RedHanded - Episode 135 - The Vampire King: Marcus Wesson

Episode Date: February 20, 2020

On 12 March 2004, police walked into an office building in Fresno, California and found the bodies of 9 women and children; they had each been shot once in the eye. It was discovered that all of the victims shared the same biological father, a man named Marcus Wesson - but this man was also all of their “husbands”. This shocking find unravelled a twisted tale of incest, abuse, rape and vampires... Bonus content: Patreon.com/redhanded - sign up by midnight GMT, 20 Feb 2020 for stickers LIVE SHOW TICKETS: https://www.podcastlive.com/redhanded/ References: https://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/West/03/13/dyer/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110629173508/http://www.nctimes.com/news/state-and-regional/article_56211e32-4220-5599-8ac5-ca69aa648a91.html https://edition.cnn.com/2005/LAW/04/22/wesson/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/many-questions-in-fresno-slayings/ http://www.nbcnews.com/id/4518675/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/suspect-nine-slayings-had-hold-over-women/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dad-guilty-of-killing-his-9-kids/ https://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/marcus-wesson-mass-murder-surviving-family-speaks-abuse/story?id=11089648&singlePage=true https://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/16/us/fresno-victims-were-shot-police-report.html?pagewanted=1Fresno https://www.foxnews.com/politics/will-jerry-brown-commute-sentences-of-every-death-row-inmate-in-one-of-his-last-acts-as-california-governor https://www.religionnewsblog.com/11195/wesson-niece-tells-court-about-molestation https://truecrimeseven.com/marcus-wesson-the-horrific-true-story-behind-fresnos-worst-mass-murderer/ https://allthatsinteresting.com/marcus-wesson https://edition.cnn.com/2005/LAW/04/22/wesson/ https://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/marcus-wesson-mass-murder-surviving-family-speaks-abuse/story?id=11089648 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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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. 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. I'm Zeruti. And welcome to this week's Red Handed. Before we kick off with probably the grossest case we've done in quite some time, we're doing a live show in April. Where are we now? February. It's coming up in a couple of months. It's going to be at

Wilton's Music Hall, which is a stunning venue, and it's part of Podcast Live, colon crime. And there'll be us and like a couple of other shows. And even if you're like, I don't really give a shit about seeing you guys live, just come for the venue. It's so pretty. I'm really into it. Come for the crime, stay for the venue. Exactly. Maybe come for the venue, stay for the crime.

You know, people who aren't even into crime, bring them because they'll fucking love the venue. It's so beautiful. It's on all those like timeout lists of like secret date spots. Not that I have ever had a date there venue. It's so beautiful. It's on all those timeout lists of secret date spots. Not that I have ever had a date there, but it's on there. My friend got married there. So they do do all of that. That's the best kind of date. It's in the East End.

It's one of the last standing music halls in the country, like the original music halls from the days of yore. And it is very beautiful. So come and have a look at that and also us. And we will leave you a link for the tickets in the episode description it is on the 7th of April

fucking hell you can tell I haven't plugged a live show in a while Jesus Christ blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

yeah buy your tickets you guys get it the link's in the episode description all the information you need is there we're going to be there that's all you need to know

other than that one other announcement before we head on with today's stomach churning case is a $10 up patrons or potential $10 up patrons you will see that you have had that we have dropped February's bonus episode on Monday it's on the quite heartbreaking case of an eight-year-old girl called Jean Carr-Harfuel. She was an orphan who came to America from Hong Kong and tragically is one day found hanging from a tree. If you'd like to like to, if you want to find out what happened there and also the justice that was served up for another young girl who was murdered about a quarter of a century later, then head on over to patreon and you can have a listen there and also if you're a five dollar

up patron stay tuned for the end of the show where we will talk about something in under the duvet we are making some changes to our patreon structure and that means that five dollar and up patrons if you have not signed up by the 20th of February, you will not be getting stickers. We're stopping doing stickers, but we're replacing it with a lot more content. So if you sign up before the 20th of February, you will get a sticker.

If you do not, you won't. Simple as that. Literally as simple as that. That's it. But if you do sign up after the 20th of February or literally at any time, the great news is you will get access to the full back catalogue of Patreon content. Everybody messages us and asks us that. This is that

clarification. You will immediately get access to everything. So sign up now and yeah, just have a good old gorge on all that true crime loveliness that we've got up there. And speaking of gorging, this is probably not a gorging episode. I think I'm actually going to have to issue our first no eating warning of 2020 and it's not so much for like body horror gore reasons it's more just like deep seated total disgust and disbelief yeah I mean incest um abuse isn't the natural side dish to any meal, I would say. So don't make it yours today. No, don't do it. You'll really regret it. We're also going to have to talk about armpits.

So, yeah, get excited. I'm like gagging already. Okay, so lots of things happened in 1946, and a particularly bad one was the birth of Marcus Dellen Wesson. His dad was a violent alcoholic, and his mum was a fanatical Seventh Day Adventist who whipped her four children with electrical cord until they bled. She passed her fanaticism on to her son,

who liked to play preacher more than he did anything else. He modded himself on the preachers he saw in and around Kansas, and he wore a shirt and tie to school and told all of his classmates that he was the leader of their lost flock. I think at this point he could go on to just become very enterprising but he takes a bad turn here. Yeah he could have gone on to be a motivational speaker. Exactly exactly I was reading this and I was like all right fine I was kind of a power hungry kid I see I see what's going on here. What did you just preach to people in the playground and be like like, don't worry, I have been sent to you to save you.

No, but I, God, no. I was having quite a vivid memory of this the other day when I was talking about it with my parents. When I was in year five, I want to say, I did quite a lot of extracurricular reading on the Egyptians because it was interesting. And I became quite obsessed with Cleopatra. And I thought, how can I manufacture a situation in which I get to

dress up like Cleopatra and be Cleopatra and tell everybody about the things I've read about her? So I got a bunch of the other kids to be in a play I wrote about Cleopatra, in which I cast myself as the lead role, and then got our teacher to agree to let me put the performance on to everybody you are a tyrant how is that possible why was your teacher leading such unstructured lessons that she was like oh yeah don't worry about it guys we've got a spare three hours for Saruti's one woman show. Literally. And it was a he. It was Mr. Canoe.

Mr. Canoe? Mr. Canoe. Mr. Canoe. Sorry. We used to call him Mr. Canoe. I don't think he knew. But yeah, I don't know. I don't know.

