RedHanded - Episode 13 - Serial Killer Survivor to YouTube Star

Episode Date: September 24, 2017

Stranded on the side of a Californian desert with no way home, would you refuse a lift from a stranger? This is how our case this week begins as we explore the story of Jennifer Asbenson, a w...oman who escaped violent rapist and serial killer - Andrew Urdiales Join us as we detail her escape, his atrocities and the bizarre fame Asbenson has cultivated since her ordeal.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah.
Starting point is 00:00:40 I'm Saruti. And welcome to Red Handed episode 13. Lucky 13. Lucky 13. Lucky 13. We've had quite a week, haven't we? Yeah, absolutely. Leading up to lucky week 13. You guys have been fantastic.
Starting point is 00:00:53 You've been leaving us so many five-star reviews. And you have no idea, or maybe you do, what a difference that makes to an independent podcast like ours. So thank you, thank you, thank you. And also, Hannah, something weird happened to us again yesterday, didn't it? Tracy Clayton tweeted us. Unbelievable. How did she hear about us?
Starting point is 00:01:11 I don't know. Tracy Clayton is the co-host of BuzzFeed's Another Round podcast, and she's amazing. Hilarious. And she tweeted us yesterday, and I was at home in my pyjamas, and Saruti was in the pub not looking at her phone. So I had like a minor panic attack in my room like what do i do what do i do good all right but we got through it we did we did should we get into the case we chose this case because we do so much research for you our lovely
Starting point is 00:01:38 listeners most of the coverage of the crimes that we look at focuses on the perpetrator rather than the victims. Like, for example, can you name all of Ted Bundy's victims? Or Jeffrey Dahmer's? Can you really? I think probably two or three, max. So what really drew us into this case is that it's actually very hard to find information on it that isn't associated with one survivor. And we've touched on a couple of survivor stories before, but we wanted to cover a little bit of a less doom and gloom. Let's kick off. We start on the 27th of September 1992 in Desert Hot Springs, which is near Palm Springs in California. A 19-year-old Jennifer Aspenson was on her way to work at a home for disabled children. What follows is Jennifer's version of events. She was working the night shift at the
Starting point is 00:02:25 home from 10pm until 6am. Since she had left her childhood home and due to her turbulent relationship with her mother, Jennifer was no longer allowed to use the family car, so she was waiting at the bus stop. Jennifer realised that she needed to buy something for work and thinking she had plenty of time until the bus arrived, Jennifer quickly ran into the shop by the bus stop and when she re-emerges she realises that the last bus has gone without her and she's stuck. Jennifer is alone at night in the California desert with no way of getting to work. Worried about missing her shift, Jennifer stands by the side of the road wondering what to do. I mean that's like absolute nightmare. You know when you watch those American movies and they just have the
Starting point is 00:03:03 long one road that goes through the desert for just miles and miles and miles and either side of you is just desert i mean that's like hills have eyes territory you know what i mean yeah absolutely i think we're quite i mean especially in london we're quite spoiled because you can just you can walk everywhere if you need to i mean out there you're just like it's serial killer hunting ground or you're gonna be eaten by like vultures. Yeah exactly it's terrifying. But then at this point with Jennifer standing on the side of the road wondering what to do a car pulls up and a man in his early 30s in the driver's seat asks Jennifer whether she needs a ride. Jennifer initially refuses but has second thoughts and with no other way of getting to work, she gets into the stranger's car. Now whilst in the car, the man seems nice enough, definitely not intimidating.
Starting point is 00:03:49 This is a bit weird, he asks for Jennifer's number and now starting to feel a little uneasy, Jennifer fake numbers him. I mean, of course you would, why would you give him your real number? I mean, she's never going to see him again, right? But wrong, so very wrong. Because this man, he waited. That's right. He waited until her shift finished eight hours later. Who does that? Let alone a straight... My mum wouldn't do that for me.
Starting point is 00:04:16 Oh, mum, just wait outside my work while I go in for an eight-hour shift. What the fuck? But, you know, this really reminds me of, like, you know, Ed Kemper, when he would, like, pick women up, and it was that reminds me of like, you know, Ed Kemper, when he would like pick women up and it was that thing of like pretending to be very affable and like luring them into your car. And the thing that terrifies me most
Starting point is 00:04:33 about things like this and Ed Kemper was that Ed Kemper would even do dry runs where he would go pick up hitchhikers, not kill them, just to practice what it took to not freak a woman out in your car oh god the chapstick in the door it's horrible yeah yeah exactly oh my god it's horrible but this guy maybe he pulled it off but then she comes outside of work and he's still sat there and he offers her a ride home
Starting point is 00:04:59 and hesitantly jennifer accepts and the pair drive in silence for a little while, when suddenly the man grabs Asperson's head and smashes it into the dashboard and holds a gun to her. Jennifer recalls knowing at this moment, he's going to hurt me. If he wasn't going to kill me, he's definitely going to rape me. Her attacker now pulls the car over and turns off the engine. Still with the gun to her head, he cuts Jennifer's shorts and underwear off while repeatedly punching her in the head. He tries to force her to perform oral sex, but she refuses. Furious, he then attempted to rape Jennifer, but he couldn't get it up, which obviously just makes him even more angry. This is where it gets even more twisted.
