Prime Crime: Solved Murders - The Marlborough Mystery Pt. 1

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

It was New Year's Eve 1997 in the Marlborough Sounds of New Zealand when 17-year-old Olivia Hope and 21-year-old Ben Smart enjoyed a long night of partying. When friends couldn't locate the pair the following day, they assumed the two may have gone off on their own. But after days without contact, it became evident that something was very wrong. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Due to the graphic nature of this murder case, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of implied murder and sexual harassment. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. Across the globe, New Year's Eve is a time to party. The celebrations take many forms, but they typically have a few things in common. Music, drinking, and a whole lot of people. To most, it's a beautiful tradition, a way to celebrate the past year, and set the tone for a new one.

But it can all be fun in games. Even during a party, somebody has to take responsibility. That's why we have designated drivers, bouncers, and chaperones. When inhibitions are low, danger is high. Back in 1998, the people of New Zealand got a painful reminder of this. That New Year's, the disappearances of two young revelers, Olivia Hope and Ben Smart captured the nation's attention

and had thousands demanding justice. Eventually, the case was closed, but whether or not justice ever came remains a mystery. Hello, listeners, it's Carter. Wendy and I love to bring you stories about the many ways murder investigations can go horribly wrong or wonderfully right

on our show's unsolved murders and solved murders. But every once in a while, we come across stories that don't fit neatly into either category. Sometimes a closed case gets blown wide open. Questions we thought had been answered get thrust back into the public eye. The ensuing controversy transforms what we thought was a simple murder story into something else entirely. For the next two weeks, we want you to join us in asking one very important question. Is this case solved or unsolved? You can find episodes of solved murders, unsolved murders,

and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free, exclusively on Spotify. This is our first episode on the mysterious disappearances of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope. This week, we'll cover an ill-fated yacht trip, a raucous New Year's bash, and the beginning of a fraught police investigation. Next time, we'll hear as detectives hone in on a suspect, but don't find all the evidence they expect. We have all that and more coming up. Stay with us. New Year's Eve in the Marlboro Sounds was destined to be legendary. It was the middle of summer for young New Zealanders, and in 1997, this beachy area was the place to be.

Anyone and everyone was welcome. The lucky few who are, owned boats could dock wherever there was space. If they had a skiff, they could go freely between their boat and the shore, where live music, a bar, and a dance floor awaited them. Otherwise, they could use rented water taxis to get around. But most people planned on staying on dry land. That was where the real party was. A New Year's bash for the books.

The chance for friends, both old and new, to make connections. And no one was more excited than 17-year-old Olivia Hope. On December 30th, she set out for the sounds, ready to celebrate a new chapter in her life. Though she was still a teen, Olivia was already an accomplished musician. After years of hard work and diligent practice, she'd officially been certified as a performer. She was heading to college the next year to refine her skills. It was the next step forward in her career. and she couldn't have been more excited.

That's why she and her sister, 19-year-old Amelia Hope, booked a spot on a chartered yacht named Tamarack. It was essentially a small cruise ship and was set to tour around the sounds for a couple of days. As the craft drifted through the crisp New Zealand waters, the two sisters partied the day away. Most of the other people on the boat were Amelia's friends from university, which made Olivia the youngest of the bunch.

But even as the little sister, she fit in pretty well, she was confident and outgoing. After just one night out on the sounds, the group had fully accepted her. It seemed like the holiday would be one to remember. Olivia was so excited that she woke up early on December 31st. Around 7.30 a.m., she gave her parents a call to update them before the real party began.

She did her best to reassure her mom and dad that she wasn't going to go too crazy that night. As author John Golter writes in his book, Silent Evidence, the rest of Olivia's day was pretty similar to the previous one, just a big party. The yacht picked up a couple more passengers and headed towards its destination for the night, the Endeavor Inlet. Olivia, Amelia, and their friends marveled at the beautiful green-blue water and the lush hills surrounding them. As the hours passed, they chatted, laughed, and, of course, drank.

It was New Year's Eve, after all. Olivia seemed to be in good spirits for the most part, but her friend Anna Cunliff had some reservations about the night ahead. She reminded Olivia that a few months earlier, the two of them had gone out to party together in Christchurch. Olivia ended up going off with a guy that night, leaving Anna stuck with a group of people she didn't know too well. She probably didn't want Olivia to repeat the pattern

and preferred that she stayed with the group. The 17-year-old was surprised and hurt that her friend would even bring the incident up. She may have felt that Anna was lashing out. Either way, the two argued for a bit, but quickly got over the spat. They weren't in the sounds to fight. They were there to have fun.