I think I was just, yeah, precocious and power hungry and slightly tyrannical. I got to dress up like Cleopatra. There was a bit where I got rolled up in a carpet. The other people stood around and like waved blue silk while I was like Cleopatra. There was a bit where I got rolled up in a carpet. The other people stood around and waved blue silk while I was on voyages. It was great. It was a good show. Was that in your stage directions? It was in my stage directions. And who knows?

Maybe Wilton's musical will be getting an encore of my year five play on Cleopatra. Who knows? I'll turn up and surprise you. On your fucking own, mate. If you show up with some silk, I am going home. Oh my God. Well, the people won't go home. I think they're there for it.

So who knows? The surprise. It's a story swap at Wilton. So Hannah doesn't know what case I'm doing. And I don't know what she's doing. So maybe I'm going to do Cleopatra. That famous East End story. case I'm doing and I don't know what she's doing so maybe I'm gonna do Cleopatra that that famous east end story but anyway the point is at this point he could have just gone on to become a

famous podcaster famous did I let that slip out he could have gone on to become a very humble mediocre podcaster he was quite virtuous in a lot of ways. He never drank a drop of alcohol and he steered clear of drugs completely. And Marcus Wesson would keep up this attitude his whole life. And when he couldn't convince people that he was important, he decided that he would make a flock of his own that wouldn't be able to leave him. He did achieve this goal as a grown-up, but before he was a grown-up, he went into the army at just 17. He worked as an ambulance driver, possibly in Vietnam, unconfirmed. He didn't manage to complete high school. He was honorably discharged in 1968 and set up his post-army life in San Jose, California, where he met Rosemary Matarina.

She was 13 years older than him and had eight children from various baby daddies. None of this bothered young Marcus Wesson. He moved in with Rosemary and all of her many children. Rosemary's cousin was struggling with a drug addiction, so she dropped off all of her kids at that house too, which meant that in total there were 16 people living in that house. And that is certainly a flock of some kind. But Marcus wasn't satisfied, and he took a particular interest in Rosemary's eight-year-old daughter, Elizabeth.

And for those of you in the know, obviously a particular interest in this specific instance unfortunately means sexual abuse. Wesson claimed that his own father had sexually abused him, but there doesn't seem to be much evidence to support that. So it's hard to know whether it was true or not. But given some of the other things that we do know or have heard about his father, we do think that it is likely true. According to Wesson's sister, their father was very quote-unquote affectionate when he was drunk, and the children knew to hide from him when he was in that state. A childhood friend of Wesson's also claimed that Marcus's father had once offered him $50 for oral sex. His friend was a child at the time the offer was made. So I'm leaning towards

the idea that there was sexual abuse in the Wesson household. And one thing we definitely do know is that Marcus Wesson's father ran off with his own cousin and the two continued a homosexual relationship for 10 years after that decade was over he returned back to his family home and took up again with his wife and children like nothing had ever happened so i think sexual like sexual abuse of young children and also incest is just something that like not that this is excusing what he's doing but um it was present in his childhood it seems to have been quite normalized in in a way that it ever can be and uh given everything that we do know or that other people say about marcus wesson's father i do very much think that marcus wesson was abused but obviously as you say that is no excuse for what he goes on to do so i can understand why 17 year old marcus dropped out of school and joined the army,

but we are not defending what happened next. Marcus Weston would abuse Elizabeth for decades in the sickest way possible. He claimed that God had told him that Elizabeth was meant to be his wife. So at just eight years old, Elizabeth was put through a pretend wedding ceremony in the front room of her family home with her mum's boyfriend. Elizabeth was then taken out of school so she could spend every second with Wesson. When she was 12 years old, he ramped up his abuse. Elizabeth was pregnant at 14 years old,

and apparently the legal limit for marriage at the time was 15, but Elizabeth was not going to make it. So Wesson told everyone that he had her mother's permission, which he did not, and he married her for real, legally, in real life. I mean, I don't know. Telling everybody that you have permission, it just, is that enough? Fucking hell.

Doesn't she need to sign something? Like, what? So he's 17 and she's 8 when they first... No, he's in his 20s he's back from the army oh my god yeah so this is what i'm saying like how is just saying that you have the mum's permission enough this is outrageous like why the fact that he even tells people that like it doesn't just lie and say we don't know who got pregnant but i'm gonna look after her. Honestly, this case feels so incomprehensible in so many ways. And the major way is how he managed to marry a 14-year-old child who was visibly pregnant

and no one thought it was weird or tried to stop him. After the wedding, Marcus Wesson and Elizabeth still lived with Rosemary, that's Elizabeth's mum, and the other bajillion people in that house. Elizabeth and Marcus took up residence on the top floor of the house and Rosemary was at the bottom. Eventually, Marcus stole Rosemary's van and left. And he took Elizabeth with him. And it's so difficult. This is the other thing. It's so difficult to know what terminology is right to use here. like calling it a marriage feels wrong calling it a relationship feels wrong calling it anything other than abuse feels wrong but it's difficult to like because they are legally married and they do go on to have children

it's so hard to know the right thing to say or the right the right way to phrase it so this abuse went on for years and el and Elizabeth would give birth to 10 of Marcus Wesson's children before she was 26. 10 children before she's 26. My God. I've just been listening to the Kelly Lane podcast and she had like six kids by the time she was 26. And, you know, obviously that wasn't down to abuse but fucking hell i just don't know how how is that possible i just can't wrap my head around it like i just i have no and this is you know that's obviously my own privilege but like i just have no concept no i can't i can't relate to it in any way so marcus and elizabeth continued the van life for as long as they feasibly could

marcus worked in a bank for a short stint, but it didn't suit him. So he continued to be a nomad collecting welfare benefits to survive. Elizabeth kept having more and more children. So Marcus finally had the flock that he'd always been waiting for. And again here, like Hannah was saying, what the right terminology is, is quite difficult. It all feels wrong. Saying the word family feels wrong, but I'm not sure what else to say. So as the family grew, Marcus moved them all around the country. And they lived in every type of accommodation possible that wasn't an actual house. They lived in tugboats that were rusted through. They spent 12 years living in a large army tent. They had no running water,

