My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 5 - Five Favorite Murders

Episode Date: February 17, 2016

In this episode we discuss LA Freeway Killers of the 70s, the Martha Moxley murder case and read more listener hometown murder stories.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We at Wondery live, breathe and downright obsess over true crime and now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music, Exhibit C. It's truly criminal. Let's talk about murder. Let's get it done. Let's get into murder. Let's get, let's get our murder chores taken care of. Let's vacuum the murder and take out the murder. Let's vacuum up the hair follicles and the carpet fibers that will not be admissible in court. Right. And then just throw them out. Yeah. Because they're just garbage. And then we'll overturn the conviction. We'll overturn history. Okay. So, hi, this is my favorite murder. That's Karen. And that's Georgian. We're

here to talk about crime and punishment and all the things that we like that a lot of people really don't. Well, it turns out I feel like so many people are emailing us and being like, thank you. That they do. Yeah. Yeah. I'm always too embarrassed to talk about it with anyone. Do you think even, like, even grammar school teachers and even cheerleaders have these feelings? Yeah. I think most women like to talk about murder. Yeah. Yeah. And some dudes. Some dudes do. Okay. Well, here's the thing I read recently. Did you know there's, they have like an age range that you'll most likely, like, this is when, this is when your chances of getting murdered are the war or this age, like, they have an exact age. And this is from paranoia magazine. No, this is from fucking psychology today. Okay.

Similar. Okay. It was a relief because we're both older than this age. Okay, good. So, the average age of homicide victims into what this last time I guess was 2008 was 32.7 years old. And then the average age of murderers in 2008 was 28.8. Whoa. Interesting. Yeah. Like, that's very young seems to me to get murdered or to murder. To be a murderer that seems young. I would have guessed old younger personally, you would have guessed younger for the murder because you have less control over your impulses and that sort of thing. But by 28, you're like, I'm going to be a murderer definitely or no. I want, you know what it is to I think when I think of stuff like this, I'm thinking of the specific kind of murders that I'm interested in where obviously this is gang,

mafia, all, you know, impulse, all that stuff. Spousal abuse. The crimes of passion. Crimes of partial. Crimes of portion. What about, you know what I'm really afraid of? Getting shot at on the freeway. Oh, yeah. What about someone throwing a brick over an off and overpass onto your windshield? Don't do that. No, don't do that. Does it happen to people? There was like, sometimes there's, there's like, I was going to say spates of that, but I'm not sure if that's the right word. That's terrifying. Little that starts happenings in certain parts of that's that's a very Los Angeles thing. No. Sure. I know. I gotta go. Okay, bye. I gotta go. I gotta go. And then to be and to be murdered 32. That sounds right because you're

like, you're out of your twenties. You kind of like you relax into adulthood. You think you got it together. You no longer carry your keys between your fingers at night. You're kind of like, look, I lived in the city long enough. You let your shoulders down a little bit. You relax. Yeah. The fun kind of murders that we like, that's like your fucking college co-ed. Yeah. Not fun. And I don't like them. Just to clear this up. Whatever. We simply must demand understanding from our audience. That's what we're going to have to stop explaining that a, we don't want to be murdered by anyone. We're not like, you know why is because I did made the fatal mistake of not only reading some of our iTunes reviews that were bad, which there were very few. So I went straight to them

and then telling you about them. And like the funniest one was one who was like, these women have no respect. They're laughing about child death or whatever. And so I keep feeling like I have to clarify or be apologetic. Call her and be like, let me tell you about this. I pictured it to be an old man with horn rim glasses and kind of half balding, kind of like an old Bob Oden Kirk is the way I was picturing it. Yeah, just like a crooked finger shaking, shaking at the screen always. You women is grandson comes and boots it up for him every day. Totally. Yeah, we just said, we can't worry. We have to be talking to the people that understand us. Yeah, they get us. They do. And they like it. Like you're saying, they're excited. I was going to ask

you a question and then I forgot it. I'm just going to keep telling each other that people like murder. They like it. Yeah. Why would they be listening to a podcast called my favorite murder? Yeah, they're people are much smarter than the media would have you believe. That's true. Do you want to go first? You want to talk about your favorite murder? Yeah. Well, so we I was so we're maybe after this one, we're going to start having categories each time. Sure. Like call a theme. Yeah, theme. Totally. So we're not right now. So I was just like in the wind, twisting in the wind to grab one tip for why it's been harder. Yeah. So you want to you go first? That's my point. Oh, okay. No, wait, why don't I go first?