Starting point is 00:05:39 Her attacker forced Jennifer to tell him that she loved him. Ugh, no. Ugh. Just makes me feel sick. Which she did, but not convincingly enough. And he hit her and said, you're a lying bitch, say it like you mean it. However she said it, he wouldn't believe it because he is clearly a man riddled with deep seated insecurity and, you know, inadequacy. He grabbed her underwear and shoved them in her throat. Jennifer recalls later that she could feel the sides of her mouth split. She said that she had tried to say it, say that she loved him, but she had her knickers in her mouth, so obviously she couldn't. And in an attempt
Starting point is 00:06:16 to save herself, Jennifer tries to choke the underwear out of her mouth, but doesn't quite manage it. Her attacker grabs her by the throat and starts strangling her. Jennifer loses consciousness. She comes to as he's violently shaking her, possibly in an attempt to wake her up. He then opens the car door and Jennifer, seeing her chance, makes a break for it. But she doesn't get far. Her attacker pulls her back to the car by her hair and at this point, seeing no way out, Aspenson begs him to kill her knowing he's done this before. He now ties her hands behind her back with string and crams her into the boot of the car. Jennifer laid there and in desperation she prayed to God if there is any God let me die or let me get away. Jennifer describes what happens next as nothing less than divine
Starting point is 00:07:01 intervention. I think it may be likely to be a result of more like hysterical strength, like adrenaline coursing through your body. You do find the ability to, you know, do something like this. But either way, Jennifer hears the string binding her wrist together popping.
Starting point is 00:07:16 It breaks and her hands are now free. Knowing she may not have much time and in total darkness, Jennifer begins to feel around the boot of the car and she finds a lock mechanism and manages to pop the boot open while the car is moving. He sees this though and starts shouting. He pulls over and he slams the boot door shut but if Jennifer could do it once she could do it again. He got back in the car and got stuck in the soft sand at the side of the road, seizing her chance,
Starting point is 00:07:40 knowing it was her last chance. Jennifer got out of the trunk barefoot and naked from the waist down and she runs. Her attacker runs down the road after her, wielding a machete. Jennifer keeps running, not looking back, and that's when she sees a truck. The truck stops and there are two marines in the cab. She screams, that guy, that guy, he was trying to kill me. But the car was gone. He had sped off. The marines took Jennifer to a petrol station where they called the police,
Starting point is 00:08:06 but with no witnesses. There was very little they could do for her. The Marines hadn't even seen the car. So for them, they hadn't seen this man running down the road wielding machete. They'd just seen this distraught woman on the side of the road. So they couldn't even tell the police, we saw him, we saw this car, that's what he looked like like I'm not convinced that the reasons for this will become a little bit clearer as we go on but I just don't think at this point the police believed a word she was saying and after this things would go downhill for Jennifer you know he'd smashed her face in done all of this she'd had her arms bound so you can see all of that and see obviously she was running down the road half naked I know obviously the marines didn't see the car but is it weird that the police don't believe her why do you think that is that they
Starting point is 00:08:49 didn't believe this woman i mean they could see from the state of her that something had happened so i think it was very obvious that something had happened to her but they had no witnesses they had no car they had no weapon there was very little that they could go on at this point poor jennifer like her her life really starts to spiral out of control she was understandably terrified of everything and unable to shake the knowledge that this stranger who had abducted her and attempted to rape and murder her knew her name oh my god and he knew where she lived because he was driving her home so she must have knows where she works this is where my house is. So unable to cope, Jennifer started to self-harm and she slowly lost touch with reality
Starting point is 00:09:30 and she was eventually sectioned. This is horrible. Even her family didn't believe her. That's so sad. And her mother simply told the police that Jennifer was a storyteller. For the next four years, Jennifer Aspenson lived in mental hospitals,
Starting point is 00:09:43 constantly asking herself, what had I survived for? Have I just made it all up? Or did it even happen? Jennifer was eventually released from residential care, but with little supportive network around her, she struggled to adapt back into normal life. Until 1997, that was. So five years after Jennifer was abducted
Starting point is 00:10:00 and attacked, a policeman knocked on her door. He had with him pictures of men. He laid them out on the table and said, tell if they look familiar instantly she identified the man who attacked her the police officer paused and said this is the man who killed eight women and you are the only one who got away okay how do they know she's the only one who got away this is why i said at the beginning this is jennifer's version of events yeah okay yeah because okay we'll come on to this later but don't you think it all just it sounds a little bit at the moment almost like a movie yeah but the facts are she was
Starting point is 00:10:30 able to from these pictures given to her by policemen she was able to identify the man who did all of these awful things to her and it was this man as sort of strange as the story sounds like you said she was absolutely able to correctly identify that the man that they were holding, who they had proven to have killed all these women, this man was Andrew Uredalis. He had been arrested in Illinois on the 23rd of April 1997 on suspicion of the murders of Laurie Ulaki, 25 years old, Lynn Huber, 22 years old, and Cassandra Coram, 21 years old. Laurie had been found naked with her hands bound with duct tape, stabbed and shot in Wolf Lake on the Illinois-Indiana border on the 14th of April 1996. Her bloody clothes had been discarded in bins nearby.
