My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 79 - Sharpest Needle In The Tack

Episode Date: July 27, 2017

On this week's My Favorite Murder, Karen and Georgia cover the Collar Bomb Heist and Jerry Brudos, the Shoe Fetish Slayer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is exactly right. in Hollywood. It's a story of glamour and scandal and political intrigue and a battle for the soul of the nation. Hollywood Exiles, from CBC Podcasts and the BBC World Service. Available now on Spotify. This episode is brought to you by Interac. Interac has a range of tools to help your business grow. Quickly and easily identify customers with Interac Verified. Pay your employees via bulk disbursement with Interac eTransfer for Business.

Or pay vendors with large sum payments up to $25,000. Plus, your payments are safe with authentication and transaction encryption. Interac, we geek out on your business. Learn how at interac.ca slash forbusiness. Terms and conditions apply. Hi. Hi. Hi. Welcome to My Favorite Murder.

This is the podcast where we tell you true crimes and horrible things that happen to good people. Yeah. And a little about ourselves sometimes when we... Oh, just a tad. Just a touch about ourselves. When we feel like going on a tangent. Which is every single episode for a minimum 49 minutes. But it's sprinkled throughout. Get ready. Oh, yeah.

Also, we don't just keep it at the top. We'll put it in the middle and then also at the end. I mean, listen. Look. Look and listen. Okay. So we should probably start with the biggest announcement and the one that people constantly tweet us about and ask us about.

Thank you for your interest. We are going on tour again, and we are now going to announce the dates of our Australian and American tour. Are you ready to hear what we're doing? Yeah. Australia, you know already, but we're adding a couple shows, actually. So New Zealand, Auckland is, there are still tickets available.

It's on Wednesday, September 16th. And then September 6th. Thank you. That's Wednesday, September 6th, beginning of September. And then we're adding shows in Melbourne and Sydney because we have two shows in each and they sold or one or they sold out.

So September 10th in Melbourne at the Comedy Theater. Melbourne. Melbourne. And September 12th in Sydney, Australia. There's another show at the fucking opera house. At the Sydney Opera House. Dude. Side room.

Is that true? We're in the jazz room. No, I have no idea. And we're actually in the bathroom. We're just going to be in the bathroom. Yeah, that's right. If you want to come and talk to us at the Sydney Opera House, we're going to be loitering in the women's bathroom from 9 to 11.

It's actually a chamber orchestra that night, but we'll be in the bathroom. Yes. Do you want to switch off and we'll just do the dates and cities of each one after? Yeah. Okay, so listen to this, you guys. On Friday, September 29th, we're coming to Detroit, Michigan. So excited for that. On October 13th, San Diego, California.

On October 14th, Anaheim, California. On October 19th, Minneapolis, Minnesota. On October 20th, Madison, Wisconsin. November 3rd, Tampa, Florida. November 4th, Orlando, Florida. November 5th, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. November 10th, this is big. They've been waiting for us.

Houston, Texas, we're coming to you. Fuck yeah. And then November 11th, don't worry, Dallas, we're going to be there. Oh, hell yeah, Dallas. We saw your TV show. We know coming to you. Fuck yeah. And then November 11th. Don't worry, Dallas. We're going to be there. Oh, hell yeah, Dallas. We saw your TV show. We know how good you can be. December 8th, St. Louis, Missouri. And then December 9th, Kansas City, Missouri. And that's it for our

2017 tour. And then there's going to be more stuff going on in 2018. So we also want to tell you guys, okay, so Monday, July 31st at 10am the pre-sale tickets go on sale and the password is Murderino. But you have to go to My Favorite Murder slash live and then click the links for each show there. Because otherwise, some fucking scalpers are going to buy them and tell you that this is the link you want to use.

And it's not true. So if you want the official link, you have to go to MyFavoriteMurder.com forward slash live. And then find your city there and buy your tickets off the link that we have listed we can't read there's lots of complaints last time about scalping and prices and all that kind of stuff and that's why we do pre-sales so our fans that hear this show can get their tickets first and then you have to do it off the official link obviously we can't you know we can't make everything work but um that's we were trying to make things a little bit better so people aren't like buying some you know nasty weird

website tickets that don't exist or whatever so murderino that's i'm which i'm really excited about a lot of these cities and i won't say which ones i'm i was about to say which ones i'm most excited about that would be great to not for you to not say what you aren't looking forward to. I'm not gonna do that. Um, okay. What else do you have? You got nothing? Um, no, I have a thing or two. Let's hear it. Okay. Well, it's all just like my rambling, but my brother was on a jury where someone died. It was like a race car guys on the street and they crashed into a car and killed someone and as he was telling me my seven-year-old nephew was like yeah and like giving me details so I was like okay he knows about it how cute would it be if I

recorded him talking about it in hometown and so I was like Micah tell me what happened and he was just like well someone died it was so depressing that I was like, well, I'm okay. Yeah. Not playing that. Yeah. That's sad. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't think seven years. Some I'm last night at a show I did. Someone's like, oh, my nine and 10 year old nieces loved your show. And I was like, that's bone chilling. I don't think that's good at all. Nine and 10 year olds turn this off. Yes. But then there's a couple of listeners.

Some awesome murderinos that were also backstage. One of the guys, I'm sorry, I can't remember your name. He goes, that's around the time I started getting interested in true crime. And then I was like, oh, OK. OK, then I don't feel as bad. That's true, I guess. Right. Yeah.

I think for me, it was sixth grade. So, you know, kids are very advanced. And it's like, even though it's not true crime, it's like the revving up of it. The things are suddenly really interested in,, like scary movies and bad things. Actually, speaking of children, this girl named Sarah underscore Hall tweeted at us a photo of her nine-year-old sister. And she said she just named her own bat. She, I guess, was in baseball. She just named her own bat Ted Bunty all on her own.

Yeah. I was like, well, that's fucking incredible. Yeah, that's hilarious. I mean, Georgia so loves a pun. I love like, well, that's fucking incredible. Yeah. That's hilarious. Yeah. I mean, Georgia's so loves a pun. I love a pun and I love a nine year old, you know,

and I love baseball. I mean, it's everything you love. Love everything. If only that little girl had a vintage dress on while she did that. Lose my mind. Later. Uh,

well, I got a tweet that I found very interesting and, it's like this, the kind of, you know, conversations that we like to have. It was the coastal horizons, rape crisis center in Wilmington,

North Carolina. Yeah. So they basically said, Hey ladies, big fans of your podcast. However, we were disappointed to hear the unintentional victim blaming that took place on the 20,

a 2020 episode. Re covering your drinks. The onus is never on the 2020 episode, Recovering Your Drinks. The onus is never on the victim to stop an assault. We need to have a culture shift where instead of telling victims what to do or not to do, tell perps, hey, don't rape people. Also, alcohol is the number one drug used to facilitate sexual assault, not roofies. In parentheses, not saying it doesn't happen, but misinformation can unintentionally compound victims trauma. We are a rape crisis center in Wilmington, North Carolina, and we frequently hear victims blaming themselves because they, quote, did everything right.

My friend watched my drink, et cetera, and they are still assaulted. So just wanted to let you all know love your work uh which i think is such a good point totally um we obviously and we don't it's not like we need to make excuses but when we were having that conversation we were coming from that that point of view which is very for me it's very 80s of like you have to be on the lookout at all times kind of a thing. Yeah, be on the defense and kind of like be aggressively aware and all that kind of stuff. But it's such a good point that it doesn't matter. You can be the most aware.

You can be the most responsible. All these things and then something can happen to you. And we never want people to feel like in any way, obviously, that that would be our messaging. Or that they're to blame. Because that hurt me so much. It made me sad. They come in there and feel to blame. They didn't cover their drink like we're telling them to do.

But the fact that she said it's usually alcohol. It's just alcohol. It's not like they need to roofie you to take advantage or to assault you. Yeah, exactly. It's actually a very common thing that people use all the time that doesn't make anybody feel that worried in the beginning. Yeah. And it's the, yeah. I think also we were having that conversation because it was around the time that that girl, it was that thing that happened in Santa Monica where these women saw a guy put a drug into a girl's drink.

And they basically went and got her in the bathroom. And we're like, we just saw this thing. So we were kind of going off of that in a way. But, you know, thank you for the correction. Because that's a really good point. And that really is, you know, please raise your sons not to rape. That would be great. Yeah, that would be awesome.

Did you see the trailer for the movie my friend dom yes holy shit oh my god we're not being paid we're not being paid we should be i want to see it today i know it looks so great it looks so good i love that there's no it doesn't seem like there's anything about him being an older person and actually committing. Is there? That's not what the book's about. I didn't. I only, I don't think it is because I feel like I did read that comic book, the graphic novel. Right.

But I can't remember the end. I mean, it's just the story of him. But I think it's him in high school and basically when it all started. I think it's going on the idea that you already know who Dahmer is and what he's done. And then, so while you're watching the movie, you're like, oh, this is a thing that made it happen. This is a thing that started it. It's teenage Dahmer. Yeah.

It looks, and it looks so creepy and so eerie. It's really ominous. The very one of the first shots in that trailer is kind of a wide of the front of a school. And it's just kids and kind of like late 70s clothing walking around and then you just notice there's a guy just standing there staring and it's really fucking creepy it almost looks like if napoleon dynamite was like a scary movie yeah yeah yeah that's exactly fucking right if you change the soundtrack to the napoleon dynamite which i love when people I love those

those I love like the Mrs. Doubtfire as a horror movie have you seen that one oh yeah fucking love or the shining as a rom-com or like a family sitcom totally or like a coming together what's that song I'm coming home is it uh Shakira? Were you singing Shakira? Probably. Hips Don't Lie. Yes. YMCA. I think it's the Peter Gabriel song, Salisbury Hill. Yes.