And then you yours is probably really well researched. Why? Because I have a legal pad. I just carry that around with me like a nerd. There's nothing written like the same word written over and over and over again. It just says murder Georgia over and over on it. But at this whole time, it was you that murdered me. Oh my God. Yeah, that's the great irony of life. It's always what's right in front of you. Nice to meet you. Meet my murderer. All right. Well, mine is my favorite murder this week is one that I'm sure you know about. And it's a classic. I feel like I just need to get out of the way because whenever there's been recent news updates about it. And whenever I see it, whenever I watch a documentary about it, I'm fucking in it. Yeah. It's the

murder of Martha Moxley. Georgia, you know, I got to tell you. Yeah, just the name Martha Moxley. Moxley, the word Moxley. It's the best name. And it's the worst story. That's just like, and she's, she's just a fucking kid. Yeah. Yeah. So if those who don't know, don't know anything, apparently. Martha Moxley. In 1975, she was a 15 year old girl living in Greenwich, Connecticut, which is a fucking Tony town. Love the word Tony. Don't they have like their own gates and stuff? It's like truly like crazy rich. Yeah. And it's like you live on acres. Yeah. So Martha Moxley's body was found beaten in her yard the night after Halloween. And it was, she was beaten. They found half of a golf club there, which is what had been used to

beat her. She's like a cute, pretty, it doesn't matter. She could be ugly. It's still terrible. But she's, you know, she was fucking so that the person they thought she looks like a girl that's in a black and white picture in an 80s year book. She's like that perfect girl. Like the popular, but like, but she's also on student body. Like she's popular and smart and she's not mean, you know? Yeah. Freckles. Totally. Genuine smile. Like she'd probably end up being like a, like a, like a lawyer for like the ocean, you know, those guys. Yeah. Like a lawyer defending like. Actually getting something good done. Oshah. Is that a thing? Oshah, yes. But Oshah is the work, the work environment, making sure, making sure it's safe for people to work.

There, she'd be, she'd be a lawyer for them. Okay. I like the ocean too. It's kind of nice. She just has dolphins all around her. Anyhow. She totally has dolphins. So the person who ended up ultimately getting arrested and put in jail for this murder, but not until 2002 was her neighbor who lived across the street who was her age named Michael Skakel, who this is so unimportant and such a stupid fact of the, the whole thing. But probably the reason why it's a famous murder is that the Michael Skakel's family was related to Senator Robert Kennedy's wife, Ethel Kennedy, Ethel Skakel Kennedy, who RFK has been in on this podcast. So my favorite murder in the past. Anyways. So what's recently happened is that Michael Skakel has been released from jail.

Oh, I didn't know that. They filed for a new trial because he was not adequately represented by his defense attorney. Doubt it. The habeas petition was granted. The judgment of conviction is set aside and the matter is referred back. So for retrial, meaning as far as I know, so he got out and as far as I know, it doesn't look like they're pursuing the case anymore. Because I guess, you know, they had very little, it was all circumstantial evidence. Not even that wasn't very strong. So surprising that he got convicted. However, he admitted that that night somewhere between 10 and two in the morning or something like that, he was in a tree masturbating while looking in Martha Moxley's window. Yes, that was the justification of why his semen would be on her

body was on her body. Yeah. Okay, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life. Right. I mean, clearly, he had pretty good lawyers the first time around if they're coming up with shit like that. It's just I know this is insane bias because I've seen this like so many versions of this story. But it's but I've decided I've decided. But I mean, it's because of things like that. Well, the problem with it is that there's other there's other strong suspects, you know, like the brother, the brother who was making out with her that evening, which is why maybe Michael got jealous and killed her. Or did she catch him drinking off? Like, how did she come out there, do you suppose? Well, I don't think I think she was out because it was mischief night,

right? Was it the night before Halloween or Halloween? It was Yeah, sorry, I know you're so the night before Halloween. Yeah, mischief night, which I didn't know was a thing. I know it's not a thing out here. I think it's it might be for exclusively for rich white people in Greenwich. It's also in Detroit, which is terrifying. Oh, yeah. A slightly different tone of that every night is mischief night in Detroit. Yeah. Yeah, I've never heard of mischief night mischief night until I heard this story. Yeah, me too. So yeah. So like, the most obvious answer is usually the correct answer. Yeah. And and him jerking off in a tree and not being the killer is not the obvious answer. That's right.

Well, and also just then, why weren't there other people? Even, you know, like, it just didn't seem like there was other people brought forward because this is one of not just a safe town or whatever. It's like an exclusive shut off city. Yeah, but here's the thing is there, the Skakles had a had a tutor named John, let's see where they write on something foreign. Ken, Ken Littleton. Oh, okay. So he was the tutor and they were like, this guy's sketchy. And so he was a suspect for a long time too. Why was he sketchy? Do you remember? Because maybe he had a hard on for Martha Moxley. Oh, okay. But he says he never even met her. Okay, but then so recently, Kobe Bryant, here's another like relative, Kobe Bryant's cousin. His name is Tony Bryant. Okay.