Starting point is 00:11:14 Cassandra Coram's body was found on the 14th of July 1996 in the Vermilion River. Cassandra had also been stabbed and shot in the head. And on the 2nd of August 1996, Lynn Huber's body had been found in Wolf Lake. She had also been stabbed and shot in the head. And on the 2nd of August 1996, Lynn Huber's body had been found in Wolf Lake. She had also been stabbed and shot. Her clothes had also been thrown away in the same way as Laurie's, in nearby bins. Laurie and Lynn both had previous convictions for prostitution, but Cassandra didn't. All three of these women had been killed with a Smith & Wesson.38 revolver. Now this is a really very common firearm.
Starting point is 00:11:44 I mean, there are literally millions of them in the United States. Now this is a really very common firearm. I mean there are literally millions of them in the United States so it doesn't really narrow down anything but you can see that the MO is really similar. They were stabbed, they were shot naked, found in a similar area with their clothes discarded in nearby bins. In April 1997, so months after Laurie and Lynn had been found in Wolf Lake, police received a 911 call from an anonymous sex worker in a seedy hotel in Cook County. She reported that she had been with Andrew Udalis and he had wanted to bind her hands with duct tape, put her in the boot of his trunk and drive her to Wolf Lake. She had refused and Udalis had become violent. This call out happened one month before Cassandra Coram's body was found dumped in Vermilion River,
Starting point is 00:12:25 just an hour from Wolf Lake. In November 1996, Urodalis was pulled over during a routine traffic stop. He was carrying a Smith & Wesson.38 revolver that he did not have a license for. This is the biggest stroke of luck for the police. The gun was seized, tested and found to be the gun that fired the bullets that killed Lynn, Laurie and Cassandra So they had the murder weapon They knew from this call out at the hotel He's got form Andrew Urodalis came willingly to the police station
Starting point is 00:12:54 After being arrested outside his home Where he lived with his parents As they took him in for questioning As long as the police agreed to give him a ride to work afterwards I think Andrew Urodalis is a bit of a simple soul, I think. Do you think, or do you think he just thought, they've got nothing, let's go? The police opened with questions about the unlicensed firearm that had been seized during the traffic stop, asking Urodalis whether he had ever let anyone else use it. Urodalis stated that
Starting point is 00:13:23 he was the only one to ever use the gun and that he was always careful to lock it up in a tackle box in his basement. He was the only one who had a key. Why would he tell him that? It just shows that he's just not that smart. I don't think he's trying to deceive the police. I think he genuinely just doesn't
Starting point is 00:13:40 connect the two things. It is very strange that he's so open about saying that. I mean, I don't understand why he says that. It's almost like trying to please them by being like, look, what a responsible gun owner I am. I keep it locked up in a box in my basement and no one else ever has access to it. I haven't done anything wrong. Apart from not having a license and whoops, you already have me for that. Like I think. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. It's weird. And I've been murdering women with it. You could look at it two two ways like you could look at it as at him just being a bit simple possibly or you could go completely the other way and be like he's he's so cocky and arrogant perhaps he he'd never even
Starting point is 00:14:17 considered getting caught because the women he was murdering were almost all of them were sex workers so maybe he just thought no one would miss them so it couldn't possibly be connected so then the police drop the bomb they tell andrew uredalis that his firearm is without doubt the weapon that killed lynn yulaki laurie hoober and cassandra coram and that is all it took. Uri Daly's loosened his tie, he untied his shoes, and he said, I guess I'm not going to work today. And then he said, I think you might want to call California. This is so strange, the way that he says this.
Starting point is 00:14:58 I can almost just imagine him loosening his tie, untying his shoes and saying, well, I guess I'm not going to work then. But that thing, does that scream of like someone who's incredibly simple and just going along with it? Or is it someone who's like, it's almost quite like maniacal? I don't know. It's like almost because you don't know the tone with which it was said.
Starting point is 00:15:13 It's really hard to know how it's meant and what that means about his character. And then the arrogance, well not the arrogance, or the whatever it is of being like, you might also want to call California. Do you know what I mean? Like if it's said like that, it's very sinister. It is sinister, but it's also like if you're,
Starting point is 00:15:31 I feel like he doesn't really fit into this. You know, he's not, he's not a Robert Hansen. He's not someone who's trying to conceal it. But then I'm not sure whether it's because he's proud of it. Yeah, yeah, that's what I mean. It's like a disconnect in that sense. And I don't know, sometimes, you know, they also say when the police catch someone
Starting point is 00:15:49 who is a killer, sometimes like this, there's also an overwhelming sense of relief for that killer sometimes. I've been caught, it's all over. I don't have to stop pretending. I don't have to stop running. I'm done. And it's almost that very, very like symbolic thing
Starting point is 00:16:04 of the pressure is off. He loosens his tie. He takes his shoes off. He's like, I've been caught. I'm done. When they catch a guilty man, he'll usually fall asleep. When they catch an innocent man, he's the one that's awake all night. He seems chill to me, almost like, ah, it's over. Because like Illinois and California, that is far. I don't think they would ever have been connected. Yeah, yeah. If he hadn't have said this just now. No, I don't think they ever would have been connected. But it gets even weirder.
Starting point is 00:16:34 So his confessions that he gives are so detailed. He remembers what each of his victims was wearing, down to like the colour of their socks. Urales gave a full confession to the three murders he was suspected of and five further murders in California and the murder and attempted rape of Jennifer Aspenson. These memories, these confessions, they were his trophies almost. That's how it feels.