Something like that. Salisbury Hill. Salisbury Hill. Okay. Because I thought saying Salisbury was clearly going to be wrong, so I didn't say it. You were scared to risk it. Yeah. I see.

Steak. Got you. Salisbury Steak and all that. You know that beautiful Peter Gabriel song? Rolling up on Salisbury Steak. Got you. Salisbury Steak and all that. You know that beautiful Peter Gabriel song Going up on Salisbury Steak I love that song. It's so like there's those weird I don't know what instrument it is

but it's like It's all like Like he's blowing into a windpipe. Is that a thing? Or like what was the ones you had to play as a kid? A recorder. I love Peter Gabriel. There might be a recorder solo at the beginning of Salisbury Hill. Salisbury Steak. Salisbury Steak.

All of that is misinformation. That entirety of misinformation. Wait, what were we talking about? Oh, Jeffrey Tober. Fucking Napoleon Dynamite. If you're an editor, if you have the time, if you care, could you please make Napoleon Dynamite into a scary movie with a soundtrack? I bet you could take the trailer from Napoleon Dynamite, just put all of the exact same voiceover and words from the trailer for Dahmer.

Just put them in there. Yeah. So it's like Napoleon Dynamite's mouth is moving in that weird, like, his braces are still on, but they're not. Mash it up. His friend is his friend. Pedro? Pedro is the friend who wrote

the book. Like, it's just perfect. It's perfect. Did you plan this? Yes, it's all written down. Let me see those notes. Oh, man, nothing I say is ever planned, obviously. I never plan anything. We absolutely assure you that almost nothing is pre-written on the show. No.

Even the things that are supposed to be. Yeah, like our stories. I think that's all I had. Did you have anything else? I'm sure I have other things that I just can't think of. Oh, I keep writing things that I don't know. Like, I'll be like, oh, I should make a note for pre-show. And then I don't know what it means.

So I have Yan Can Cook written down. Yan Can Cook, I feel like, is from when we were talking. I was watching it the other night. And then I was like, I got to talk to Karen about this. I don't remember why I would talk to you on a murder podcast about yan can cook because that guy fucking murders chicken that guy is the best then i wrote embarrassing illness i don't know what that means that's probably crohn's disease yeah and then i wrote stardust equals anxiety do you mean angel dust i don't know and i was like

i think i spelled i wrote something wrong and i was like, I think I spelled, I wrote something wrong. And I was like, I'll remember. Were you on drugs or drink? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Always. Well, how do we figure any of those things out? You just take some time with it? No, I don't think we need to. I think as long as I say them. Okay. And then everyone knows. Then if we're standing somewhere and a yang can't cook

whatever comes by we're both gonna be like this is what it is yeah and stardust equals anxiety is probably something really interesting well there's a movie called stardust is there yeah i don't know but why stardust memories is a woody allen movie he would give you agita if you were yeah no it's not that i haven't watched that okay anxiety is it that we're all made of stardust and that makes you worried i think it's that yeah i think it's i think it's that uh i get ink i get anxious when i think of the entirety of the universe but i don't know how that has to do anything with murder well we talked about that one time we did yes Yes. Cause I said,

Oh, it was when I said, um, did you see that picture from the Hubble telescope that showed universes and balls of gas? And then you were like, please don't do this to me. So I must've wanted to elaborate on that.

And I was, and I was on drink. Do you think there's a movie or something called stardust that you saw as a child and that you discovered why it gives you so much anxiety? I don't know. I feel like trying, just generally trying to figure out worries is fascinating podcasting. Like, what are you worried? Isn't there a podcast like that?

I'm being sarcastic. Oh. I got excited. You go, isn't there already a podcast like that? I think there is, though. I think I'm worried about the universe. I can't remember how, though. Yeah, I just am.

I don't need to explain why. Everyone gets it. Sure. I hope. Well, you need to explain why if you bring it up. Yeah. That's really the only thing. Yeah, and I did. Stardust gives me anxiety. That's really your only The only thing Yeah and I did

Stardust gives me anxiety That's not an explanation The enormity of the universe Gives me anxiety Oh okay Alright Okay Okay

Um Should we Do this? Yeah I mean I want to ask Steven who's going But he's not trustworthy Steven just told me That he

Keeps getting it wrong Which sucks because you're a bigot. You're like, I'm like, well, Stephen knows. Oh, no, he doesn't. I'm no longer a rock. You were attacked by that Twitter account who was like, Stephen, get it together. You've been wrong three times in a row. Shut up. You know what it is?

You know what I realized what it is my brain was doing to me was it's like, Karen, Georgia, Karen, like I'm doing that in my brain. So that's why I kept saying you would go first because in my mind, Georgia went last time, but she went last, last time. So you're not going, you're going Karen, Georgia, Karen, Georgia. Yes, but that's not. Karen, Georgia, Georgia, Karen, Karen, Karen. Yeah, I'm just, my brain completely just fell apart at that moment.

So what can we do to fix this going forward? We have two things that people have made us of how to tell. Twitter accounts? No, remember the things they gave us at live shows? I know, but those are like a large abacus. Is Steven going to drive around with that in his car? No, we can leave it here. Right?

I mean, it's your house. Flip a coin? Do you think you have it this week? It's Georgia, yeah. Yes, I thought so, too. I really knew that. Steven wouldn't buck it up this time. I want to put him, I want to rake him over the coals.

I needed it. Steven, you have five chances. You've used three. I just love the idea there's a Twitter account now attacking you. What's it called again? Who went first last week? Who went first? Yeah. I just love the idea there's a Twitter account now attacking you because of the job you're... What's it called again? Who went first last week? Who went first, I think.

Well, there was... They were like five days since accident or something like that. Oh, my God. I love it. Because they were keeping track and that was this many days since. Oh, should I give... Elvis isn't dead, everyone. Yes, you should definitely give that up

So last week I talked about how Elvis was at the vet And how scary it was Turns out the kitten we got, Dottie Gave everyone a fucking crazy infection Upper respiratory infection I really truly thought Elvis was going to die And I had my cry And I apologized to him and held him

Like truly And he's better now, he's on the mend He's not gonna die but he lost his voice it's so cute you have before you leave you have to see him open his mouth to meow and nothing comes out yeah so maybe dotty will have to do the sign off did you see the fan art that people made of elvis in in front of a black background and it just says i survived on the side and then in quotes and it's the first time I saw it in quotes it says

yeah so this kitten tried to kill me dot dot dot or something like that the first time I saw it I almost had a heart attack I was like if she sees this she's gonna fucking shit a brick because he was still not out of the woods yet and it was hilariously awful where I was like I think I'm gonna have to ask these people

to take it down oh well right now i think i didn't see oh my god if he died ever yeah so thank you ever to everyone they everyone was so sweet and yes you know and said nice things and reassured me and yeah he the vet was like he's not gonna die to die. Calm down. So thanks, Village Vet. Good update. Yeah, all is well. Positive updates. Hey. Hi, I'm Una Chaplin, and I'm the host of a new podcast called Hollywood Exiles.

It tells the story of how my grandfather, Charlie Chaplin, and many others were caught up in a campaign to root out communism in Hollywood. were caught up in a campaign to root out communism in Hollywood. It's a story of glamour and scandal and political intrigue and a battle for the soul of the nation. Hollywood Exiles, from CBC Podcasts and the BBC World Service. Available now on Spotify. This episode is brought to you by Interac. Interac has a range of tools to help your business grow. Quickly and easily identify customers by Interac. Interac has a range of tools to help your business grow.

Quickly and easily identify customers with Interac Verified. Pay your employees via bulk disbursement with Interac eTransfer for Business. Or pay vendors with large sum payments up to $25,000. Plus, your payments are safe with authentication and transaction encryption. Interac. We geek out on your business. Learn how at interac.ca slash forbusiness. Terms and transaction encryption. Interac, we geek out on your business. Learn how at interact.ca slash for business terms and conditions apply. Uh, okay. So I go first. I just forgot. All right. This is the story of the collar bomb heist. Okay. Awesome. You don't know it. I don't even really know what you just said okay it's the story of the collar so a collar bomb meaning like a collar around your neck collar bomb is this a

woman and her daughter no okay heist okay um and i just want to up top say that there is an article called but in wired by a rich shapiro that has a really good overview of everything that happened. So I used a lot of his information, and I just wanted to give him props for that. And it happened, he wrote it in 2010. So there's a little bit of an update since then. Great. But so we're in Erie, Pennsylvania. I looked this up on my favorite murder email to see if anyone had talked about it. And it's from their town.

And a girl named Jessica A. said, The winters are terrible, and the summers are filled with water sports on the lake and lots and lots of drinking in fact you will find either a church or a bar at every corner well which i think describes the town really well all right august 28 2003 at 2 28 p.m a 46 year old local man named Brian Wells walks into a PNC bank in Erie and passes the teller a note. The note says gather employees with your access with access codes to the vault and work fast to fill the bag. This bag with twenty five thousand dollars. You only have 15 minutes. Then he lifts his shirt to show the teller a handcuff-like collar attached to his neck.