no electricity, and they even lived in a shed behind a burnt out property for a while. No one noticed and no one tried to stop them. Okay, so it's important at this point to say that Marcus Wesson is African American and so are his children. I'm not going to say that this wouldn't and hasn't happened to poor white children and poor white families because it absolutely has. I've watched many a troubling documentary like it. But in this case, did the fact that they were African-American play into their invisibility? Almost 100%. And when they get moved on from sheds or whatever it's never because anyone's worried about what's happening no one ever calls the social services they literally he just won't pay them so they kick him out like it's not it's always financial it's nothing to do with the fact

of what he's doing. And isn't that the travesty that everybody is more concerned about whether they were getting paid or whether their property was being you know hijacked or squatted on than they were for what is at one point 10 children and their welfare even more even more because the children start having children predictably when marcus's daughters got to about eight years old he started to sexually abuse them just like he'd done with their mum elizabeth and i wish it there, but it didn't. As he aged, Marcus Wesson became more and more paranoid and more reliant on religious doctrine. But even the most hardline Seventh Day Adventist ideals were not quite enough for Marcus Wesson, and he started to form his own religious message. The key themes were that he was God, obviously, that he was also Jesus,

and that he was also a vampire. Because why not? Why not? Maybe it was like with me and Cleopatra, he just did some reading, he did some extracurricular reading on vampires outside of the Bible and the Seventh-day Adventist doctrines, and just decided, yeah, let's also do that. I kind of fancy being a vampire and i kind of fancy making all these people have to go through that betty didn't have some blue silk though did he you'd be surprised marcus wesson was convinced that he was actually a vampire god and vampires are both immortal beings so obviously that meant that they were the same. Honestly the logic on

this man is just something else. And there was a one major difference between Marcus vampires and normal vampires. Marcus and his followers all had souls so even though they were vampires they could walk around in daylight without turning into dust. I'm not really sure how he managed to negotiate that particular benefit with the vampire council but he managed. If you're just going to decide that you're a supernatural being, can you just be like, oh yeah, I want all of those bits, but I'd like to be able to go outside in daytime, please? Yeah. I mean, like he's a very persuasive, abusive man, isn't he? He moved into a woman's house and then just took her eight-year-old daughter and married her. If anyone's going to convince the Vampire Council that he can walk around in daylight, it's this guy. And while we're talking about the obviously made-up Vampire Council, let's take a quick folklore break.

I have had this in the back of my mind for ages, but I looked it up this week. Apparently there's a Hebrew legend that Judas Iscariot was the father of all vampires, as in like the first ever one, which is why vampires are sensitive to silver, because of the 30 silver pieces that Judas received for making sure Jesus came second in the Galilee carpentry competition in 30 CE, or something. Is this a side plug for Helen Hot Takes with Hannah Maguire? Yeah.

Good. Just come and listen to me make up Bible stories. I think it's there. I think there's a market for it, Hannah. Hey, I thought it was interesting, though, about Judas being the first vampire. But Marcus Wesson overlooks this connection to vampires being the literal opposite of Jesus and told all of his children and his wife that they were vampires too. And it doesn't stop there, I'm afraid, because Marcus was also convinced that polygamy was necessary for the vampire king and that incest was the best way to create the purest version of yourself. He was also convinced that Jesus was a womanizer. So he married his daughters and nieces and had children with all

of them. Just like he had done with Elizabeth, he would have a strange little ceremony with a young girl, which involved a lot of hand-holding. And afterwards, he would give each girl a wedding ring and a gold necklace. Where he's getting the money for all this jewelry i don't know because they're literally starving and surviving on food stamps and welfare benefit i don't know where this i mean maybe he was just nicking him i don't know but like it seems so strange there's so many things about this case that feel completely impossible it was really weird to research it it just seems impossible that this went on and no one noticed but have you seen that um there is a documentary on youtube i mean i don't know yeah it's like a real stories one and it's about that polygamist i want to say he's a

mormon i can't remember but he lives out in the desert with just like a bunch of caravans around in a circle and he just marries his women and if they've got daughters from other marriages, he'll like marry the daughter as well and he's got like 20 wives and they all just live out there and like no one's doing anything about it. But they live in the middle of nowhere. No, no.

Yeah, no. And these guys are living like in a very urban setting. Yeah, totally. I mean, they up in in Fresno in a city yeah I mean sure there are like long periods of time where they're like out in the woods or whatever and like but it's not like because I think I know I think it's called something flats that like Mormon community it's literally in the middle of the desert and they all live in the rock and like have 17 wives there's that one which uh channel 4 made the

documentary about which is now on netflix called like uh one husband three wives or something yeah yeah yeah yeah smash that but no the one i'm talking about is like super old and it's not a community it's just one guy with a bunch of wives like i'll post it on the facebook group or social media whatever it's fucking nuts but yeah no i totally take your point these guys are in a much more like obvious city location and how they're slipping under the radar i don't know i don't know how any of these people slip under the radar fuck it oh it's terrifying it's terrifying because nobody did anything to stop it many neighbors even admitted they didn't know that marcus wesson had any children and he's literally um haven't been able to pinpoint like an

actual solid number of how many kids he was living with but he was living with all of the 10 children that he and Elizabeth had those children had children and then all of Elizabeth's like nieces and nephews all were living with them as well so it's literally probably 20 or close to maybe even more and these people are saying they didn't know he had any children fucking bullshit no i don't buy that they didn't know he had any children i can absolutely believe that they didn't know how many children he had because i'm sure these kids are very quiet in the house and i can also assume that probably a lot of them weren't allowed outside a lot but to say he didn't know he had any children seems a

stretch when the children were allowed out in public which was not very often they had to walk behind marcus and they weren't allowed to speak and they also had to wear modest clothes and cover their heads those that's the women obviously one shopkeeper recalled thinking that they were very strange these girls that come into his shop covering their heads and wearing modest dresses and that they bought a lot of ramen noodles. But again, he didn't report it. I mean, what would you report for that? But it's obvious that something's wrong,

because he said that he remembered the girls looking like they were hungry and haunted. And there is absolutely no record that the Wesson family were ever investigated by social services. But Wesson most certainly was investigated for welfare fraud. He wrote the IRS an 80-page letter explaining that he was actually the one investigating them, and he was doing it all under the name of Black and White Times actor Richard Widmark. I mean, honestly, Marcus Wesson is, um,

is unhinged, I think we can say, the way he's behaving. He writes to the fucking IRS and tells them he's investigating them. What's happening? It's ridiculous. He's just like, oh, no, no, no. Let me explain this to you. You've got the wrong end of the stick. And you could say, like, perhaps he's delusional.

