guys come back. The investigators figure out that the thieves hadn't

had the right kind of equipment that they needed to knock over a wall of the safe deposit boxes that was against the concrete they had drilled through. So they come back with a more specialized hydraulic pump to finish the job. So they hadn't gotten their loot yet. And they're like, we can't we did all this work. They believe go get a different tool and come back. And it took them from when they left Friday morning to like Saturday evening to get that tool like. Jerry, if you could call me back, this is actually pressing. I do know.

I really don't. I know it's Easter. I know you're having your, what do they call it? You're having your bank holiday with your family. But if I could just borrow that diamond head drill bit. Right. So on the footage from that night, they're finally seen leaving with garbage pails

and garbage bags, presumably full of diamonds, jewels, gold, and cash that had been stored in the now empty safe deposit boxes. So they got what they came for two nights ago. But the biggest break from this second wave of footage comes when investigators see street footage of two of the burglars arriving back on the scene in a white Mercedes,

not the white rental van from the first night. Of course, London has an automatic plate recognition system, blah, blah, blah. They're able to track the car. They track him and they find it parked in front of a nondescript house. And they're floored when they see who comes out of it. I literally have seen this movie. Have you really? Yeah. Yeah. Holy shit.

You know, I love the British and their entertainment. Of course you have. Really? Yeah. Holy shit. You know I love the British and their entertainments. Of course you have. So the Hatton Gardens heist, you know, it feels like a throwback to a different era in London crime. And that's because it is. The man police see going back and forth to the Mercedes with all the loot that they track down, you know, in that house turns out to be a career criminal named John

Collins who goes by Kenny. And guess how old he is? The first number that popped in my head was 76. 77. Oh, shit. Shit. Good one. 77. That's like my dad's age. Right? It might be because I saw the movie. Oh, right. Well, yeah, that's a weird specific thing. Or how old is it? Michael Caine? I don't know.

I'm Michael Caine. He's not Michael. Do it again. I'm Michael Caine. Thank you. I don't think we gave you enough credit when you. It's not good at all. No, it's pretty good. It's it's an impression of somebody else's impression, basically. Right. OK. But we get it. So he's not played by Michael Caine. He goes by Kenny and police have long assumed him to be

retired from fucking doing shit like this because he's 77. Kenny Collins had been involved with robberies going back to the 1960s. He'd been in and out of jail lots of times over the years, but he'd been out since 1988. And as investigators follow Collins around London, he leads them right to his accomplices. And it's a veritable who's who of London's most infamous heists. It's like they are trying to make a movie, seriously. Yeah, they were trying to keep Michael Caine in business. That's right.

I think one time first, I'm like, if we do this and pull this off and then get caught, will you play me? Yeah? Will you please help us get the movie made? He's like, yes. Get the movie made and then we'll do the heist. Okay. So at a pub, Collins meets up with a 76-year-old man Will you please help us get the movie made? Right. Yes. Get the movie made and then we'll do the heist. Okay. So at a pub, Collins meets up with a 76 year old man named Brian Reader and that's who

Michael Caine plays. And maybe that's why you thought he was 76. Karen. I'm Michael Caine. I was right. So this guy, Brian Reader is a legend. He had been involved with the robbery of a Lloyd's Bank in 1971, which he was never caught for. He had lived on the Lamb in Spain's Costa del Sol for many years, taking advantage of

a last extradition agreement between the UK and Spain. I'm sure it was the most beautiful time of his life. For real. And after returning to London, he was ultimately nabbed in the 1983 Brinks-Matt robbery in which thieves robbed gold bullion that would currently be worth about $150 million from a warehouse. Jesus Christ. Yeah.

It was while he was serving time for these bullion capers through the 90s that Reeder is said to have first hatched the plan for the Hatton Garden heist. But he didn't wind up following through until decades later, after his wife, Lynn, died of cancer. Oh. And some people think that he was mostly motivated just by grief or boredom and maybe the desire to pull off one last job.

He was like, kind of fuck it all. Yeah, like Lynn was like, I need you to stand straight and narrow. And he's like, gotcha. And he did. And then she passed and he was like, what's it all worth? Also, I swear to God, I think when you start doing stuff like that, I can only compare it to like going on stage in front of a bunch of people. But you just the adrenaline becomes its own thing.