Starting point is 00:16:55 He remembers them to such a detail and holds them so close to him. It does seem like they're his trophies. It's very bizarre. So let's start at the beginning. We're going to be backtracking quite a few years, so stay with us. We'll take you through Urodalis' atrocities in chronological order. He confessed to these crimes in excruciating detail, detailing exactly how they were killed and where he disposed of their bodies.
Starting point is 00:17:17 Now, six years before Jennifer Aspenson's attempted rape and abduction, on the 18th of January 1986, Urodalis was a Marine. He was stationed at Camp Pendleton in California. And now just a quick background check on him. He had grown up in a very violent home. Oh, this is horrible. His mother would keep a belt in the freezer to beat him with. And what the fuck? His sister molested him throughout his childhood and he's even sustained several injuries during childhood that required hospital stays. The sister molestation is alleged that was used by his defence in trial. In defence, okay. Alleged molestation by his sister then. So Urodalus joined the Marine Corps
Starting point is 00:17:57 straight out of high school, but probably not out of patriotism. He did it to kill. He was viciously bullied at school by his peers who branded him as gay and I think Urodalus felt like becoming a marine, the epitome of manliness, was his way of proving them wrong. This isn't the only classic serial killer trait we see in Urodalus. He ticks so many boxes it is insane. It's the classic abuse of home, injury, sexual abuse, and then the military. And I do wonder whether, obviously, we're not saying that everyone who is in the military in America comes out as a serial killer. That's not what we're saying. Let's just get that out the way. But I do wonder if there is a correlation between whether it's similar to the amount of men who come out of the military
Starting point is 00:18:43 and then go on to be serial killers. Is it in any way similar to the percentage of men who come out of the military and then go on to be serial killers is it in any way similar to the percentage of catholic priests that go on to be child abusers i don't know it's like those certain types of jobs attract certain type of people and i think that with the with the pedophilia in the catholic church it's very much like hiding in plain sight who could possibly suspect this lovely this lovely priest and it is very much it's a cover isn't it and that's why they did it and also free access to all these choir boys and all of these children's homes anything you want to do and I think when it comes to the army I think it or the marines or anything like that military service and we've
Starting point is 00:19:20 seen it time and time again it's not just that it's even Edmund Kemper. He wanted to be a police officer, but he couldn't be. BTK wanted, you know, the uniform. He wanted to be, have that position of power, that position of authority. Lots of these men like John Wayne Gacy, he was closeted homosexual. He didn't want to be gay. So it was, what can I do to assert maximum level of manliness
Starting point is 00:19:41 so that nobody suspects any of these things and lots of these serial killers we know they deal with huge feelings of inadequacy and so what better way to overcome a feeling of like not being manly enough a feeling of inadequacy than to be in a job that screams of alpha male yeah i totally agree i just have you seen have you seen deliver us from evil no i don't think i have it's an incredible documentary but about this one particular priest who is a serial child abuser and they're in that documentary there there is a seminary in upstate new york and 13 of the priests who come out of that particular seminary went on to be sex offenders if and they say in the document
Starting point is 00:20:23 if 13 of the people who came out of yale went on to be sex offenders. And they say in the document, if 13% of the people who came out of Yale went on to be sex offenders, Yale would get shut the fuck down. And the way they explored it in the documentary is to do with, you go into a seminary usually when you're about 16, 17, and that is when your sexual development stops
Starting point is 00:20:39 because you're in the church already. So I wonder whether there is a parallel between training as a Catholic priest, making it more likely for you to be attracted to young children in a similar way as going into the army at a young age makes you more likely to be a killer, perhaps. I wonder. That's interesting about the Catholic priests.
Starting point is 00:21:00 I think that's really interesting because of them going in so young and then that may be like an arrested sexual development and then that leads to sex offence and I also wonder if you are going into seminary school you've probably been around the church your entire life and we do know sadly that many people who are sexually abused go on like a lot of that high percentage of that sadly do go on to also be abusers maybe they that happens to them as well yeah exactly i mean it's obviously it's such a multifaceted thing i just thought it was a bit of an interesting parallel no no but i think absolutely i think with the catholic church
Starting point is 00:21:34 absolutely i find that really interesting with the army and the military i think it is there's also an element of obviously ptsd and people come back different people that level of trauma can obviously lead to not serial killers but but you know deep-seated issues with this I think it is more that certain types of characteristic characters are drawn to that type of role so people will either join out of a sense of duty out of patriotism out of wanting to make a difference and then there will be the sick fucks that join because they get to kill with impunity. Not that that's what the army is there for, but that's what they think that they can go to.
Starting point is 00:22:10 I think you've got it spot on there. And also, there's another one. There's another classic serial killer trait that Andrew Urodaliz displays in his childhood. When he was 13, he beat his family dog to death with a baseball bat. Abusing animals when you're a child is so common amongst serial killers. This is the thing I find really interesting, because I was actually talking about this just last night. Somebody was talking about, you know, the McDonald triad, where it's like animal abuse, bedwetting and fire starting.