I mean, potentially. But then we do go on to see, as this episode unravels, there are times when he's delusional I mean potentially but then we do go on to see as this episode unravels there are times when he's very coherent and he knows when to be quiet he knows how to comply he knows how to be cooperative so I don't know I don't know what's going on with this guy it's really hard to say like I think I think saying he's got no mental health issues is probably a bit of a stretch but is he totally detached from reality I don't think so no I don't think so either and also the things he does are so horrible and like being able to manipulate other people to such an extent it just it makes you so not that I'm

saying that you should have any sympathy for him at all but like it's just hard to see it in any other way so it makes it more difficult to frame it in like a mental health way does that make sense i don't like it's difficult to talk about him as an ill man because of the things he's done yes unsurprisingly of course all of the children were homeschooled and they were taught to fear authority and especially the police marcus wrote his own scripture, of course, featuring himself as the vampire god-king. Does that remind anyone of anybody? Anybody writing things and then putting themselves in the starring role? Anyone at all?

There seem to be alarming parallels. Perhaps Marcus was a slight bit more creative than I was because he called himself Jevin-Marc-Susprit, whereas I just was Cleopatra. So, you know. And Marcus also really liked the bits of the Bible, unsurprisingly, that encouraged polygamy. And he copied these bits into his own scripture, which he called the night of the light for the dark. That's quite good. Is it? Is it? I can't stand it.

It's like, it's so faux gothic romantic. I hate it. It's like the great name, it's like a great name for a Tumblr page for someone who's writing their own nouveau gothic horror. Twilight something. Twilight fan fiction. Yeah, exactly that.

And obviously Marcus, as anybody who writes their own scriptures, told all of his children that the book was total fact and that it was filled with things that had already happened and with things that were yet to come. All of his children were completely under his control. A lot of people call this a cult, and I'm a bit on the fence about what I think about that, but there are definitely cultish characteristics all over the place. For example, the outlandish made-up religion is obviously a big one,

even though you could argue that all religions are in fact made up and outlandish well exactly and then he's obviously controlling his children and his wife for every move they didn't go to school so they could be filled up with his narrative of an omnipotent vampirism marcus wesson demanded that all of the people who lived with him call him lord and master he refused to work so they had no money, which meant they ate less, which meant they had less energy and were more malleable. Marcus did not starve himself. He weighed almost 300 pounds because he gorged on junk food all the time. And he also had waist-length grey dreadlocks that his family fought over maintaining.

We know that the preferred term is locks. We just wanted to make sure that people knew what we were talking about. It's kind of just one giant one that's like really massive. So his family fought over maintaining that. And they also fought about who would be able to scratch his armpits. That was like top task. As obviously stomach churning as that is I think when you really look into the level of abuse and power he is maintaining over these people obviously those are disgusting very too intimate I'm gonna say I don't want to scratch anybody's armpit even if I'm in love with you let's not do

that that seems fine and like we could possibly have a very happy relationship without us ever having to engage in that. But what I'm saying is like, this is it. He's making these people, these children, these women who he is abusing, fight for his attention and fight for his approval by degrading themselves to the max. Like, we're fighting over doing this, of course, because who can win his favor? Who can get beaten the least? Who can get raped the least? Who might get fed a little bit more? It is the ultimate sense of power that this man has. And in a fitting way, Marcus was also obsessed with the Branch Davidians and their leader, David Koresh. He believed that they were truly God's people and that the American government was an oppressive entity interfering with religious freedom and God's will.

David Koresh's multiple wives and many children were right up Marcus Wesson Street. He made his family watch every second of the 51-day siege of the Waco, Texas compound in 1993. And he started to think quite a lot about mass suicide. He loves David Koresh so much. He's literally like watching every second of it and being like, that is how it should be. That is what we should aspire to be doing, is living in a massive compound and just like having loads of babies. And that's exactly what he was doing with Elizabeth, having lots and lots of children. But obviously, Marcus and Elizabeth did not only have daughters. They also had sons in the Wesson boat, tent and sheds that they had been living in.

These boys that they had had a very different life to the girls. For a start, they weren't forced to marry their dad. They were also allowed to train in martial arts and had quite a bit more freedom. They were, however, beaten though. One son described being whipped with an electrical cord for 20 minutes every day for 30 days because he sneaked a teaspoon of peanut butter and got caught. Marcus obviously had a lot less time for his sons and he became concerned as they got older that they would steal his vampire child brides from him. So he wrote a 14-page document called The House of Elizabeth, which explained to the boys that they could, under no circumstances, sleep with their sisters, and that they all had to leave the house as soon as they were able to

support themselves. He ended this document with, get a life, find your own woman, as God has commanded. So clearly his position on incest being the purest and best way to go he only meant when he did it and a lot of the information about what it was like in the Wesson clan comes from journal entries written by Kiani Wesson who's one of Marcus's daughters and also child brides and she used the code daddy was sweet today to mark the days that Marcus raped her when Wesson got bored of raping his daughters he gave them each a sister wife within the clan to be a friend and lover while he watched. He claimed that he was making the girls better women through this abuse. He was preparing them for marriage which seems like a

strange objective when they're never allowed to leave the house. Like obviously there are so many things that are wrong with this and don't make logical sense. But his argument is like, oh, I'm going to make you a really good wife for somebody. But he means him because they're not allowed to leave or do anything. Exactly. And he keeps marrying them. Exactly. When are they going to go find other husbands? And when the girls got pregnant at various ages, Marcus would tell his sons and anyone else who asked that they had been artificially inseminated.

What? What? And some of these girls are like fucking 13, 14 years old. And this is it again. He's telling people that they were artificially inseminated. He's not even going the route of just saying like, oh, well, you know, she slept with somebody at school. We don't know who it is. We're not going to try find it. We're very religious. We don't believe in abortion um she's going to have the baby he's lying in a way that is so fucking unbelievably implausible and still no one does anything and also how i assume in the united states that for someone who doesn't have health insurance which he does not

artificial insemination is going to be incredibly expensive how is he managing to do it over and over again when they don't have any money i know and i'm just like what checks and balances are there in place for the welfare of children who are homeschooled because you would think if these kids were going to school at 13 if they got pregnant even by like a 13 year old boy at boy at school, there would be like a police come, a police? There'd be like an officer coming round or a social worker coming round, surely to be like, who's the dad? Like, we need to know. Yeah, like these children have just been completely allowed to disappear.