The Tamarack made it to the inlet, in the early evening. The young men and women went ashore to the head of the inlet in the Cook Strait. Right by the beach was For No Lodge, a large hotel, restaurant, and bar owned by a local tour company. Olivia got ready for the night, grabbing a blacktop in jeans. As afternoon turned to early evening, the party really got started. The lodge expected over a thousand people to join their New Year celebration that year.

It was going to be pandemonium, but there was a lot of the party really was. were some rules in place. For example, glass and outside drinks were strictly prohibited. Olivia found that out the hard way. She tried to sneak a flask of bourbon in, but it was confiscated. Still, there was plenty of alcohol to go around. More importantly, now that Olivia was off the yacht, she could join friends closer to her own age. A group of her classmates from Marlborough Girls College were also at the lodge, and she spotted them immediately. Olivia waved goodbye to her sister and split off from the Tamarack group. She and her friends made a bee line for the dance floor, down by the water.

Olivia only came back to the lodge every once in a while to top off her drink. Her older sister, Amelia, stayed up by the bar and only caught a few glimpses of the 17-year-old as the night wore on. She probably was happy to see Olivia hanging out with a familiar face. 21-year-old Hamish Rose. He was an old family friend, and Olivia had recently done some part-time work at a vineyard, Hamish's father owned. But Olivia seemed interested in more than a simple, friendly check-in.

She stuck by Hamish's side for several hours, and even he seemed a little surprised by the attention. He wasn't complaining, though. At some point, the two hiked over to Hamish's campsite, which was near the lodge. Olivia grabbed a drink and chatted excitedly. The two wild away the next few hours, watching the sun sink behind the hills.

They talked, exchanged some drunken jokes, and took a walk on the beach. Olivia's eyes sparkled as she gazed out at the sea. Then she turned to look at Hamish. They inched closer, and then they kissed. the first fireworks of the night. After that bombshell, surprisingly, the two went there separate ways.

It was sometime around 11 p.m., and Hamish had stayed away from his friends for too long. He wanted to see them before the night was over. For whatever reason, Olivia didn't want to hang around Hamish's pals. His choice to ditch her might have felt like a rejection. Or maybe it was just that kind of party, and she was happy to meet up. with her own friends. Regardless, she said her goodbyes and went back to her own group. Before she left, Hamish told Olivia that he'd recognized someone else hanging around the lodge.

A guy she'd had a history with, Ben's smart. Olivia and Ben were good friends, and occasionally something more. A person who knew Olivia well claimed that she and Ben had gotten together a few times for one-night stands, but it seems like there was no strings attached. So they weren't exactly an item, but they clearly got along. After Hamish mentioned Ben, Olivia might have sought him out, or maybe he found her on the crowded dance floor. Either way, from then on, their fates were intertwined.

Coming up, Ben and Olivia disappear. They're responsible for some of the most horrifying acts of violence ever known, men and women who went to lethal extremes. But why? Every Monday and Thursday on serial killers follow the life in crimes of an actual murderer, exploring the reasons why they lived to kill. Using extensive research and details you won't hear anywhere else, serial killers examines the psyche of a killer,

their motives and targets, and law enforcement's pursuit to stop their spree. Listen now and catch our special series on Manhunts, where we follow the process as police use as they hunt for murderers in treacherous terrains and unusual locations. Follow the Spotify original from Parcast, serial killers. Listen free only on Spotify. Now back to the story. Sometime around midnight on New Year's Eve, 1997, Olivia Hope met up with Ben Smart.

Ben had been in the area just a day longer than Olivia, arriving in the sounds on Desmond. December 29th, 1997. The 21-year-old was staying at a nearby lakehouse with a big group of friends. He spent the last two days floating across the sounds, drinking, and playing his guitar. Like Olivia, Ben planned to go all out on New Year's Eve. But while she was celebrating a new chapter in her life, he was looking to blow off some steam. He only had a few days to relax and have fun with his pals. He had to be back home by January 5th so he could return to work at his father's engineering company.