And according to the note, it's a bomb. Oh, fuck. The bomb's like a DIY homemade device. It's got a metal collar attached around Wells' neck, like a handcuff. And there are two, there are keyholes and a combination lock, as well as baking timers and two six-inch pipe bombs. Baking timers and two six inch pipe bombs. Baking timer. Yeah. You mean like the white ones that you turn that your mom's like, you have five minutes

sitting in that chair. I love that it's never used for banking. It's for fucking punish baking. It's for punishing your children. Yes, exactly. Or just being like, oh, I have to do something in 10 minutes. Nobody bakes. That is okay.

How disturbing as you're that you're that teller, you stayed up really late the night before drinking wine with your friends, you roll in, you're like, I'm going to power through this day. Yeah. And I'll be fine. Yeah. Cause I'm going to go out drinking with my friends again. Yeah. And a guy walks up, I imagine sweating profusely. Yeah. And like, if a guy walks up to you and you're a teller and passes you a note, you're like, fuck. It's not going to say like, hey, how are you?

Next is, I lost my voice. I'm Elvis. I lost my voice. I'm here to rip off some cookies. And no, no, no. It's all bad. Always bad with a note. Yeah.

Always bad with a guy that has to pull up a shirt to prove a point. And he's like, clearly there's something bulging in his shirt collar. Yeah. And he has and he has he has a shirt on his neck is really thick yeah it looks i bet it would look like he has a like a trach trachy trachyotomy trachyotomy kind of it kind of looked like that um and he has like two shirts on and the shirt over it and it says the shirt says guess it's like a guest brand shirt no it's just like fits the are you being sarcastic i fucking swear to god i fucking swear i'm gonna stop hypothesizing and let you tell the story no

please that's the show just the the visual of like that but like the jerry-rigged baking timer and then but there was also a couple magnetic letters from his refrigerator and i mean you know what i mean and a pipe cleaner and some old gum yeah stuck to the okay yes I don't know who the victim is I don't know who's guilty and I'm saying things like that well it's okay because here we go okay um so the teller's only able to give Brian eight thousand seven hundred dollars because there isn't a way to get into the vault at that time like there wasn't enough people there so the baking timer goes off and then you suddenly smell cookies. Second in line. Hey, excuse me. Those are mine. Pulls a cookie out of his neck handcuff. Yeah. And says, thanks for doing business with me. He does do. And I'm not

fucking kidding. He takes the money and leaves and he grabs a dumb, dumb lollipop on his way out. Oh, puts it in his mouth. Okay, so he's not as stressed as maybe... That's what you would think. Okay. Or he's really stressed and he needs something to occupy him. Hey, I relate. Doubtful, though. Well, I just feel like if you think you're about to blow up...

Yeah. And look, I love candy. I don't think it would be... You're not like, I'm going to blow up. I'm going to blow up. Oh, dum-dums. Oh, my God. You know when you get these for Halloween, you get like 10 of them at a time.

You stuff them all in your mouth at once because then it's like a real lollipop. I would just eat it fast and then use the stick as a cigarette. Yes. Just stand around fake smoking. Look how good I look smoking. Guys. All right. Maybe that guy needed a cigarette.

He knew that was the closest. That's what it is. And he was like, I probably can't smoke around a bomb. Those things probably don't go hand in hand. There might be gasoline in this. Definitely. I don't know how bombs are made. You pour gasoline on them.

I don't know. About 15 minutes after he walks out, state troopers spot Brian Wells. That's his name. Standing outside of his, guess what kind of car he has. If you get this right, I'm going to barf. Is it a Le Mans? No, it's that. I don't know.

It's like some kind of pseudo fancy car. No, it's a Geo Metro. Oh, remember those? Second only to the Yugo in bad cars. It's for you young kids. It's just like the first hatchback and those aren't cool. It's like a Fiat that gave up on itself. It's just like the first hatchback and those aren't cool it's like a fiat that gave up on itself it's like an 80s hatchback um but this is 2003 i don't know so wait he had a

geo metro in 2003 yeah maybe he was an antique shitty car collector do you know what he actually was what a pizza delivery man oh yeah okay so you can see a pizza deliver man having that car yeah okay but uh the tires have absolutely no tread on them yeah they're like all what's the ones in the back oh like the replacement tires yeah they're all they're all spares yeah they're all spares four spares on a geo metro i'm sorry we're making fun of this guy um but it'll be okay and you'll find out why okay it's not well you'll find out why at the end It actually gets Really fucking bad Yeah I bet it gets bad In the middle It gets really bad Okay

So they apprehend him They cup his hands Behind his back And then Brian Says to them That while out On a pizza delivery He had been attacked

By a group of Black men Because that's Everyone's excuse Who claim Who chained the bomb Around his neck At gunpoint

And forced him To rob the bank Yep that's how it's done. He says, it's going to go off. I'm not lying. He's like desperate at this point. It's going to go off.

I'm not fucking lying. Can I just say one thing? Yes, always. My first agent in this business, who was a mastermind and a genius, one of the first pieces of advice she ever gave me was, whatever people explicitly state to you without you asking them is a lie.

Just immediately reverse it in your head of... Like saying... Like if I went to a meeting at a management place and they were like, look, we don't just take whoever and throw it all against the wall and see what happens. It's like, oh, you just take whoever and throw it against the whoever and yeah is that kind of thing where you just have to kind of why would you proclaim this to me if it were true and i didn't even ask you yeah exactly or say i'm not lying yes that means i'm lying why would you need to tell people that if you have a live bomb on your body or that just happened to you i feel like probably sociopaths say I'm not lying a lot because they don't expect people to believe,

they don't expect people to be smart enough to be like, I know that that's a line that people say to get them, like, and they just don't think anyone's smart. That's true. I would think that they would be the kind of people who wouldn't, say I'm not lying is almost just like a try. And I don't think they try them. Or they know the tells. I think they're just like so balls out. Yeah, that they're just like, I'm not lying is almost just like a try. And I don't think they try. I think they know the tells.

I think they're just like so balls out. Yeah. That they're just like, I'm not nervous. Therefore, you're never going to ask me a question in the first place. Right. And if you ask me, I'm going to tell you. Okay. You're going to believe me.

All right. I'm not lying. So the officers call the bomb squad and they take their positions behind their cars. Their guns are drawn and they leave Brian sitting in in the middle of the street cross-legged handcuffed behind his back with his bomb around his neck and he's in the middle of the road just sitting there okay there's a video of all this and okay i'll tell you in a second okay for 25 minutes while news crews news people are filming there they he's laying in the street? He's sitting cross-legged in the street. Okay.

Kind of like slumped in the street. He's kind of fidgeting and stuff. So they're sitting there for 25 minutes. Then out of nowhere, the device starts to beep. Uh-oh. Beep, beep. And you see him. It's all on video.

You see him kind of look down and start to struggle. Like he's trying to get away from the collar. And then it fucking goes off no yeah and the video there is video on this and they don't warn you that they're about to show it and so i saw it and i got really and having to look this up and look at video and new stuff i i just kept having to turn my head away because it's so awful and he fucking dies that's horrifying so you know this guy dies and you see this bomb go off and people are probably watching it live and see this happen fuck i i'm so surprised yeah okay um i he he looked surprised too that it was even going off

meaning i don't think he thought it was real um and it detonates loud explosion blowing into his face he falls back onto the ground um he dies almost instantly i believe the bomb had ripped a huge hole in his chest three minutes later bomb squad arrives oh no i know so they when later the police search his car and they find handwritten notes that were addressed to the bomb hostage. And they say that one of them says there's only one way you can survive. And that is to cooperate completely. This powerful booby trapped bomb can be removed only by following our instructions.

Act now, think later, or you will die. Sorry. Handwritten notes to this guy. Yeah. So basically they're handwritten notes to the guy, to Brian. it's basically, they're handwritten notes to Brian. I thought that meant his handwritten.

No. Yeah, someone else had written these notes to him. They were in his car. So the police had caught him. It was almost like a scavenger hunt, but he had to rob the bank, then go to these certain places to get the keys, give them the money, that sort of thing. Right. But police had caught him in the middle of the scavenger hunt

uh so they tried to finish the uh scavenger hunt themselves and find the notes but someone had removed the remaining notes after brian had been killed so they found the places where they were supposed to be but there wasn't anything else there and sorry was that um like the video you watched or whatever was that shown live on the news it had to have been because people were talking about having watched it fuck yeah sitting there with their kids probably and it was at like three o'clock something so there must have been kids after school watching that 100 how traumatized are those children it's the worst i i watched it and i was fuck i am a little fucked up from it no you can't like yeah it's that kind of shit you have to be so careful and paired for yeah all right um they trace brian's last pizza delivery on the day of his death which is when he said he

got attacked they found that his last order was to be delivered on the outskirts of the city at a local at a location of ended up being a tv transmission tower where the address was and they could tell by the scuff marks in the dirt that that's where the collar had been attached. But he was supposed to be off right before that call came in to order the pizzas, which was kind of mysterious. All right. Then cut to September 20th, less than a month after the bomb killed Brian, 59-year-old Bill Rothstein, who was a handyman and lifelong resident in the area, calls 911.

He gave the operator his address and told him there was a frozen body in his garage freezer. What? Yeah. He told him that. His story was that in mid-August, his ex-girlfriend, Marjorie Deal Armstrong, had called him and told him she had shot her live-in boyfriend, James Roden, in the back with a Remington 12-gauge shotgun in a dispute over money.