Like why are there, there needs to be, you know, connections to family members that are famous, I don't know, says that he knows who killed Martha Moxley. He's from this town. Oh, and he came out recently and said, I know who actually did it. And it wasn't Michael's Gecko. No. He says it was two of his friends who lived in or they love the Bronx, I believe. Yeah, two friends visiting him from the Bronx, they went to Moxley's neighborhood the night of the murder and this guy Bryant was with them. The two friends reportedly picked up Skakles golf clubs from Skakles yard, which is what she was murdered with, on a whim and told Bryant they wanted to attack a girl quote caveman style using the clubs. Bryant says he left the neighborhood and learned about the murder later

and the friends told him they committed a crime, but he never said anything. So now he's saying he's coming forward with the story. If the story is true, I call bullshit on him leaving. He was, he was there. People are going to tell you to your face, they're going to kill a girl and you're like, well, I've got to go. So kind of person. I mean, look, whatever, there's all details. You could run a million scenarios. I don't think a teenager would be like would leave even if he was like, I don't want to murder anyone. I just want to see what happens. Or I don't believe these guys, you know, well, the other thing I remember hearing is that the Skakles golf clubs, the, the set of clubs were in their attic that the cops found them

later with that one club missing. So the idea that they were picking golf clubs out of a front yard seems a bit bullshitty. Or did someone stash the golf clubs up there after they realized the murder weapon was a golf club or that could be connected to them? Yeah. Did Michael Skakel do it, put the golf clubs up there, the dad, the mom, weren't the dad and the mom gone? They were gone. Like they, they, dad and mom almost didn't live there. They were like teen boys that lived on their own. Rich white teen boys running amok that lived on their own. That sounds terrible. Now, am I wrong to assume that Kobe Bryant's cousin is black and that the kids coming in from whatever, but did you say Brooklyn or the Bronx coming in from the Bronx or black? That's an assumption we

couldn't make. I would, I would think that the Greenwich Connecticut cops would see three black kids walking around on mischief night and at least ask a question. Totally. If not harass the fuck out of them. And then how did Michael Skakel seem in a gift to go back and get on this poor girl, this poor girl in her poor, every interview, like her family is like die hard. Like we never did anything else with our lives, but try to get justice. Yeah. It's fucking heartbreaking for this poor family. There's, I remember, I remember seeing this story way early in a, it wasn't forensic files, but it was like one of those ones and they interviewed the mom. Oh, she's, she seemed like a thousand miles away. I remember watching it and just going, Oh,

I never want to see any, any murder victims, mom speak again, because that's the most painful thing. You know what hurts me? The brothers, brothers of the murder victims always bought me out because they're like, I should have been there to help my little sister. Yeah. Oh, terrible. Well, also, I don't like the idea that so he has served, was it 30 years in prison or 20? No, he didn't get arrested until 2002. Oh, so this is crazy, like white people justice, where it's a rich guy who basically kind of did a symbolic time and now they're faking out about some black people to say, Hey, maybe we did it. And then his thing goes away. Probably. So he got, he didn't, Michael Skickl didn't get arrested until and convicted for 27 years. He

was free. That was this, this whole, so this whole thing happened. I think it was 2002. So I remember having watched the whole story of the murder and then like that happened, it was insane. I never thought he would get anyone would get arrested for it. And now he's fucking out again. So he spent, he sent spent a couple years. I just think that the logic of, oh, wait, so 2000, he was arrested. And then, yeah, now he's out. Yeah, the logic of, oh, just the logic of a very rich, teen boy who gets spurned and maybe even shamed, like his older brother who ruins his life in every other way gets the girl that he likes, him having this huge, crazy emotional reaction in the moment that he maybe hugely regrets even, but that it may be even a girl that he was obsessed with,

that sparking murderous ramp, a murderous rampage makes way more sense than just a teen going, I'm going to kill a girl tonight caveman style. Like you have to be a very specific type of person to be able to do that in the first place. It's not, it's not like going, I'm going to sniff glue. And then there were two, two other kids at Michael Skakeles boarding school later who said, yeah, he admitted to it. Yeah. So these kids from the Bronx would have probably gone back and bragged about it. And there would have been more people saying that they did it, not Kobe Bryant's cousin. Yeah. But I just hate that idea that, I mean, it, most black people have a hard time driving around Los Angeles, California, you're going to roll up into Greenwich, Connecticut and just be like,

let's see what we can do murder wise. Like wander around with clubs. I don't think so. No, yeah, you're right. Also, if you live in the Bronx, where you're getting the gas money, where you're getting any of the money to get there. Yeah. Like, I don't know, it doesn't, it just doesn't add up as quickly to me. It's just, it's, but what's, yeah, I don't know. But who knows. And I just don't understand why this guy who has a family, Kobe Bryant's cousin would want to do that. But there's fucking narcissistic people who want attention all the time. Or maybe he really believes it. Maybe he believes it. And maybe he doesn't, he's remembering incorrectly. He really believes that's what happened. I, here's what I will say. I love the idea that we still get to