These days at the lakehouse felt like an alternate reality, one where adulthood hadn't started yet and anything was possible. When Ben saw Olivia, he must have been thrilled. It was pretty late, but clearly the party wasn't over yet. Forno was still absolutely packed. Before he met up with Olivia, Ben had moved between various friend groups freely, spending some time with his buddies and an ex-girlfriend named Sally Ingram. Sally later said that she saw him around 1145 p.m., and he seemed pretty drunk. It was only natural. He'd been drinking for more than 12 hours by that point. He was definitely in good company. By midnight, there were over 1,600 partiers at Fernot.

It seemed like practically everyone ran into somebody else they knew there. For Ben, it was his older sister who'd come to the sounds with her own group of friends. Rebecca Smart was 23, just a couple of years older than him. She warned her brother to slow down on the drinking, but wasn't overly concerned. Half an hour after midnight, she found him hanging out with a young blonde woman. She thought it was Olivia Hope, but she couldn't be sure. The three had a brief exchange and then Rebecca packed it in. Around 1 a.m., she caught a water taxi back to where she was staying.

But for Van and Olivia, the night was still young. They kept dancing and drinking, even after the band and DJ finished their sets around 130. It seemed like only the serious drinkers were still hanging around by 2 a.m. A friend of Olivia's who also came on the Tamarack, Kirsty Sutherland, cornered the couple. She told them she was heading back to Ben's lakehouse with some of his friends and invited them along. Ben was tired and Olivia was running out of stamina. After some back and forth, they agreed to go to the lakehouse.

Based on their history of one-night stands, they might have been planning to hook up, but they also could have been looking for a convenient place to crash. Either way, Olivia had to stop by the Tamarack to grab a change of clothes. A man named Marco taxied the group to the yacht, which was moored not too far from the shore. He promised to come right back and give them a ride to the lakehouse. Ten minutes went by, then 20, no sign of Marco. After half an hour, Ben and Olivia might have started to worry that he'd forgotten about them. Marco was probably just as intoxicated and tired as everyone else and went to sleep.

They waited on the yacht for more than an hour. Olivia paced across the deck trying to find an open bed, but they'd all been taken by random partiers. She just wanted to sleep, and it seemed like the tamarack wasn't an option. This wasn't too much of a problem for Ben, who was drunk enough to pass out anywhere. He fell asleep right there on the boat. But Olivia couldn't follow suit.

She was still hoping Marco would come back or that they'd find enough way to get to Ben's lakehouse. It wasn't like they could maneuver the tamarack there themselves. The water was too shallow and the big yacht was hard to steer. Their only choice was to wait, either for another water taxi or all the way until morning. Olivia and Kirsty talked for a while, trying to figure out what they were going to do. It was almost 4 a.m. And they must have been getting more frustrated by the minute.

Meanwhile, Olivia's older sister, Amelia Hope, was in a similar situation at the Forno Lodge. The party had finally wound down, and she was one of the last stragglers trying to get a ride out of there. The regular water taxi drivers had all finished their shifts, so she needed to get creative. Luckily, she found a bartender named Guy Wallace, who'd just gotten off work. He had a water taxi of his own, and reluctantly agreed to take. Amelia and a few others away from the lodge. Water taxis can't go very far, so the lakehouse was out of the question, and Amelia didn't know just how crowded the Tamarack was until she finally got there and saw her little sister on the deck.

Olivia introduced herself to Guy Wallace and said she'd pay him for a ride back to Furneau. She'd given up on the idea of finding a warm bed. Being back on dry land would be good enough. Luckily, Guy was more than willing. He refused the money and helped both her and Ben onto the water taxi. Olivia may have asked her sister and friends if they wanted to come with, but they'd just come from for no. So in the end, Olivia and Ben were the only ones from the yacht who climbed back into the water taxi.

But that didn't mean that they were the only passengers. Guy still had a few other people from the lodge. a couple who were bound for a nearby jetty and a man who needed to get back to his own boat. Olivia was still pretty wound up, concerned about where she and Ben were going to stay for the night. She hardly glanced up as Amelia waved goodbye. The older sister knew she didn't have a solid plan,

but she figured it would be fine as long as Olivia stayed with Ben. Amelia watched as the water taxi drifted away. She likely glimpsed Olivia. greeting the other passengers and asking for a place to stay. The couple in the taxi didn't talk much, but the other guy, the scruffy one, suddenly came to life when Olivia turned to him. Olivia asked if there was anywhere she and Ben could go for the night.