This is the terrifying thing. When people go off the grid when they do all of this, like I get why some people do that, obviously. But, fucking fucking out it just makes it rife opportunities for child abuse to go down and this is a perfect example of that so his sons and Elizabeth claimed that they had absolutely no idea what was going on I don't believe that no at all I don't believe that at all but at all. I don't believe that at all. But what I do believe is that they were completely under his control in a way that they couldn't feel like they could do anything and take a step.

Obviously, it would have been great if they had. But I understand why. Now, we haven't seen any reliable number of just how big this family got. But it was huge. Because, as we said, Marcus was having these children, and then his children were having their own children all of the time. So the Wesson group just got bigger and bigger. And he would reinforce his bonkers ideas by making the group study the Bible three times a day, particularly the bits about polygamy, of course. And by repeating that, quote, God's people are becoming extinct. We need to preserve God's children. We need to have more

children for God. And he told Elizabeth frequently that she needed to be prepared for the day that the devil with a blue badge would show up at the door and try to take her children away. Psychiatrist Edward Hallowell described it perfectly. He said, quote, what he basically did was create a crucible of fear. He used fear, extreme fear, to get these kids to act completely counter to their own self-interest. Isn't a crucible of fear such an amazing turn of phrase? That is. I really like that. Because it's completely accurate. As soon as he came up with that, he was like, I know that's getting in the paper.

Well done me, Dr. Halliwell. And in 2003, Marcus Wesson finally moved his now extremely large family into a real-life actual building. But it wasn't a house. It was an old office block in Fresno, California. Therefore, it was a commercial property in which it was illegal to be living.

But realistically, when you look at Marcus Wesson's track record, that really is the least of our worries. And to furnish this brand-new office block that he had moved his family into, not brand-new, I'm guessing very run down, but brand new for him, he bought antique coffins from a local dealer. And that was where the children would sleep to continue the fantasy of their vampire life.

Antiques are super expensive. How is he buying antique coffins? Apparently, he agreed... When I say antiques are very expensive, I meant coffins are super expensive how is he buying antique coffins apparently he agreed antiques are very expensive i meant coffins are very expensive well both both antique coffins yeah no he agreed like a payment plan with the guy who was making the coffins and like he's interviewed in some of the papers and he's like yeah i did think it was weird why would you need that many coffins unless you run a funeral home but again doesn't do anything about it the guy just comes in and buys like if he's buying one for all of the kids let's say conservatively he buys 20 coffins what and everyone's just okay with that also what is an antique coffin is that a

coffin that someone's been buried in and it's been dug up in the coffin like why is there an old coffin maybe I don't know that's a really good point I hadn't been buried in and it's been dug up in the coffin? Like, why is there an old coffin? Maybe. I don't know. That's a really good point. I hadn't thought of that. Maybe it's just like a... I don't know. I don't know. Someone who knows, what's an antique coffin? Tell me. I'm sure that like, I'm sure not every kid got one each. I think that's probably like three to a coffin. Oh God, that's miserable. Did you know in London there is a two-person escape room in which they lock you both to a coffin oh god that's miserable did you know in London um there is a

two-person escape room in which they lock you both in a coffin and then you you can like put your arms through so you can like touch each other's hands to like figure out puzzles but you're in the dark locked in a coffin absolutely fucking not like that sounds horrific. No way. I know, right? It's fucking horrendous. So yeah, I was kind of hoping you'd be like, shall we do it? Because I was going to be like, yeah, cool. But no, never mind.

No! I hate being in the dark and I hate confined space. So probably not. Oh my God. I went to a bar on the other week. No, I didn't. When was it? Sunday. That's in Shoreditch that used to be a prison.

And like the, I can't remember what it's called, but there's like little sort of boothy things where you can go and sit and they're like legitimate used to be prison cells. It's really cool. That's so weird. I've never heard of that. It's like a proper like bougie, whiny cocktail bar type situation. And there's like a little shop in the front and that's what you can see in the window.

And then you go downstairs and there's like a cinema and then another bar and these like cells. What the fuck? I thought I knew Shoreditch really well. I have no idea where that is. What? No. I can't remember what it's called though.

Okay, tell me later. I want to know. That's so, that's extreme. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen,

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I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. So, right, basically, he's buying all these antique coffins. We don't know what they are.

We don't know where he's getting them. And he's also obviously totally fucking brainwashing his family. But not all of Marcus's family took his word for everything. His niece, Safina Solario, got the courage to tell Marcus that she was leaving. But when he guessed that it was because of a man, Marcus Wesson stabbed Safina in the chest and asked her if she was ready to meet God. She said that she wanted to live and would do anything that he said. She would even stay in the house. Safina survived the chest stabbing, unbelievably for a vampire or a human, one might say.

Safina would eventually go on to leave the vampire clan, but she had to leave her own child behind. And that's generally what happened. It's kind of not like, I think the daughters definitely weren't allowed to leave and were possibly more controlled by Marcus Wesson than his nieces were, but he was still sexually abusing his nieces. However, a couple of nieces do manage to leave, but the condition of that is that they can go as long as they're not living with another man and they leave their children behind. Yeah, I think perhaps Marcus starts to realise that it's hard to manage that many people just because you want to. So if anybody's going to go, it will be the nieces. So yeah. Exactly. And I really think that at this stage, when Safina leaves,

Marcus Wesson starts to feel the cracks appear a little bit because not only are people leaving, he's getting letters from the city of Fresno saying, we know you're living in a commercial property and you're going to have to leave. So he's feeling pressure from different sides quite a lot of the time. And like many other cult leaders before him, he created a plan to deal with what would happen if it all fell apart. His major concern was that he would be discovered by the police or social services and his family of wives would be taken away and that he would go to prison. And I think that proves he absolutely knew how sick and wrong his

behavior is. The only people who don't are the children that he raised to believe that it was normal. And he pitted those children against each other in a competition that he called Strongest Soldier. His plan was inspired by his total hero, David Koresh. Essentially, if the Wesson vampire clan incest cult nightmare was discovered, then he would pick his favourite daughter disciple to shoot every single one of the children and then turn the gun on themselves. At no point is there a plan for Marcus Wesson to be shot. That makes him a family annihilator and not a cult leader, I think. Yeah, I totally agree. And I also think, yeah, in a lot of places you'll see this described as a cult. It's not really. And we've talked about it like that every now and again

because that's what Wesson is trying to build. But it's not really a cult, I don't think, as well. Not only because he was never planning on dying, but also because these are all, like, people he has power over from childhood. These are all people that are in his family. He never attracts, like, new people into his cult. Yeah, that's a really good point. He never goes out and spreads the word and has fresh blood.