And then she asked him to help her clean up and move the body, which he agreed to. And so the body had been in his freezer for five weeks. He also melted down the gun and scattered the pieces around the county. Wow. Yeah. Thorough. Thorough. How do you melt on a gun?

I don't even fucking know. Power tools? I think he was a handyman. Yeah. He's a handyman, so he probably knows a lot about... He had some fucking welding thing or whatever. Shit. Probably put some...

I don't know. You know there's some powder you can probably put on something to make it flammable. Oh, I think... I've seen things where if you put Diet Coke on a piece of meat. Oh, why do I? Stop it. I got so excited. Isn't that a thing?

It is. But I'm sure it doesn't melt guns. I'm almost positive. Let's try it. Let's see. Steven, get your gun out. Just shoots both of us. Wouldn't that be hilarious?

They told me. I have it on tape. It's such a weird ending to that podcast because everyone liked Steven. I have it on tape. It's such a weird ending to that podcast because everyone liked Steven. But it turns out he really didn't like those girls. But is it just fictional, the whole podcast? Now we have to go back and listen again. The whole thing was a play.

And we have to write down all the times we yelled at Steven. Slowly building the rage in Steven. And you can hear him breathing in the background harder and harder every week. Meanwhile, he has both hands over his face laughing like a little bright red little japanese girl just giggling giggling steven um okay so he tells them he just couldn't go with the final plan which was to grind the body up so he called 9-1-1 he was afraid of what she might do to him. So he says he was so

distraught that he had even considered killing himself rather than turning himself in. And he had written a suicide note in which he said who the body was in the freezer when he didn't kill him, it says, nor participate in the death. And then the note ended with this has nothing to do with the Wells case. Oh, no, no reason says that in the note because he lived behind the tv transmission spot oh yeah okay now look at my theory how it's been completely reversed right in my face which is what now this it's the the first guy going the victim saying i'm not lying and my is that's because he's lying. Well, then this guy saying this has nothing to do with it.

Out of nowhere. Like he hadn't even been questioned about it. Yeah. Don't bring it up. No. But BTW. No. So obviously what my research reveals is that there's no hard and fast rule about statements.

Or is there? Or we are not done yet. Oh, shit. Twists and turns all over that place. They made a movie, 30 minutes or less. Yes. That came out like 2011. My friend Ruben Fleischer directed that.

Oh, nice. Well, they think it's like loosely based on this. So there'll be twists and turns. Oh, wow. Don't worry. I haven't seen it, so I don't really know. um all right so here's a little bit about marjorie the woman who killed her uh boyfriend so in 1984 she's 35 she's charged with murdering her then boyfriend robert thomas rob thomas isn't he from matchbox 20 yeah that just hit me she claimed she shot him six times

in self-defense as you know how you shoot someone six times in self-defense as you know how you shoot someone six times in self-defense yes well just to really finish it off just to kill the shit out of them she's very ocd she wanted to finish all the bullets right in the gun right sorry this is the same woman who had the body in the freezer yeah this is the body of the freezer woman this is a different relationship yes okay years before okay. A jury acquits her. And then four years later, her husband, Richard Armstrong, dies of his cerebral hemorrhage. Nope. Hemorrhage. Those two words together.

Cerebral hemorrhage. Yeah. But when he got to the hospital, he had had a head injury. But the death is still ruled accidental and never followed up with by the coroner. Which head injuries and cerebral hemorrhaging don't go. That's not a thing. They don't go together? No.

Yeah, yeah. Cerebral hemorrhaging means your brain is bleeding, which means someone hit you really fucking hard on the head or something. Doesn't hemorrhaging just happen, though, too? Like the way when people have a stroke or something like that? Oh, I do. I feel. Look, look, look and listen. Neither of us are going to claim we're right.

My assumption as a doctor is... No, I just think hemorrhaging can happen in any kind of a way. It's not specific to just like an aneurysm. An aneurysm is when a're like a vessel in your brain explodes. Yeah. And then usually you die. Okay. So yeah.

Hummer drink. That sounds right. Okay. We please doctors. Yes. Please tell us how to do this podcast. The best way to let us know about something is to scream at us on Twitter. I just want everyone to know that's the only time we listen.

That's right. It's screaming on our hearts. We're doctors. let's see uh death is ruled accidental so marjorie is like extremely smart but she suffers from bipolar disorder and she's found to be paranoid and narcissistic in 1984 they found 400 pounds of butter and more than 700 pounds of cheese rotting inside her house. Sorry. This is from the Wired article.

What's happening? Can I repeat this? Please. So I think she was a hoarder. So 400 pounds of butter. How much is that? It's so much. Well, a pound of butter is the four cubes. Okay.

That's a pound of butter. So she had 400 of those. And 700 pounds of cheese. I mean, that's just a dream come true. I mean, what kind of cheese? If we're talking about fucking crap singles, I'm out. If she had it stored somewhere, it's Velveeta. Because you can leave that in a warm room for two years and nothing will happen.

It's plastic. Could I tell you what Vince made me for dinner last night? Because I was like, oh, I forgot to tell you this, too. Damn it. Did you go? Can I get on a gross food tangent real quick? Please. Okay.

So last night, Vince vince brought home he did the thing of i've been craving this thing from childhood and i was like playing along like i'll try it with you baby um so he made me a bologna and american cheese sandwich on white bread yes with mustard i used to have them every single day it was great we never had like we never got to have any of that good stuff yeah so i had nitrates so yeah sometimes he'll fry up the baloney wow i know but what happened and this is just i'm explaining who vince is on like saturday i picked him up after a thing and we were both hungry and i was like where should we go and i always am like no i don't want to go there and like we go where i want to go but he was like he was like this place this place or this place and i was like okay baby you pick which i was

being nice. Like, I'm just trying to not be a fucking asshole anymore. Good, good. Yeah. Put in that effort. Yeah. So we went to the Olive Garden for brunch on Saturday. How do you feel about that?

All I see is like a bunch of Italian spices mixed into shit that I don't want there. That's the first thing I think of. You are 100% correct. He ordered, they had a thing called an Italian margarita. He ordered it. The guy at the bar was just like such a sassy, funny person. And he put it in front of the margarita. He put a margarita in front of him.

And then he put down a little like shot glass of amaretto. And he goes, that's what makes it Italian. I was just like, oh, I love you. It was so great. But they have a nice little soup and salad deal. Anyways, at the end. Bottomless breadsticks, right? Yeah.

Come on. The salad's actually good. On the way out, a girl stops me and she goes, don't I know you? And I did the, oh, searching for my brain. And she goes, just kidding. I'm a huge fan. So she was a waiter, a waitress there. And she was just like, really cool.

Great. That's it. Okay. I got recognized at the Olive Garden. Hell yes. Because I was at the Olive Garden. Hell yes. Because when you're there, you're family.

I was family. Nice. So thank you. Don't I recognize, you're my aunt. Yeah. Oh, hi. Oh my God, hi. Nice to see you. carol oh all right

700 pounds of cheese rotting inside her house okay oh sorry yes because you can't even get that from a store it's not like you can go to an indivance or whatever your local chain is called and be like that's all the butter that they have for the month, essentially. And they, yeah. What's she doing? Do you know how she got it? No. Okay. Nothing about it.

It's rotting. Okay. Can you imagine the smell? Like, does butter even rot? It does. Like, it turns, but it takes a long time. Yeah. Like, you can leave it out on the counter and it won't go bad for a while.

I mean. We never, we always refrigerate our butter, which I hate. Cold butter? You can put it on a plate as long as it's covered on the counter. What are we talking about? I don't fucking know. Someone is dead. Someone is so many people are.

Yeah. OK. All right. So I wrote so in capital because I think I knew we were going to go on this tangent. So back to the. OK. So back to the, okay. In fact, when preparing to be tried in the shooting death of her first ex,

psychiatrist deemed her mentally incompetent seven times before they finally ruled she was allowed to be on, be tried, which I feel like seven times means you are not ever going to be mentally. And that's such a hard thing to do because everyone's like, I'm mentally ill. That's why I killed this person. Oh, trying to get out of it. Yeah. And they're like, bullshit. Sorry. They kept on saying she was mentally incompetent and couldn't stand trial. ill that's why i killed trying to get out of it yeah and they're like bullshit but sorry they kept on saying she was mentally incompetent and couldn't stand trial and then they finally were

like wait no on the eighth time she is she's better now oh no but yeah that's ridiculous got it so i wrote so on september 21st of 2003 marjorie deal armstrong is arrested for the murder of her most recent ex the freezer guy james rodin okay she pleads guilty but mentally ill but she's still sentenced to seven to twenty years in state prison for that murder three months after she goes to prison in april federal of 2005 so i might have the dates wrong federal agents investigating the collar bomb mystery they're still like what the fuck happened the handwriting analysis of the fucking notes are baffled they just don't understand why this um scavenger hunt was part of it it doesn't make any sense to them okay they're called uh they are called from the

state police officer who has just met with marjorie in prison she tells them that the murder of her most recent ex-boyfriend actually had nothing to do with money but instead was part of the collar bomb plot. So they didn't even know she was involved at this point. She just came forward with that? Yeah. Okay. She says, she tells us, can I just exchange that piece of

information for a stick of butter? I just want to put it under my pillow. They only have margarine here. It's driving me insane. I need some rotten butter. Well, what she actually wants, besides just butter, is a transfer from the state pen where she's in to a minimum security spot

much closer to Erie. And if they do that, she'll tell them everything she knows. So she begins by telling them that she was not of course, I'm not involved in any way in the plot, but she admits that she knew about it and that she supplied the kitchen timers. So she's the baker or the punisher of children. When they were trying to fingerprint that kitchen timer, they were just like, there's no fingerprints, but it is coated in butter.