Or it's like, you want a shot of that again, you want to like get that feeling again. Hell yes. Nothing will ever match it. So police figure out that the first guy, Kenny Collins, who is not in great health, posted up at an office building across the street from Hatton Garden and acted as a lookout. And they also figure out that Brian Reeder was one of the two men who did not return to the scene of the crime to finish the job. That could possibly be because he was 76 and carrying a bunch of heavy fucking loot out of a, you know, might not be his, the best idea for him.

Do you think it threw his back out? He could have thrown his back out. It sparked his gout. Exactly. So the flying squad, you know, the policemen follow Collins to another pub where he meets up with two other men. These men too are familiar to the investigators. One is a 67 year old named Terry Perkins. He's known for the 1983 security express robbery where he and others

robbed cash from an armored car. It's so funny. It's like these are like the who's who of this thing. They're like the basketball champions from high school. And it's like they're from the, remember the championship where they played this guy? Exactly, exactly. Heist championships. And it's tempting to think that these are all lovable,

like working class heroes in, you know, in many ways, but they did hurt people, I will say. In the security express robbery, the group poured gasoline on the driver and shook a bottle of matches in his face until he gave them the keys. Very traumatizing. Yes, very traumatizing.

They didn't set fire to him, though. These three robberies, Lloyds Bank, Brinksmat, and Security Express are among the most infamous in British history. So it's just like, let's get the gang together. Yeah, like Olympic style though. Yeah, being a grandpa isn't doing it for me. Right.

I need more. Understandable. The other man at the pub with Collins and Perkins is a 59-year-old named Daniel Jones. Jones doesn't have the same lengthy criminal history or pedigree, but he is younger and in better health. And investigators are pretty sure that he's there to do any heavy lifting that the older men couldn't do.

And I mean, this is such a guy, Richie fucking plot of a movie. Yeah, I was going to say that younger guy sounds like that's where our Jason Statham gets to come in and help the oldies. Yes, that is generous, though. Let's just say. In what way? They just look like dads. They look like British dads.

You know what I mean? Like, except for the Michael Caine guy who is hot. Like, they're just British pasty dads. They're British dads. That's all the better. Yeah. But they're very normal looking people. OK.

So I also love that, like like we need someone younger to carry shit Let's get a 58 year old 59 year old, you know, it's like that shows you like what how bad how bad they were. Oh No shame against 59 year olds. I just like I'm 44 and my back hurts So like, you know, yeah, it's not you get a 28 year old not a 50 fucking whatever you're on And also they were like, can you help me with this email? And he's like, no, I actually can't. I can't. You're gonna have to ask your granddaughter. Right. There's a fifth man that they find out was involved. He's a 58-year-old named Carl Wood.

And he, like Jones, was relatively youthful, so he was also tasked with carrying heavy equipment. And he also didn't return to finish the job. So it was just the four men. As for the sixth man, the one who wore the red wig, his identity continued to elude police. When police first hear the other five men talking, they refer to him as Basil. Seems like they don't even know his identity,

which is so usual suspects of him, you know? Basil. Scotland Yards surveils the men, they put cameras on them and shit, and they learn Terry Perkins, Danny Jones, and Kenny Collins are planning to meet on May 19th to divide up their spoils. Like they talk like fucking schoolgirls about this shit with like no thought that maybe we're being recorded by the police. And also they have no idea that WhatsApp even exists.

They can't do it anywhere else, besides, like, on the phone or... Right, at a pub. They, like, go to the pub they always go to, put a camera in there and record them. It's just, like, not complex. They love their pubs over in England. They really do. Amen.

Okay, so on May 19th, 200 officers raid 12 different addresses with warrants to arrest the five known burglars and three other men who worked with them after the fact. Police find Terry Perkins, Danny Jones, and Kenny Collins, like the main guys, together at a dining room table with a gold smelter set on it and about $4 million worth of gold between them, about to fucking burn that shit down and sell it. Yeah, make little rings, fun necklaces. They're all making best friend necklace charms.