Starting point is 00:22:38 And I read somewhere actually, because obviously so much of the belief is obviously that children who portray those signs maybe have some sort of like, you know, psychopathy, sociopathy. Moving into adulthood, they'll probably become violent, potentially turn into serial killers. I read somewhere, it's quite interesting, that actually that isn't the link. And you shouldn't look at those three things as an indicator of someone who's going to go on to be violent.
Starting point is 00:23:00 You should look at those three things in a child and say that those three things are happening as a symptom of abuse and the abuse is what leads them to go on to become violent killers so it's almost like just looking at that and the link to what they will become you're missing the crucial step in that the reason that is showing itself as a symptom in that child is because they're probably being abused because if you think about it violence against animals arson and bedwetting think about them not related to serial killer-ness, but think about that as that really makes sense
Starting point is 00:23:30 as three symptoms that you might see in a child that's being abused. Oh, that is so interesting. The anger, the rage that they all feel. Let me take it out on this animal that can't defend, can't fight back. I'll set this fire because that's the anger showing itself. And the bedwetting is that's that vulnerable side of them that they that something horrible is happening to them do you know what I mean and then it's actually the abuse so we've gone off on a bit of a tangent so let's
Starting point is 00:23:56 bring it back to bring it back to Eurydales we don't know too much about about Eurydales's time in the marines but something happened one night in January 1986 when he was stationed at Camp Pendleton in California. Something that humiliated him completely. And it's only ever referred to as an unexplained incident. Eurodiles left the base furious, looking for revenge. And he pulled over to Saddleback Community College. And he sees 23-year-old Robinley walking across the car park robin was
Starting point is 00:24:27 working at a concert and at the end of her shift but before she could make it across the car park she was grabbed by urodiales and he stabbed her 41 times and left robin to bleed to death on the tarmac he just wanted to kill someone someone weaker than him. I think that's what that was. Oh, absolutely. And the overkill, 41 times. Imagine how long that would take to stab someone 41 times. Robin's body was found the next day by a security guard. The police had no explanation at all. Her keys and her handbag were right next to her body, so it couldn't have been a robbery. It just seemed like a totally random act, which in a it kind of was. Again the police had absolutely nothing, no murder weapon, nothing to identify the killer and no witnesses. Robin's parents went on the hunt with a PI but no substantial leads were found and police gave up and the case went cold. Next year Adalis confessed
Starting point is 00:25:22 to the murder of Julie McGee, a sex worker whose body had been discovered on the 17th of July 1988. She had been shot dead in a remote area of Cathedral City, California. Again, there was virtually no evidence found at the scene of the crime. Urodalis was stationed at 29 Palms in California at the time, and on the 25th of September 1988, Mary Ann Wells, 31, was found shot dead in San Diego. On the 5th of April, 1989, 18-year-old Tammy Irwin was found shot dead in Palm Springs. And on the 11th of March, 1995, Denise Maney, 32, was found dead in Palm Springs, California.
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Starting point is 00:27:21 This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On The Media. To listen, subscribe to On The Media wherever you get your podcasts. Urodalis confessed to each of these murders. Marianne and Temi were both also sex workers. It's quite a span of ages that he's covering. And all of his victims look really different. He just wanted to kill women. It's so indiscriminate. It's so random. It didn't matter who they were or what they looked like.
Starting point is 00:27:50 I don't think he had any kind of like moral thing, like maybe like Robert Hansen and some people that we see, they go after sex workers because he says, oh, they're a plague on society or whatever. I think this guy was just going after easy prey. Anybody he could get his hands on. That's exactly what I think. Absolutely like a total opportunistic predator. Whoever he could get his hands on that's exactly why absolutely like
Starting point is 00:28:05 a total opportunistic predator whoever he could get as long as they were a woman i'm going to kill you that level of rage and anger towards women do we think probably stemming back from his childhood and his hatred of his mother and his sister for whatever happened we don't know 100 what went on but i think his hatred of women if that's what this is which i think it probably is will have stemmed from the abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother and his sister at home I think his hatred of women, if that's what this is, which I think it probably is, will have stemmed from the abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother and his sister at home. And the reason also he stays away from the radar of the police, I don't think it was on purpose, his like randomly shifting MO, but it definitely helped keep him safe and keep him undetected.
Starting point is 00:28:43 Because again, like I said, his MO shifts backwards and forwards, sometimes stabbing, sometimes shooting, sometimes both. One he would tie with string, the next he would duct tape, then it would go back to string. The MO is not defined enough to point towards a serial killer. No one spotted the pattern. There was no question of a serial killer at the time each of the bodies were discovered. Once Irodalis moved back to Chicago, after his frustrating stint in the Marine Corps,
Starting point is 00:29:01 he appeared to be a fully functioning member of society. He was even a union rep. That means people trust you. Oh, absolutely. You were voted into a position like that. Yeah, exactly. That's like people trust you, people you work with trust you enough to represent them at union meetings. But ex-Marine, it fits with that, doesn't it? This kind of again lends itself to me feeling like he's not stupid, that he is quite manipulative and maniacal. But however, he revealed to the police that he would go on vacation to California with the express purpose of finding a woman to kill.