There's like so much butter all over it. We need to find the butter culprit. The butter bomber. Butter bomber. it's even better butter i don't uh she tells them that the actual mastermind beholden the whole plot was bill rothstein the dude who lived behind the tv tower who turned her in for murder but bill rothstein had died of lymphoma about a year earlier in july 2004 so they can't fucking question him she also tells the feds that Brian Williams wasn't just the victim, but had been in on the planning from the beginning.

The guy that actually blew up in the bomb? Yeah. Okay. Twists and turns. Yeah. Keep talking. So he did, when he said, I'm not lying, he was lying.

You were right. Oh, thank God. That's why I was like, hold up. That theory was right twice. yes nice okay um okay so according to marjorie brian wells the victim had agreed to rob the bank wearing what he thought was a fake collar bomb the scavenger hunt he was told was simply a ruse to fool the cops if he got caught he could say like well look at these instructions as evidence that he was only following orders um but at some point brian wells and you don't hear this phrase very often

is double crossed yes the fake bomb is switched out to be a real one which he didn't know until it was strapped to his neck they held him down at gunpoint because when he got to the tv station with the pizzas he realized it was real and tried to run and they grabbed him and held him down at gunpoint. Okay, wait. So did he not know is it Marjorie? Yeah. Marjorie and the guy that died of lymphoma. Rothstein. He didn't know them before? He knew them.

He thought they had all planned this thing and agreeing that it was going to be a fake bomb. So he drove there as if it's like, I'm delivering pizzas to this place. Right. The whole thing is him being tricked. He was in on that thinking it'd be a fake bomb. Got it. They are like, it's a real bomb. Get over

here. It all falls together because then that fucking dum-dum part makes perfect sense. Right. Okay. And I think even when thinking about the dum-dum, the way he panicked when the beeping went off is he didn't even know that it was fake until the beeping went off. That what i think yes because you mean that it was real yeah because even him saying i'm not lying he's lying he thinks it's not real and i think they're telling

him this i don't know why she's telling him this but i don't believe that so what yeah okay yeah so um they strap it to his neck at gunpoint. The FBI had already concluded they had checked out the bomb and that it was rigged. So, at any attempt to remove it at all, it would have set it off. So, he was destined, he was going to die no matter what. Then in late 2005, a few months after Marjorie first talked to the feds, a witness comes forward and says that an ex-television repairman turned crack dealer named Kenneth Barnes was also involved. Barnes was already in jail on unrelated drug charges.

So when threatened with more time behind bars, he agrees to a deal. He would give the full account, blah, blah, blah, reduced sentence. He confirms that Marjorie was, he says, which is what other people were coming forward and saying, Marjorie was the mastermind Behind the collar bomb plot He claims she needed the cash so she could pay Him to kill her Father for inheritance money Jesus Christ! I know, in Erie, Pennsylvania She's just

She's like a black widow Yeah So he's sentenced DeVarnes is sentenced to 45 years behind bars But he agrees to testify against Marjorie. He also explains Brian Wells' reasoning why he even got in on the plot for money. He needed the money because he had developed a relationship with a sex worker. And he had devised a scheme where he was like, I'm going to sell crack because I need the money to be with her.

I think he was like in love with her. But he had fallen into debt with the crack dealers. So he needed to pay them off. Okay. So he's like the most romantic crack dealer of all time. Yeah. It's for love, which is like so sweet. And then one of the articles, it's like he was a drug dealer.

And it's like, well, he wasn't. When you call him a drug dealer, you're not, you know, explaining the intricacies, which sounds like a fucking movie. Look, if you're selling crack to people, you're a drug dealer. It doesn't matter what your motives are. You're correct. You could be a cold hearted snake

or you can be... You are correct. You could be the most nicest romantic person. If you're selling drugs. Because also it's not like, oh, he's selling pot. So he's getting 60 bucks a hit. He's like probably making fucking bank.

And these people who are crack heads or crack addicts are ruining their lives. So he's helping them ruin their lives. Yes, exactly. Eating and betting. And then also on top of that, so that he can fuck a lady who probably doesn't give a shit one way or the other about him. Right. Otherwise, she wouldn't be charging him probably.

One would like to think that it would go into a Julia Roberts, in that movie kind of direction. Right. Where she then does actually kiss him on the mouth. Oh, my God. Why am I being romantic about this? Well, you probably got involved in your reading. I did. I'm counterpointing it.

I just want to know Brian Wells more. I feel he probably wasn't the sharpest needle in the tack. I knew I wasn't going to get that right. So I just kept going with it. You know what I mean? That was like a straight up Yogi Berra style quote. I took all the things. Calling someone else dumb.

Mixing your metaphors. Oh, man. So, yeah, I don't know. To me, he's the he's the he lost the most. He's not some mastermind. He's not like. Yeah, he got duped pretty hard for a reason that, you know, he didn't understand was OK. He also testified that Marjorie's ex, whose body was the freezer body, was also in on the crime.

The reason he had been killed was because he threatened to tell the feds, not because of money. Oh, wow. So that's why his freezer body happened. Okay. When Marjorie took the stand on her own trial, she's fucking ranting and raving. She's like, she's bananas.

She's butter crazy. She's butter crazy. She claims to have never met Brian Wells, the victim, even though he testified that she had even measured his neck for the collar bomb oh the jury didn't believe her she's voted guilty of aren't voted guilty of armed robbery i wrote that day i wrote it voted guilty and i'm like i'll figure that out once for there so i just read it off the paper i mean technically you're right vote they voted they get voted guilty guilty of armed bank robbery conspiracy using a destructive device in a crime of violence she died on april of this year actually as 86

years old of natural causes 86 yeah so she died in 2017 in april whoa yeah when we were just hanging out thinking anything was whatever and then she's dying all right last part and this is also from wired retired fbi criminal investigators who you, are the fucking coolest people in the world. I want to have a drink with him. Jim Fisher, this guy, thinks that there's no way that Marjorie planned the collar bomb heist. He, based on the FBI suspect profile, which they had before anyone got in trouble for this, he thinks Bill Rothstein was the mastermind. this. He thinks Bill Rothstein was the mastermind. He was a handyman with the skills to create a homemade bomb. And because he, and it wasn't about money, he thinks, he had never accomplished much in his life. He wanted to show how brilliant he was by, quote, executing a crime that would grab headlines across the globe and baffle authorities for years. He recruited conspirators he knew he could control and kept crucial details of the plot from them, a tactic designed to further complicate the investigation. Wow.

So he thinks he was just fucking with his head. Like, I kind of reminded me of the guy from S-Town that they. I still haven't listened to it. Well, people who have listened to S-Town, this guy was like this brilliant dude. Yeah. It kind of reminds me of that. In the end, says Jim Fisher, the son of a bitch ended up winning huh well not so much because i'd never heard of this case before yeah but he went we are talking

about it now he won by dying a free man yes that's true you know and baffling the shit and they still don't really understand how and what happened which isn't a victory because that just means you went crazy you victimized a bunch of people and it doesn't make sense why you did it yeah uh that's not like no your genius credit no i think that's fucked up what he specifically wanted yeah which again is not a genius move it's like for me like the kitchen timer right there proves that he's not a genius Yeah Like get one of those LED digital readout timers

Or get the fuck out of town Well I think what he wanted to prove Is he could fucking make a bomb In his whatever garage Out of anything You know those people Who like to take things apart And put them back together

Just to see how they work Instead of reading a fucking book And just chilling out Take a nap Yeah I guess that's true Well that was fascinating Yeah wasn't it I'd say look at the picture Instead of reading a fucking book and just chilling out. Take a nap. Yeah, I guess that's true. Well, that was fascinating. Yeah.

I'd say look at the picture of him sitting in the middle of the road. Go nowhere near the video of him getting blown up. In fact, I want you to see the picture kind of. Steven, can you pull that up? Just to see. It's just this like clear afternoon news story of him sitting there. They're not too close. I can totally picture it. He looks almost like a manne him sitting there. They're not too close. I can totally picture it. He looks almost like a mannequin sitting there.

It's just like this still body. Not dead. I'm talking about when he's. He was just waiting. Yeah. So was that the whole bomb squad thing? They were just waiting for the bomb squad to show up. Yeah.

He was just sitting on the curb. And they were calling the bomb squad. But also they weren't sure if he was even in on it. So they had their guns drawn on him. Yeah. That one. Go look up the picture. But also they weren't sure if he was even in on it. So they had their guns drawn on him. Yeah. That one. Go look up the picture. It's like it's like a bummer.

Obviously, it looks like when someone gets stopped at a traffic thing and then they go to arrest him. Yeah. It looks like that. Like he's an unruly drunk driver. Yeah. What's that? Do you know what his shirt says or what? That says guess.