Aww. Aww, I love heisting with you. Best heisters. What a heist it's been. So, basically, everyone gets arrested and the five men are charged along with the three accomplices and Brian Reader, Danny Jones, Terry Perkins and Kenny Collins all plead guilty. They first pretend that they don't know each other and then they show them the video of

them at the pub drinking together and it's like, okay. They're all sentenced to between six and seven years in prison. Three out of the four men, including Carl Wood, are later found guilty. As for Basil, this mysterious sixth man, he evades law enforcement for another three years with about $15 million worth of stolen goods. Which is about two thirds of the spoils. So he goes and has some fucking fun. Was Basil an inside man, I wonder? Like, why did he get so much money? I don't know. I think they were like, some of them were holding on to it because they were in the process of splitting it up and doing things with it. Sure. I'll hold this big bag over here.

Right. Let's leave this one for last. Yeah. Calls the police. Grabs the bag. Right. So, finally in 2018, a 57-year-old man named Michael Seed is arrested. Police find hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of jewels and gold bricks in the apartment that he lives in in London, like not far away, as well as an electric smelter. And he's ultimately convicted. He's basile, by the way. He's ultimately convicted and sentenced to 10, by the way. He's ultimately

convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison and seven more if he doesn't repay six million pounds in damages, which is about $8 million today. So what would you take seven years or you have to pay six? You got to keep that eight million dollars. But didn't he have 15? Doesn't that leave him with seven million? Yeah. Well, I bet he spent a shit ton of it. Right? Still it's millions of dollars. It's a lot of dollars. Like left him with seven and he spent four. He still has 3 million bills.

I think we all know no one with money goes to jail. That's the whole thing. That's why everybody wants money. Yeah. We've been trying to teach everyone that for eight and a half years. It's, I mean, and also that's why it'll, this system has to change. Cause it's a fucking scam. It's just not fair. It's just not fair. So Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Limited has since sadly for everyone gone out of

business, but a plan is in the works to move the entire preserved crime scene of the basement vault, which we have the photo of, to a museum that people can actually go visit. Yes. Good idea. Which is such a mess. It's an OCD person, like myself, worst nightmare. I mean, it's not something I want to look at, you know?

I want to. The story of the heist has been adapted into two different movies, one with Michael Caine, of course, and a limited series. And that is the story of the Hatton Garden Heist, the largest burglary in British legal history and a real life one last job for a crew of notorious thieves. I mean, they actually were imitating art because... Obviously, I never believed that One Last Heist

really existed in real life. That seemed like a bit of a construct, but now we know it actually did happen recently. Do you think that all of them, especially Brian Reader, who was played by Michael Caine, would do it all over again because he got to be played by Michael Caine. Like that is an honor, an honor to be played by Michael Caine. You did something with your life to the degree

that Michael Caine's getting involved in telling others about it. Yeah, maybe his late wife, Lynn, is looking down from heaven being like, you cheeky so-and-so. Yeah, and love it when you break the law, baby. Yeah. No. She's the one that wanted him to stop. She'd be like, you son of a bitch. But he did it. He waited. He did wait. But that would piss her off even more because she's like, well, that's just manipulative. Now I'm doing an Irish accent. That doesn't make sense.

But that's just manipulative. Now I'm doing an Irish accent. That doesn't make sense. That was a beautiful button of, you know what? You're never too old. Come on, guys. You're never too old. Yeah, one last in you. One last what in you?

There's a lot of people sitting around. They're like, oh no, I'm 41, blue, blue, blah. Well, what about Michael Caine's friend? Not Michael Caine, who fucking filmed the movie? Not Michael Caine, who is still active on Twitter. God bless his soul. We should all strive to be a little more like Michael Caine. I agree.

I agree. Thanks for listening to this episode, this long ass episode. This is one of those episodes that's going to get you on a nice, like a car trip or something. Oh my God, 100%. on a nice like a car trip or something. A hundred percent. But only if you're by yourself or around someone that is absolute, that got you into this podcast. Right. No new people. No. Like even your dog maybe shouldn't listen to this.

No being bossy with your boyfriend and being like you have to let this isn't one of those. This isn't his. This isn't for him. Oh, wait a second. We're saying it at the end when it doesn't matter. It's too late. Guys, thanks for being here with us. We love you. We do. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck. Our managing producer is Hannah Kyle Creighton.

Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Liana Squillace. Our researchers are Marin McClashen and Ali Elkin. Email your hometowns to MyFavoriteMurder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at MyFavoriteMurder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at MyFavoriteMurder and Twitter at MyFaveMurder. Goodbye.