Starting point is 00:29:37 I mean, that is... And look as well how far out of his comfort zone he is willing to take himself to kill. That is very, very premeditated and that is very cunning but he knows california though because that's where he was stationed so it's not really out of his comfort zone it's just away from his family but look at what the effort he will go to to leave his home in chicago to go all the way to california just to kill but couple that with how opportunistic he is that's very weird i'll plan to go all the way to california but but i'll kill
Starting point is 00:30:06 randoms that's very strange he's so all over the place he even had a locker in palm springs i mean again this is so organized where he kept his murder kit knives fake license plates from different states duct tape string everything he needed for his spree. He is such like a combination of contradictions when you think of what the mind of a serial killer is like. He's one minute organised, one minute disorganised, unless it's like the ultimate organisation and then going after randoms because it's less traceable. I mean if you were going to kill someone, hypothetically speaking, you kill someone you don't't know you kill someone with no link to you you kill total strangers kill absolute randoms that you can't connect to each other even is he just super smart oh i don't know now i've changed my mind a bit i
Starting point is 00:30:55 think he's gone from a dullard to a like criminal genius i don't know but perhaps if he had just continued in california and not in illinois he never would have even been caught i think i don't know. But perhaps if he had just continued in California and not in Illinois, he never would have even been caught, I think. I don't think he would ever have been connected to the California cases had he not slipped up in Illinois. Because what gave him away were the identical circumstances with Lynn Huber and Laurie Ulaki. They were both found in Wolf Lake months apart. And so he's really shortening his cooling off period
Starting point is 00:31:25 because we're finding the ones he has admitted to, they're years apart and then it slowly gets shorter and shorter times till it's just months. That's so classic, isn't it? We just see that time and time again with they'll try their first kill, then it will sustain them for quite a while and then they won't need to kill again for months. And then that time will just shorten and shorten and shorten as they sort of rapidly kind of devolve he also confesses to
Starting point is 00:31:50 abducting jennifer aspenson he remembers exactly what she was wearing where he picked her up where she worked he said that he tied her hands strangled her and put her in the trunk he remembered the trunk popping open while he was driving and her running out of the car and he said he just drove off. He does not confess to tracing her down the road with a machete. The police have absolutely nothing to tie him to these murders or to Jennifer and he just gives it away. Uri Diley stands trial in Cook County, Illinois for the murders of Lynn and Laurie, the Wolf Lake murders. Uri Diles recants his confession and pleads not guilty what why it doesn't make any sense that's so that's such a bizarre thing to do when you have given such a perfect detailed confession they know that you're the word the murder weapon is yours
Starting point is 00:32:38 it just makes absolutely no sense to then go into a court of law and plead not guilty jennifer aspenson took the stand in this trial. That's brave, man. I don't know if I'd be able to do that. And she told the jury all about her abduction, her torture, and her escape. She also confronted Eurydiles' family with a TV crew outside the courthouse, which does make me feel a little bit uncomfortable. It's really weird. This is quite strange. If it was just her on her own and wanting to seek some sort of closure,
Starting point is 00:33:10 that I could understand. The fact a TV crew is there. Jennifer Aspenson, she's just a very intense person. And you can find this footage on YouTube and she's shouting at the Urodalys family, asking how their son could have done this. Andrew Urodalys' sister eventually runs up to Jennifer and hugs her and saying she doesn't know but she is so sorry. Yeah the TV crew being there just made it feel a little bit predatory I think. If the TV crew are there being their usual
Starting point is 00:33:34 predatory selves you know that I can kind of get that they're doing that for the shot. If Jennifer Aspenson has orchestrated this situation where she can yell at the family in front of the TV crew. That's very bizarre. But we don't know if she's just shouting and the TV crew happens to be there. It was a TV show that she had taken to the trial. Oh, okay. Back to the trial. Urodalis changed his plea to insanity. I guess that makes sense. So he confessed, pleads guilty, tells them all the stuff, and then in court he pleads not guilty. I'm guessing he's trying to build a case for not guilty by reason of insanity so it's not guilty but he's saying he's insane so the but the jury find him guilty in just three hours and he was sentenced to death
Starting point is 00:34:15 he latest a trial for the murder of cassandra coram in livingston county where he originally pled not guilty but changed his plea to insanity in the early days of the trial again. His defence now presented an MRI scan, an aspect scan of Urodalis' brain, claiming that he had either been born with or had sustained brain damage. Again, just another seriously classic serial killer trait. The number of serial killers that had serious head injuries as children. If he was being abused, that's not beyond the realms of possibility that something like that happened.
Starting point is 00:34:49 He went to hospital a lot as a kid. Also, a SPECT scan is that it measures the blood flow in your brain. And Dr. Mary Kangas, the doctor that the defence had brought in, stated also that instead of a 39-year-old, his brain looked more like the brain of a 70 or 80 year old the spec scan displays as hannah just said poor blood flow to urodiallus's temporal lobes and that area of the brain is what affects memory and emotional control and regulates behavior and understanding of other people's emotions it's like the prefrontal cortex is where your conscience lives,
Starting point is 00:35:26 as well as your ability to communicate and engage with others. So that is why you see so many serial killers who have head injuries. It's almost like it creates a psychopath, which is very interesting. Yeah, or triggers one. But this was their defence. Yeah, or triggers something that's underlying. And it's almost like, yeah, a strong smack on the head could just turn that off imagine just living one day without any empathy or any remorse or any guilt
Starting point is 00:35:51 associated to anything you did it would be a very strange thing to understand it is but like i think i've got a little bit too much empathy like if i i have to watch cartoons because i can't watch real people because i will like ascribe empathy to them. You're an empath. I am it's and it's hard like if I've had a bad day I'm like I can't watch real people today I'm gonna have to watch The Simpsons. Oh man no I would I'd say I'm I'm not quite there but I'm also not quite on Urodalice's level I'm glad to say. So yes this was what the the defense were building their case around and Merakangus compares mris of urodalus's brain with those of a normal man about the same age urodalus's cortex where now this is
Starting point is 00:36:33 weird we're not quite sure if this is a real thing but mericangus says it's where the major thought cells are and his appeared to have been severely shrunk. Major thought cells does not sound like a real thing. I know. And I have a friend who studied neuroscience at university. So I did text her before we started recording to be like, hey, Sarah, major thought cells, is that a thing? They sound super fake. But she's in Dubai at the moment.