The mystery man piped up, saying that Olivia could sleep on his boat, but he said Ben wouldn't be allowed. It seemed like a drunken joke and the bad one. at that. The mystery man was scruffy with shoulder-length hair. Guy Wallace would later recall that he was about five foot eight inches and in his early 30s. It was hard to tell in the dark, but it looked like he had a bit of a beard and was wearing either a khaki or a light green shirt. According to Amelia Hope, he had a widow's peak too. And like nearly everyone else, he seemed wasted, but he gave Guy

Wallace clear enough directions. Soon they caught sight of his boat. It was nice enough. Ben wasn't too picky by that point, and Olivia was more than happy to have a bed. Guy Wallace had some reservations, since he knew the mystery man was a stranger to the teens, but Olivia and Ben insisted they were all right. So Guy let the couple off along with the mystery man. They wished each other well, and Guy floated off into the night.

with his two final passengers. It was the last time anyone saw Ben Smart or Olivia Hope. The next morning started remarkably early, considering how late the New Year's crowd had stayed up. Olivia's friends on the Tamarack awoke to a mess. Empty cups and discarded life jackets were scattered across the deck. They cleaned up as best they could and took stock of the situation. Their yacht was rented,

and they needed to head back in the next few hours to drop it off as planned. After chatting about the previous night, it seemed like Olivia was the only one unaccounted for. Amelia knew she was with Ben, but she had no idea where the couple had ended up since the water taxi ride. She and her friends made it to shore around 9 a.m. and started to look for them. The group asked around, but couldn't find anyone who knew where she was. At that point, her friends were frustrated by the delay.

It was exactly what Olivia's friend Anna had warned her about before the Big Bash. Olivia had a history of going off on her own, so they figured she was somewhere nearby, probably still with Ben. As far as her sister Amelia knew, Olivia was planning on taking the water taxi back to the lodge. She figured Olivia and Ben might have made their way from there to a nearby campsite. That was where she'd spent time with Hamish the previous night and where some of her other friends were staying. If she wasn't there, maybe she'd made it back to the lakehouse somehow.

As it turned out, they were wrong on both counts. Hamish hadn't seen Olivia since just before midnight, the night before. Like everyone else, he figured she and Ben had found a secluded place to sleep. Around 10.30, the Tamarack crew headed back to the boat. The yacht had a schedule to keep, but they stopped at Ben's Lakehouse on the way to their next destination. He and Olivia were nowhere to be found. Perhaps in the back of their minds, some of Olivia's friends started to get nervous, but no one suspected any foul play yet.

Ben had a larger-than-life personality, and he liked to party. Most people figured the two of them had gone on a spontaneous adventure and would turn up soon. So, confident that Olivia and Ben could get home on their own, the Tamarack headed back the way it came. Its next stop was Whatamongo Bay, where some of the people on board planned to disembark and end their New Year's holiday. By coincidence, Olivia and Amelia's parents, Gerald and Janhope, were on their own little vacation in the bay. They ran into Amelia when the Tamarack stopped there to let some people off. When their parents asked where Olivia was, was Amelia told them she'd gone off with Ben Smart.

For the adults, this immediately raised alarm bells. By that point, it had been around 12 hours since Olivia and Ben were last seen. Gerald and Jan talked amongst themselves and decided to end their holiday early. Around 6 p.m. on January 1, 1998, they returned home. They hoped Olivia would be there by the time they got in, but she wasn't. They stayed up late, praying for a phone call that never came. The next morning was a flurry of action, panicked whispers and false leads. Gerald and Jan called everyone they could think of to check on Olivia.

They contacted the Furno Lodge and Ben's Lakehouse several times for updates. They promised to compensate anyone who was willing to go check out the surrounding campgrounds to find their daughter. They also got in contact with Ben Smart's family. His mother, Mary, wasn't too worried at first. Ben wasn't scheduled to be back for a couple of days, so she figured he had gone back to the lakehouse and the Tamarack crew had just missed him. Her confidence and trust made her the perfect foil to Jan Hope.

Frustrated, Jan told Mary she was planning to call the police and hung up. Around 3.30 p.m., the Hopes went down to the local station to file a report. According to Gerald, the authorities didn't seem overly concerned. It wasn't uncommon for kids to take a while to respond after a big party. They advised the hopes to stay calm and keep making calls. They were sure Ben and Olivia would show up soon, so the hopes went home, but they didn't feel any better. The police may have given an understandable response, but it didn't sit right with the hopes. They didn't care whether it was common or not for teenagers to suddenly go dark for a couple of days and forget to call home.