talk about the Martha Moxley murder, that there's something still happening with it. Yeah. That's fascinating to me. No one's in prison for her murder still. Yeah. Did I want Michael Skakel not to have done it? Like I want there to be a different answer, but I don't think there is. I just think that, I think that the thing that comes down to with me with a lot of these stories is my irritation over the fact that people accept kind of like, like if you're a white guy wearing a button down Oxford shirt, you can kind of do whatever the fuck you want. And people will be like, Oh no, that nice boy down the street. Like you can, you get to hide in plain sight with this camouflage and meanwhile be whatever. And people will not believe it. They'll immediately

believe three black kids driving up from the Bronx to kill this one girl. It's just such a bummer because I think what I don't want him to be guilty is because he is such a fucking loser and such a little twerp that he doesn't deserve. I want it to be more sensational because she deserves to not have just been killed by this little jerking off little shit face. Yeah, who is jealous of a thing. That's a that's like a friend zone murder. That's what that is. Yeah, or like you want to fuck my brother and not me. I'm jealous. Yeah, yeah, which is such an obvious boring. I get this is why I like cold cases is because you can you can like imagine that it's more complicated and mysterious and bigger within the answer, which is usually the answer is

just some fucking dude didn't take his meds and went crazy. And it's like, and this guy's a piece of sword and this guy's a piece of shit and the murder victim was a good person who deserved who and I always think like, just kill yourself. Don't kill someone else. Please just kill yourself. I mean, that was if they had any kind of nobility about them whatsoever. Well, and also the other thing too is you can't just leave kids just because you're rich or just because you can like get a tutor. You especially like teen boys are the ones that need to be like observed and written and like, you know, discipline constantly, they have to be there have to be boundaries. No impulse control. No, and it's the 70s. So they were like on drugs and smoking pot and

drinking all the time. They did whatever they wanted. I mean, yeah, that's it's to me in my mind. It's much more likely that a rich kid or super rich teenage boy would murder a girl who has too much privilege and affluence and has always gotten away with whatever he wants. We're we're Kennedys. Yeah, we're the Kennedys of Greenwich, right? Yeah. Yeah, come on. Yeah. Oh, man. Fuck. Hey, I'm Mike Corey, the host of Wunderies podcast against the odds. In our next season, three mask men hijacked a school bus full of children in the sleepy farm town of Chautchilla, California. They bury the children and their bus driver deep underground, planning to hold them for ransom. Local police and the FBI marshal a search effort, but the trail quickly runs dry. As the air supply for the trapped children dwindles, a pair of unlikely heroes emerges. Follow against the odds wherever you get your podcast, you can listen, add free on the Amazon music or Wundery app. It's your murder. Well, my so I picked mine because we were talking about hitchhiking and laughing about how insanely dangerous and crazy hitchhiking is. And so I went to look up why we think that and know that and what the story with the actual stories and murders are behind that. And it turns out, that there I looked up freeway killer because I remember hearing there was like the story of the one guy with the van on the freeway. It turns out there were three.

Wow. And between like the mid seventies and 1980, there were three serial killers that dumped bodies on freeways in Los Angeles and Southern California, working all at the same time in this area in this area. And on top of that, the in the same amount in the same time frame where the hillside stranglers. Yeah. And so they weren't even counted in this because they dumped bodies. Yeah, but they dumped bodies in the hills. So they would take women off the street. Okay. And then they would they it was where they were dumping in the hills. That's what they call them hillside. They thought it was one guy doing it like as if they were walking up there and then realize they were bringing bodies to there. I just think it's crazy that when two people joined forces and are both in agreement that they want to do the same. Like it's insane. How do you find someone like that? Okay, you're that's exactly right. And here's why I love the story. Because the guy I focused on is William Bonnan. He had four accomplices over his, I believe it was just a year or it was like a year and a half where he was doing the most most of these killers killings. Sorry. And he had four different people who helped him. That's insane. It's crazy. Something was going on in the late 70s, because that's also when Bundy, when John Wayne Gacy, like it was all around 1978. There was this weird explosion of like, maybe it was just that people learned about what it was and the story started coming out. Like Dahmer was later, right? Dahmer was later. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, or because the term serial killer wasn't even coined Intel, but I didn't mean that they weren't doing it.

They weren't doing that. Right. Just don't think people understood. That's right. Yeah. They didn't. And also, how do you introduce that concept to like without introducing huge mass panic? So one of the guys, I'll just tell you the other ones first. One was the scorecard killer. And this was a guy named Randy Kraft. So from 1972 to 1983, he killed for sure 16 boys, but they think 51 and 51. And there was also so and he they call him scorecard killer, because he kept this really long list where he had code words for the people that he killed. So they were able to track. That's why they know it's at least 51. Because there would just be a word that would say like tank top or whatever that would somehow relate to the victim. Yeah, it's crazy. And he was like the he looked like anyone in the store when you see pictures. He looks like a high school teacher. Holy shit. He looks like he would have been on a episode of episode of Mary Tyler Moore. He has like kind of a pointy nose. And like he has kind of a jolly looking face. He's like he's a guy in the 70s. A guy in the 70s just like, Hey, come on, do you need a ride? And he would pick up little kids.