Starting point is 00:37:00 And I don't think she's seen it. And she hasn't replied. But hey, we'll find out from her if major thought cells are a real thing and we'll post something on Instagram once she does get back to me. Oh so Urodalis now was shown to have lost a large portion of his brain. The rest of his brain had apparently then expanded to fill the gap. Again we're not experts but this is what the doctor that his defense team had brought in was stating and claiming to the court. But still, Urodalis was found guilty. But the death penalty was abolished in Illinois in 2011, so his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
Starting point is 00:37:36 Three life sentences, one for each of the Illinois murders that he had committed. And in the same year, Urodalis was then extradited to California to stand trial for the five murders and the abduction and attempted rape of Jennifer Aspenson. He is due to stand trial later this year. It was scheduled to begin in September, but it's been delayed. I actually found this out watching a Louis Theroux documentary about prisons. In America, if you are in prison and you're waiting to stand trial, you by law have to have a trial date that trial date means nothing it can be moved years and years in advance it can be moved at the drop of a hat it's you just need to have one or they can't hold you in prison you know what they do when they take
Starting point is 00:38:16 you to Guantanamo Bay you've got no trial you there's no trial scheduled so it's got to be proof I think under the constitution that you're in court and you're awaiting trial and you have a set date for when that is going to happen. And what's interesting is that in California, the death penalty still stands. So if he is found guilty of the California murders, he could face the death penalty, which he has escaped in Illinois. So as we've talked about, like he his M.O MO just shift around and that probably kept him out of police custody for years. But I did hear him described as not your average serial killer because he was learning as he went along and changing his methods. What is an average serial killer? I guess I mean an average serial killer, someone who has a very fixed MO, a very fixed signature. This is what I do. This is
Starting point is 00:39:05 what gets me off for whatever reason. So, you know, like look at someone like Ted Bundy. He had a very, very specific type. This is the kind of woman that I want to murder because of this girl who humiliated me. And I kill them the same way. I have a very strong MO and a very strong signature. I guess that's what they mean by average serial killer. Yeah, I think you're right, actually. I should stop being snarkzilla. It's hard. What is very interesting, though...
Starting point is 00:39:32 So Robin Brandley is obviously one of the California killings that Eurodiles still has to stand trial for. Robin Brandley's family don't believe that Andrew Eurodiles was acting alone. They have a website called whomurderedrobinbrandly.com and they state that they think a female student also at Saddleback Community College was involved in Robin's murder. The Brandly family believe that the investigation
Starting point is 00:39:54 into Robin's murder was bungled from the start with just really basic stuff. Stuff like the police didn't have the sprinklers turned off in the car park where Robinin's body was found for god's sake i mean no wonder they found no evidence then it's all been washed away so i mean what the fuck they also claim that although urodalius does confess to robin's murder he repeatedly uses the word we when describing murdering robin but he doesn't do this with the other murders the prosecution do pick up on this use of the of the word we and he also
Starting point is 00:40:25 he says he at one point so he says we and he says he but only when he's talking about robin and the prosecution ask uradalis whether he was acting alone and he responds with surprise and he's like yes yes i was i was on my own and robin's family claim that this was not fully explored because the police were eager to cover up the mistakes on the case in the early days, like the not collecting evidence probably, etc. They were just like, great, we have our man, it was him, done. And in the tapes of his confessions, Uredale speaks almost as if, though, the knives and the guns were acting of their own accord. So maybe when he's talking about he, is he talking about his weapon?
Starting point is 00:41:01 His use of the word we speaks more to like a total level of detachment from the actions rather than to an accomplice. He doesn't strike me as the kind of man that's like tag team, double act. He is dealing with serious levels of inadequacy and anger and rage. He seems like a one-man band. But let's come back to Jennifer. Now Jennifer has appeared on multiple talk shows telling her story, telling the story of her abduction and her attempted rape and her escape. She even now has her own YouTube channel. And we have to say that it is weird. I mean, we really want you guys to go. We'll post some of the videos on our Facebook discussion group. This isn't victim blaming. This is nothing like that. But you have to watch the
Starting point is 00:41:42 channel. You have to watch the videos to understand how weird it is. It's a mixture of things. Mostly, they're instructional videos on how to escape various situations. There's one like how to escape a home invasion, for example. There's also one called how to escape zip ties behind your back like a boss. And these mainly consist of her dressed up, slightly dominatrix-esque, and then getting someone to cover her in duct tape or tie her hands behind her back. And then it cuts to like black and white.