Oh, that's the guest thing. Yeah. And they think that's part of it it's like bill rothstein put a shirt on him that says guess that's fucked up i know wow that's a good one thank you it's so weird because i saw this like it was from 2003 i think i saw maybe a city confidential or a 2020 like pretty immediately after happened so i no one still knew what was going on um and it just stuck with me and it was one of those ones where i was like everyone knows this one so i'm not gonna do it and then i was like maybe they don't so i mean the one i thought it was was there's and i survived about a woman who gets home invaded they it's her and her daughter right and they put

a bomb on her and make her go rob a bank and she and they're like if you say anything it's the same exact thing but she really was uh you know she was a victim and survived it they get they ended up getting off her yeah oh good yeah phew i know well i think you're first this time this week okay my turn let's do it i don't know what that voice was. This story is, I've been trying to do it for a really long time. But because I've been reading an Ann Rule book about this serial killer. But then I think Frank ate the back half of the book. It turned into a thing where I was trying to find the book again. And whatever. I think we should

make for new listeners Frank is her dog it's not her boyfriend that's right um I have a really nervous boyfriend named Frank he doesn't like when I learn things he doesn't like when I leave the house um so but but the first chapter of this book is one of the most hook you in and you can't stop reading chapters it's ann rule so she's i've been meaning to read a new one by her so maybe yeah it's this is a great one i had bought one at the airport on uh the last tour that was a it was a bunch of different stories kind of all put together um but i i realized that like that's a little bit too depressing because it's just almost like the same thing over and over again and i, and I like her thoughts on it and stuff.

Yeah, I think I enjoy the full thing more. But the cool thing about Ann Rule is that she just goes so far into the victim's lives. So you get all that information. So if anybody, if this is an interesting story to you, Ann Rule wrote a book called Lust Killer. And it's about this guy. But this is the best part. So I texted Steven yesterday. I was like, can you please get me a chronology of this guy so that I can get ahead on this story? And so

he looked up and found, um, this chronology that was put together by some people in the department of psychology at Radford university in Radford, Virginia. And those people are Mike Keefe, Radford, Virginia. And those people are Mike Keefe, Audrey Mag, Mangrum. I was going to say Magnum, Audrey Mangrum, Kimberly Mast, Heather McGinn, Ryan Miller, Kristen Puchot, Nicole Newsome, and Vicki Tanner. A lot of ladies. So many ladies. Yeah. It doesn't say if they are like students, it doesn't say who they are in the department or whatever, but they put together,

it's like an Excel spreadsheet of the the years and then the significant like moments in this guy's life nice which is a lifesaver for doing a show like this i yeah i need that yeah so many times we need it every gd week and then instead you have to read 1800 articles to find that yeah which is fine and it's fine it's good but then when you have a spine like this these guys did amazing work really good it's just very great detail work where sometimes when you're reading a story if you read two articles the second one contradicts the first one then you're like well did he join the army or not like it's that thing i always i'm like well the first one said this so i believe it it's just the first one i picked to read it's not like i'm lying about this guy. Wikipedia overall.

All right. Okay. So it's Jerry Brudos, the shoe fetish slayer. You've seen, there's one million all true crime shows about him. And there's a law and order that's basically his story. So Jerry Brudos is born January 31st, 1939. Sorry, what's his name? I didn't hear that.

Jerry Brudos is born on January 31st, 1939 what's his name i didn't hear that jerry brudos uh is born on january 31st 1939 in webster south dakota and it turns out um he was an accident and his mother wanted a girl so uh they lived on a farm when he was five they moved to portland oregon and they basically move it looks like every two to five years his whole childhood and into his adult life which sucks and also it doesn't say this anywhere at all that my theory is his dad was an alcoholic or somebody in the family was an alcoholic where they had to just keep leaving town and starting over right um but also they i think he starts his dad starts out as a farmer and it might just be that they're trying to he's trying to basically be a migrant farmer and like go to the new place where you can make follow

the money but every two years it's just so disruptive yeah fucked up so sad um anyway so one day he's wandering around alone at the junkyard when he's five years old. As you do. And he finds a pair of open-toed spike-heeled shoes. And he is obsessed. No. Immediately. Yes. This is his jam. He puts them on.

He probably never sees women wearing that kind of thing where he's from, maybe. Like, his mom probably doesn't wear shit like that. I don't know. Yeah. But he goes crazy. He plays with them. He takes them home his mom finds them and goes berserk on him and is like screaming whatever and like never touch these again you're not

supposed to touch you're not supposed to like this whatever which is a great way to get your kid to be really into something yeah hi hi we know that so let's take a five-year-old yeah and be like this is forbidden right and then see what happens you don't understand why it's forbidden yeah yeah eventually he he kept finding them and like she would take them away from him finally she burned them symbolically for him perfect uh when he's six they moved to riverton california and he's in the first grade um his teacher wore high heel shoes and kept another pair in the classroom so he tried to steal them one day so he could take them home but another kid in the class saw him and told on him uh so from a first grade this is like a very very early age um he fails second grade uh he is diagnosed with measles sore throats swollen glands laryngitis um he he has frequent headaches that actually leave him unable to see clearly oh my god so he's got some stuff going on

but also all of those um illnesses that he has it makes me go like were you not taken care of very well definitely not fed well yeah did you not sleep correct you know like why would you just be constantly sick yeah um so in 1947 when he's eight years old the family moves to grants pass oregon and next door there's a house uh that has i think it's three teenage girls right so um they have a little brother and and um jerry starts sneaking into that house with the brother to steal these girls underwear oh my god um they first they play in the clothes then he like discovers the underwear and then he so it goes from shoes to undergarments um a couple years later the family moves again to wallace pond

um because his jerry's father is getting back into farming and um his when he's going through puberty his mother is disgusted by anything sexual um that jerry does you know if he has a wet dream she makes him wash his sheets by hand. Um, there's a lot of shaming, a lot of like, sounds like verbal abuse, um,

how to create a serial killer. Yeah. I mean, uh, so he starts to fantasize that he wants to capture a girl and, um, make her obey his commands and beg for mercy. Uh,

so when he's around 16, he steals an 18-year-old girl's underwear. Then he decides that he wants nude pictures of her. So he tells her that he has found out who stole her underwear and to meet him at his house. So the girl goes over to his house and she is there she's attacked by a masked man um who forces her to take off her clothes and takes pictures of her um and then the man runs away and then the girl gets dressed and she goes to leave and she runs into jerry and jerry says i was locked in the barn this whole time. What happened? I just saw a guy running out of here in a mask.

The girl runs away, reports the whole thing to police. So essentially he's trying to, and there was another story, but I could not find it anywhere of him doing that and coming back in and saying that he was his own twin brother. Oh my God. And that really sorry. It was like one of the first times he did this. He's really sorry. He basically makes a girl, a young girl, his age, take off her clothes, takes pictures of her leaves, changes his clothes, combs his hair differently, comes in and goes, I'm sorry about my brother, Jerry.

I'm his brother. What a crazy, creepy. That like creeps me out. It's so creepy. And of course, and I think that little girl From the story that I remember Didn't report it to the police It was just like this weird

Fucked up thing Yeah So anyway I know It's It's also that Kind of indicative of that The sociopathic thing

Of I'm smarter than everybody Like there's no way Anyone's gonna find out Here's my great plan I'm gonna play my own Identical twin Yeah Insane Yeah this is not full house yeah exactly so okay so um when he's 17 he lures a girl into his car he drives her to a deserted farmhouse beats her up and by some miracle there's a couple that's like sightseeing out in the country.

And they stop at the same abandoned farmhouse. And they find they like walk in on what's happening and call the cops. So Jerry claims that he'd also stopped to help the girl because they find him and her and she's tied up. He says, no, I found her that way. I was here to help her. Please don't believe it. And they finally, they talked to him long enough, and he confesses.

So he's arrested for assault and battery, and they find in his house and in his car women's underwear, pictures, and photo equipment. So soon after his arrest, they send him to Oregon State Hospital, the psychiatric ward, for nine months. How do you think that

that wasn't a fucking vacay probably no a psychiatric hospital back then what year is it it's 1969 no i believe no no it's fire hose bad news time um he starts talking to the doctors there about his sexual fantasies his hatred um, and the revenge he wants to take against his mother and women in general. And he's diagnosed with schizophrenia, which was actually a common thing that would happen back then that wasn't actually an accurate diagnosis. A blanket diagnosis. Exactly. It was just kind of like you are, what is that called, what is that called? I was, I want to say devious, but it's, uh, nothing. I was going to say deviant, devious. Yeah. Deviant. That's it.

Deviant. Okay. I was going to say that, but then you said devious. He's a deviant. He's a deviant. That's what I was trying to say. Got it. Steven. I'd love that. You look at me like, can you help me? Will you try? You said the only word I was thinking. Okay. So, um, so,

and they also, they, the things that he's telling them that he likes, they don't, they don't know how to classify that. There's not a thing yet. Yeah, exactly.

Um, I mean, whatever they, there might've been, but they're basically like slap schizophrenia on him and like. Treat him for that, which is probably electric shock therapy. He still graduates with this high school class in 1957. Wow.

Oh, so this is the late 50s. It's not even the 60s. Wow. So then he joins the army in 1959. He tells the army psychiatrist about these same obsessions. And the psychiatrist has him discharged from the army in 1959. He tells the army psychiatrist about these same obsessions. And the psychiatrist has him discharged from the army. So he moves back in with his parents. Now they live in Corvallis, Oregon.

And he has to live in their shed. They make him live out back in the shed. I mean, he's an adult now. Can we please fucking treat him like a human? Or get an apartment. Yeah. I mean, yeah. So one night he or get an apartment. Yeah. I mean, yeah.

So, uh, one night he's running an errand and, um, there's, he sees a young girl walking by herself and he decides he's going to follow her. And he, so he basically stalks her,

follows her home, um, attacks her, strangles her until she's unconscious, and then steals her shoes. And that night he slept with the shoes. Oh, my God. This is so creepy. This is nothing.