It wasn't common for Olivia. They knew their daughter and she wasn't the kind of person who would just disappear. Clearly, something had gone wrong. She was supposed to resume a part-time job on January 3rd. Gerald knew she wouldn't miss her first day of work without, at the very least, calling ahead. The timing just didn't make any sense. Olivia had a bright future ahead, and as far as anyone could tell,

no hidden skeletons in her closet. So around 5 p.m., just 90 minutes after the authorities waved him off, Gerald contacted the police again. Investigators needed to understand the situation. They couldn't treat Olivia like a runaway. He had called everyone he could think of, and no one knew anything about his daughter. He begged the police to launch a full-scale investigation.

Normally, the cops would have waited a little longer to escalate the case. They didn't have any testimony that led them to suspect foul play. And since Olivia and Ben were so young, it made more sense to imagine that they just made some rash decisions. But Gerald Hope's attitude convinced them otherwise. Olivia's disappearance was too out of character. for her. There weren't any warning signs or reasons to believe she was running away. So, officers leapt into action. Coming up, the authorities try to piece together a collage of hazy, drunken memories. Now back to the story. On January 2nd, 1998, police started investigating the

disappearance of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope in earnest. They forwarded photos of the young couple to the Furno Lodge. The restaurant at bar where they'd celebrated New Year's Eve. A detective went down there himself to talk to the water taxi drivers and see what they knew. Unfortunately, it wasn't much. There were over a thousand people at the sounds on New Year's Eve, and Ben and Olivia didn't exactly stand out from the crowd. Ben was a young guy with brown hair and a backwards baseball cap. Olivia was a 17-year-old blonde. All of the drivers had probably taxied multiple couples that matched this description on New Year's Eve, but in the low light, it was impossible to tell.

The authorities contacted Ben and Olivia's banks, asking them to check the transaction records. Maybe there would be some clues about where the couple went. In the meantime, Ben's parents started to get as worried as the hopes. By January 3rd, they'd had enough. Ben's father and uncle drove down to the sounds to take a look for themselves. They followed in the footsteps of the local police, reaching out to the official water taxi drivers first. Nothing.

From there, they went down to the lakehouse and found a few of Ben's friends still staying there. No one had any leads, but the boys did have a boat. So Ben's father asked them to use it to search the shoreline. Nothing again. After what was no doubt. one of the longest days of his life, Ben's dad had little to show for it. He left a sign on the lakehouse door in case Ben happened to come by, collected his son's guitar, and drove back home. Things didn't look good. It still only had been a couple of days, and Ben's parents hadn't

even expected him back home by that point, but they also hadn't expected him to leave the lakehouse without warning. Olivia's involvement was what really worried the smart. Ben was responsible. He might have gone off on his own for a while, but he never would have dragged Olivia along with him without allowing her to check in. As anxious as Ben's parents were, Gerald Hope seemed to be several leagues beyond them. He contacted the authorities as often as possible, as in every 20 minutes. He constantly seemed to think of new theories or potential leads, but none of them seemed to go anywhere. When he wasn't talking to the authorities, he spent every free moment on the phone with Olivia's friends and relatives trying to track down a clue.

His urgency was totally understandable, but it put him slightly at odds with the police. Gerald had gathered up some friends and wanted to conduct searches of his own in the sounds. The authorities encouraged him to stay out of their way and expressed some worries that Gerald was being led astray by rumors rather than fact. In between their frequent consultations with Gerald, the police led searches of their own in the sounds. They paid particular attention to the beaches in the area. And eventually they scored their first real lead. Employees at Ferno Lodge remembered that the bartender, Guy Wallace, had helped bring some revelers home after the New Year's party. He wasn't an official water taxi driver, so he wasn't on the police's initial list of contacts.

But, luckily, he seemed to remember Ben and Olivia fairly well. He described them as drunk, but not overly intoxicated. They didn't seem to be totally out of control, and were at least lucid enough to have a conversation. He also told the police all about the mysterious man on his water taxi. He recounted how the stranger had made an inappropriate joke about Olivia, but it didn't strike guy as malicious. That being said, he definitely seemed like a worthy suspect. He was drunk, scruffy, and in hindsight, a little too eager to help the young couple out.