He would pick up men of any kind. Okay. And then he would brutally he would brutally rape them and then dump their bodies. There was also Patrick Wayne Kearney, who worked from 75 to 77 who killed definitely 28. Shit, that's two years he killed 28 people 28 and they think 43 they just can only pin 28 on him. Yeah, like there's no way he didn't start earlier and they just don't know yet. Right, exactly. And especially because at this time, imagine three of these people doing this at once. And this guy would pick up hitchhikers, shoot them in the head, then do stuff to their bodies and then wrap them in trash bags. And keep their heads? Is that him? No. Not that I know of. That's I mean, no, I don't think so. I think that's a anyways, yeah.

This is one of these people? No. Well, anyway, imagine like living right now and like, like how, you know, summer of Sam how like, yeah, there's a person killing people out there right now, like I just wouldn't leave the house anymore. I know. And three, three at a time, three of them that at any given time could be driving down any fucking street. But the key in this in all three of these and the reason that they didn't go that they went on solve for so long is because they were gay. It was gay boys. And it was it was that situation of boy hitchhikers, usually young and for William Bonnan, his youngest was 12, a little boy who was trying to get to Disneyland. And but William Bonnan is like the worst, the worst of the worst. We can just go through his super quick because it's just a humongous bummer.

He's kind of got shades of Charles Manson in that way where it was never okay for him from day one. Yeah. So he he was born to two alcoholic parents. And the mom left him and his two brothers with her father, whom molested her and whom molested the boys. Then he he ran away when he was nine and he got arrested for stealing license plates and he got sent to a boys, you know, like juvie basically for boys where he was again raped and molested. And there's a super dark story. This is if you don't like dark things, this will bum you out. So spoiler alert.

Spoil your life alert. Let's just spoil. Spoiler. Spoil your life. They told a story of the first time he was someone approached him in this in juvie to say that they were going to like fuck him essentially. And he asked the boy to tie his hands behind his back first because it made him feel safe. That's how badly he was being molested by his grandfather. So he was we can talk about this person and at least draw a strain of like with that why question that I always have with this like you cannot torture human beings like this. How do you create a failure or serial killer? Yeah, just follow this guy's life. Yeah, basically, you know, neglect. They were like the neighborhood people said that they look like they were starving all the time.

They were like, you know, they were completely neglected children who then of course became criminals because what else were they going to do? That's the thing of like, where do you go? Where at what point do you switch from feeling sorry for this child to thinking that this man should be dead? You know, like, right? There's there's like a moment. I guess it's when he kills the first person you ever go. Yeah, because there's a lot of people that get molested and fucked with as children who never do anything bad to other people. Totally. There's definitely that element of responsibility, but it's just like you just see that thing where like that mother couldn't be responsible enough to go.

I'm going to get you out of this cycle of abuse and not let what happened to me happen to you. But how horrible that is. So anyway, he goes to he of course, then when he gets out of like that juvie, he starts molesting kids in the neighborhood. It's just like now with the thing that he does, he he gets arrested for it once, then he gets sent to I think he goes to Vietnam has a full tour in the air. He joins the Air Force. He came back. He was in Vietnam from 69 to 71 came back and immediately started kidnapping and raping boys. He did it to five boys.

Can you imagine the second fondling he did in Vietnam? Yeah. Like that was like a free for all for him. Yeah, you could do anything you wanted. So he comes back. He gets caught for kidnapping and raping five different boys. They send him to a mental hospital. Oh, great.

So he goes from being in a mental hospital in the mental hospital. They say he's he can't be rehabilitated. So they send him to real jail. But then he's released in 1974 because there they decide he's no longer a danger to others. You've got to be kidding me. Uh-huh. And so 16 months later, he's charged with the gunpoint rape of a 14 year old hitchhiker and the attempted abduction of another teen.

So he's sentenced from one to 15 years to in jail. From one to 15 years. One to 15 years. How cute is that? Yeah. Just, you know, go think about what you did for a little while. A year. That you've been doing your entire life.

The fucking penal system of all these stories of horrific things. I'm usually the most disturbed and disgusted by how little time people get for heinous. Yeah. The crimes. Well, as when when our rape and child molestering going to start be being really seen as like these are people who should not be in should not be getting out in six months. I don't know. You're going to stop putting a fucking statute of limitations on prosecuting people for rape.