Starting point is 00:42:14 And then she'll have like a scared look on her face and then she'll escape. It is really strange. And there's also another one where she covers her mouth with duct tape and attempts to get it off without using her hands. And this one is extra weird because she's accompanied by her very young niece yeah it's like a competition between them they both have duct tape on their faces and they're racing to see who can get it off first that's really weird and we love a good emoji we do but there are so many knife emojis everywhere all over this channel it It seems very odd. Now there are also some not
Starting point is 00:42:46 crime related videos which I found even weirder where Jennifer writes these like short quote unquote funny monologues and then performs them to the camera. Some of them include things like I ate the divorce papers. That's what that video is called and it consists of her like bleary eyed, I think looking a little bit drunk with some sheets of paper playing a character who's got like a weird fake British accent talking to a person called Charles just eating eating paper it's so unsettling it really is and there's another one called confronting Johnny Depp and another one called My Hot Body Secret Revealed. But the one that really spun me out because I'm quite hungover today.
Starting point is 00:43:30 What happened this morning was just to prepare myself, get myself in the right mindset before we started recording this case. I decided to just go back and watch one of these videos and I came across one called Story Time, the true story of when I almost accidentally abducted a small black child. And this was, this is on Jennifer Aspenson's YouTube video. You can go watch it. Surreal isn't even the word. It's one of the strangest things I've ever watched. I mean, it would give
Starting point is 00:44:00 like, I don't know, Donnie Darko a run for his money it's so strange she's telling the story of like how she accidentally ended up with again and again she was like the small black child talking about how this child just burst into her house he's got scars all over his body and then she's trying to justify why she didn't call the police or anything like that she repeatedly tells you it's a true story and she's telling you all the things that happened while that child was at her house but it's like cut cut cut because it looks like it's been filmed over a couple of days and it's all been cut and pasted together and then there's random words flash across the screen she again seems like she's been drinking or maybe she's a bit spaced out it's
Starting point is 00:44:38 a very weird story so either it's real and she handled a very bizarre situation like that incredibly oddly or it's not real and she's got a very intense imagination. Go watch it. We'll post, I'll post that one on the Facebook group. There's hours of entertainment to be had on Jennifer Aspenson's YouTube channel. It's whether it's entertainment, although it's like very, very, the recordings of a very sadly ill woman. She doesn't seem well to me. No, I don't.
Starting point is 00:45:08 In those videos. But she has fans. She has loads of fans. I read the comments. People are like, hey, could you show us how to escape from zip ties next? Like people are watching this and really, maybe she is helping them. When she was wondering, you know, what did I survive this for? What purpose did I survive this for?
Starting point is 00:45:23 Maybe to some people she is having a purpose because people are watching these videos commenting is enjoying the right word gaining something from it I don't know it's so hard to like pick the correct terminology for this I really feel like I'm on eggshells Jennifer has also recreated escaping from a car boot on a daytime tv show. And most famously, on the 24th anniversary of her abduction, so January 2017, this year, Jennifer went back to the area of Desert Hot Springs where she was abducted and live-streamed for an hour telling her story. And this is not edited at all, it's just her talking straight for an hour. She said that she wanted her viewers to be there with her in real time and wanted them to hear everything in her own words without interruption. You can find
Starting point is 00:46:09 it on YouTube. It's actually pretty, that's quite difficult to watch, that one. Jennifer demonstrates how she was bound and she takes you through the whole experience of her abduction. Jennifer has dedicated her life to doing something extraordinary and she feels like she has escaped death for a reason her twitter bio starts with Jennifer is the only survivor of one of the most prolific serial killers to date so I guess she's turned it into a win kind of absolutely no one I'm not neither of us are saying that
Starting point is 00:46:37 what happened to Jennifer didn't happen because we can't you cannot refute the facts he confessed to it and she had correctly identified him from a lineup of 10 men she had all of everything she said was corroborated by him in his confession apart from the thing about the machete yes it absolutely happened what i would recommend you watch to really get a feeling for what we're trying to touch on here is watch jennifer aspenson on the justin root show it's half an hour and that will really it will make it clear I think. All we're saying here is that this
Starting point is 00:47:09 absolutely happened to Jennifer but that she's just not very well. Maybe turning this into a win is good for other people that she's here they're hearing this inspirational story of how this woman escaped but I wonder what detriment to her mental health all this fame comes with. Jennifer still lives in California with her 20 year old daughter and is in the process of writing a book about her ordeal. She's confirmed that she will testify at the California trial in 2017 and that she will push for the death penalty. So we'll keep an eye out for when that eventually happens as the date's been pushed back and we'll we'll keep you guys posted on any updates. So yeah, that's our survivor.
Starting point is 00:47:47 That's Jennifer Aspenson. Thank you to everyone who's left us a five-star review. It makes such a big difference. So please, guys, keep them coming. If you're listening, just take two seconds to pop us down a quick review and we'll be back next time. Yeah, and come to the pub on the 30th. We'll see you then.
Starting point is 00:48:02 Bye. See you later. Bye. See you later. Bye. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite.
Starting point is 00:48:50 Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history, presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series,
Starting point is 00:49:29 NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery Plus. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today.

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