Finally, some real clues. Unfortunately, they didn't bode well. One of the officers on the case, Detective Caldwell, started to suspect something had gone very wrong. Clearly, the authorities had to track down this mystery man. as far as they knew, he was the last person to see Olivia and Ben. But police knew that even if they found him, he might not have the answers they were searching for. Any number of things could have happened after Olivia and Ben boarded the man's boat.

They could have fallen overboard and drowned, or been separated from each other. There were abandoned mine shafts, and who knew what else in the woods around the sounds? They could be seriously interested. injured or lost. Then there were more sinister possibilities. They might have been abducted or killed. Though it had only been a couple of days, it was possible they were already hundreds of miles away from New Zealand. There was more. Guy also remembered what the man's boat looked like and did his

best to draw it. It was a sailboat with two masts, also called a catch. It looked roomy, at least enough to hold a few people comfortably, and it was bright white, with a colored stripe all the way around. Guy recalled it as navy blue, but he couldn't be sure. It was pretty dark when he pulled up beside it. This description was fairly vague, but it was something. With a drawing in hand, local police didn't want to take any chances, and now that they suspected foul play, and they decided to bring in the big guns. Detective Caldwell reached out to the... the Christ Church Criminal Investigation Branch, or CIB. The CIB was established to investigate

serious offenses, including organized crime, and Caldwell was pretty sure he'd need their help. The officer he spoke to was Rob Pope, and Pope agreed to bring the case to his branch first thing Monday morning. With that iron in the fire, police focused on making a preliminary suspect list. It was pretty broad at first, they were likely looking for a white male with access to a boat, not exactly a rarity at Ferneau on New Year's Eve. The list eventually grew to include 130 names, but one especially stood out. Ben's friend Ed Sunstrom and his girlfriend, Amanda Eggden, had a creepy encounter with a drunk at the Ferneau Lodge on New Year's Eve. Some guy named Scott cornered them around 3 a.m., about an hour before Olivia and Ben met the mystery man.

He was sloshed, and he seemed to hit on every woman that crossed his path. He was overheard inviting several to come on board his yacht and talked loudly about having sex. He also seemed to have a bizarre attachment to the drug Prozac and kept offering the ladies some free Prozac branded T-shirts, just as long as they boarded his yacht, which he said. said was the only double-masted catch there. That description immediately raised alarm bells with investigators since Guy Wallace had said that their prime suspect boarded a catch.

Amanda also said that the man at the party was scruffy, around 5-8 and tattooed. On the surface, the description started to line up with Guy Wallace's mystery man. Detectives were intrigued. After some further questions, some of them recognized the guy based on his description. The local cops had dealt with this Scott before. He already had a police record, though he mostly kept his nose clean for the last few years. From then on, Scott Watson became suspect number one in the disappearance of Olivia Hope and Ben Smart.

And once the cops thought they had a solid lead, they didn't want to risk. letting it go. Thanks again for tuning into our solved or unsolved crossover special. Next time we'll follow New Zealand police as they scour the sounds for evidence and hone in on a suspect in Ben and Olivia's disappearance. For more information on the Marlborough mystery, amongst the many sources we used, we found silent evidence inside the police search for Ben and Olivia by John Goulter, extremely helpful to our research.

You can find all episodes of solved murders, unsolved murders, and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. We'll see you next time. Unsolved murders, true crime stories, and solve murders. True crime mysteries are Spotify originals from Parcast, executive produced by Max Cutler. Our head of programming is Julian Bauerow. Our supervising sound designer is Russell Nash,

with Nick Johnson as our head of, of production and quality control by Lisa Marie Gallegos. Stacey Nemek is our supervising editor, and Derek Jennings is our writing lead. This episode of Unsolved Murders was written by Terrell Wells, edited by Kylie Harrington and Maggie and Meyer, fact-checked by Kevin Johnson, researched by Mickey Taylor, produced by Joshua Kern, and sound design by Brian Gallup. Our hosts are Wendy McKenzie and me, Carter Roy. Dahmer, Bundy, Gacy, Ramirez. You know the names, but do you know the whole terrifying story?

Every Monday and Thursday on serial killers take a horrific journey through the origin, evolution, and madness of a real-life murderer, exploring the reasons why they lived to kill. Some were charismatic, others were calculated, but all of them were disturbingly deadly. Follow the Spotify original from Parcast, Serial Killers. Listen free only on Spotify.