Yeah. There's a statute of limitations. Sure. For rape and kidnapping. Yeah. How fucking, how fuck that was that? Yeah, it's insane. So the cops can't find the dude who raped and kidnapped you for 15 years.

You got away. He's free now. Sure. Do what you want. It's insane. Boys will be boys. Yeah. So he's released from jail and he moved to Downey and I was just in Downey and I read

the I had breakfast and I read the criminal section of their newspaper. Anything exciting happening down there was a home invasion robbery here. Oh, okay. It's not too bad. So there he he they later found out that he murdered a 13 year old hitchhiker, but he was ultimately arrested for molesting a boy and Dana point should have gone back to prison because he was on parole at the time. But due to a clerical error, clerical, clerical error, he was released.

Someone spelled his last name wrong. Exactly. He walked right out of the jail and he got picked up by his main accomplice for all of these murders. A man named, what is it, something but something, something but it's a classic name. So anyway, and that's when he tells he tells butts. Now there's not going to be any more witnesses. That's what you're creating when you keep letting these people when you keep arresting

them for one to 15 years is that they learn the lesson not to let anyone identify them right by so you should kill them. Yeah. So then he makes this what they ended up calling like the death machine or something and it's this green Fort O'Connor line van that he's got chains. He's got like handcuffs. He's got all this stuff and they would pick up hitchhikers and there would be the butts guy would be in the back and then they basically he'd like pull over and like attack and rape

and he, he was a big strangler. He, for most of his victims, he strangled them with a t-shirt. And that's how, that's how he killed most of them. And Vernon butts, that was his first name. Vernon butts. And they also were lovers. And they played Dungeons and Dragons in the sewer system of Los Angeles. That was just a small detail that I wrote on the side of here that I remembered and I just

am fascinated. That's a lot to comprehend. Just if we could kind of go into that for quite some time, but I find that fascinating. This isn't a gaming podcast. Otherwise we would get deep into Vernon butts. So into it. Oh, so, oh, so basically it's just he then, it was basically a year long tear where they went and picked up, you know, what they think is, I think he got prosecuted, what did I say?

He got prosecuted for 16. No, he got prosecuted for 14, but they think he did 44 murders. That is the most staggering number. And I think people were getting fucking kidnapped left and right. Just boys disappearing everywhere. And apparently there was a reporter at the Orange County Register, which is, as you know, the Orange County is very Republican, very white Republican kind of Christian area in Southern California.

And he found an envelope, the Southern County Register with all the paper clippings of all these different individual stories of hitchhikers or bodies that were found murdered. And the, on the front of the envelope, it said dead gay boys. So he was like, why isn't anybody looking at this as like, like some trend at the very least. He kind of wrote, I think he wrote a book, he wrote something about that I was reading part of that was basically all about how the attitude was like, well, too bad for them because they signed up for that lifestyle.

It's the same as prostitutes. Yeah. It's like, well, they live a, what was it, a high risk lifestyle? Right. They chose to live a high risk lifestyle. Yeah. Which is, so, oh, okay, you're right. So then any serial killer should get to do whatever he wants.

Yeah. Yeah. That's bananas. It's super crazy. I mean, just the thought of, of knowing that there were those people out there. I mean, there are now, but like in your fucking working actively in your, in your, in your hood, in your hood, well, and also down here. I mean, there's so, there was so much murder down here and also 78 was the same year as

Jones town. Like there was something, there was something in the air. You know what I think of like, when I think of like murder in the 70s and 80s and like how like people were so minors were unaccompanied, like just as a rule, like you could go and do your own thing. We would, we would leave and be gone all day and then come back when it's dark. Yep. Like picture a fucking, a fucking arcade and like all the kids that were just hanging out

in arcades and all the perverts that were probably working there. Yes. Like intentionally working at an arcade. Cause kids would be there. Yeah. I mean, it's a scarier, it's a scary thing to know, like to have the information, but it's such a better time for children health wise. Yeah.

I think in all those ways. Cause it's like, yeah, if you have kids, you probably should know where they are all the time. Yeah. And you should probably make sure there's an adult with them. That's responsible. Definitely. Definitely.

If we leave, if we leave you with anything this week, yeah, don't let your kid and then like the kids who, you know, we stayed at home alone every day. We were latchkey kids. We were too. Me and my sister. Crazy. So crazy. One day we went to get dropped off and we just at the last minute decided to get dropped

off at my aunt's house cause she lived next door and our house was being robbed at the time. Oh my God. Of that decision. Are you serious? I swear to God, my uncle saw the guy walking out our front door with stuff under his arm as he drove by and so he called the cops. Holy, the guy get caught?

No. Holy shit. If you had fucking walked in on a burglar. Yeah. At the time I think we were like eight and 10 walking in on a very large bearded man looting our house. I definitely remember being offered rides as a kid by like strange men being like, nope. I used to walk like literally a mile to school by myself.

