Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Rick And Morty Killer - The Denver Allen story

Episode Date: February 3, 2025

This the story of Denver Allen and how he committed murder and was then immortalized on Rick and Morty.

An all-new season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus. Mom Talk has just been blowing up. Whitney and Jen are on dancing with the stars. Taylor is a bachelorette. Saying that out loud is crazy. That is huge. But all the cool opportunities could close apart. It's causing issues in everyone's marriage.

My whole world is falling apart right now. It's chaos. Watch the Hulu original series. The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for Bumno subscribers. Terms apply. So this guy, he's a little crazy. In fact, he's so crazy that he unalives someone, and then he ends up on Rick and Morty?

All right, let me explain. So the guy's name is Denver. And one day, Denver decides to rob a bunch of houses in the same neighborhood, and he gets caught, and they throw him in jail. And unfortunately, being in jail really isn't good for his already failing mental health. And he starts having delusions and threatening deputies and things aren't going well for him. But then he gets transferred to the county jail. And five days after moving to that jail, he decides to attack his cellmate for some reason. And he waits for him to fall asleep and then he sneaks over to his bed and bam,

he smashes his cellmates head in and he unalives him. And apparently afterwards, he's like bragging to the other inmates about what he did. He's like, that's right. I crushed that bastard. And the other inmates are just like, okay, yikes. So Denver is charged with murder and they assign him a public defender. This guy, who will just call Saul. And Saul tries to work with him a bit and pretty quickly he's like,

this guy is not mentally fit to stand trial. So the state sends Denver to a psychiatric facility for a psych evaluation to make sure he fully understands what's happening to him while he's on trial. But sending him to this psych facility really pisses Denver off. Mostly he's mad at Saul for recommending he be sent there. Regardless, Denver spends a bit of time in this hospital, and there they diagnose him with schizophrenia. But they also feel that he is mentally fit to stand trial.

So months later, Denver shows up to his hearing, and he stands in front of the judge. This guy, Judge Durham. Now, at this point, Denver is still pissed off at Saul, for recommending he gets sent to that psych facility. And he just doesn't trust him. So there, in court, he tells Judge Durham that he wants to ditch Saul and represent himself. And Judge Durham's like, uh, you probably don't want to do that.

But Denver insists. He's like, no, I want to. And he tells the judge he can't work with Saul anymore because he says, Saul tried to proposition him for oral sex. Now, Judge Durham knows that Denver is foolish. shit and that he's got mental stuff going on. So again, he tries to convince him that representing himself would be a bad idea. And they start to argue and go back and forth a little bit. And this really starts to piss Denver off. And he gets all worked up. And pretty quickly, he's yelling at the judge,

saying really obscene things to him. And eventually, he just starts threatening to unalive the judge and his family. Now, during all this, Judge Durham is supposed to stay professional. But that's not what he does. Because Denver is just like the rudest person he's ever met and judge just can't take it anymore and he starts yelling back and like calling Denver stupid. And then Denver starts proclaiming that the judge wants to perform oral text on him as well and like the judge gets all mad and he calls him a queer which is extremely unprofessional and homophobic but both the judge and Denver are just angry and they're arguing

and neither of them will back down. Now, eventually, this hilarious argument ends, and Denver leaves the courtroom, and everyone there is just like, what the fuck did that crazy exchange really just happen? But then, at some point, the full transcript from this hearing is released to the public.

And people read it, and they find this argument between Denver and the judge so damn hilarious and ridiculous that people start doing their own reenactments of it online. And that is when these two guys hear about it. This guy, Justin, and this other guy, Dan. And Justin and Dan are the co-creators of a little show you might have heard of called Rick and Morty. So they read the transcript of this court exchange and they're like, this is insane. This needs to be a Rick and Morty episode because it feels like it already is. So they go and they create an 11-minute

animatic short with Morty playing the judge and Rick playing Denver. And they're using, the dialogue from Denver's transcript word for word. And they end up premiering this short at Comic-Con. I'm finding you in contempt of court. I don't care. I know you don't. And I sentence you to 20 days for that. And if you say anything else, I'm going to add 20 days for everything you say.

F-you. 40 days. Fuck you again. 60. Don't fuck yourself. You're here. Your mama. Ten years.

Suck my... Now you're calling me stupid. Listen, yes I am. This is kangaroo court. You have a constitutional right to be a dumb ass. So this short debuts at Comic-Con and, Rick and Morty fans absolutely love it. And so Adult Swim, they release it on their YouTube channel,

and it blows up getting 12 million views. Now, this video doesn't exactly make Judge Durham look all that great. I mean, people know Denver's crazy, but the judge is supposed to be a bit more professional in these situations and not argue with the defendant, and especially not calling him stupid or calling him homophobic slurs. And normally he would get in trouble, but before the state commission can start

an investigation into him, the judge already knows he's screwed up and he himself reports what he did to the commission and he recuses himself from Denver's case. And the state commission doesn't end up punishing him all that hard. They make him attend like sensitivity training and some counseling. And by the way, here's what he looks like in real life. Anyway, about a year later, Denver goes back to court and he's got a new judge for his case and he pleads guilty to unaliving his cellmate and he gets sentence to life in prison. Here's his mug shop. Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile, the message for everyone paying big wireless way too much.

Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop. With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments, but that's weird. Okay, one judgment. Anyway, give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of $45 for three-month plan, equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra.

See full terms at mintmobile.com. By the way.