He creates or has created all these people, and they've always grown up with him. So he's not a cult. This is a sick family annihilator for sure. And I also think the idea of the strongest soldier, daughter, disciple, shooting everybody, it's very unique for a strongest soldier, daughter, disciple shooting everybody, it's very unique for a family annihilator, I would say, because usually they take everybody out. So I think that is the only thing that makes him slightly cultish,

because we see that often with cult leaders where they'll have like a second in command that is completely indoctrinated. When he means strongest soldier, he means most aligned with my thinking and most am I able to control. So he treads a line. And probably the most likely to go through with it, I think. Absolutely, absolutely. So the family had been living in the office block in Fresno for about six months, but Marcus was keen to leave from the beginning.

So he bought an old yellow school bus and get this, like listen to what's about to happen next because when I was reading this, I was like, are you fucking serious? Okay, is everybody ready? So he gets this old yellow school bus,

he paints it black and then he lines it with coffins. Yes. That's not even the best bit. No, it's not the best bit. I was pausing with coffins. Yes. That's not even the best bit. No, it's not the best bit. I was pausing for dramatic effect. Sorry. Because then he put a hot tub in there.

A hot tub and some coffins in a black pimped out fucking school bus. What the fuck? How is nobody noticing? What the hell is going on? Like, I'm baffled. I'm baffled. It's like Pimp My Ride vampire edition. Like, it's just such a...

As the girls get older, like, they do go out and work in fast food restaurants and they give all that money to Marcus, but, like, where is he getting the hot tub money? Like, I don't understand. Honestly, two things that are expensive, coffins and hot tubs. Funerals cost a bomb.

Like, where is all this coming from? I'm absolutely confused. May, I don't know. Because if it wasn't even that they specifically say antique coffins, I could believe that he was just buying some MDF and making coffin shapes. But like, that's not what he's doing. He's buying coffins. No, they're like solid mahogany coffins.

And also like, a hot tub in a bus must be a nightmare to plumb that in. Like, how does that even work? I no idea i have no idea maybe it was actually just like you know like that bath that we saw in that airbnb that was like oh yeah hot tub but it was just a bath over some open flame in the garden if i find that picture again which i'm sure i will because it'll be in the group for my birthday chat i will post it it was the weirdest thing I've ever seen. It's so strange. Not to make, like, light of the situation at all. But you bet Andrea Yates is just like, what the fuck? They were living in a bus and they had a hot tub.

Poor old Andrea. She didn't have any of that. Anyway, so the plan was, if you're wondering why he's got this magical black goth fucking incest vampire school bus, it's because the plan was to drive the whole family all the way to Washington State to start again. Two of Marcus Wesson's escaped nieces,

Ruby Ortiz and Safina Solario, got wind of his plan, however, to relocate and decided that they needed to reclaim their children. So they took themselves off to the office block, where they had been forced to leave their children before they had escaped themselves off to the office block, where they had been forced to leave their children before they had escaped the incest vampire harem. They arrived at the office block on the 12th of March 2004 in the afternoon with about 12 other people. This is where things get very, very confusing because I don't know why they brought 12 other

people with them. Maybe moral support. Yeah yeah he's a scary guy like i did it's so unclear what happens though like everyone says a different thing that this next bit gets really messy so apparently when they arrived at the office block with their like entourage of people to fucking back them they told marcus that they wanted their children back but he refused to hand them over he told the women that the children were his and they weren't going anywhere. As Hannah said, like quite a lot of this story, it's a bit unclear exactly what happened next, but we've done our best. So after they arrived and asked for the children and he said no,

at 2.13pm, Ruby and Safina called the police. As they stood outside the vampire cult office building, their cousins, sisters and children screamed at them from the windows. They called them Judas and told them to bow down to their master. Marcus Wesson stood outside the office block shouting at Ruby and Safina. The incident was logged as a domestic disturbance and no patrol cars were sent. Ruby and Safina then made a second call at 2.23pm. The police arrived on the scene at 2.35pm.

But they really don't seem to have been acting with any sort of real urgency. The police spoke to Marcus Wesson and told him that even though the children were his, he had no way of proving it. He had intentionally left his name off all of his children's birth certificates on account of being either their grandfather dad or their uncle dad. and this meant that Marcus had no legal claim to the children. The office explained this and Marcus was calm and cooperative. He told the officers that he would hand over the children to Safina and Ruby but he just needed to say goodbye to them first. Basically the police are just like well you know we're probably gonna have to get the court involved and we'll probably come and have to get all the other children out of the house.

But this whole thing goes on for 80 minutes. 8-0. There is no urgency at all, even though Ruby and Safina are like, he's a madman and he's got a gun in that house. And I assume they're also telling them about all of the fucking rape and the incest and all the craziness that's going on inside. I don't think so. I think, but it's so hard to know whether they did and they weren't believed or whether they didn't. But it should be enough to be like, my children, my child is in there. He's not, he has no legal claim over him. Like, let me get my kid out of that office block where people shouldn't

be living i was gonna say maybe instead of trying to like get these officers to act with urgency because there's a bunch of children in there with a fucking lunatic with a gun or maybe they should have just gone the route of saying hey this guy shouldn't be living here and the city's actually been sending him letters about the fact that he's living in a commercial property no one's been sending him letters about all the kids he's got and about all of the kids he's abusing but hey maybe that would make people act with some sort of urgency because you're right they clearly just are like whatever so marcus wesson after this conversation turned his back to the officers and ruby and safina and walked unaccompanied inside the office block we don't know how many

people were inside unbelievable i cannot believe they let him go back into that office building unaccompanied and just be like, oh, I'll go get the kids. Here I go to go get the kids. Bye. Unaccompanied. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. There are at least four police officers and they just let him walk in.

As Marcus Wesson closed the front door, Ruby, Safina and the police stood on the pavement waiting for the children to emerge. This is unbelievable. One of the officers said to Safina, this is a direct quote. OK, well, you made a big mistake eight years ago. And he means having a child with Marcus was a big mistake. But he's just like, this is your fault. It's your fault for having a kid with that guy.

And now we're all here and I'm wasting my afternoon trying to sort this out for you. It's your fault for having a kid with that guy and now we're all here and I'm wasting my afternoon trying to sort this out for you. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. I don't even know what to say to that. It's fucking sick. The police had absolutely no idea what they were about to witness as evidenced by their complete lack of givershitness about the whole thing.