Totally. By myself. That's stupid. I used to ditch school and then I go like go hang out and it's like, oh, you could have just been, you dumb idiot. I know. We're so lucky to have survived. You know what?

God bless America. You know, this is a positive time. Oh wait, no, now we get to read some of your hometown murders. We've asked you guys to send us hometown murders because we love it and you've done it and we appreciate it. We have a Facebook group, my favorite murder and we have a Gmail account, my favorite murder, so you can send us your hometown murders. I'm going to read you one Karen and you read me one.

Perfect. Okay. Want me to go first? Do you want to go first? Sure. Okay. This is by Mark Schrum. Hi Mark.

Hi Mark. He's very nice. He said, he said, I hope I have the right email. If not, I'm sorry for the frightening subject line because if it went to the wrong person, it just is my favorite murder. You open up your email and you're like, there's just someone describing a murder to you. Well, you would be shitting brick. Mark, he says, when I was a freshman in high school, there was a high-profile kidnapping

case here in West Des Moines, Iowa. Maybe you heard of it. It was the Johnny Gorsh, Johnny Gorsh case. Yes. It's pretty well known nationwide and drug on for years and isn't a hundred percent salt for this day. This happened in 1982. He was a paper boy and was kidnapped while doing his paper route one morning.

Didn't they just find his bike and that's it? Yeah, I think so. There was another boy, Eugene Martin, that was taken in 1984. Same story. He was a paper boy. My story comes in in 1983 when I was a paper boy. Mark, your mom should not have let you be a paper boy. My brother and I were delivering papers one morning and it was still dark.

We were on a street that the houses were pretty far apart and set back from the road. So we weren't right on the street. I looked up the street and saw a blue panel van coming down the street extremely slow with no headlights on. As we walked, it kept following. My brother from the street, wait, my brother and I had walkie-talkies, so we were communicating about it and we decided to run and head behind the houses to get away from the street and meet up a few houses down.

As we took off running, the van took off down the street and finally after a few houses turned the lights on and sped away. Was I going to be next? I guess I'll never know. About five minutes later, we saw our manager, told him and he called it into the paper dispatch. I don't know what went from there, but I was never questioned by the police and one year later Eugene was gone. Haunts me to this day, even though you are only one of the handful of people I've ever

spoken to about it since it happened. Wow, Mark. He said, keep up the good work and don't ever remove the humor from the podcast. We did that, it's just depressing. We did a little bit on this one. He said, it isn't being disrespectful and you aren't going to hell. We're just coping with a fucked up world in the best way we know how and he wrote F up. Thank you.

Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Mark. That's so true. It's coping. It's coping. It's coping. But wow, ground zero at the Johnny Gosh. There was no way that wasn't involved.

He was in the middle between two boys, paper boys being kidnapped. I'm sorry, if you're driving a van, you should be pulled over more than people of color. Vans are, what good is happening in vans? Especially like a green van with the headlights off slowly cruising down the street. Please. You're the biggest child molester. My guy that I just did, William Bonin, had a green van who murdered so many people. It's like you're either a serial killer or you're a Scooby-Doo team.

But Scooby-Doo, they were smart enough to put pink daisies on the side, which is really declare. It's a decoy. It was the mystery machine, but it actually means rape and murder. Well, also, if anyone is interested in going deeper into the Johnny Gosh kidnapping, did you listen to that last podcast on the left about, it's all about the pedophile ring and the conspiracy theory about the credit union that's in that town and the guy that runs it and this governmental conspiracy.

His name is, what's the reporter's name? Yes. That's right. It's the same name as Larry King. Larry King. Larry King. That's right. Lawrence King is his name.

Lawrence King. Look at that. And it's Lawrence King Credit Union. And what is it? Is it Iowa? Or where did Mark say he was from? Mark was from Des Moines. Yeah.

Yeah, so it's Iowa. That's crazy. Connected. And there's like a whole thing about it being a child sex ring. He started a youth group and just befriended these kids and the kids in the town. And the documentary that I saw were like, yeah, he made us go get kids for him. Yeah. The kids talk about it.

I mean, and also it's like that thing of like people, it's like no one wants to believe something would happen in Des Moines as if like, if it's a pedophile ring, it would have to be in Manhattan or something. Right. Oh, it's bad news. And the people that you trust the most are the shadiest. It's like your parents. Don't trust anyone.

I feel like the pillars of the community, I mean, they're usually the creepiest. I mean, with great power comes great corruption. No, no. Power corrupts. That's the saying. Yeah, it does. The other one is. Forget it.

Forget I said anything. There's a whole one out of all of those somewhere. There's a whole one, something, somewhere of ideas. Yeah. Okay. Here's mine. Let's definitely hear it. This is from Emily.

