Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Dirty Cult Killer - The Pazuzu Algarad Story

Episode Date: December 13, 2025

Pazuzu Algarad, born John Lawson, was a deeply disturbed man in Clemmons, North Carolina who reinvented himself as a self-styled demon and gathered vulnerable people into a chaotic, drug-soaked, filthy house where violence and decay festered unchecked. In 2009, he murdered Joshua Wetzler, leaving the body in his basement for weeks before burying it in a shallow grave in the backyard, and later that same year his girlfriend Amber Burch killed Tommy Welch, whose body was buried beside the first.

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And so one day in 2007, he decides that he is done taking his medication for his mental illness. He's just going to stop cold turkey. And because he has a bad habit of drinking a ton of alcohol and doing meth all the time, this makes his mental health issues a hundred times worse. And from here, Pizzuzu's life just kind of keeps spiraling downward. Like he's partying all the time, he's drinking alcohol and doing drugs. Sometimes he'll do really hard drugs like smack. Not only that, but he also stops practicing good hygiene.

Like, according to his friends, he showers maybe once a year. He brushes his teeth maybe once a year. Because he has this weird idea that cleaning himself will wash away his natural immunities or something like that. Now, despite being around 29, 30 years old, Pizzuzu still lives at his mom's house with her. And he absolutely trashes his mom's house. Like he's got friends over all day and they like party all the time every day. Like there are no rules.

And either he or the people hanging out will throw trash everywhere. They'll just like smash shit that's lying around. They'll straight up pee on the carpet. Sometimes they'll just straight up poop on the carpet. So this place is a total dump and it smells terrible because there's poop on the carpet. Nobody cleans up anything. Really, these people are disgusting. And Pizzuzuzu's mom doesn't seem to care.

She just like lets them do it. it. And on top of all that, they have a bunch of pets who live there too. And these pets all pee and shit on the floor. And this goes on for a few years. These stank-ass hippies who hang out in Bizzuzu's poop house, they just sit around all day and do hard drugs. And over time, they kind of become like loyal followers of his. And they accept him as this sort of dark spiritual leader, like a guy they look up to. It's a bit cult-like. But But then, around 2009, this guy shows up. His name's Josh.

And Josh, he starts partying in this house with the others. And Josh, he's a nice enough guy. But to the others, he's an outsider. And he doesn't exactly look up to Pizzou like the other guys do. And Pizzou, he doesn't like this at all. Like, he doesn't like that this Josh guy is someone that he can't control. So he decides that he's going to make Josh miserable. And one day, when Josh is at the house party,

with the others, allegedly Pizzou forces him down into the basement, and there he ties him up. Apparently he had heard that Josh is some kind of snitch or something like that, and so Pizzou just leaves him there, and he basically starves him for days, allegedly. This is what a witness claimed. But a few days later, Pizzou brings Josh back upstairs, and instead of letting him go, he gets a rifle, and he points it at him, and Blam, blam! He shoots Josh like 10 times, and he unalives him. And what's crazy is Pizzou doesn't do this when, like, no one is home. There are actually people around witnessing this.

Like his whole party crew is all there, and they're probably high out of their minds, and Pizzu's mom is there, too. I mean, she allegedly comes out of her room, and she sees Pizzou holding the rifle, but she, like, does nothing. And so anyway, then, later, Pizzuzuzu and his friends, they move the body back down to the basement. And once it's in the basement, they just let it rot down there. And Pizzuzu uses cat litter and chlorine to hide the smell.

I'm telling you, these are some weird-ass people. Anyway, now, at some point, I guess the dead body smell gets to be too much or something, I'm not sure. But eventually, Pizzou moves the body, and he buries it in the backyard, in a shallow grave. Now, like I said, this crime had a bunch of witnesses. Like people saw Pizzuzu murder Josh in the house, and some of them even helped him move the body. So pretty quickly, word gets out that this all happened. And one woman calls the police, and she tells them that she knows of a dead body in the basement of Pizzu's mom's house.

So one day, the police show up to the stank-ass hippie poop house, and they question Pizzou, and of course, he denies murdering anyone. But he lets the police walk around and check the place out. And they go into the basement and they look, but by this point the body had been moved and buried in the backyard. So these cops don't see any evidence of any wrongdoing, just a guy with a filthy house, which, you know, having a filthy house isn't against the law. So the police leave and nothing comes of it. About two months later, this guy shows up to the house, Tommy. And Tommy is there to either just hang out in the filth or do some drugs with the others, I'm not sure.

Now, believe it or not, Pizzou's stank ass actually has a girlfriend. He apparently has multiple girlfriends, because I guess these women have no standards. But the woman I'm referring to is this woman, Amber. And so one night, Tommy is at the house sitting on the couch, and for some reason, Amber's crazy ass gets the rifle, and suddenly, blam, she shoots Tommy, and she freaking unalives him. And Pizzuzuzu's mom hears the gunshot, and she comes out of her room to see, see what happened, and she sees Amber holding the rifle, and she sees Tommy dead. But again,

she doesn't do anything about it. She just goes on with her life. Like, what the fuck, lady? So, since Amber is the one who actually killed this guy, I guess she is now in charge of getting rid of the body. So she texts one of her friends to come over and help bury Tommy. And her friend comes over, and they go into the backyard, and they start digging a grave, and they bury him. while Pizzuzu is there as well, and he's just like, I guess, watching and directing the whole thing. And so they get away with it. Like, years go by, and it's now 2014, and Pizzuzu is 35 years old at this point. And police still haven't caught on to them.

So no one outside Pizzuzzi's inner circle suspects that there are bodies buried in the backyard. So it seems like he and Amber are going to get away with these murders and just keep on living this stank-ass party. lifestyle. Until. Until one day something unexpected happens. Police just happened to show up at one of Pizzuzuzu's friends houses, and they're there looking into a completely different crime, something unrelated to Pizzou. But they question one of Pizzou's friends, and immediately the friend is like, is this about Pizzou? And then he proceeds to tell the police all about the two bodies buried in Pizzuzu's backyard.

So this, of course, gets police's attention. I mean, this is not the first time they've been told Pizzuzzi killed someone. So they're really hoping this can now lead to something. Now, I don't know if it's coincidence, but around this time, another friend comes forward telling police a similar story about how he had heard that there are bodies buried in Pizzuzu's backyard. And so this kicks off a big investigation, and police come to Pizzuzzi's poop house and they search the place

And the place is so filthy and toxic that they literally have to wear full hazmat suits before they go in. That is disgusting. But eventually, they excavate the backyard, and there they find the bodies of both Josh and Tommy. And so, bam, they arrest Pizzuzu. Here's his mugshot. Also, bam, they arrest Amber. Here's her mugshot. And bam, they arrest Amber's friend who helped bury Tommy's body.

Here's her mugshot. And I couldn't find any information about Pizzou's mom, but I hope they arrested her too. But anyway, Amber, she ends up taking a plea deal and she gets sentenced to 30 to 40 years in prison, while her friend who helped bury the body, she gets sentenced to three to five years in prison. While Pizzuzu, he doesn't get sentenced at all because while he was waiting for his trial, he actually unalived himself in jail.