This domestic disturbance was about to turn into the biggest mass murder in Fresno history. Ruby and Safina heard two gunshots. To this day, however, the police claim that they heard nothing at all. After some time had passed, it became clear that Marcus Wesson was not planning on coming back out. Elizabeth came out first, screaming, they're all gone. It was 3.47pm. Then Marcus Wesson walked out of the house with his arms in the air. He was soaked in blood and he was arrested on the spot

by presumably, you would assume, quite surprised officers. And he was allegedly so fat that they had to use three sets of handcuffs to secure his hands behind his back. A SWAT team was sent into the office block to find the source of all of the blood and they found it in a room that was lined with, guess what, antique mahogany coffins. What the fuck, I do not understand. And on the floor they

also saw a tangle of arms and legs and clothes. Initially, they had no idea how many bodies were there, but it was clear that most of them were children and that they had all been shot just once through the eye. And here are the names of the children and the people that were found in that office block. Sabrina, who was 25. Lise, who was 17. Illabel, who was 8, Aviv, who was 7, Jonathan, who was 7, Ethan, who was 4, Marshy, 18 months, Sedona, 18 months, and Jeva, 1. Sabrina and Lise were Marcus Wesson's daughters and wives. Their bodies lay on top of the children, indicating that they had died last. A knife covered in blood was found on Lisa's body, but none of the corpses had been stabbed.

The gun was found under Sabrina. According to the coroner, Loreley Cervantes, none of the bodies showed any sign of physical or sexual abuse. But DNA confirmed that Marcus Wesson was the father of every single victim. Police at the scene were offered counselling and, uh, priests to help them cope with what they had seen. No fingerprints were found on the murder weapon, but it was covered with Sabrina's DNA. Could she have been the strongest soldier? Marcus Wesson was detained on a $9 million bail, and as more information about

his twisted family tree was discovered, it becomes increasingly hard to understand how all of this went totally unnoticed by authorities. Wesson was charged with 14 counts of sexual abuse and nine counts of murder. 500 citizens declined to be on the jury because they couldn't be impartial. The trial began on the 3rd of March 2005. Marcus Wesson initially declined a public defender because he was concerned that they would put in an insanity plea. I'm not really sure what his plan was here, but it's not a massive surprise that the man who had been living off welfare his entire damn life and having sex with his own children did not have the money to hire his own counsel, so he ended up with a public defender anyway.

But the insanity plea never happened. Wesson pled not guilty to all charges, but his defence didn't really have anywhere to hide. The crux of the trial was who pulled the trigger. Was it Marcus Wesson or was it Sabrina? And if it was Sabrina, as the DNA evidence suggested, how responsible for the deaths was Marcus Wesson or was it Sabrina? And if it was Sabrina, as the DNA evidence suggested, how responsible for the deaths was Marcus Wesson? Elizabeth took the stand and told the court

that she was too traumatised by the whole experience to remember anything significant, although she did claim that she had walked in on Sabrina as she lay dying in Marcus Wesson's arms. She gave nothing else away, though. She was supportive of her husband and did not think that any of his actions were wrong. Elizabeth claimed that she had no idea that Marcus was abusing their children. She claimed that they never told her.

And how was she supposed to know if they didn't tell her? Obviously, these daughters are like continually getting pregnant. So like, is she not asking any questions about that? It seems very odd. And I do think it can feel very easy to feel like Elizabeth should have done more, should have called the police, should have saved her children. But we have to remember that she had been married to Marcus Wesson since she was eight years old. She is as much a victim of his sick mind as anyone else. She's very frustrating because obviously like she's arguably had it the worst because he's been doing what he's doing to her since she was eight years old and now she's like a fully fledged

adult. But it does feel frustrating when she's just like, I didn't know. I had no idea. How am I supposed to know if nobody tells me? Of course, it's like we're often facing these things. There's no black and white. Like it's massive gray area. It's heartbreaking. She is a broken person. She's been abused by this man since she was eight years old. But of course, the other side of you is like, you went on to have your own children. I wish you had done something to protect them. But was she in a place where she could reasonably have done that? Probably not. Tragically. I really don't think she was because, like, she says in court, she says, according to the newspaper, my whole family, my way of life is not normal. Like, that's complete news to her, which I suppose it must be.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not only did Marcus Wesson do what he did, her mum let him do it from when she was eight. Like, she's not known anything else other than this. And when she was asked to elaborate further on what she meant by not normal, Elizabeth asked the prosecution attorney why she was such a bitch. Like, she's just asking her questions in the courtroom. She was just like, why are you such a bitch?

And also, like, Elizabeth isn't the only one that takes the stand and sort of defends Marcus. Kiani Wesson, the one who wrote the journal, took the stand and she told the court that there was nothing wrong with a father having sexual contact with his daughters and that the whole family had agreed to live and die for Christ,

but that was only a figure of speech, really. Yeah, and anyone obviously can be like, oh my God, how can she say this? Fucking hell, she's his daughter. She's not known anything else even more than elizabeth elizabeth had eight years before this we don't know what she was going through in that time but kiani is born into this of course she thinks there's nothing wrong with it because that's what her father slash husband has told her her entire life it's so sad marcus

wesson kept himself for the whole trial, apart from one outburst where he just shouted, objection, the prosecutor is angry. He was sharply reminded by the judge that he was not in charge and to keep his mouth shut, which he did. He also played an imaginary piano and wrote a country song about his nine dead children. In the courtroom, he literally is sitting there next to his attorney

pretending to play an invisible piano. He's clearly not well. And I actually think a big indicator of the fact that he's not well is that he doesn't want to plead insanity. Yeah, that's true. That's a really good point. Rosa Solario, so that's Safina's sister, proudly wore her wedding ring throughout the trial. So he's not unsupported the jury deliberated for two weeks and found marcus wesson guilty on all counts even if he did not pull the trigger it couldn't be argued that he wasn't responsible for the whole incident no one knows when the children were shot no one heard nine gunshots the police still claim that they didn't hear any at all which like so the argument is that the children are already deadshots the police still claim that they didn't hear any at all which like so the