Oh, no. Yeah. So he becomes an electronics technician in 1961. When he's 21, he gets a job at a radio station. And that's when he meets his future wife 17 year old darcy metzler yeah oh darcy run darcy um of course darcy's parents don't approve of the relationship because she's so young and because of that they are married within a few months of meeting each other like let's solve this by marrying them yeah yes, it's like, you want to get out of your parents' house anyway.

This guy comes along. Yeah. He loves underwear. You've got to get him. So... Tie that guy down. Right? Literally.

So they settle in Salem, Oregon. And Jerry's thing is he wants her to do all of her housework in the nude so he can take pictures of her while she's doing it.

Oh, she's like, I'm sweating. She's like, I'm swiffering. Yeah. Um, yeah. And she's so young that she's completely kind of under his control. She probably doesn't know what, if this is normal or not. Exactly. Yeah.

This is now married life. She's, you know, like, I guess this is what you do as a wife. Yeah. Um, and around the same time he starts, um, complaining that he's getting migraines so now married life yeah she's you know like i guess this is what you do yeah as a wife yeah um and around the same time he starts um complaining that he's getting migraines so bad that he's blacking out and that the only thing that helps alleviate those symptoms is going on uh night prowling raids to steal shoes and underwear from local women everyone who's been taking advil for your fucking migraines. We've got a new solution.

It's a way creepier solution. So he would keep all of those trophies. Trophies. Shoes and underwear in a garage that he had built. It was like a sub-basement

that his wife couldn't enter into until she announced her arrival on an intercom. He was locked down in this basement, and she'd have to be like, honey, can I bring you some Ritz? Let me put this away real quick. Yeah, he has it set up where it's like, this is my man cave. You're not allowed down here. So in 1962, they have a daughter, but Jerry can't hold a steady job. They move all the time.

They finally settle back in Portland. Jerry becomes an electrician. In 1967, they have a son. So they have two kids. But his wife won't let him in the delivery room when she's having the baby, the, her second baby. Um, and he, uh, he's so hurt by this was what this, uh,

article was saying, or like it affected him so much. That's when the raping and the killing starts. Wait, isn't that normal for back then? Yeah. I mean, I think it's probably,

I'm assuming this is his story of him being like, it pissed me off so much, you know, like that's the wife's fault. I think that's so normal. I think even when my, in the seventies when my brother was born, my dad wasn't allowed in there. Right.

But this was the wife's decision. This is what they're saying. Okay. Yeah. So it makes it sound like he was allowed in for their first child and not this weird thing had happened. Yeah. So that's why he. That's what he said. Yeah. Of course. It some weird thing had happened. Yeah. So that's why he,

that's what he said. Yeah. Of course it's someone else's fault. Right. But also I imagine they've now been married for six years or so. She's probably seen some weird shit and she's heard some weird shit and there's a whole room she's locked out of all the time. So she's probably there,

you know, like who knows what her state is she knows him well enough that he doesn't want to go in there for the miracle of his child being born he wants to go in there for something fucking creepy yeah she doesn't trust it right how unnerving oh my god like if i see my husband's face when i'm giving birth i'm gonna cry i will barf barf and cry i'll barf cry and then shit on the table, which is what everyone does, apparently. My friend Michelle Balloon does that. No, I've heard that. It's terrifying. That's the most terrifying part.

Okay, so shortly after that, the childbirth, he claims that he stalked a woman in Portland, Oregon, followed her home, waited for her to fall asleep, broke into her house to steal her shoes. But then when she woke up mid robbery and catches him, he chokes her until she passes out, rapes her, steals her shoes and then leaves. So then in January of 1968, and this is the this is the woman who Ann Rule's book starts

with. Oh, okay. Um, I forgot about that part. Yeah. So she starts with this, the first murder victim.

Okay. And her name was, her name was Linda Slauson. She was selling encyclopedias door to door in the rain in Portland. Oh no. And at night. No, no,

no, no, no, no, no. This sounds like a horror movie. Completely. The way this is written, it's like, she's And at night. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. This sounds like a horror movie. Completely. The way this is written, it's like she's trying to decide.

She hasn't had any sales. She's just moved out on her own. She's going to keep trying. Maybe the next one. Yeah. She needs the money. She has to eat. Things are getting bad.

And then there's one last house that has a light on. And she's like, I just want to go home. I'll just try this one last house. And back then, they aren't as scared as we are today and weary no weary of there were so many door-to-door salesmen and women back then yeah and you'd let them in your house and it was yeah and 90 of the time nothing happened that's right just a lot of vacuum sales right uh okay so so she goes up and she brings Jerry Brutus' doorbell. He is, you see a picture of him. He looks like a cartoon.

He looks like the missing friend on King of the Hill. Like he's just, he looks like grown up Charlie Brown with army issue black glasses on. Oh, grown up Charlie Brown. Just a big round head. Like pasty. No distinguishing features. A little lumpy. Yeah, kind of like, almost like a bit of a snowman um just round round round i love the picture in my head i never want to see what he actually

looks like just a vicious snowman okay um okay but he when he answers the door friendly nice low key um and he brings he's oh come in i actually was, I really wanted to get a set of those. Acts super interested. Then explains that his, I think he said his children were sleeping. I think that's what his excuse was. Can you come down into the basement? Yeah. So they could talk business down there.

Well, she goes down and he almost immediately hits her in the head with a two by four. Beats her and then strangles her to death. Oh my God. he mean to that time do you think yes okay that was the whole idea because he was strangling till they passed out before that right okay but this girl comes to his door and then he's like the wife was out and he knew he had time to do whatever he wanted um so once before she uh after she's dead and before he gets rid of the body he takes off her clothes and dresses her up in the stolen underwear that he has in his collection um then this is bad he cuts off her left foot and keeps it in the freezer in a high-heeled shoe so it's like he has no i'm just processing that holy shit that is crazy yeah so then when he and at some point there his wife came home and he went

back upstairs and like ate dinner with the family i believe i read that in the ann rule book but i um i'm almost positive that that's happening. He basically had family interactions like right after doing this. Super normal. Well, probably as normal as he is. Right. Yeah. He's probably always coming up from that sub-basement a little bit sweaty.

Sure. So later in that night, he rolls her in a rug, drives to a bridge, pulls out all this stuff to make it look like he got a flat tire as almost like safety okay and then dumps her body in in the river um so and then in july of 1968 so that was january so six months later stephanie vico is reported missing from portland um and then in november the same year jan susan whitney is reported missing from Portland. Jan's a 23-year-old college student at the University of Oregon. Then in March of 1969, so about six months later, a woman named Karen Sprinkler, who was a 19-year-old college student, goes missing.

And when the police take the eyewitness accounts of Karen going missing, two young girls tell the police they saw a large man dressed as a woman on the parking lot garage roof where Karen's abandoned car was found on that day. Wow. If you see a picture of this guy and then you picture him lurking around like a parking structure dressed as a woman. It's very scary. It's the scary. It's anyway. It sounds like Norman. Norman Bates.

Yeah. Just like his mom kind of a thing. Yeah. Yeah. Creepy. Because probably from a distance, you're like, oh, man, there's a woman up here on the same parking. You'd be you'd feel I think that's part of what's so sinister to me. You're lured into safety of like, oh, that's a woman just like me.

I could see myself doing that completely. Sure. Yeah. So a month later, a woman named Sharon Wood is is attacked in a parking garage at Portland State University. She fends off her attacker by biting his thumb until it bled. And it, of course, turns out to be Jerry. Once she does this, he beats her unconscious. But then a car comes. So he has to run.

But then a car comes. So he has to run. So the police get the report of this, make no connection to the other parking garage attack. The next day after that attack, Jerry sees 14-year-old Leanne Brumley. He tries to abduct her. She fights him off and escapes. Good for you. Day after that, a woman named Linda Dawn Saley is reported missing.

Her car is found abandoned in a parking garage. The police realize now that they're dealing with a serial killer. So the next month, which is May of 1969, a local fisherman discovers Linda Saley's body in the Long Tom River. It was weighed down by a car transmission. And then two days after that, Karen Sprinkler's body is found 50 feet away. Oh my god. So that's obviously his dumping ground.

Karen was also tied to an old engine, which is the reason it kept her submerged for a long time. And he, this is bad. Okay. He cut off her breasts to keep as souvenirs. He also placed a bra from his collection of undergarments over her mangled chest. Oh, my God.

Is the way they worded it. Yeah. That's horrible. So, this guy is basically berserking. Yeah. He's killing, he's trying to attack women almost daily. Wow. Killing people. And then these bodies are coming up of when he, like, it's trying to attack women almost daily. Wow. Killing people.

And then these bodies are coming up of when he, like, it's just all going faster and faster. Yeah, like he started and then was fucking on. Yes. And then anytime he can't, he can't, you know, someone gets away, then he has to try it again the very next day. Right. So it's like. Wow. Wow. So the same month he starts calling dorm rooms at Oregon State University to try to arrange blind dates with the co-eds.