I'm assuming it. You pronounce it. Maze are M A E S A R. And it's the Asheville hometown murder story. George and Karen. Nice things. And then, so I live in Asheville, North Carolina, and have since, and have since I was in kindergarten that we lived in Enka Candler, though, which is an unincorporated community on the west side of the city.

When I was in elementary school, first or second grade, my sister had a friend. I say friend, but they were probably somewhere between friends and acquaintances. It was high school and it was the 90s. There was probably gray area. My sister was a sophomore, maybe 15, and so was this girl. My sister was supposed to spend the night at this girl's house, but something came up and my sister couldn't go. I was so young, though, that I can't remember if it was on our side or her friends, looking

back probably the latter. That night, the girl's mother's boyfriend murdered my sister's friend. If I remember correctly, I think he wrapped her in trash bags, tied weights to her legs, dropped the body in the amazingly shallow lake where she was discovered a day or two later. I honestly have no idea if there is a sexual element to this crime. I'm inclined to say yes, only because statistically, there usually is for both women in general and specifically young women, but the internet is no help with real details, probably because it was so long ago or maybe because it was such a small town.

Either way, it's a thing that I think about occasionally when I think about my sister because it's fucking terrifying. He was sentenced to a little under 17 years for murdering a teen, murdering. If he's alive now, I have no idea. He's probably out again, terrifying. Emily, thank you. That is unbelievable. That's incredible that that happened in your life.

Oh my God. Yeah. Those near-miss stories are like. Those are the best. Amazing. To be that young and be like, oh, this is, things, people do this to each other. Right. Yeah.

The innocence lost. Yeah. It's so intense. Yeah. A friend dying in some other, like a drunk driving accident or like a typical way is awful and terrible. Yeah. But this adds an element of like what the hell.

Someone else did this thing to this person. Yeah. Oh my Lord. Wow. Under 17 years. Ooh. Jesus. He got the same amount of time that she got to live on the planet.

That's. Fuck you. Bullshit. Fuck you, Judge, whoever decided that. Oh, what a, well, I bet he, that's all he could do. I bet it was like, it wasn't premeditated and I bet this guy said it was like an accident and so I just got rid of it. Right.

Like this is such bullshit. The rationale behind it. Yeah. Whoa. Guys, this has been, this episode's been a lot. It's been kind of depressing. It's been a lot to handle. A lot of murders.

A lot. It's a lot of stuff. That's what we do. I mean, it is what we're doing. It's what we signed up for. This was, yeah, this was an intense, this was a downer. But I do like the idea for going forward, thinking of, um, themes that would help us kind of talk about more general concepts around, right?

Yeah. I mean, that's the idea that you want to do. I definitely think so. Okay. So if you have any ideas for them too, I'm thinking like, like child killers and people who kill children and, you know what I mean, like child, children who kill, you know, shootings and believe it or not. People with glass eyes.

Yeah. Like a real specific, something really crazy. Yeah. Well, because I, and I know we plug this all the time, but we love last podcast on the left. It's one of my favorite podcasts, but they just recently did one about Dean Coral, who is the Candyman killer in Houston, I think. And one of the things I find so fascinating in the way, the way they do it is Marcus Parks,

who is their researcher and, and provides most of like the context, the content or whatever. Yeah. And we're talking about, he got away with all these murders because there was no, at the time there was no police force. Like there was one point, something million people living there and there was like 2200 policemen, like this impossible. And there's just these things that happen in, in history and in time where like all the sudden, like in 1978 in Los Angeles, you did not want to be a teenage boy that looked

slightly effeminate or hitchhiked. Like that you, your odds of living through that were very low. And that's just like these weird sine waves of, of, of the times. Yeah. Things happening all at once. It's just crazy. Yeah. A culmination of circumstances.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm into it, but in a negative way, but in a fascinated way. We're trying to cope as Marcus said, I mean, Mark, what was his name? Your guy's his name. Mark. We're trying to cope. We're trying to cope when we're trying to talk about it.

Anxiety. Um, so email us, your hometown murders, uh, or your favorite murder and go to the Facebook group and the Twitter, my fave murder. Oh yeah. And we, and some people are just emailing suggestions. There's lots of really good ones. So we'll get to those two, um, and suggesting someone suggested a really good documentary called the house of Suh, which I looked up and has like an 83% rating.

So I'm definitely going to watch that. Yeah. Oh, there is someone on the Facebook group. Oh, I wish I had their name who's making a fucking Google doc of every suggestion we bring up for like a movie, a book, a documentary of this. That's so awesome. I know. That's very cool. If you could, if you join the Facebook group, which is closed, you'll find it on there.

Cool. Yeah. Yeah. And we'll try to make them and then we'll try to convey yours that you tell us. Yeah. Awesome. Yes. I love it.

So we can get a lot, a lot of listeners, you guys. Yeah. And thanks for listening. Thank you for listening. You're for us and with us. We appreciate it. Bye. Bye.