argument is that the children are already dead when the police arrive and then the two shots that um Safina and Ruby claim they heard is Lisa and Sabrina I don't understand how the police cannot have heard it they did I'm convinced of it I'm sorry like of course they did it's just if we say we didn't it excuses the fact that we completely misinterpreted a scene that needed to be dealt with with much more severe urgency and how are nine people children and adults being shot with no one hearing because like okay so if we say that the police are just lying and they they those two shots definitely did happen where are the other seven how did no one hear them is it noisy do they live in like an abandoned bit of like a officey area i don't know if it's an officey area do they do it at night and it's not residential i don't know like there's lots of

questions but i can buy that a lot more than if um sophina and ruby heard two shots and the police officers are saying they didn't i don't believe that but anyway marcus wesson was sentenced to 102 years in prison for the molestation charges and for the nine counts of murder he was sentenced to death and packed off to san quentin where his dreadlocks were shaved off partially because they're not allowed, but also because he had been masturbating and wiping his semen into his hair. You thought we were going to quit with the armpits, didn't you? Sorry, guys. They don't have that one for nothing. And Marcus Wesson would never receive the death penalty,

though. Governor Gavin Newsom signed a moratorium on the death penalty, sparing Marcus Wesson's life years later. But you will be glad to know that he will never be eligible for parole. Many of Marcus Wesson's children defended him even after he was in prison. One told the press, quote, it was a nice way to grow up. I can't name another 19-year-old who has no record and obeys his parents. Elizabeth and Kiani now live with the journalist who reported on the story and took pity on the lost women. And I honestly, I have no idea how they would even begin to heal from this level of abuse. My heart breaks for them and, yeah, this journalist, who is this journalist? That's incredible. Just like taking these two women. What? Yeah, we can look at it as like a great, like, good Samaritan move. But she's also kissing goodbye to her fucking journalism career.

You can never put yourself in a story. I don't know. But yeah, that happened. So Elizabeth also stayed in contact with Marcus Wessonon for a while but apparently as of now they are no longer communicating i think a few of them sort of like during the trial and whatever elizabeth and his sons and kiani were sort of stuck by him but then obviously as they've been out in the world more they've perhaps realized what actually happened to them and they're not really siding with him anymore of course and i also think that kind of control that he was playing out needs constant topping up, needs constant reinforcement. Once he's out of the picture, that is going to ease, that's going to dissipate regardless of what they're sort of told by other

people. But what is good to know is that they are truly removed from Marcus Wesson because none of his family have ever been to visit him in San Quentin, where he is still today. So that's that. The story of fucking Marcus Wesson, the vampire king. Self-proclaimed vampire king. You're right. Self-proclaimed Cleopatra. Patrick yeah well that was pretty rough hopefully you're still there and yeah five dollar and up patrons we're gonna try lighten the mood take it over to under the duvet where we'll have the after show party come over and hang out with us there if you would like to do so you can go over to patreon.com slash red handed take a look at the rewards take a look at the tiers sign up for what you think a you can afford and be what you think we deserve if you would like to other than that you can come follow us on all the social medias at red handed the pod buy your tickets to come watch us at podcast live it'll be fun it'll be a good

night uh we'll have drinks with people after it'll be jokes uh so hopefully we'll see you there other than that here are some lovely lovely people to say thank you to for their patreon love okay right let's do this i'm gonna nail it today i have a feeling so thank you very much miri cd paul mike van god thanks mike uh yep i think so i think you're from amsterdam no not netherlands i think you're from the netherlands yeah i going to go with that. Kathy Baker. Daniel Mills.

And I wasn't just saying that about Mike because of his surname. He could be from here. It's because he tweeted at us and he came to the London show all the way from the Netherlands. Oh, what? I know. I remember his name. Oh. Thanks, Mike.

Jamie Trahear. You're back again. Hello, Jamie. Kato Donoghue. Sarah Rydman. Lindsay. Rachel. Amelia. Hello, Jamie. Kate O'Donoghue, Sarah Rydman, Lindsay, Rachel, Amelia, Nicole, Nicole Dirks, Dahlia Salmon, Alish Harris, Merrilee, Kay McKellar, Kat, Alexandra Emiko, Alexandra Chatterley, Mara Fried Friedman Emiliana Lozano

God, you guys have got such exotic names. Sally Quinn Miranda Hester Zarecki Anna Harville Ellis Lovett Mackenzie McDaniel and then Hannah can go.

Oh, what? There's so many! Alright, alright, alright. Stacey Ford Devin Knorr Jennifer Lewis Tess Smith-Roberts Gemma I just get shorter and shorter every time with the number of names I do.

Gemma, Jenny Munro, Kyle Hostin, Sarah Hoskins. Oh, Biggersworth. Biggersworth? Wow. Oh, Biggersworth. Anita Cowman. Oh, man. Okay, fine.

I'll do it. It's just because we're so hilariously behind that I've just had to smack loads in. Kilielyu Mati-Miller. Tanya Lichtensteiger. Rebecca Lee. That's not a word. Sneha. It's an Indian name.

Oh, shit. Fuck. I'm so racist. That's why I'm here. That's why I'm here. Don't worry. Sarah Roberts. Caroline Shadwick. Claire Mai. Chris Harvey. Aaliyah. Tiffany. that's why I'm here that's why I'm here don't worry Sarah Roberts Caroline Chadwick

Claire Mai Chris Harvey Aaliyah Tiffany Pierre Julie Jason Baskerville Sarah Beachay

Ashley Fellows Erin Rennie Niamh Murray Mercedes Shrina Shrina possibly Lindsay Klein Knet

Tretel Sarah King Anna Melia Bernice sanchez emma self cohen enright amelia rochelle kelly hill natalie benice cooter marsh matt braun schneidel jojo popcorns um freya freya bennett adrian m uh sophie hood flocco rock nicole salvage lexi reed megan Adrian M, Sophie Hood, Flocko Rock, Nicole Salvage, Lexi Reid, Megan Grubbs, Daniel Flores, Kate Rubin, Atia Hira, Bria Smansky, Stacey Russell, Claire, Megan Parker, Naomi, Maria Gonzalez, Lothar, Kerry Beccatini. Beccatini? There's no N there.

I know. Candice. Save Doe. Kat. Laurie Smith. Louise Patterson. Molly Barrow. Chessie Luen.

Nikki Garnham. And Shelby. Oh my God. How did we make it through that? I don't know. But we did. We did. And if you think that we haven't done your name yet, we probably have.

We've just said it wrong. So go back and listen to all of our episodes and find yourself there. Otherwise, we will see you next time. Goodbye. Bye. 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, 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+. You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest

to find the woman who saved my mom's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding

Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.