What the fuck? And it works. No. Uh huh. What does he say? I don't know. I want to know how he. I mean, I would love to. I would love to know. And I bet you it's in in that book I promise I'm going to finish reading this book I'm just wondering everyone else should read it with me but um yeah insane uh so they're now the police now are onto the pattern they're staking out places where young co-eds hang out where they end up like parking structure stuff like that um a female student who claims to have gone on a blind date with this guy goes to police and gives his description so now the police know what he looks like wow and when he contacts her a second time for a follow-up date she calls the police and tells them so they the police show up at the meeting spot yeah they question jerry uh at the girls

residence hall oh it's so fucking intense at oregon state um but he's so cooperative and he gave his id nothing came back it all seemed legit so he was not arrested because all they had on him was you're just trying to make blind dates with people which is not illegal yeah but a bummer yeah um but then the thank god the police after that interaction with him go back and they look up his record they look into him further and the blind date went forward after that yeah yeah she's like once he got cleared by the cop she's like, once he got cleared by the cops, she's like, so do you like roller skating? So they look into his record. They decide to go to his house for some follow-up questions.

And there they see several suspicious items in his garage, in his sub-basement thing. And they start building a case against him. Because they're like, the old classic line of cops, we like this guy. So eventually they have enough evidence to arrest to get an arrest warrant he tries to run um while they're the police are serving him with the arrest warrant um never do that never it's never gonna work no if the cops are there yeah you're done yeah um but the warrant was for the attempted deduction of Leanne Brumley from the month before. Yeah. And so then they started, they get him in, take him downtown, whatever. They started interrogating him.

And he tries to call, he tries to call his wife and get her to burn stuff, clothing and like his, his underwear collection and all my other evidence he's like now you can go into the sub-basement yeah exactly right uh here's the here's the basket oh my god um but darcy's like go fuck yourself for real darcy darcy's over it she's she's had it um so the investigator's name was Jim Stovall, and he basically gets Jerry Brudos to confess to the murders of the two recently discovered bodies, as well as the murder of Linda Slauson and Jan Whitney.

Wow. Jerry Brudos is tested by several psychologists, psychiatrists, sorry. And he shows averageq and cognition deemed not criminally insane uh which i'm not i don't understand because how can you be a serial like murder people and not be a little insane yeah but i'm not sure what criminally insane must have a very specific thing hardcore yeah but he is diagnosed as an antisocial personality manifested by fetishism, transvesticism, exhibitionism, voyeurism, and sadism. Isn't it funny that back then transvesticism is a crime? Yes.

It's insane. Yeah, and it wasn't that long ago. Yeah. I'm like, what is it? It's 1960 something. I lost my paper. We're in the late 60s 1969 i'm sure someone's gonna tell us when it went tell and it's gonna be recent yeah well i mean they just fucking passed a thing and it's uh yeah okay so they they collect all the evidence um he's

eventually charged with three counts of first degree murder. Um, Jan, Jan Whitney, Linda Saley, Karen Sprinkler. He, um, tries to, uh, plead not guilt, not guilty by reason of insanity. Um, but eventually they just get him to plead guilty. Um, and so on the same day that he pleads guilty, he's sentenced to three consecutive life sentences because he confessed. Right, right. There's no death penalty in Oregon. So they just give him three consecutive life sentences.

He's never charged with the murder of Linda Slauson because her body was never found. Oh, no. Yeah. That's so sad. Now, around the time of all these murders, 12 women went missing in that area while he was free. Oh, my God. So an investigation was ongoing to attempt to uncover the whereabouts of those other missing women. And at one point, a neighbor of Brutus's implicated Darcy in the murders, claiming that she had helped Jerry carry a body from the garage.

And she actually ended up going to trial for it and being acquitted. Holy shit. Yes. Do you think she did? Cause what a bummer to like have a, have your husband turn out to be a serial killer and be, you're implicated in it.

And they have nothing to do with it. I mean, that's what I would think. I don't think someone, I don't know. And based on what she's already done, you would think that she would testify against him for immunity if she actually knew something.

Right. And if she didn't burn, when he called and was like, get rid of the evidence, she's like, no way. Yeah. That doesn't seem like a person who's like in it for the long haul or like his accomplice. Yeah. For sure.

And yeah. Anyhow, he goes to jail. Um, but he also had piles of women's shoe catalogs in his cell. Uh, he would write to the companies and ask for their, the catalog. So they were, he claimed that subject substituted for pornography for him um holy shit and he actually uh it says he lodged countless appeals including one in which the he allegedly oh sorry he lodged countless appeals including one in which he alleged that a photograph taken of him with one of the corpses could not prove his guilt because it was not the body of the person he was convicted of killing.

So he, they found a picture of him posing with a dead body, but he was one, probably him. I would imagine a timer maybe. Yeah. Kitchen timer. Yeah.

Uh, but so it's like that kind of thing where he's arguing like look that's not the dead body then hey you can't like one else it's so insane it's a picture of you posing with a dead yeah anyway he died in prison on march 28 2006 from liver cancer he lived for a long fucking time in fact at the time of his death he was the longest incarcerated inmate in the oregon department of corrections a total of 37 years oh my god yeah my age yeah how my entire life is how long he was in prison yeah holy so if you want to read lust killer i'm going to finish it and then we'll know all those details because um i really do want to know like all that stuff at the end. And I bet you it'll it'll talk more about Darcy, too, because I I'm sure she talked to Anruil.

I bet you she talked. You think so? I bet she did. I'd love to hear more from Darcy. I'll try to finish that pretty soon. But also thanks to those people from Radford University. Your research helped me do my thing. Thanks, guys. research helped me do my thing thanks guys shout outs to fucking helpers this episode wired magazine all this um wow what a creep i had never heard that one it's bad yeah it's one of those ones i've been working on but every time i go to do it i'm like it's just about i mean it's just there's no uh but the only thing it was the two points. I always look for those cinematic moments. One cinematic moment is a person dressed up like a woman hiding in a parking garage.

Yes. Which is the scariest, like beyond. Yeah. And, and then the other one is that as a child attacking that little girl and then being like, I'm my twin brother. Where it's like, how fucking crazy are you? That's like psycho level.

Yeah. Do you have a good thing for this week? I have a good thing this week. Obviously it's Elvis getting better and Mimi getting better, but now that they are better, I can say what was going to be last week before this happened, which is a kitten, man, a new kitten.

Like nothing will make it more exciting in your house. Like just watching her playing with a little toy by herself is like joyous. Yes. And then at night, oh my God, at night, she nurses, tries to nurse Vince's head and it drives him crazy. But it's like the key. I like pull her away away but not before I look at it for a minute it's just so cute and she like nuzzles and she's a real character and I like having her around she's super cute yeah and it's funny because she matches Mimi they it's like they have the same jacket on but Mimi's like I fucking hate you Mimi's jacket's like obviously a little more worn in it's because it's a little lighter in color.

She's washed it more. And she fucking hates the kitten. Kitten's name is Dottie. She's a real doll. So what's yours? Mine is, I did a show last night at Largo. It was a comedy show for Brian Posehn, who's been doing comedy for 30 years. So it was his 30 year anniversary in comedy.

So he asked a bunch of us to do the show with him who he's been doing it with that long. And so it was me, Blank Patch, Derek Sheen, Dana Gould, Greg Proops, and Guy O'Belum.

And it was such a good show. What a great idea for a show. It was so fun. And and then so everyone was like obviously doing their act but then also telling these stories and doing jokes from their act from back then wow and it was so fun and everyone was so insanely solid but then it also was like at a couple moments i was it was very touching because i was like i said something about how lucky i felt to have kind of happened into this tribe that I found where it's like, you know, when the,

those people in San Francisco, those comics that, that I met and got to be friends with that all ended, we all just moved on mass to LA together. And it was just such an amazing group of talented people who are geniuses and so fun and like telling stories where we're like i had a recovered memory on stage where i was like brian remember when oj ran and we were in golden apple comics and like it was just like a whole thing like that where it was really really fun that's such a nice thing to like you know you're going through this and you're or like

you've been in comedy this long and you're keeping you're doing it you're doing it but then to like stop and take take stock of it yeah it's such a cool thing and i really i like that you guys did that i did too and it takes stock in this kind of like i don't it was almost like a high school it had a high school feeling in in me like meaning and the like part of you're part of this big force and you're part of it yeah you belong in it and and i think like when you're in that you of course don't appreciate it because you're young and an asshole right drunk all the time and kind of on pills but um yeah when you later on when you get older you know just just know that like when you have your like posse of friends

it doesn't last because everyone gets married or you know maybe moves away or whatever quits comedy for whatever reason yeah exactly it's just kind of people move away from each other and in ways that you kind of don't expect and then so i think there there was a nice kind of like yeah uh reunion feel to it that i really liked so awesome yeah it's those good feelings. Yay. And I, because I really always, I hate doing standup comedy so much and I very often cancel my sets because I'm like, there's no point. And I knew I couldn't do it because I wouldn't do that to Brian. So then when I was actually doing, I was like, Oh, I do like it. That's right. I do like

comedy. Yeah. You got to pick the ones that mean something to you, I guess. Yeah. And just like acknowledge when I'm busy. Right. And tie tie. Tired and busy. I get so tight. So tired. Um, well,

should I see if anyone is going to talk? Elvis isn't. Mimi. Well, thanks for listening, everybody. Thank you guys for listening. Uh,

yeah. Yeah. Go onto the website. If you want to get those pre-sale tickets for the upcoming tour, Australia heads up Australia, get ready. Get in there. Australia.

Be our friend. Yeah. And that's it. Stay sexy. Don't get murdered. Bye. Bye. Mimi.

Want a cookie? No. Mimi. Not this week. Bye. Mimi, want a cookie? No. Mimi. Not this week. Mimi's like leaning away from the microphone.